Beth's colonoscopy was Monday, and she's glad to be done with it. The prep she had to do for it was pretty, uh, arduous. I had to be with her at the hospital to be able to drive her home, so I got to see the results as well. Her colon looks fine, one little polyp biopsied, but otherwise healthy. So that's good..... The church kids program had a skating night on Tuesday that Alex and I went to. The big happening there was that Alex won 200 tickets on the Deal or No Deal machine; we found out that 200 tickets buys not much more that a couple of Laffy Taffy and some Tootsie Rolls..... The van went to Ab & Tom's on Thursday, we finally couldn't deal with the noises any longer. It's been making a roaring/vibrating noise at around 1100 rpm (not below, or above) for a while now, getting worse. But also much worse lately is a creaking and clicking noise from the front end when turning. So I finally took it in, and they had no problem identifying all the noises. None of the  "It's not doing it when the mechanic is there" kinda stuff here. So the engine mount on the right side is bad, there's a rattling heat shield, and the right front axle is bad. They couldn't get all the parts by COB on Friday, so the van is still there and they will work on it next week too.... The ladies and I went to Fort Wayne of Saturday to visit Jefferson Pointe Mall. Mostly, I needed to go to the Xfinity store to return the old cable boxes I still had even though we cancelled cable TV a few months ago. I'm still paying rent on those boxes because they want them back, even though nobody told me that that I recall. While I was there, they even gave me a better deal on the cable internet service, and a free "flex box" which I guess plays whatever the Xfinity streaming service is, including Peacock, for free since I'm still an Xfinity customer. Don't know if I'll actually use it.....

 Snowmageddon II on Monday night this week. We had something like 8-12 inches of snow overnight. Enough to close school on Tuesday by 8:00 Monday evening. It was rough going just driving over to pick up Alex at Wal-Mart after work. Snow continued Tuesday, and there was a 2-hour delay on Wednesday..... Beth had another mini-vacation Monday and Tuesday, she went to a hotel by herself for 2 nights while I took care of things. She didn't go do much since the snow was so heavy. We didn't either. I just cleaned and did laundry while she was gone, for the most part..... Beth has a procedure scheduled for Monday, so she had to have a covid test on Friday. They do one of those nasal swabs, but I was a bit taken aback at the sight of it. I knew they swab the inside of your nostril, but I hadn't realized they stick it all the way in to your throat. It was the longest Q-tip I had ever seen, and the nurse just stuck it in and kept sticking it farther and farther. Beth was pretty grossed out by it, too, and could taste the stuff on the Q-tip for a long time afterwards..... Friday night the ladies and I went down to Wabash while Alex was at work to try out a new restaurant called Harvey Hinklemeyer's, which had been highly recommended to us by someone (can't remember who?) and turned out to be pretty good. I got pizza, Missy got a burger, Nat got some pasta, and Beth got some sort of something I forgot. Everybody though their stuff was pretty good, although a 45 minute drive is a bit much for it. But, we also checked the Wal-Mart that is right there, just in case they had some more of the gray curtains that the Warsaw store doesn't. They even did! So we picked up a couple for the sliding glass door..... The ladies and I also went to Goshen/Elkhart Saturday to go to Rocket Science and Hobby Lobby while Alex was at work..... So Beth has this procedure on Monday, so she has had to prepare for the procedure all weekend (it's a colonoscopy, so she had to be empty when they do it, if you know what I mean) by drinking a lot of special stuff. She looking forward to this being over and done with.....

 Beth and I spent the weekend cleaning and rearranging the downstairs. We moved around all the furniture, specifically so we could get the couch downstairs. We've always hated that couch since the day we got it home. Anyway, the matching couch and loveseat are now both down there, and the glider rocker and green recliner are back in the living room. We made a few hard decisions about Things, which turned out to be not so hard after all, mostly about getting rid of Things. Almost all of our DVDs are now gone, since we have streaming everything and many have never been watched. Missy thinned out a couple of totes of stuffed animals (we didn't have a teddy bear toss last year, thanx 2 covid). A lot of puzzles are gone. A lot of books, including a lot of cookbooks, are gone. A lot of old toys are gone. All of it went to Goodwill. And we cleaned/straightened a lot, otherwise there's no way we could have gotten the loveseat down there. We also removed the shelves that were on the wall, meaning we had to find space for or get rid of a lot of junk. The Ikea box shelves went against the wall that the shelves were on, and the TV went where that thing had been. I also cleaned up Dad's old computer, which I've been dragging my feet on, so I can get rid of it. By cleaned up, I mean I moved out all the photo files I might want, and deleted everything else. I haven't been able to figure out how to fully wipe the hard drive without having the re-installation media, so actual disposing of it will have to wait until I can.....I bought flowers for Beth for Valentine's Day, but we did nothing else.....Natalie had ISTEP this week, which again is held in Mishawaka, so Beth had to drive her out there each testing day. The first day, she had one of her attacks/episodes, whatever they are, so she got no testing done and Beth and a teacher had to basically carry her back down to the car. I think she got all flustered because her computer wasn't working very well at the test site and she wasn't sure what to do. Anyway, she did get the rest of the testing done on subsequent days, though.....Missy worked a play at school through her tech theatre class. She was running the lights for it......

The Super Bowl is over, and I'm a little surprised (not shocked, because Brady) and pretty disappointed in the game. What a yawner, and it had so much potential.....For something to do on Saturday, while Alex was working, the girls and I went to Fort Wayne to go the the Barnes & Noble and walk the mall. Yeah, not very exciting, but.....Beth and I picked out some new curtains for the living room window this weekend. Gray ones, and they match the walls pretty well. Almost completes the refreshing of the upstairs (I still have to replace a piece of trim, but that's probably going to sit for a while). They look good up there, and the red ones are now gone. However they didn't have enough of them to also replace the ones on the sliding glass door, so we'll have to check again later....