Beth’s birthday was this past Monday, and she didn’t have to go to work since it’s also MLK Day. I took everyone out for sushi on her birthday, and also got er a new Keurig (the old one has died recently) with some new k-pods and a pressure cooker cookbook….I brought the van in to the shop again on Monday, since it’s still been making those clunking noises up front. They found a bad CV axle on the right front, but didn’t have the part, so it took until Tuesday to get it back. It only set me back about $320…Wednesday, school was cancelled again, so no FCC Kids again, then school was cancelled on Friday again. Alex was supposed to have a robotics meet this Saturday, but it was cancelled, which was a bummer also because he got a day off work to be able to go to it…. Saturday I wanted to go visit Mom before the roads got bad and I couldn’t, and everyone (including a friend of Nat’s) went with as far as Fort Wayne (I dropped them off at the mall). I visited her for a couple hours, by which I mean I sat at a table with her and tried to talk to her but she was mostly non-responsive. She looked around and occasionally laughed at one of the other old ladies there, and said a few words here and there. She did seem to recognize a picture of the cross-stitched wall hanging that her great-grandmother made (“I’ve seen seen seen seen seen that”) but I got nothing else out of her. She finally got a haircut last week, first one in months and months, so she looks a bit more like herself now. Afterwards, I picked everyone up at the mall and we had dinner at Red Robin before heading back. The roads were getting kind of slippery.

The season of cancellations has begun in earnest, it seems. The Wednesday evening kids program was supposed to start up again this week, but school was cancelled on Wednesday so that was also cancelled. Alex had a robotics meet scheduled for Saturday, but that was cancelled. He was actually going to miss the last hour or two of the meet because he was scheduled in at work Saturday, but his work was cancelled. And then church was cancelled today. And Alex did go to work today but was sent home a couple hours early because it was so slow there. The weather reporters had been saying all week that this would be a good weekend to stay in and binge watch something, but truthfully I didn’t think it was nearly as bad as everyone was making it out to be. Yeah, it’s cold. Yeah, it snowed. So what…..last Monday I got a call from Mom’s place, she fell again; not injured but it’s been happening a lot lately, they’ve been having to feed her, and she’s been losing weight. They recommended we have her evaluated for hospice care. She was evaluated and accepted for it by Thursday, although she’s higher functioning than some, can still walk, and probably is just on the cusp of needing it.

We’ve kept pretty much at home this weekend because Beth has had a migraine for a few days. I was planning on getting some more of the plastering work on the ceiling done but thought it wasn’t a good idea to run the Shop-vac and sander or have paint fumes in the house with her feeling as bad as she did….last Tuesday was the first time Beth and I joined the church card/board game night group. Only there was too much else Beth needed to do, running the kids around mostly, so she didn’t go. But Kieran and Anna, Bob and Lindsey, Brandon F, Eddie, and the Lancasters were there. I played Azul with Brandon and the Joneses while the others played King of Tokyo, then Lindsey had to go and we all switched to Cockroach Poker and No Thanks. Lots of fun, gotta keep that up….Friday was the youth group Nerf War (Nat didn’t go)….

I'm back at work. First day back was Wednesday, not much going on yet and many people not there yet. It picked up later in the week….Friday I sold Mom’s grandmother clock. I’d put an ad on Craigslist a few weeks ago and wondered since then, is it a ‘thing’ to reply to and ad on Craigslist asking if it’s still available, then never contact the seller again? Because that happened 3 or 4 times. Someone would show interest and never follow up. But finally a pastor from Ohio saw the ad and drove all the way here to check it out. I was only asking $50 which he said was a good price (I’m sure it is), and he seemed to know all about these clocks (he apparently works on clocks as a hobby and takes paying jobs to build/clean/fix them). So now that’s out of the house, which is good. I keep making incremental improvements in that area….Alex had a Christmas party last Thursday (yeah, he knows Christmas is over) at work. They actually closed the entire restaurant to have the party, got the whole staff together for a white elephant gift exchange. Alex brought some old toys and came home with a jar full of Skittles. He was also named the Culver’s employee of the month for December! That is so awesome! Plus it comes with a $50 bonus in his next paycheck….

Christmas is back in the box, and the return to normal begins tomorrow when I go back to work. The kids will be off school until next Monday, though. The break has been pretty low-key, not much travel, not much drama, which is good. The last week at work before break was pretty busy but I left Friday at around lunch time, and I’ve been off since then. We’ve kept sort-of busy over break, although nothing earth-shattering, and we weren’t really busy all day long much either. I finally did some Christmas shopping for Beth on Monday the 24th with the kids; we got her a crock-pot pressure cooker and a new electric skillet (yes, it was what she wanted) then we looked all over town trying to find somewhere for lunch that was open on Christmas eve. Our church had a Christmas Eve service later on. We did presents on Christmas morning. Alex’s big haul was a smartphone. That and a couple game accessories was all he wanted. I’m keeping him on the same plan so that won’t cost me any more than it does now, at least. Missy got a bunch of Dr. Who merchandise, some art supplies, some clothes, and some DVDs. Natalie got mostly clothes, poetry books, and her big thing was a weighted blanket. Beth’s haul was mostly the cookware. Mine was some clothes (a collared shirt, socks and underwear) most notably a leather jacket. I love that she wanted to get me a new jacket since I ripped the suede one last year but I really don’t like the jacket she got me. Anyway, we had a big Christmas dinner at home (turkey and everything) afterwards with Mary Jane over, then in the evening we all went to see the “Aquaman” movie and drove out to look at the Christmas lights up in town and in the park downtown. The day after Christmas Beth took the girls out to get their nails done, so while they were out Alex and I went to Fort Wayne to visit Mom/Grandma. She is declining even more, it seems, this time I’m pretty sure she didn’t know who either one of us were and she wouldn’t speak to us or get up from the chair she was in. She didn’t seem to know what to do with the card or presents (the Pettits sent her a box of chocolate candies, and we got her a new blanket) that we gave her. Thursday the whole family went out to Pottery Bayou. Missy found a Tardis bank so she painted that, Alex did a cupcake jar, Nat did a paintbrush tote, Beth did a Christmas tree with a space for votive candles in it, and I for the first time ever painted something myself. I did a ball ornament, painted a little decorated Christmas tree in a pine forest with a big star in the sky overhead. Missy had guitar lessons in the afternoon. On Friday, we all headed to Michigan for the day to visit family. We stopped to see Judy and Neill first at the lake house, where Beth did some additional prep for dinner, then to the Pinksters’ where the whole family gathered for a big dinner and dirty bingo afterwards. We all had brought something or other (I brought the half a globe I won at Beth’s work dirty bingo, plus a Moe’s gift card) and Beth and I both ended up with some sort of art supplies which the girls really liked and took home. On Saturday, sorry to say, I returned the leather jacket. To lessen that blow I took some of the money for it and went shopping. I didn’t find anything I liked a Kohl’s where she got the jacket so I went to Goodwill next and found two really nice long-sleeve shirts for work for a total of $6. Missy was invited to a murder mystery sleepover at her friend’s church on Sunday, which she really enjoyed. She’s been pretty fed up with some of the kids in our church’s youth group lately and I wonder if she’d prefer to go to the youth group there. Or both of them maybe, since I think they meet some other time than Wednesdays. After we picked up Missy on Monday morning we all headed to Indy for the day to go shopping at IKEA. Mostly because Nat needs a new dresser, but we would up spending a lot more than just for the dresser. But we did get a new dresser for her which seems really nice. We also picked up some cookware and candles and batteries and mats and stuff and things. Just right back home after shopping. Afterwards we spent New Year’s Eve at the Jones house, also with the Lancasters and a few other families we don’t know. We had all the standard fare, plus played a bunch of card games most notably Cockroach Poker which is really fun and we liked a lot. There were so many kids running around that anything other than card games like that wasn’t going to happen. We stayed until just after midnight….Today is New Year’s Day. I ran in the Winona Lake Polar Dash 4-miler this afternoon, finished in 35:30, 3rd in my age group. There must have been around 70 people running. I started running again over break just before Christmas, it’s amazing how much I’ve lost since the Veterans’ Half 6 weeks ago. About 4.5 miles was all I could manage…..otherwise today I got the Christmas tree and decorations packed up, and got to work on assembling Nat’s new dresser….also over the break I’ve decided to get something done with the ceiling in the living room. When we were having the roof done in 2014 the drywall on the ceiling was damaged a bit so I repaired it and mudded over it, one time, and never sanded or painted. I know Beth has wanted me to get to it for a long long time, so now I’m doing it. And while I’m at it, I’m also fixing several other imperfections in the ceiling and walls so we can get things ready to paint. The house desperately needs that, everywhere. We can’t do it all at once though, so I’m going to start with the ceiling in the living room because that’ll be the hard part and take the longest. So, I’ve been setting up a scaffold out of sawhorses and an old closet door and getting out the sanding attachment on the Shop-vac….