After a great stay-cation the last couple weeks, it was back to reality for Ann & I this week. Gone now is the Christmas tree. I do miss the glow of it in the early morning when I get up. I think we took everything down in record time this year, thanks to the kids helping. Poor Ann finally got all the darned salt out of the house from two weeks ago when I might have overdone it a bit, trying to get the front as dry as I could for Ann, Mom & Sandy. They finally finished all the construction on the bypass, getting the railroad tracks done for the Lowe’s. They’re definitely not smooth. I hope Alan enjoys his new stuff because we didn’t miss those damn things… Work was still there for us and all of the things we missed were set aside for us to work on, beginning this week. This is the by far the busiest time of year for me. I have to monthly, quarterly and annual reports due from 2022 plus I have to set up all of our 2023 programs and get everything approved. Matt worked from home, up in Carmel this week and resumed coaching wrestling in Zionsville. His season will be starting next week with a couple of meets in the coming days. We’re looking forward to seeing him next weekend. After a long weekend, Abby also had to return to work in the new year. She had a fast week working in Greenwood and we enjoyed spending some game time with her this weekend. Luke continued to work construction and began gathering information for him to use to submit his GFD application, in hopes that he will make the cut this time around. Annie had a fast week and enjoyed spending a night out with her friends. My week was crazy busy but I also enjoyed a night out with my buddies. The weather was not the best, but it felt great to get out and play a few rounds of disc golf for the first time in 2023. My bag is great, but the cart still needs a little modifying. I have a lot of work to do with my weight before I put on that bathing suit at the Sand Pebble this spring. Despite the short week, I managed to squeeze in almost 6 miles of walking while playing 5 rounds of golf. It was good to see my work friends but man retirement sounds pretty darned good… Hello and welcome back to the Scheu Family Blog.
We enjoyed sleeping in one more time on Monday morning on our final day of our annual vacation. We slowly got up and got going. I shaved and showered then cleaned-up around the house. Once Annie got up, I did laundry while she made biscuits & gravy for breakfast. The kids got up to eat as well. Abby didn’t do much all day – sort of what she did last night…came out to eat then returned to her room to sleep. I helped Luke run a network line from the family room, under the house and into his room so that his gaming system won’t have any lag (first world problems). After eating, Luke went to work with Chad to lay flooring. I did dishes for the 2nd time that morning (I’m ready for that dishwasher, let me tell you…) then finished up laundry and sat down to watch some college football. These were the games that normally would be New Year’s Day games, but due to it being on Sunday, they pushed them back so as to not interfere with the NFL schedule. That’s fine with me – more football is always a good thing! Ann napped as I turned off the game from Tampa Bay. I’m fairly certain it used to be called the Outback Bowl and before the advent of corporate sponsors, I think it was the old Hall of Fame Bowl. When the Boilers came on, I flipped over to watch LSU whip Purdue’s ass. I am so disappointed in not only the coaching staff but also the number of players that opted out (so they don’t get hurt before the NFL draft). To me, that’s a bunch of bullshit. I do understand that you don’t want to screw up money from the pros, but you have made a promise to your teammates and coaches. You have been given a free education. Plus, you’ve worked so hard to get to that point, I can’t imagine not playing in a bowl game… There were only a few names that I even recognized and on top of that, there were several injuries. Even with Drew Brees on the coaching staff this past month, the talent level was so different that by halftime, it would’ve taken a miracle for the Boilermakers to pull out the W (down by 5 TDs). The second half of the Citrus Bowl started off right where it left off and the Boilers quickly went down by 49 before LSU started putting in their backups. It was at that point that Purdue finally scored against the third stringers…how embarrassing… I turned off the game before the 4th quarter and watched the Cotton Bowl. It featured two teams I could care less about, but at least it was only a 12-point game and not a 50 point one. Ann made dinner that evening and the four of us actually sat down for a meal – something that doesn’t happen as much as it used to in years gone by. It was a yummy pasta meal that she just threw together and came out amazing. After we watched Penn St win the Rose Bowl, we watched the MNF game which promised to be the best game of the week – the Bills vs. Bengals. The game was just getting good when the Bills safety went down after making a tackle. As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, the guy ended up having cardiac arrest and they had to perform CPR on him right there on the field. Needless to say, they cancelled the game. It reminded me of when we watched the Daytona 500 when The Intimidator died. Thankfully, the kid survived but I heard he’s in the ICU in critical condition. Luke went to meet Samantha when she got home and he wound up spending the night at her house that evening. Here are random pictures from our recent adventures.
We had a wet start to our Tuesday. It rained all morning and was so gloomy most of the day. It was back to work for Ann, Abby & I. It was Ann & I’s first full day of work in nearly two weeks. Our days went by very fast. It was good to see everyone at work and catch up with my work friends. I spent all day catching up on paperwork, emails and phone calls, wrapping up 2022 for the most part. The only thing left now is all the reports. Brent & I went out for lunch at BK just to get away for a little while. The rain stopped that afternoon and by the time I got off work, the disc golf course was mostly dry. I got my first game in with my new Squatch bag. I loved it, though I spent too much time playing with it and only left myself enough time to get in nine holes. I struggled in the strong south-westerly wind, bogeying 3 holes and finishing with a 30. But besides the wind, it was awesome out there with temps right around 65°! I think we may have set some sort of record high that day? I did notice that my bag rubs my cart’s wheels and so later that night, I found a pair I liked on Etsy and ordered them. As for mail call that evening, I got in a Hot Wheel car and a new piece for my Zuca cart. It is a clip-on bag that will hold my telescoping pole (for getting discs out of trees/ravines/shallow water. We began watching a new show that evening on Netflix that Judy recommended called Ginny & Georgia. We got through three episodes and liked them enough that we want to watch the whole series. We put on the FBI trilogy afterward, but I fell asleep and so we wound up just going on to bed. Luke & Sam spent the day together, going up to Indianapolis to shop and eat. He wound up staying the night at Sam’s house again.
I slept like a baby overnight and had a little trouble getting out of bed on Wednesday. We still got Ann to work on time. We passed Luke on our way to work, as he was pulling into the addition as we were pulling out. We couldn’t determine if it had rained that morning or if the dew was just that heavy. Ann & I both had very busy days. She worked up front and didn’t get done working until nearly 20 minutes after the office closed. Brent & I had a pair of orientation classes, which pretty much ruined the day for us. It was difficult to find time to do much of anything else. I did get the monthly inventory done so I can order on Friday when we work from home. After work, I played 18 holes of disc golf. It was definitely cooler than yesterday. In fact, the temps dropped all day and they’re actually calling for snow tomorrow! Mom always said that if you don’t like the Indiana weather, just way a day. I shot a pair of 28s and narrowly missed a handful of birdies, ending with a 56. I got my new extension pole holder hooked up to my Abby was a little late getting to work that morning then had a very busy day herself. She got into town just as we did, pulling in front of us off the bypass and we followed her on home. Luke laid flooring again with Chad then got together with some buddies and went out to Perfect North Slopes for the afternoon / evening to go snowboarding. I finally had a chance to watch the Purdue game vs. Rutgers while Ann worked on some stuff in the bathroom. You could tell Julie had been there because the house looked and smelled better than it had in a couple weeks! ???? I couldn’t believe the Scarlet Knights beat the Boilers again on a late, clutch bucket. I’m sure that’ll knock Purdue out of the #1 slot. ? We had another find your-own-dinner night. Abs made hers and retreated to her room with Delilah while Ann & I resumed watching the FBI trilogy. Luke came home for few minutes before heading out to Oakley’s house to spend more time with him before he leaves for college next week… We have lots of social media pictures to share this week.
Thursday was noticeably colder and we had to let the cars defrost that morning before work. I had a busy day at work, setting up some of my 2023 papers for rounding, doing my first weekly round, doing video surveillance rounds and getting things ready to work from home. Vic, Brent & I went to lunch at El Nopal where I ordered the seafood tacos that came with shrimp and crab – yum! The waiter did me up by brining me some special hot sauce from the back. It was so hot! ???? I loved every minute of it, but it did hurt my mouth – physically. After work, I got out to play golf on a very chilly afternoon. I broke out my gloves for the first time and they worked perfectly. The wind was almost unbearable. Not only did it make it hard to shoot accurately, but I struggled to keep my ears, nose & cheeks warm. Even though I had plenty of time to play, I couldn’t even complete 18 holes in 90 minutes and had to cut it short. I was fine with it anyhow, as I was already 5 over par, even without the other 4 holes (I played 1-4 and then 9 – all the holes on the south end of the AirPark). I picked up Ann and drove her straight to her friend’s house. The scrapbooking gang had a girls’ night out at Stone’s in Millhousen. I got Rxs at CVS for Abs and then picked up a few things at Needlers, grabbed my new bottle of bourbon and headed over to the Bewley B&B Bar for card night. It was just Rick & I for a while, so we started in on the bottle of High West Whiskey American Prairie Bourbon. We had bottle # 266 that was aged in a port barrel – it was really good. The problem with a bottle like this is that each one tastes a little different. We wound up drinking the whole thing that night. When I went to look for more of it at the Columbus Walmart the next day, they were completely sold out. ? Bryan (who had a tough week), Mark & Alan all showed up a little later. We watched the Purdue game (they won by a point or two) and then the IU game (they lost by a point or two) as we played dozens of rounds of cards, enjoyed the bourbon, ate well and enjoyed catching up with each other’s week. In the end, I finally won a little cash for the first time in a month. Luke, Sam and Abby were all asleep by the time I got home. Annie was out so hard on her chair that I didn’t even wake her when I came in that night. I knew better than to try and stay awake, so I just went on to bed…
Ann & I got to sleep in a couple minutes on Friday since we didn’t have to drive into work. I got everything set up and started my day in the family room. Ann had just set her stuff up in the living room when she received a call. It was work and they had an emergency call in. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have any available PRN staff, so she had to go in…which meant I needed to go in as well. So, we packed up and took Barney back to Columbus again. Ann had to work the front desk which meant her office was free. Since I was already prepared to work remotely, I just stayed there and worked from her desk. Without any distractions, I was able to knock out about half of my monthly ordering before Ann came in and said they were done. We went just a block down the street to the new Mexican restaurant (the guys and I had eaten there before and knew how good it was) called Tacos Don Jose. My God, it was so good – even better than the first time. I had the mixed meat tacos that had just a little bit of char…mmmm… we both got some Mexican street corn that was some of the best we’ve ever had and even their chips and cheese are some of the best I’ve ever tasted. Granted, it costs a little more, but man is it worth it. We came home and I resumed working out in the family room. I got all of the monthly purchasing done as well as several other things I needed to do from earlier this week. By the time I finished, it was almost 530. I helped Luke get some stuff printed off for his GFD application, which he will turn in next week. I heated up some leftovers while the girls had popcorn and then I fell asleep while watching the Law & Order trilogy. I woke up for a while to watch the new Ancient Aliens, but even that couldn’t keep me awake, so I went on to bed. Abby worked up at Sly Fox then talked with a friend on the phone the whole night while enjoying a large gin & tonic. Luke & Sam went up to Indy and wound up at Ikea, where he purchased a new dresser. By the time they got home, I was already falling asleep. They stayed up late putting it together that night but did a decent job of not being too loud. Here are pictures of recent additions to my Hot Wheels collection.
We enjoyed sleeping in on Saturday morning. We got up and drove over to St. Paul to see Lori at Wild Flour Bakery and get a batch of goodies. We took Delilah with us. I thought we could take her without a lease, but the moment she got outside she took off. Thankfully, we only got down to the corner before she came running back to us and got in the van. I let her get out and walk around St. Paul, which she loved! Coach Harris was outside when we got back home. He came in to see Luke and we talked for a quite a while. He is hanging up the whistle after 21 years. We are sad for the kids that will never play for him, but understand the burnout as coaching, if done right, takes a lot of time. We got the kids up and we enjoyed all the spoils of our morning journey. We digested for a few minutes then got started on taking down all the Christmas decorations. Three hours later we were done. The kids helped a lot more than I thought they would and we appreciated them taking time to join us. Even Samantha pitched in! We watched a quick show then I paid bills before the final week of the NFL season began that afternoon. Abby & I ran to the store to get our weekly household supplies. When we got back, we began playing a new game she picked up at the store called Phase 10. We played a couple rounds with just the two of us and then Ms. Ann joined us to couple more games. Abby’s friend, Seth, got off work at Honda and came over to spend a few hours with her last night. We enjoyed playing long into the night, laughing, listening to good music, enjoying several cocktails (we killed another bottle of my coveted Carmel Crown), including an Old-Fashioned recipe that Rick taught me this week. In the end, Seth won the final game of the night at like 3:30 or 4 am.
We were slow to get up and get going on Sunday morning, sleeping in later than we had all week – as you might expect. I got something to eat and then fell asleep on the couch with my plate still in my hand. I drank lots and lots of water, four water bottles-worth of it, before noon. When Annie got up, I did the weekly household chores, taking out the trash (and a ton of recycles – what the hell did we do last night??), washing the dishes, picking up the house and doing laundry. Samantha left to go to softball practice and Luke returned to his room to finish putting up his new dresser and cleaning up his room. Abs came out to make a healthy lunch of French fries and homemade garlic aioli (flexing her Maryann the third cooking skills) then disappeared into her room with Delilah the entire afternoon. Ann napped and read as I wrote out the blog and watched the final Red Zone episode of the year on the final week of the NFL regular season. The Colts lost to the worst team in the league on a 4th and 20 Hail Mary TD with only a few seconds left. In the late games, the Niners and Eagles when up big while the Cowboys looked terrible against the Redskins so I turned the game off and turned on some of our DVR’d shows. Because of the outcome of those games, Dallas won’t have the #1 seed, nor the #2…but rather they will now drop to the 5th seed and play Tom Brady & the Bucs next weekend. Luke went to Sam’s house for dinner. Ann made the rest of us Fireworks popcorn for dinner. After Blue Bloods & Fire Country on the DVR, we turned on Paramount + to watch Yellowstone 1923 then watched a new show called Alert: Missing Persons Unit. It has Scott Caan, who played Danno on the Hawaii Five-O reboot, in it; so, we’re hopeful that it’ll be one we want to keep watching. The pilot was pretty good so we set it to record on the DVR. Afterward, we turned on the final game of the regular season to see if the Packers could win their way into the playoffs. It was a great way to wrap up a nice weekend and a relaxing way to put a cap on another fast week, here at the Scheu abode.
Next up is our Waybac section, which continues to feature pictures off Deanna’s digital camera in 2008. We lead off with a special picture of Ann’s cousins Julie & Jill with Dean, who regularly played Santa for the kids in the 70s (Ann thinks this is circa December 1977). Then we head on to 2008, beginning in Jan where we see the girls at the Indy Children’s Museum and then some pictures from the air of NYC; next is a couple pictures from Texas in Mar; Jul has a bunch of pix from the 4th as well as Grace’s birthday; Aug has more pix from Kings Island; and then a good batch from Christmas Eve at Gma & Gigi’s house in Dec.
Next up is our video segment which features one new home movie this week as well as several from around the internet.
And that does it for this week’s entry into the Scheu Family Blog. I believe this was episode # 750. 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