Scheu Family Blog

Another month has slipped by us already. Boy, 2023 just flew – didn’t it? The first month of Q4 sure was a busy time for us. We enjoyed spending time with our friends and doing things we loved like concerts, scrapbooking and disc golf. When we stayed at home, it was equally busy with a new puppy running around (it’s almost like having a newborn baby in the house!) and keeping up with Luke & Samantha as well as Abby & Seth. It’s like we had one adult child move out and two others move in – LOL! The month started hot but ended with a frost warning. We made the switch from our warm-weather vehicle (Black Betty, who has 360K+ on her now) to the cold-weather vehicle (the Barneymobile), which only has 275K+ miles. We’re trying hard to make them last just two more years… We continue to meet with our financial advisors to ensure we are staying on-track for retirement. We are down to under three years to achieving debt-free status and from there, about seven more years until we finally get to slow down. I had a great birthday weekend, which included a couple tourneys, a little bourbon, a fire with a few stogies and even some euchre. Ann had a serious job offer to ponder. Abby & Seth spent time together every day while Seth worked towards becoming a homeowner. Luke is all about work, doing his own stuff with Alex (S & D) on odd jobs (including a huge job at Mesco), going through the process to get on to the fire department force for the third time, as well as keeping up with his mowing business while Sam splits time between work, school & Luke. She tries to come over as much as she can. She & Seth are here so often that they should consider having their mail forwarded to here 😊. Maddy and Taylor continue to live up on the north side of Indy, doing their thing and figuring out who they are and doing some personal growth. It was great to spend time with at least half of that duo for a little while. Having all the kids on my birthday weekend was a goal that we achieved again this year. Abby & Seth are leading our fantasy football league – Abs in the Scheu division and Seth in the non-Scheu division. The leaves are mostly off our trees though some remain on our neighbors’. We had our penultimate mow/trim at the end of the month. The landscape during our commute to work changed daily as farmers were quickly harvesting their fields after we endured our first freeze of the season, late in the month. It is dark on our way to work but still plenty of sun when we get back home. We know that will change next week when we “fall back” due to DST ending. October was a good month, but one of change. I guess I never realized how much change occurs in October before this year. For whatever reason, my eyes have widened this month and I find myself more aware of my surroundings and paying attention to what is happening around me instead of just keeping my head down and doing my thing. I think work has a lot to do with that, as the biggest changes seem to be occurring there. For years, work was the one constant thing in my life for the last two or three decades, but that isn’t as stable as it once was. I sincerely hope that the changes will ultimately turn out to be good things, but there is a definite shadow of doubt lingering in the air right now… Hello again and welcome to the latest installment of the Scheu Family Blog.

During the first half of October, we finally started to see a shift in the temperatures. The week started off hot but after a couple days of rain, we finally began to dip down into fall weather. Luke continued his buy schedule, focusing on his big job at Mesco. He and Alex got into a weird situation where they were almost electrocuted. They learned some valuable lessons that day… He continues to pursue his dream of being a firefighter. He passed his written exam as well as his CPAT test. The next step is an interview, which he has in the coming week. He finished his first season of coaching football anticlimactically. After losing a makeup game’s second half vs. Batesville, their final game was rained out (didn’t know that was a thing for football??) vs. New Castle. It’s probably for the best as they ended the season with only 8 active players (due mostly to disciplinary issues). So, the 7th grade team ended their season (I believe) with a 1-8 record. Hopefully, he and Alex will come back again next year to coach despite the sour taste this season left in their mouths. They continue to run the drone camera at home varsity games as well. I believe they remain the only football team to have won on the new turf field. He spends his down time with Ms. Samantha, who Ann & I joke that she’s our fourth child. She & Seth have become staples in the house. We’re thrilled that the kids spend some much time with us at the house. Luke has worked hard to get his room transformed by installing new fixtures (including a ceiling fan) and cleaning out old stuff. Here are random pictures from our recent adventures last month.

Abby & Seth continue to burn the candle at both ends and do what they can to see each either – despite working different shifts. Seth is ready to close on his new house, which he will do at the end of the month. In preparation, he has begun acquiring furniture – including a couple things from our house. But the big news is that they decided to buy a puppy – so Ann & I are now officially grandparents. LOL! 😊 Her name is Tillie and she’s a Goldendoodle. She is super cute and all puppy. She did great with Delilah but found out quick that Lola doesn’t play… Mads & Taylor did their thing up north and we didn’t see them the first half of the month. Ann & I were busy at work, as normal. CRH closed her Greensburg office and got all the furniture moved out. She wound up turning down the opportunity to change career paths, which she gave a lot of attention to and really weighed all the options. She spent time with friends, going scrapbooking in Burney, going out to eat with the girls and even attended a mystery dinner with Amy, down in Lawrenceburg. Despite the weather, work and life in general, I managed to get out and play golf nearly every day – including a couple times in the rain. I even managed to get Bryan out with me in Batesville. I signed up for two tourneys on my birthday weekend. One is a nighttime tourney with glow-in-the-dark discs. That one is in Columbus while the 2nd one is the next morning in Batesville. I finished 2nd in my age category last year, so I hope I can do equally as well or even better! But wait; there’s more – Mads is coming down to play with me! We continue to make progress with our retirement goals and met with Angie & Spencer to make sure we’re keeping on track. I picked up a couple good bottles of bourbon and rye and Bryan surprised me with the newest bottle of Blackened, which is a mashup with the Rabbit Hole brand! Besides disc golf, I enjoyed seeing my friends each week at Poker Night and one evening, our couples friends all got together to celebrate Angie’s upcoming birthday. We all met up at the Sunken Boat Bar to tailgate then hopped in a party bus and rode up to Indy to see Steve Miller and the Eagles at the Fieldhouse! It was supposed to be Steely Dan, but Donald Fagen was sick. The Steve Miller Band was great! Steve can still play and sing like he’s in his 20s/30s, despite being 80 years old! As good as Steve and his band were, the Eagles were outstanding. Granted, there’s no Glenn Frey, but Vince Gill more than made up for it. And what can you say about Joe Walsh – he still has it! Man, he was ON that evening and really fed off the crowd. We had a perfect view of everything from our seats up in one of the suites! Bryan really outdid himself that night… Tillie’s first night was a little rough at first with a lot of crying, she eventually settled down and did good, sleeping through the night with no accidents! She & Delilah are great together. Dee has always been good with young dogs, but she has a special bond with this one. They hang out together and run & play for hours.

We started off the second half of the month with a bang. Vic was doing some maintenance work on the sprinkler system for me and accidentally set one of the heads off, thoroughly drenching him and bringing the fire department to the facility! Thankfully, from there things calmed down pretty quickly. We had the house inspected as part of the HELOC process, which went great. It was Tilly’s first day at home with her cousins (aunts?). She was sure glad to see us when we got home that first day. She’s so frickin’ cute! Thankfully she is made of rubber because she wipes out all the time…and she’s not scared to jump down off high ledges. She takes a tumble and keeps on going! We worked on potty training her, but it’s been a long process. She can be stubborn at times and so we’ve gradually begun disciplining her. I got in several rounds of disc golf at the AirPark and even got over to Batesville a couple times to work on my form and take a few notes about what discs I want to throw on certain holes. I’m trying to get my buddy Dennis or even Bryan to come play the night tourney with me, but so far I’m still going solo. I logged a decent round the week before the Batesville tourney, which gives me hope that I can perform well in my second attempt to win that one. Bryan drove us over to play golf in Batesville in the rain one weekend. It was my 3rd round in the rain this month, as things start to cool down as it does every October. We stopped by our favorite liquor store for some libations and a few stogies. He surprised me with my first birthday present – the newest version of the Blackened whiskey (Metallica’s brand), which is a venture with the Rabbit Hole master distiller. I can’t wait to try it with him. We celebrated Seth’s birthday with Abby & Sam making dinner. It was the same meal that Abby & Seth made for Ann & I on our anniversary. We stayed up late, drinking and playing cards. We even had a few fires on the weekends over the last half of the week, despite the chilly temps. Ann went scrapbooking in Lawrenceburg with Shawna. Luke & Sam continue to spend as much time together as they can. They’re funny together – a good match for each other. He & Alex landed another big job, so they are well on their way and constantly busy! He had a good interview and made it to the next level of the GFD process! Next up, he gets to do a ride along with the firefighters! Abby took Seth to his first Colts game. But, in typical Colts’ style, they lost a tough one again… I had a great birthday weekend, celebrating me surviving another trip around the sun. I received another bottle of bourbon through the mail, along with a couple of Hot Wheels from the Red Line Club. Maddy came down the night of the Columbus tourney but was too late to join me – but did stay the night and got up and went to Batesville with me. After meeting with our financial advisors and going for an adult beverage on Friday (which was Rob’s 44th birthday), I drove over to Columbus to meet up with my old friend Dennis to play in the Glow / Grow Rotary fundraiser out at the AirPark. It wasn’t a true tourney as scorekeeping was optional. We had glow-in-the-dark discs with the tee boxes, greens & chains all lit with glowsticks. It was a trip! …And a little tougher than I thought it would be. The putting was weird because I couldn’t use my depth perception and I wound up shooting an even par on the night. We went out for dinner and a beer afterward and enjoyed catching up with each other’s lives. The kids were all up when I got home, late that evening. We played Wii Sports for a while before going outside to have a drink, cigar and a fire. I turned in a little early so that I could get up on time the next morning. On Saturday (which was the big Double Nickel for me), Maddy & I drove over to Batesville early…a bit too early. When we got there, we were 20 minutes too early to go through registration, so we grabbed breakfast from BK drive-thru and came back to warm up on a cool, damp morning. It rained for much of the morning – so much so that we thought they may delay the start. However, we pushed through it and played through the elements. We started over in the wooded area on the back nine, on hole 15 – which is the furthest hole over there. It rained off & on the whole time we were over there. We were a little winded when we finally got all the way over there for the shotgun start. Due to the rain, I slipped on three tee shots and the disc slipped out of my hand four separate times. Despite my early errors in the rain, it stopped when we got over to the front nine in the park. There, I threw a 5-under (and it probably should’ve been 7-under) and ended up with a three under par score. I wasn’t sure if that would get me a top-three finish or not. As it turned out, it was not only top three, but I actually won! 😊 And I won by like 6 strokes! Granted, it was a 1st in my age division and not overall, but I’ll take it!! I finished tied for 7th overall. We stopped by our favorite liquor store on our way out of town for a handle of Wild Turkey Honey and some cigars. When we got home, Mads had to get back to Taylor so we said our goodbyes and I fired up the grill. Ann made tater tots & roasted cheesy broccoli while I cooked burgers and brats from Langen Meats on the grill. I showed off my trophy disc, two bonus discs and $50 gift certificate and then had cake (a delicious one that Ann made – yum!) and opened presents. Mom & Sandy weren’t able to make it due to Mom hurting her ribs after another fall outside. Thankfully, she’s ok – just a little sore – although her ego was pretty bruised, I think. We went over to check on her and she was a little prickly that we were there to evaluate her. Although the Colts lost a close one the next day, the Cowboys looked good and won again. It was the perfect way to wrap up a really cool birthday weekend. It got cooler during the ensuing work week and the month ended with Halloween. I turned out to be a really, really long day. After a hard day at work (doing monthly EOC rounds), I went to a cardiologist appointment (which went very well), ran a couple errands and came home. There were about five kids out trick-or-treating in the sub-thirty degree weather. We didn’t even get any candy because we figured there wouldn’t be much…and we were correct. Plus, with the three dogs, cool weather and door opening continually we didn’t think that it was a good move. I ate dinner and went straight to bed. I slept about two hours and got up to drive back over to Columbus. I worked overnight on third shift then stayed over to work my regular shift. Honestly, I did pretty well and even had enough energy left to play 18 holes of disc golf at Donner Park afterward. I picked up Abby from the shop (she had her car serviced by the Honda dealership out by the YMCA) then Ann & I watched a few episodes of the new season of Bosch on Freevee before forcing myself to go on to bed (I was so wired at that point). It was the perfect way to wrap up another fun month, here at the Scheu abode….

Next up we have our Waybac section. This month we have two sets of pictures. The first features Matt & Abby, downtown at Kevin’s studio on the square – here in Greensburg in August 2001. The second set of pix features Matt during his first recital at the elementary school in December 2001.

Next up is our video segment which includes two new home movies from this month as well as several from sources I’m subscribed to around the internet.

And that does it for this month’s entry 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, be safe out there and have a good one. We miss ya, Mom.
Later, Scheu