The month of March came and went quickly. Mom used to always tell me that if March comes in like a lamb, it’ll go out like a lion. As much as we enjoyed the first few days of the month and the warmer than normal temps, it turned out to be a rainy, cool month that ended this week with some nasty storms. Thankfully, we avoided all the severe weather this time, but there was wind damage all around us from the storms. In fact, at last count there were seven tornados that touched down in the state – scary… We’ve got some new pictures and videos to share, as well as a few stories to tell. Matt & Taylor are doing well, living in Carmel and working on the northern side of Indy. Abby spent the month working in Greenwood, driving to see Bakr in Bloomington and living at home with Ann & I. Luke continued to spend time with Samantha while working through the process of getting on the fire department, selling ads at WTRE and picking up as many odd jobs as he can find. Ann has struggled with some health stuff but is doing good and excelling at work. I continued to play as much disc golf as I could – despite the weather challenges, increased workload and a strange new pain in my throwing shoulder. I only managed to log about 36 miles of exercise this month while playing 283 holes of golf. We enjoyed spending time with family and friends where we could, including a birthday bash for our friend Kristy, a wedding with our friend Natalie and a little get-together for Matthew’s 27th birthday. Ann & I are beginning to plan for retirement and have been talking about grown-up stuff (yuck!). As I said, we have a bunch of new pictures to share this time out – so let’s get to it! Hello and welcome to the March update of the Scheu Family Blog.
After a nice, warm stretch to start the month, we “Sprang Ahead” as DST began and with it came a solid week and a half of colder temps. We even had more snow – a couple inches over the 2nd weekend of the month. Luke made it to the next portion of the fire dept hiring process and will now have an appointment with the lie-detector test (what a weird thing to have to do in order to get a job!). Abby spent a lot of time out of the house between work in Greenwood, spending time with her girlfriends in Franklin and Indy and travelling to Bloomington to see a boy named Bakr. We still had our weekly Daddy/Daughter nights, enjoying cards, cocktails and stories. Matt enjoyed a slower month. Now that wrestling is over for the year, he was able to focus on work. I was hoping he would come down to spend time with us and watch the opening weekend of March Madness but was busy with work. Ann continued to cough and hack. Even though she finally got over her bronchitis, she came down with Covid again. She spent the week working from home and didn’t miss a beat. I’ve been busy at work with my normal stuff plus all the extra stuff with the new building and then I also ran an emergency drill. We held a tornado drill in conjunction with the statewide drill. Here are pictures from Matt’s birthday party last weekend.
Thanks to the time change, I’m able to play more on my home course, at the Greensburg Park – which has been nice. I’ve been nursing a sore shoulder and so I’ve had to cut my golf playing down a little. The cold, wet weather hasn’t helped things either…but throwing on the shorter course in Greensburg has also helped. The Columbus course is so long and open, that I find myself throwing wide-open on 7 of the 9 holes, which puts a lot of strain on my shoulder if I play it twice after work. So, I’ve tried to limit my play to 9 in Columbus and then hope to get 18 in Greensburg, which is starting to help. March Madness started and ended quickly for me as the Boilers laid yet another egg in the Big Dance. It was only the 2nd time in the history of the tourney that a #16 team beat a #1 seed. ☹ To make matters worse, it was another damn New Jersey team… Luke finally brought home is senior yearbook. It only took him what…like a year? Anyhow, I sat down one Saturday morning and scanned all of the pix of him to share on the blog. They are part of this entry’s pictures. Abby stayed with her buddy Sarah after work on a Friday night and enjoyed going out on the town in Indy. When she got home on Saturday afternoon, she made jalapeno popper dip while I made us a couple Bloody Marys. We wound up doing a Green Tea shot and then she worked on a couple bottles of wine while worked on a couple bottles of bourbon. We cleaned out the hall closet and re-organized all of the games we store in it. I was planning on purging some but wound up keeping everything and just putting the ones we want to keep for grandkids in the back. We played games all day and night, moving into the living room to include Ms. Ann and watch basketball on the big screen. Luke & Sam went out to see Oak and the boys. There was some drama but they stayed out of it and eventually wound up coming home, late in the night. Luke made lunch for everyone on Sunday afternoon – re-creating his favorite ElRep meal called arroz con pollo – that was really good! Here are random pictures from our recent adventures.
We had lots of milestone birthdays within a two-week period at the end of the month: Megan turned 21, Matt turned 27, Kimmy turned 50, Tammie turned 55, Nick turned 27 and Dad B turned 75! I did my normal fast on Monday but with a twist…I had to take bowel prep that evening and again overnight – so I didn’t get a lot of sleep. The following morning, Ann & I were up and out the door early to celebrate Matt’s 27th birthday… with a colonoscopy in Columbus – yay! I had one three years ago that yielded some bad guys so I had to do another this year. This one went much better. Granted, they found a couple small, bad guys this time around, but I don’t have to return for another seven years! 😊 The doc allowed me to pick out the soundtrack, so I opted for one of my favorite albums – Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy. I blacked out for about 2-3 hours after that medicine. I remember going under but then I can’t recall anything until I was eating a cheeseburger in the kitchen, back home that afternoon. Where did all that time go? I sure has hell don’t know! I don’t remember waking up, leaving the hospital, driving home, nor hanging out at home…until wiping ketchup off my burger and whining about it. We took it easy the rest of the day, napping and watching some TV shows. Ann was great and I owe her big time for everything the last 24 hours… Meanwhile, Luke began working on a painting project at Mesco and stayed at Sammy’s house (they were house-sitting while her folks were out of town) for a few nights. He continued working on it the next couple days until he finished it. He also worked at WTRE and continued doing well with sales. I played the new course at Donner Park (about 5-10 minutes from work) for the first time since last year when I got 2nd place in the tourney to raise the money for the permanent chains that we played that afternoon. I threw with a couple of buddies from the airport, which was cool. They called me on their way over. On the way home that evening, we stopped to get supplies for Ann & Abby to make fish tacos for dinner. Later, Bu had Molie over for Daddy / Daughter Night…slash…Wet & Wacky Wednesday for cards and drinks. It was a little later night than we had planned, but it sure was fun! Here are more random pictures from recent adventures…
After a touch of snow, heavy wind and rain blew in and we had yet another rainy Friday, working from home. I think we were 4-4 in wet Fridays during March. Luke & Sam joined Ann & I for a trip up to Indy for Brayton & Alexandria’s wedding. Brayton is the oldest son of our good friends from college, Natalie & Mike. Matt & Taylor were supposed to meet us up there but didn’t make it. It was a small, simple wedding and reception; but it was fun… and it was great to see some people we hadn’t seen in a long time. Three of the four Franklin Tri-Delt amigos were there – Ann, Nat & Cara…the only one missing was Stacey. We got home at a decent hour and watched a few shows, turning in a little early. That allowed us to get up early on Sunday to get a head start on prepping the house for the family to join us in throwing Matt’s 27th birthday party. I did our weekly household chores while Ann made chicken fettuccine alfredo, garlic toast and roasted cheesy broccoli for lunch. It was nice to have all the kids home to sit down for a meal. It’s been a while since we did that, so all was right in the world for a few hours that day. She also made a cake and then we also picked up a Dairy Queen ice cream cake as well. Luke & Sam, Abby, Matt & Taylor, Mom & Sandy and Dee, Jamie & Grace all joined us that afternoon for cake & ice cream. It was nice to get the family all together for a bit. We sang a new tune to Matthew that day. In lieu of the normal Birthday Song done in death march format, we instead sang the National Anthem…except me, who sang a rousing version of Free Bird. It was a great mash-up and you can hear for yourself below, if you’re feeling brave. The final week of the month was much like the previous two – very busy at work and seeing doctors. Ann saw a rheumatologist and now has to take some new meds. Later in the week, she went to the optometrist and has to take some new meds again. Yay, we’re getting older. Joy! Speaking of getting older, I met with Angie to start getting our shit in order so we can retire a decade from now. She’s amazing. We had some homework this week that we got finished and sent into her. Abby is still waiting on her tax return and this weekend we finally found out why…they are suspicious of something because a letter came for her from the IRS fraud department. She will have to prove her identity for some reason. I tried to do Matt’s taxes again this year, but much like Abby’s; I had a little trouble with his as well. He will have to do his own taxes this year due to some weird issues with his retirement while working for Cathy. We have lots of social media pictures to share.
Lucas said he was really nervous at his lie-detector test this week because he knows this is where his journey ended last year. He now is waiting to hear from the department leaders to know if he made it to the final interview or if he didn’t quite make again this year. There are only a handful of guys left but I think they’re vying for three open spots on the force. He & Sam are a cute couple and get along pretty good for being such a young couple. I was happy to hear the Zach Edey has received the Player of the Year honors for the NCAA men’s basketball year. Now the only question is whether or not he’ll return for his senior season. In addition to my regular work this week, I also did my monthly EOC rounds as well as began two new projects and made some progress on Project Vickers (our new outpatient building). The band of merry men finally got back together for a night of cards, booze and food. Although we didn’t have everyone come, we had most of us and had a good ol’ time… The following night, we worked from home on another stormy Friday. That evening, we went over to play euchre at Mom & Sandy’s house and to swap cars. Gigi wanted the good luck charm (aka The Barneymobile) for her euchre tourney the following morning. Ann & I were on a roll that evening, destroying the girls in three straight games. When we got home, Abby had Seth over for cards and drinks. I continued my winning ways by annihilating the two younglings in a game of Phase Ten. I think I only lost one hand and beat them both by over 300 points! Ann joined us afterward for a couple games of euchre and we continued to dominate, sweeping the kids 2-0. Luke drove me to Taco Bell that night but the line was all the way out to the street, so we turned around and went to Speedway. We picked up a 6 pack of beer, some chips and then raided the hot food area. The guy said we could take what we wanted at no cost, so we were happy to oblige… There was some nasty weather all around us that night, but we came out of it unscathed this time, thankfully. There was damage in Franklin, Whiteland, Columbus, Shelbyville…literally all around us. I had planned to go golfing the next morning but it was so cold and windy that there was no way I could even think about it. I finally worked up the nerve to go outside and attempt to at least move my equipment back, but the weather was simply too blustery and I didn’t feel like losing my discs that day. Instead, Ann & I took it easy and got caught up on our DVR’d shows instead. I figured since I wasn’t doing anything anyhow, I’d go ahead and write out this blog entry since I hadn’t had one in about a month or so. Abby went over to Brady’s birthday party on Saturday night while Luke, Sam, Ann & I got takeout from Tarouya for dinner. On Sunday morning, Annie got up and made us breakfast, making a huge batch of biscuits and gravy. Sandy stopped by after she got done working out at the Y to pickup takeout for her and Mom. 😊 We did our weekly household chores and then napped while watching the Indy car race and the three NASCAR races. We spoke to Dad & Lynn for a little bit and then we cooked steaks out back on the grill and enjoyed a cold beer. It was really nice that evening – in fact, we wound up opening up the house to air it out a little. Ann made smashed baked potatoes and corn on the cob that paired perfectly to start out our April the right way…
Next up is our Waybac segment, which continues to feature pictures from Dee’s digital camera from back in 2008. We lead off this time in January, where we see the girls enjoying a trip to the Children’s Museum in Indy as well as a few more aerial pix of NYC; March has a couple cool pictures of Texas Stadium; July has a ton of pictures from the 4th of July weekend and a few from Grace’s birthday; August sees the girls enjoying a trip to Kings’ Island – over in Ohio; there’s a single picture from Abby’s birthday in September and then we end with a handful of good pictures at Gma & Gigi’s house on Christmas Eve.
As always, we wrap up with our video segment which features one new home movie this time as well as several from around the internet.
And that does it for this edition 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