Bart the truck is on hospice care. I took the truck in to the shop last week to get the buzzing noise in one of the wheels looked at, and they showed me a few things. Rust has really taken off in the frame, to the point that they couldn't put it up on the life because it was making the frame cave in. Several areas on the frame have so much rust that you can poke your finger through, and even places where the body is welded on are rusting away. The mechanic who showed me all the rust damage didn't think it was safe to drive. He recommended I avoid potholes and rail crossings, and don't get hit. Plus there is a broken spring to boot and the entire strut on the front right side would need to be replaced, but they didn't think it was worth it. In the end no work was done and I guess I'm going to be looking at new vehicular options.

Wednesday I tried out a spin class at the YMCA. I haven't been on a bike in a while now and I thought it might be fun while I was off work when the classes are on. It was fun, I got a good workout and the class wasn't too crowded (maybe 5 altogether - maybe just because of break? or everyone's sick?) There's a limited number of classes being held until things start back up again in January, so I'll go to what I can while I can. 

I'm officially on Christmas vacation now, I was planning to be off the entire week but did keep having to come in to take care of this or that, or to run to Columbia City, but as of Tuesday afternoon I am on vacation. We have no big vacation plans, which is turning out to be just as well because Alex and Beth are both sick. Alex started feeling crummy in his head earlier this week, with a lot of snot and feeling super tired. Beth is about the same. They both actually went to Medstat together this week, looks like the flu.

So speaking of that, there was a Christmas eve service at the church, but Beth and Alex both didn't feel well enough to go. So, Missy and I went by ourselves, after which we had planned to go out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse with Mary Jane and Natalie. Beth's been super stressed about what to do about Natalie and Christmas this year, and in the end this seemed like the best thing, and then she wasn't well enough to go anyway. We got Nat a bunch of stocking stuffers and some gift cards at Starbucks and Ulta, and I made a shutterfly photo book of her senior portraits and a bunch of other photos of just her. She seemed to appreciate it and we had dinner with no drama. 

Christmas (today) is a much lower-key affair than usual, I think. Besides the fact that some of us are pretty sick, and having no travel plans, we drew down the amount we were spending on the whole thing by quite a bit this year. We got Missy a drawing tablet, a game controller, and some video games, and got Alex some video games and video game-related by-products. Beth got this year's Warsaw cut glass ornament, and I got a snow blower. Fortunately, I haven't had to use it.