It is the dog days of summer. The cicadas are loud every night. The Perseid asteroid shower was this week. The kids are starting to head off to college. Football is back. We made it through some nasty days of heat and humidity and finally enjoyed some relief this weekend. The fields are starting to turn and will be ready for harvest very soon. There were some cool things happening in the sky this weekend, though we struggled to see everything from our vantage point. We are no longer in a drought, thanks to a few inches of rain this week that brought with it a couple of flood warnings. One by one, Luke’s friends are beginning to leave for school. He continues to progress through the process of trying to get on the GFD force. He enjoyed not only spending time with his guys, but also doing odd jobs and spending time with Ms. Samantha. Abby remained in Europe this week with Will. They took a cruise to Germany and spent time with his family and friends. Matt started his new job at One America. He spent most of the week going through “on-boarding.??? Ann worked a full week and enjoyed spending some time with friends this week. I got back to my 48-hour fast and lost two more pounds this week. Despite the weather, I did better with my exercise by putting in just under 18 miles of walking. I enjoyed a little Hot Wheels hunting and played 14 ½ rounds of disc golf (136 holes!), achieving a few new personal bests along the way. This week really flew by us and only seems to be going faster and faster as the year progresses. I can’t believe the summer is already coming to an end, but I have to admit that I’m ready for autumn…my favorite time of year… Hello again and welcome to the latest installation of the Scheu Family Blog.
It was back to work for Ann & I, early on Monday morning. I struggled to get motivated, hitting snooze a half dozen times before grudgingly getting vertical. Ann was experiencing the same thing but we still managed to make it to work on time. The humidity smacked us in the face as we opened the front door and it only got worse as the day wore on. It finally rained in the late afternoon. I thought that would surely mark a decrease in the humidity, but it only served to make it worse once the storms rolled through this area. Thankfully, we had both experienced fast days because Mondays can sometimes drag. I stayed in the office for most of the day, catching up paperwork and doing some IT stuff. I began my reports that afternoon and sort of lost track of time. By the time I got outside, it had stopped storming and the sun was out. It was absolutely nasty outside. Thank God for the person who invented A/C. We ran to the grocery store for supplies when we got back to town. I dropped Annie off at home, where she made something to take to her pitch-in at work tomorrow. I went out to the park and played 18 holes of disc golf. Despite the heat, I made three of the longest putts of the year (on 1, 6 and 8) and wound up throwing a pair of 21s to finish with a 42. The 21 on the back nine was a new PB for me and the 42 overall score was also a new PB for me on that course. Luke had an easy day, working out at the Y and then enjoyed having Samantha over that evening for a few hours. Matt started his new job as an underwriter for an insurance company. He and Taylor are doing well, I just wish we could see them more often. He said it was an easy day, as he sat through general orientation. He was hoping that his real job would start on Thursday or Friday, after all his on-boarding is completed. We heard from Abby several times throughout the day via texts and pictures. She & Will left Will’s father’s house and took a cruise to Germany. She was very excited about the huge cruise ship, enjoying fancy dinners, the casino, going shopping, enjoying a few cocktails at a couple bars and even went dancing at their nightclub. Wow; what a boat!! She is excited to see Germany, as I would be as well! I fasted that day, fighting with my growling stomach all day. I did run through the Wendy’s drive thru after I dropped off Ann, grabbing a large cherry Diet Dr. Pepper to get me through my day. It was the first day without Justin in the office. Brent is really nice, so I’m sure it’ll be cool to work with him…but Justin is such a character. I really enjoyed my time working with him…even if coworkers said we reminded them of an old, married couple because of the way we always bickered – LOL! I did talk with him a couple times and he was settling in at home as the majority of his job is remote. We hope to eventually get him back in the building, allowing him to work remotely from the facility. I spent the evening culling pictures and videos for this week’s blog entry and then backing up all the files on to our external hard drives. We were saddened to hear that on the heels of the deaths of both Bill Russell and Vin Scully last week, Olivia Newton-John passed away that day. Mom always said they go in threes… Ann & I watched a couple shows that night and were surprised how late it got so fast. As we began to nod off in the living room with the dogs, we decided to just give it up and call it an early night and head on to bed. Here are pictures from Abby’s European vacation in Norway last week.
The humidity continued to kick our butts on Tuesday morning as we headed back to Columbus for work. Ann & I had fast mornings, with her attending meetings while I worked on reports and had a contractor in to work on the gym spigot that was leaking. Later that morning, Ann & I went to visit Jami for our monthly haircuts. Just as we were finishing up, work called and said that the Health Dept had just walked in. Why do they always pick the most inopportune times? So, I said to tell the guy I was on my way, but had to come back across town, so it would be a few minutes. When I finally got back to the facility, Lenny already had him in the kitchen. I had no sooner introduced myself and apologized for the delay than he stopped me and said that we were making his job easy. He began complimenting the status of the kitchen, storage, cooler/freezer, dish room, prep area and serving line. He said it was by far one of the best kitchens he had been in! I was only with him for five minutes or so and he said he had seen enough and was very happy with our program. After I walked him out, I told the gals they had aced their annual inspection and that we needed to celebrate. They wanted lunch from Great Wall, so I was happy to oblige; making plans to order a big mess of Chinese food for lunch tomorrow to celebrate. That afternoon, I continued working on reports and got our bi-annual Health & Sanitation programs submitted. Stacey got the last thing she needed for the health program and I had the nutrition portion ready to go, so we got it all sent in and now we just wait for either an acceptance letter or a plan of corrections. The last thing I did was work with Vic to get the final bid finalized for the parking lot project. I plan to work on that capital expenditure submission tomorrow, which has become quite the process over the last couple years. After work, I went over to the Airport property to play a round or two of frisbee golf. It was cloudy and sprinkled on me a little on the first two holes. By the third, it had stopped, so I thought I was in the clear. I could see a little cloud cover above me but blue skies north of me and the wind was blowing from the north pretty hard, so when it began sprinkling again on 4, I didn’t think too much of it. However, by the time I teed off on 5, it was coming down pretty good and began affecting my throwing. Between the wetness and the wind, it wound up bogeying the hole. When I finished putting, I had a decision to make – walk back to the car (about 3 or 4 minutes) or press on to 6 and catch cover from the rain under the big airplane at the tee box, which was under a minute. I opted to continuing on and wound up standing under one of the wings of that great big plane, which was more than enough to keep me dry. I stood under there for about 10 minutes or more. The rain would come and go, but eventually slowed to just a light drizzle. As I began to walk to the car, I decided to just go ahead and tee off and just play the hole and see what the rain did. That was a mistake as I bogeyed that hole as well when it began pouring just as I teed off. I finished the hole and finally threw in the towel, walking back to the car in the pouring rain. I was thoroughly soaked when I got back to the car. Wouldn’t you know it, as soon as I started the car, the sun popped out and by the time I got back to Ann’s work, it had pretty much stopped raining. ? It continued raining off and on like that all the way home. Ann grabbed me a towel to dry off with and we drove back home, running the gas all the way down until the low fuel light came on with 25 miles to go till empty. I normally don’t do things like that, filling up at the half-tank mark. However, I’ve been using an octane booster in old Black Betty, who turned 350K last week. She really likes that boost in her tank, but it recommends that you run it all the way down and put in that additive before refueling. We got gas at Amoco and went through the Sonic drive thru for cherry limeade slushes – yum! It was a great way to break my 48-hour fast. We got home just in time, before it let loose a deluge of more rain. It would continue to rain on and off all the way until bedtime that night. I grabbed ElRep leftovers and my Frito burrito from Sonic for a quick dinner. Later, I was still hungry and sliced up a loaf of sourdough bread from Wildflour and enjoyed a small ham sandwich as well as some bread & butter. I was so hungry! Meanwhile, Matt continued orientation at his new job, working from home on his new computer. Abby and Will landed in Germany and spent the day there, exploring and enjoying life. Luke enjoyed sleeping in then went to the bank and a doctor’s appointment. After working out at the Y that afternoon, he drove up to Indy (well, technically New Pal, I guess) to begin attending his Fire 1 class. This is a prerequisite for the fire department, so regardless of whether or not he makes the cut this time, everyone needs to have this class to get on the squad. He got home late and wasn’t there long before he went out to spend time with Brayden before he leaves for college this weekend. Ann & I watched a couple shows on Paramount + until we fell asleep with the dogs on a rainy night… Here are random pictures from our recent adventures.
I continued mourning the loss of ONJ on Wednesday as I again kept the extended Xanadu soundtrack (you can find it below in the videos section this week) on repeat all day. Yes, that’s a little-known secret about me…and a guilty pleasure! I think I can probably sing every lyric of the entire soundtrack to that movie. I saw Xanadu in the movie theater with my friend Neil, when we lived in California. I can still remember seeing Olivia skating around, singing Magic. That’s when I fell in love with that movie – LOL. It’s a secret pleasure! ???? I obviously played it a lot when the kids were little because both Matt & Abby texted me about her passing… It was an overcast, foggy and humid start to the day as we commuted back into work. Abby & Will made it back to Will’s house in Norway that morning. I didn’t hear much from her that day. I’m sure they were pretty tired from their Germany excursion. I can’t wait to hear all the details when she gets home next week. Luke had a pretty quiet day as well. I don’t know if he even left the house during the day. He had Samantha over for dinner that evening. Matt continued with his orientation / on-boarding classes at his new job. I’m sure he’s anxious to put this stuff behind him and get into his actual work tomorrow. As the day wore on, it turned out to be a nice day. The humidity dropped down a bit and it warmed into the mid-eighties. Vic & I picked up lunch at Great Wall for the kitchen staff and delivered it to Lenny and her crew as a congratulatory offering for acing the State Health Dept inspection yesterday. I worked on a couple of special projects for Jim as well as continued working on the paperwork support for our Parking Lot Project capital expenditure request. I should be able to make some headway tomorrow with it. After work, I got outside and enjoyed 18 holes of frisbee golf on the airport property. I did really well, throwing a 48 from a pair of 24s. That is a new PB for me on that course. I picked up Ann a little late and drove home. I dropped her off then ran a couple errands when we got back to town. Afterward, I stopped by the park to play another 18 holes of disc golf that evening. It was a little difficult on the back 9, fighting the setting sun. I tried out a couple new discs that evening – both at the Columbus and Greensburg courses. I had one epic fail that nearly cost me another disc. On 17, tired and sweaty, I had the bright idea to try to throw a new disc (Valkyrie), which was supposed to turn back to the right…well it didn’t and instead went right to the pond. Somehow it stopped just short, in the heavy brush and luckily, I was able to find it somehow. I wound up throwing a 44 overall with a 21 & 23 on my two rounds. By the time I got home, Samantha had already gone back home in Batesville and Luke was at the YMCA, lifting weights. Ann had cooked dinner for the kids and us. It was a yummy alfredo pasta dish with corn and garlic bread. I got cleaned up, grabbed some dinner and put all the leftovers away. We watched a couple shows that evening and fell asleep with the dogs again that night.
Thursday was noticeably cooler but that darned humidity was still paling around with us all day. Ann would later say that she had a good day with minimal drama. I wish I could say the same. I hit walls all day long, focusing on trying to get our parking lot expense submitted to corporate and working on the plan of corrections for our Health & Sanitation program submission. UHS changed the websites that you use to submit capital expenditures and so you can’t even enter stuff and work ahead while waiting on other items. You have to have everything up front first and then submit everything all at once, which is a pain. The State lady is being so picky. I guess I should be grateful that she is just looking out for what’s best for the children, but what I don’t understand is how this exact same program that we submitted is being challenged when it passed the last two times. I verified with the lady that the regulations haven’t changed, so then it has to be the person evaluating the program since it was just copied from the last one and sent back in. It’s so frustrating. So, I met with Lenny a couple times and we have a plan for most of it. It’s going to take a little work on my part next week but I think we have a path to approval…maybe. We’ll see what sort of mood she’s in next week… After work, I was able to get out and play 18 holes of frisbee golf. I tried to get Brent to come, but he wasn’t available and Justin wound up going to Bloomington with Marion that day, getting on-the-job training. He and Donny (the DPO at Meadows) called me to give me crap. ???? I did pretty good that afternoon and still tried out a few new discs. I began trying to figure out how to throw what’s called a forehand shot. I am absolutely awful at it. It’s so bad that’s it’s comical. I need to bring three extra discs so I can get some repetitions going – on hole two especially – because the Valkyrie that I read is supposed to turn right will absolutely not do it…unless I’m just doing it wrong, which is very likely. I threw a new PB on the first 9 with a 23 (!!) and then a 26 on the 2nd pass to end with a 49 on the day. I finally ended my period of mourning for ONJ and took my music playlist off of the Xanadu soundtrack. I went about 72 hours straight, listening to it non-stop. I could play that for the rest of the week, but I was ready to finally move on and hear something different. I was pretty sweaty, but not overly tired so when we got back to town, I dropped off Annie and went out to the park. I was able to play another 18 holes there. I did pretty well again with a 22 on the front 9 and a 23 on the back 9 while talking to Bryan for most of the 2nd round. It was good to talk to him. He asked us to join his family in FLA over Christmas. I’m not sure if that’s what Annie wants to do or not. I know she likes being here with her momma on Xmas Eve, so we have to pass again. Plus, that would likely mean that the kids’ presents would be the trip and not other stuff under tree. …Not sure how well that would go over… It’s funny, but they go to Treasure Island (I guess I forgot that?) but didn’t realize how close they are to the Sand Pebble. It’s like 2 or 3 resorts down the beach – like 400 feet…too funny! They go to the Sands, which is just a little place – similar to the Pebble. We made tentative plans to start up the Poker Night again with the “Merry Band of Brothers??? for a coaches meeting. ???? I made a big Scooby sandwich (just piled on pieces of various meats and cheeses in the fridge) and some pasta from last night and fell asleep after eating it. When I woke up, Ann was asleep as well, so we just went on to bed. Meanwhile, Abby wasn’t feeling the best that day but enjoyed playing with Will’s nephew at the park for a little while. Luke had his 2nd Fire 1 class, up at New Pal. I was confused when I got home because the Hot Rod Lincoln was still parked out front. Apparently, Gigi let him drive the Escape, which he enjoyed. He really wants that Crossfire, but like the truck, it’s an in-town only vehicle for now… Luke had worked earlier that day, helping Chad to mow lawns around town and was pretty tired by the time he got home. Matt was supposed to start doing some underwriting stuff today as orientation (on-boarding is what the Millennials call it nowadays) was supposed to end. I’ll have to try giving him a call tomorrow to see how it went… We have lots of social media pictures to share this week.
We finally got back to our regular Friday routine. It had been a few weeks since we got up, went through Dunkin drive thru and then dropped her off at the downtown office. I ran a couple errands then returned to the house to work from home. I ran an Office update after I connected to VPN and after that, I couldn’t open Word or Excel, which really impacted my ability to my job that day. I did some troubleshooting alone and with the helpdesk for about 3 hours. After I picked up Ann, I sent my files to my personal laptop and just worked on it the rest of the afternoon, so I could at least get a little something done. I hope that IT can figure it out because otherwise I’ll have to uninstall the program and reinstall, causing me to lose all of my settings. I’m very particular about how I have my computers set up and it will take me weeks before I have it all back to where I like it…I took Ann and her supplies out to Burney, where she met up with her girls for their monthly scrapbooking weekend. I came home and continued working. Later, I stopped working and got out on the frisbee golf course at the park by 5. I did very well that evening, with a new PB of 19 on the front tees and tied by overall PB with a 42 for the 18 holes! Luke had an interesting day. He had a polygraph test at the police station, as the next step in getting on the fire department and he learned that he will have the next interview next week! He had Samantha over that evening and they went to Columbus for smoothies before coming home to watch a movie. Later, he went out to Oakley’s house – where they celebrated by throwing Brayden a going away to college party. He will be leaving this weekend for IU. I didn’t hear from Abby, other than to comment on the Siracha sauce I finally found her, earlier at Walmart. Granted, it’s not the brand she likes, but at least it’s Tabasco brand, so it should be pretty good. Finding siracha has been difficult for months, since there was a shortage on the peppers, from which it is made. I know she wasn’t feeling real well but she powered through a sore throat to go out on the town with Will and his friends. Shawna brought Ann home and shortly after sitting down to talk, I conked out on her. After waking myself up snoring, I went on to bed.
Ann & I tried to see the meteor shower overnight, but it was a little cloudy and a little too bright, here in town to see anything. I tried to get up early on Saturday morning. I got up around 4 and used the restroom and planned to slide on my shoes…then the next thing I know, I wake up and it’s like 9 am and super bright in the bedroom. Oh well…I guess there’s next year… I got up and did some work on my music collection with some new titles I picked up yesterday. Shawna took Annie back to Burney for day two of Scrap Weekend. Luke came home briefly to get some supplies and then did a detail job that morning. I watched a couple SVU episodes then slowly got up and got moving. I started with mowing our yard. Delilah & Lola came out to help me, LOL. Afterward, I loaded up Betty White and mowed over at Mom & Sandy’s house. I got the furniture all moved out and gates unlocked. As I started mowing, I thought to myself that it really didn’t need mowed. So, I texted Luke and he said he just did it yesterday! I asked him why he neglected to tell me that and he said he forgot. ? He said that he and Alex had been out the last three days, driving around in the truck and trying to drum up mowing business…to no avail… So, I put everything back, blew off the walks where I had been and went to Wendy’s for a late lunch. I met Luke out there once he got done at his detailing gig. We had a good talk over lunch. It was good to sit down and finally catch up with him a little. He followed me home, where I swapped vehicles and took Black Betty out to the park to play some disc golf. The park was very busy with tons of people milling about. I’d say there were probably 30 – 40 cars out there. I saw a few semis bring in some old tractors for next weekend’s annual Power of the Past. I can’t wait to go out there just to do some Hot Wheels hunting! When I got to the golf course, I was surprised to see a new sign between the parking lot and warm-up basket. I assume they’ll maybe add a title to it, like Tree City Disc Golf or something similar, because it appears to be a flaming disc with sunglasses throwing a frisbee. I started off a little rough but managed to barely keep it out of the pond three times on the first round. Despite my struggles, I nearly had a hole-in-one on 4 (bouncing off the front band around the top of the chains) and really did well with long putts / approach shots, hitting a few. That allowed me to throw a pair of 21s to tie my PB of 42 again for the 18 on the day. Luke & I got back home about the same time as me. He had taken the truck to go mow another lawn while I played golf. By the time I got out of the shower, he was gone and Ann was ready to be picked up at Burney. We got all her supplies moved back in and put away, put on our comfy clothes and sat down to watch the Colts game. Luke got cleaned-up and drove to Batesville to spend time with Samantha and her family for a few hours. Afterward, he met up with Oakley and his family for a wedding reception in Hartsville. Our good friends Bryan & Angie stopped over in their new Honda UTV. Bryan and I got into the liquor cabinet and broke out the bourbon that we got from Moontown Brewery while the girls had a little wine. We had fun catching up with them for an hour or so before they had to leave just as quickly as they came. Ann & I took it easy that evening, watching a few more episodes of the weekly SVU marathon on Ion TV until we started falling asleep so we just called it a day. The dogs were wiped out after Bryan left – LOL. He’s such a ball of energy. Luke wound up staying the night out at Oakley’s house again that night, while he still can before Oak heads off to West Lafayette for the fall semester at Purdue. ???? Here are pictures of recent additions to my Hot Wheels collection.
We enjoyed sleeping in on a stormy Sunday morning. I didn’t even realize it was supposed to rain again until next weekend…but when I got up and let the dogs out, it was still drizzling. I did some weekly household chores that morning, watching some DVR’d shows that have been hanging around for a while. Luke came home Oakley’s house and told us some great stories from him his night out and then went to the Y to lift weights for a couple hours. I put on the NASCAR race and worked on the blog, writing out html code, uploading pictures and videos and getting everything written out. I napped on and off for a while and woke up when Luke had Ms. Samantha over. Later that afternoon, Gigi brought Olive over to play with Delilah out back while she and Ann grabbed a little porch time. It remained overcast all day, which helped keep the temps lower, thankfully. The kids and I wound up going out to see the girls for a while as well. We saw Sandy & Olive off, who looked awfully cute as they pulled away in the Crossfire convertible. ???? The kids didn’t stick around long either, as Sam went home and Luke went back out to Oak’s house. That evening, we watched Grease on the big screen, in memory of Olivia. We paused about halfway through while Annie made cheesy Fireworks popcorn for dinner. After Grease ended, we put on Xanadu as a nightcap for our evening. It was a relaxing way to wind down the weekend and a great way to put a cap on another good week, here at the Scheu abode…
Next up is our Waybac section, which continues to feature pictures from Deanna’s digital camera from the end of 2006 and all of 2007. We lead off in Dec ’06 for a couple pix on Main St. with the dogs and our fam; then on t0 2007: Jan – Abby’s basketball league game at the YMCA; Mar – Sandy on the Greensburg mayoral trail; Apr – enjoying a luxury suite at the Reds’ game; May – the Dixon Dance Revue, Memorial Day weekend; Jun – summer vacation fun; Jul – 4th of July weekend, Grace’s birthday, Tree City car show, Sandy’s birthday; Sep – Labor Day weekend; Oct – the Van Halen concert at Deer Creek; Nov – Maryann’s birthday; and Dec – the annual Owens Christmas Eve party.
We wrap up this week’s blog entry with our video segment which features two new home movies this week as well as several from around the internet.
And 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