Christmas is still a couple weeks away, but you’d never know it by our activities this week. Between the parties and the shopping, you’d swear the special day was upon us already. We had four Christmas events this week, which really kicked-off the holiday season for us. Matt continued working from home in Carmel and then drove to Zionsville to coach wrestling each evening. We enjoyed seeing him for a short time this weekend. Abby had a full week of work in Greenwood, commuting from home all week. She enjoyed spending time with friends and family…and cleaning her room (supposedly – I can’t tell any difference, TBH). Luke passed his Fire 2 class with flying colors and is now ready to re-apply for the Fire Department! He enjoyed spending time with Samantha all week. Ann had a fast week of work and spent a little time with friends. She enjoyed spending time with Abby this weekend. She needed a mommy/daughter day… I did great with my diet during the first part of the week but once the parties kicked in, that went right out the window. That would be fine as long as I keep up my exercise routine…but this week had some challenges and that didn’t happen. I think I only got in four rounds of golf for a total of just under five miles of walking. I enjoyed spending a little time with friends and family this week and look forward to more of it as the season progresses. The only thing missing this week was the weather. It was cool and damp – but just rain; no snow. If it’s going to be cold and gloomy, it might as well have some of that white stuff on the ground. You know what we need now…Dad & Lynn need to come here. That’s a sure-fire way to make sure we have plenty of snow! It always snows whenever they come to visit!! It was good to get together with everyone. We love this time of year because of just that. All I can say is that I’m glad that Covid is over now… Hello again and welcome back to the Scheu Family Blog.
It was back to work, early on Monday morning. As Ann & I headed into Columbus, Abs drove up to Sly Fox in Greenwood to begin her week. I spent the morning catching up on paperwork, returning phone calls and following up on emails. I did about a dozen more purchase orders and headed up to morning meeting. Afterward, I spent the next half hour troubleshooting our Wi-Fi outage. Come to find out, Comcast had cut our service due to our bill not being current. As it turned out, they hadn’t received our last three payments, even though they had – indeed – been sent over a month ago. Their business service is great…except for the accounting side of it. They are so slow to process our payments. We think they do it on purpose so that they force you to have auto-payments set up. I called and let them have a piece of my mind until they reinstated our service for a couple weeks to see if the payments will “magically??? appear. That’s what generally happens. We put a stop payment on the check (yes, it has happened more than once before) and they receive it the next day. Even though we pay our bill three weeks in advance, it is somehow ALWAYS late every month. We regularly pay a late fee and I have grown tired of calling each time and explaining that it’s on their end. Besides that aspect of it, we love the actual service side of it. Once I completed that (a couple hours later), I had another few loose items to tie up and prepare myself to begin monthly reports tomorrow. It was overcast and cool when I got out of work, but that didn’t stop me from playing 18 holes of disc golf at the AirPark. It didn’t mean I played particularly well, but I had my moments – finishing one-over for the day. I picked up Ann and we ran errands, there in Columbus, before heading home. Luke was cooking dinner for he & Samantha when we got home. I was proud of him for making chicken Alfredo. There’s no way I could do that even now. I did good with my fasting but towards the end of the night (after watching a few DVR’d shows), I went on to bed and called it a night – watching MNF in bed before dozing off while watching Tom Brady throw tantrums on the sideline… Here are pictures from Megan’s wedding a weeks ago.
Tuesday was another cool, damp, dark & foggy day. It was a busy day at work for Ann & I. She continues to work up front and pull double duty while one of her girls is out on medical leave. My day flew by and before I even realized it, I had lost eleven pounds and had finished another 48-hour fast. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any time that afternoon for golf. Instead, we left town early to relieve Luke at home. He was there to allow the guy in for our new dishwasher installation. We were about halfway home when Luke called and said the install was finished. However, there was a problem: the new device wasn’t working. So, they left the non-functioning one in the kitchen, ordered a new one and the guy went on his way. We were not very happy when we got home that night as the guy had chipped the countertop badly. I sure hope they don’t get to meet Shitty Ann! When she called Lowe’s, they assured her that the installation company would take care of it, so we’ll see. We were just outside of town when we got Luke’s call. With the install done and Luke heading up to Indy with Alex, we had the night to ourselves. We stopped and got gas & slushes at Amoco then decided to go to Batesville Liquors to pick-up Christmas presents. When we got back home it was just starting to rain. I got the trash & recycles out in the pouring rain. Later, we had heavy thunderstorms. Luke did great on his final skills test of the Fire 2 class. Turns out, he received the highest score in the class! Way to go, little buddy!!
Wednesday began with a rainy morning. It was a great day where I tied up a bunch of loose ends. The guys and I went out for lunch with Jim at Hangar 5, at the AirPark. The afternoon went equally as fast. I got out to play some disc golf that afternoon – despite the cool, damp conditions. The wind was tricky but I stayed pretty warm, all things given. We ran to Kroger before we left town. Ann picked up a few things for pitch-ins that night with her friends and the next day for work. I picked up a couple things for the coming Christmas parties and was excited to get 15% off when we bought six or more bottles. Who could refuse such a deal with a bulk booze discount? ???? On our way back home that night, we noticed that the westbound side of the bypass had been closed-off and the state began the process of putting the tracks back in for the Lowes. We went straight to her friend’s house from work for a Girl’s Night dinner. Abby & I enjoyed a quiet night with a drink out in the family room. I can’t wait to dig out my old record collection and have the chance to play those again for the first time in three decades or more… Luke & Sam went out for dinner at Panda Express then came back to hang out with us for a while. That evening, I began binge-watched Star Wars: Andor and stayed up way too late… Here are random pictures from our recent adventures.
I was slow going on Thursday morning. It rained pretty much all day. We had to take the route we mapped-out to get around the construction that morning. We had to go straight at the light on the bypass, turn down Base Rd and then take 350 back up 3/46 to continue our commute back to work. I had a busy morning again. I interviewed my second dietary aide in three days and hired both of them. We’d gone several years without even a nibble and now we’ve gotten 4 referrals in one week! A big thanks goes out to Jim and Justin for all their efforts! We held our annual Christmas party in the AT room that afternoon. I ate way too much of the food from McAllister’s. I was proud of my folks – Vic received a certificate for five years of service while Lenny got one for fifteen years plus she won the Service Excellence Award! Way to go, Lenny! It was still raining after our party so there was no golf that afternoon. Instead, we left work a little bit early and went to Mom & Sandy’s house to return a few things from Thanksgiving and visit for about an hour. I dropped Annie off at home and headed out to the Wolterin’ Hole for Poker Night with our band of merry men. We had a decent turnout with Bryan, Rick, Shawn, Pat, Mark & I – along with Bryan’s brother. There was a ton of great food. My favorites were Bryan’s bacon-wrapped smoked meatballs and Rick’s seafood mac & cheese – which was amaze-balls! I had to buy back in after losing my initial buy-in but then rallied late to actually come out Even-Steven on the night. We had a lot of fun and laughed until we cried at times. That evening, Luke had his final written exam for the Fire 2 class and again achieved the highest score in his class! Great job, Lukey!!
We were up and at it again, early on Friday morning. It was another damp, overcast day with some dense fog around the area. We ran through Dunkin then I dropped Ann off at her downtown office and went to Walmart to pickup our weekly supplies. I returned a short time later to work from home that day. I only paused a few minutes to go get Annie when she was finished working. In staying focused, I was able to get all but one of my reports finished for the month, including my big Safety Committee one. I had no sooner finished and got things picked up than it was time to get ready for the next Christmas party (our 2nd of 4 this week!). We drove over to 450 North Brewery (Simmons Winery) for Ann’s office party. Dan & George hosted about 35 employees and guests They had a bunch of different pizzas, garlic knots, chicken wings and salad. We ran a drink tab for ourselves, but the docs ended up picking up our tab, which was not expected and very, very nice! When we got home, we were talking with Abby & Carly, who came down to spend the night and supposedly clean Bu’s room…but I don’t know how much of that actually occurred. I made myself a drink, grabbed a cigar and went out on the back porch and had a good conversation with the two of them. We laughed and laughed as we caught up on each other’s lives. I sat down and watched a couple more episodes of Andor and Luke & Samantha ran to Taco Bell for us at some crazy hour. We have lots of social media pictures to share this week.
I was hoping to sleep in on Saturday morning, but I had a call at 3 am from our monitoring company and then again at about 7 am from work, wondering what to do about the light on our panel. The girls were up and moving about as well, so there was no chance of me getting back to sleep at that point. Instead, I saw them off and then got on with my day. They borrowed Gigi’s car and loaded up 40 dozen donuts for the next Christmas party on our slate – the annual Donuts with Santa event for Ann’s work. This year, they had a new venue but other than that, it was the same event that we went to years ago when Ann was just starting out with them. Afterward, the girls went Christmas shopping to hopefully wrap-up the purchases for this year. I also got Ann’s final gift that morning – in between doing a couple loads of laundry and dishes. I worked on the blog all day and binge-watched several hours of that Andor series on Disney+, finishing up season one. I kept waiting for the wet, cold and nasty weather to break that day…but it never did. Instead, I wrote out most of this blog entry, finished editing pictures & videos, uploaded everything and even wrote-out all the html code. By the time I finished, I had watched the whole Star Wars series and it was dark outside. Luke & Sammi went to Columbus to see Santa and the girls then met up with her family and drove over to Cincinnati to see her cousin, who was in the hospital. The girls got back late and had tons of goodies that are now stacked up around my side of the bedroom. How’s that fair?? Here are a few pictures of recent additions to my Hot Wheels collection.
We enjoyed sleeping in on Sunday morning. We slowly got ready and headed up to Indy to see my Scheu side of the family. This year we met up again at Kimmy & Chuck’s house. The girls had borrowed Gigi’s car yesterday and hadn’t returned it. So, we wound up keeping it that day and took it up to Kimmy’s place instead of Luke’s truck in order to save a little gas money. There was a great turnout again this year. I’d say about ¾ of the family were able to make it. We had Aunt Sue (who celebrated her 80th birthday today as well!!), Vicki, Billy & Blancha (and a handful of her family), Jackie, Zack & his girlfriend and Jayce; Cindy and Cathy & Tom; Dad & Barb, Ann & I, Matt & Taylor, Abby and Luke & Samantha; Sally & Scotty, Chris, Trish & their boys and Jason & Kyle; June, Barney & Steph, Haley, Ryan, Parker & Leila and Nick, Conner & their daughter; Kimmy & Chuck & their two boys; as well as Lindsay, Jack & their two boys. Barney cooked a couple huge tenderloins on the grill. I kept him company and enjoyed catching up with him and Giese. I enjoyed talking with Kimmy and Dad and had a chance to chat with most everyone else. It was a good time as always. We paused a moment to have a big family picture. I made a rookie mistake by not paying attention to what mode the camera was in and the pictures turned out to be just a hair out of focus. Thankfully, you can only see it when zoomed-in, but I was disappointed in myself. We ate, drank, watched football and meandered around, talking and snacking. After several hours, we had to say our goodbyes and head home. Although I didn’t get a lot of pictures, Kimmy is supposed to send me all of hers! Luke drove back and did a great job. He dropped us off and then he & Sam re-fueled and swapped Gigi’s car. The kids stayed and talked with Gma & Gigi for a while. Ann & I watched football that night until I fell asleep and called it a night. It was a fun way to wind down the weekend and a great way to wrap up yet another fast week….
Next up is our Waybac section, which features the final batch of pictures from Deanna’s digital camera in 2007. We lead off this week with a couple more pictures of Mom & Sandy’s dogs in the Main St. home in Dec 2006; next we have one more picture from Memorial Day pool time and then the Gigster Group on Midterm Election Day – both in May; in June we see Gigi’s new figure at Luke’s bday party ????; July has the last bunch of pix from the 4th as well as Gracie’s bday, the Tree City Car Show and Sandy’s birthday; August has another good picture of Gigi & Grace; September has Grace dressed up on Labor Day weekend; October has the last two pix from the Van Halen concert; November has Momma O at her birthday dinner; and the final picture from this batch is from Christmas Eve in December of yours’ truly. What a great batch of photos. Big shout-out goes to Dee-Dee for sharing these gems with us!
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 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