We’ve had another fast week come and go since we last touched base. The big news of the week was the arrival of the first major winter storm of the year. It started as rain then freezing rain & sleet and then eventually ice and snow. As the precip fell, so did the temps, dropping down into the single digits and making things real interesting around here. I hate to say it, but the pandemic actually helped us through this emergency. We can now just shut things down and do work & school from home. Matt worked from home in Carmel again this week and coached wrestling in Zionsville at night. We did not get to see him this week. Abby had a busy week as school started back up in Franklin. She continued working up in Greenwood and enjoyed spending time with her boyfriend all week. Luke had a fast week with only two days in the school. He went on another college visit and attended track workouts. He spend the rest of his week working out and spending time with his buddies. Ann was hoping to spend time with scrapbooking friends this week, but those plans were changed due to the weather. We did get to see our friends a little on the weekend, which was nice. I actually got to walk outside this week. Yep; before it got nasty this week, it was actually freakishly nice. It certainly didn’t last long and we wound up with about six inches of snow on top of a half inch of ice. That meant I only got in about eight and a half miles of exercise, unfortunately. I did get a few things accomplished out the house this week, including fixing the laptop that even Best Buy’s Geek Squad couldn’t fix. Hey, even a broken clock is right twice a day, right? LOL. It was an interesting week. I won’t like, it was kind of nice to get a break in our normal routine for a little while. Hello again and welcome to the latest edition of the Scheu Family Blog.
It was back to work and school on Monday morning. It came way too early for all of us. It was the first day of school for Abby, who had mixed feelings about beginning the final semester of her education years. Much like Ann & I, she is really enjoying her final year at FC and doesn’t want it to end. On the other hand, she is anxious to get out and start making some real money! Luke went to school…sort of… He was up and out the door before any of us as he picked up Ethan and they headed north to Angola, which is up by the Michiana region. They were visiting Trine University, a division 3 school. He enjoyed talking with the football coaches, who seemed genuinely interested in him attending school there. He said it was a really nice campus – much bigger than Franklin and Manchester. He wasn’t too sold on the curriculum nor the pitch of the folks showing them around that day. Besides, it’s an awful long way from home…though it sounded vaguely familiar to someone I knew back in the 80s that found a school far away from his home… Meanwhile, Ann & I commuted back to Columbus on another chilly morning. Ann had a fast day, full of meetings in the morning then trying to catch up on everything all afternoon. I had an equally fast day and managed to log over 12K steps. I caught up paperwork in the morning, wrapping up month end from the purchasing-side of things for the facility then finished the rest of my monthly EOC rounds, working through my lunch. Lenny did have some really good fish for lunch and I wound up getting a little care package that afternoon from her. After work, I contemplated walking outdoors. It was right on the cusp of my personal cut-off, with temps in the high 30s. But I yielded to better judgement and went to the mall to walk. I didn’t quite reach my goal of three miles, but it felt good after really over-doing it yesterday at Mom & Sandy’s house. It did warmup a bit and melted the majority of our snow. We still have traces of snow along the southern edges of our yard and on the north side of the shed, where there’s still plenty of shade. Delilah has been hunting rabbits in the backyard for almost a week now and I think she is trying to tunnel under the shed to get to them! As it thaws back there this week, she will be a muddy mess! We could hear Lola barking and jumping into the new gate in the kitchen before we even walked into the house. Thankfully, it held – much to her chagrin. Luke didn’t get back with Gigi’s car until after dark. I told him that besides leaving her with a full tank of gas, he should buy her lunch some time this week as a thank you. He paused a moment to tell us about his day then quickly grabbed his gear and headed back out the door to lift at the Y. When he came back, he worked on some admissions stuff for Trine (or should I say that I did?) and then he showered and crashed for the night. All the talk on the radio and TV is about this big winter storm blowing in mid-week. There are several models that show a wide array of snowfall and ice. What we’ll end up is anyone’s guess at this time. Ann & I did a find-your-own dinner as we watched a few DVR’d shows and then called it an early night. Here are pictures from Ann’s birthday last weekend.
The talk of the day on Tuesday was still about the impending snow-pocolypse later this week. It was another busy day for Ann and I at work. Justin and I had an orientation class that I squeezed into my busy morning, along with taking the monthly nursing inventory and working on Lenny’s computer. Unfortunately, I could not save it from a hard drive failure so I rolled-out a backup computer for her and got her all setup. I worked through lunch again and did some contract stuff as well as emergency prep as we made a plan for the facility, should we get a substantial amount of precipitation. I got out of work late but I still had time to walk. Thankfully it was a balmy 60 degrees out, so I was able to walk outside for the first time this year. I ran out of time and fell a little short of my three-mile goal, but it was great to get outside again. Ann said her day went really fast. The girls took her out to Riviera Maya for lunch, which helped break up her day. Abby had classes and worked in Greenwood that evening. Luke returned to school then went to workout at the Y then did some grocery shopping. While at Walmart, the Hot Rod Lincoln got Saran-Wrapped by some girls he knows – LOL. Matt worked from home then had a wrestling meet vs. the reigning conference champions – Brownsburg East. The young Z-West team started off slowly and found themselves down 3-36 early on. From there, they mounted a comeback and wound up winning 64-44. Their record is now 12-1 on the year. Way to go, Coach Scheu! Lola was hurting that night. She was standing in the corner, shaking. She wanted up on the couch, so she came over and I tried to pick her up. She snapped and bit me. That was the last thing she did before she went skidding across the floor and was shooed outside for a couple hours. We gave her an aspirin when she came in and slept the rest of the night. Ann made cheesy Fireworks popcorn and we watched the three new FBI shows. I edited pictures and videos for this week’s blog entry. I fell asleep while Ann was making dinner and then I was wired the rest of the night. I watched a couple episodes of Rick & Morty and then had to force myself to go to bed at like 1 am. By that time, it had already been raining for a couple hours…
It was still raining when we got up and headed into work on Humpday. The temp wasn’t bad – it was well above freezing. I checked in on the forecast a couple times and each time it showed less and less precipitation for us. Ann was not happy! Still, our biggest concern is that ice that they keep calling for. I worked on a couple projects in the morning, including getting Lenny fully up and running on her new computer. Justin, Vic & I went out for lunch at Five Guys for some burgers & fries. Ann had me pick up some food for her as well. Kudos to the new fry guy – he did us up on extra Cajun fries! ???? I did the third shift video surveillance rounds for the last two weeks and got everything prepared for me to work from home the next two days, just in case. I got out at a decent time that night and walked at the mall since it was still raining. I logged a little over 5K of walking that evening before picking up Annie and heading home. It was still coming down pretty good on the way home and it was starting to get really foggy. Abby had a busy day at school then worked up in Greenwood again. She and will did some last-minute shopping and picked up some groceries, just in case things close down the next couple days. Luke had school and then worked out at the Y. He came home to shower then went right back out to the high school to support the girls’ basketball team, who was facing XX in the opening round of Sectionals. I pulled out Abby’s old laptop to run updates on it and see if I could get Windows 11 installed on it. I am hoping to use it as a replacement for our home computer since our current one doesn’t meet the minimum requirements for the upgrade. Granted, we have a couple years yet, but it is pretty old and could crap out at any time. Not only did I get it updated and ready for Win11, but with the installation of a new driver, the screen started working again. That plays into my original theory that the hardware hadn’t failed, but rather it was a Windows issue. So now, I will probably lose “my??? new computer and its previous owner will likely want it back! ???? Our new external hard drive came in that day, so I worked on moving stuff over and finishing up with the old hard drive so that it can go into storage with the other ones. We had a find-your-own dinner and then began watching a couple DVR’d shows when I promptly fell asleep. I don’t think I made it past 9 and gave it up and went on to bed. Here are random pictures from our recent adventures.
Lola did not sleep well overnight and had us up at 130 on Thursday morning – prancing, messing with the gate and barking. We ignored it for an hour or so when I decided to just get up. It’s not like I was sleeping for that hour, so I figured I’d put her out and finish up editing pictures. It was still precipitating, but everything was now frozen. The girls loved it and were outside for about a half hour before coming in all fired up. They were much too rowdy for 3 am but quickly settled down. I caught up on some DVR shows, including the South Park season 25 premiere about Pajama Day and the newest episode of Oak Island before putting on season 5 of Rick & Morty and taking a nap with the dogs on the couch. Ann’s work had decided to close for the day due to the impending winter storm warning. The county was placed on a travel restriction (Yellow) and then travel watch (Orange) so I decided to just work from home. I’m glad I brought my laptop home so that I could just start working after brushing my teeth. Not only did I not shower, but I didn’t even get out of my PJs – LOL! I got Luke up a little later, as they had announced yesterday that the school was going to e-learning today. I did all the monthly ordering for the facility and did a couple IT things, along with attending three Zoom meetings. I worked till about 5 or so and called it a day. Ann enjoyed the day from her recliner, watching Chicago Fire reruns. That evening, she made spaghetti with her homemade meatballs – made from the beef we got from the Bests. We watched a couple shows until I fell asleep and went to bed early. As for Luke, he was not happy that we had a level Red travel restriction. It snowed all day and left us with about five or six inches, I’d say. It’s hard to tell because of all the drifting…
I had accidentally turned off my alarm on Friday morning, so when DJ started barking at the sunrise, I got up and started my day. I got cleaned up and worked from home again that day. Ann’s office was closed again, so she enjoyed sleeping in for a while. Luke got up and did e-learning again from his room. I finished up the monthly purchasing and started in on my monthly reports. Again, I got a ton of stuff done – much more than if I’d driven into work. I have to do this more often! Ann found additional ways to get her Chicago Fire fix through streaming off multiple platforms. It finally stopped snowing some time in the late morning. I was in contact with work all day and it sounded like they had a good hold of things. My guys did have to go out and save our boss, Jim, who popped his tire on the way to work. I’m sorry I missed that adventure! Slowly, we started to see traffic out in the neighborhood. First it was the snowplow a couple times then a couple of people went out and even the mail got delivered. It took a while, but it finally looked like wintertime in Indiana. Delilah had the time of her life. She really loves the snow. It was funny, I looked out there in the mid-afternoon when it was sunny and it reminded me of what it would look like when the kids were little and out back playing. But now it was just Delilah! Ann put some chicken in the crockpot and did her slow-cook thing all afternoon. It filled the house with a wonderful aroma. I knocked off work at about sundown. When Ann asked how work was, I couldn’t resist telling her it was the easiest commute of my life – lol. I paid the bills and then checked in the rest of my newest Hot Wheels. We had chicken bowls (sort of like Chipotle) with riced cauliflower and lots of fixings for dinner. It was really good. Luke missed out, as he went out to Eli’s party with some friends. They wound up leaving it early and drove down to Lawrenceburg again. Despite it being frigid outdoors (near single digits), the boys went ski-boarding at Perfect North Slopes. We re-watched the first couple episodes of the new season of Ozark (we both conked-out on the first one last night). We flipped it off and watched a couple DVR’d shows before – shocker – I fell asleep on the couch. That’s kind of been the theme of this week, hasn’t it? God I’m old… We have lots of social media pictures to share this week.
We enjoyed sleeping in on Saturday morning. Delilah as up and barking with the sunrise again. It was fine; I wanted to get a jump start on stuff anyhow. I had set aside that day to work on filing our taxes. The kids wanted me to do theirs again this year as well. The dogs loved running in and out all day again. DJ will just go out and lay down in the snow and chew on her toys – or sticks – she’s not picky. Big thanks to Luke for shoveling last night. With the sun out that day, the walk and driveway dried up nicely. We woke up to a deep freeze again that day, starting off in the single-digits and never getting into the twenties, I don’t think. Luke went out to lift at the Y and then went running around with his friends. I did taxes for Luke & Abby and got them e-filed and received notification that they were all accepted by the IRS, which is a good sign. I got 90% of ours done as well, but I’m still waiting on one form (the same one that I have to wait on EVERY year) from the bank that owns our mortgage and then one from Ann’s disability folks. Once I have that, I can e-file as well. Matt said he wanted me to do his taxes this year again, but I don’t have any of his forms, so I’ll have to wait on those. Once I finished up, we got cleaned-up and went on a Walmart & Aldi’s excursion for a couple hours. We came home with the van loaded down with supplies that should last us most of the month! We sat down to rest briefly then got cleaned-up again and went downtown to the Beach Tiki Bar to watch Bryan and his bands Brothers McGhee (duet with Rob) and then Nuttin Fancy (the big group). We were shocked at how packed it was! We probably shouldn’t have since everyone has been couped up for the last two days. We were a little late getting up there and tables/seats were tough to find, so we weren’t able to sit with our friends. We did find a table nearby and could see Bryan & Rob perfectly. However, after their set, they moved to back of the place to play with the big band. We couldn’t even see them because they were so far back. Despite being so far back, it was still really loud. It was funny, we looked around it was all the old folks in the back of the room – LOL. It wasn’t long and one by one, all our friends started going home. We decided there were too many younglings in there for us – not our scene. ???? Ann talked Amy into coming with us. She joined us for a couple drinks then we left as well. We came back and watched another couple episodes of Reacher on Prime video. But we had to turn it off because it’s too good and we want to savor it… Here are pictures of recent additions to my Hot Wheels collection.
We enjoyed sleeping in pretty late on Sunday morning. Only our bladders woke us up that morning. We slowly got up and began our weekly household chores. Ann was in the mood for biscuits and gravy that morning but we didn’t have the supplies to do it. So, I got dressed, warmed up the car and drove to Needlers. I got a couple things but they were out of frozen biscuits. Said they’d been bought out a couple days ago when folks were panic-buying and then their truck wasn’t able to make it, so they’ve been out all weekend. I went to Harvest next but found the same result. I grudgingly went back to the Wall of Mart and although they didn’t have the ones we like (Pillsbury), they did have the Great Value ones. Turns out, they were just as good so all was right in the world. After breakfast, we watched a couple DVR’d shows, including the #4 Boilers hosting the Wolverines of Michigan. It was closer than it should’ve been but Purdue pulled it out in the end. Ann read a new book while I worked on the blog, writing out this week’s HTML code. I watched some qualifying for the NASCAR race before we turned on Prime Video again and binge-watched a handful of Reacher episodes. Luke came back from spending the night with Abby at the FC campus. He said they hung out with Will for most of the night. He went with a few of buddies but only Oak stayed the night with Abby in the New Dorms. He wasn’t back long before he was right back out, headed to the Y to workout for a couple hours. That afternoon, I watched the end of the Pro Bowl, which the AFC won for the 5th straight time by a score of 41-35 then flipped over to watch the Busch Clash at the LA Coliseum, where they turned the football field into a racetrack! Luke came home to shower and retreated to his room to play his PS4 the rest of the night. He was excited to get the notification that school was already on a two-hour delay on Monday morning. Gigi came over to visit for a little while after she finished up working at the station. I got a chance to talk to Dad & Lynn that night. It was nice to catch up with them for a little while. I spoke with Dad & Barb (well Barb anyway) earlier in the week, just to make sure they were doing OK with the big storm coming. That night, Ann made spicy, cheesy Fireworks popcorn for dinner as we watched Joey Logano win the NASCAR race. Afterward, we turned on Paramount+ to watch the newest episode of 1883 and then watched the next episode of Ozark on Netflix. It was a relaxing way to wind down the weekend and a great way to put the kibosh on another good week, here at the Scheu abode before we turn around and do it all over again in the morning…
Next up is our Waybac section which contains the final pictures from Deanna’s digital camera from back in 2006. These have been a fun batch of pictures. There are more from her camera, but that’s it for the 2006 batch. But before we get to those, I’ll be sharing the pictures I recently scanned from Aunt Sue’s collection that I got from Kimmy’s at the Scheu Family Christmas. First things first; here are the 2006 pix: leading off, we have pix of the girls at our house on Memorial Day in May; then we move on to July for Fair Week and Gracie’s birthday; in August, we have the Back-to-School Bash at WTRE as well as Larry helping to corral a loose hog and some pix from the annual Power of the Past out at the fairgrounds; September has Mom & Sandy with Gracie on Abby’s birthday (though not at the party) and a couple pix from Keith’s birthday in East Aurora; Gigi has a new kitten in October; and in November we have a couple pictures of the girls at Thanxmas; and then we wrap up in December with Christmas Eve with the Owens family, Spa Day for the girls and Matt at school on the day that Santa visited. What a great round of photos – thanks Dee-Dee! ????
Next up is our video segment which features one new home movie this week as well as several from around the internet.
That does it for this week’s episode of the Scheu Family Blog. Thanks for keeping up with us this time out and we’ll catch up with you again next time. Until then, have a good one and stay safe out there. We miss ya, Mom.
Later, Scheu