Beth and I were pretty bored Saturday this week, but weren't finding a whole lot to do around town so ultimately we wound up going to the high school basketball game at Lakeland. Which turned out to be a pretty good time, we saw several people we knew and the game was good, with LCA losing by 3 in the end. They fell behind early and then kept getting close to getting close, but never pulled even. And the other team had a long buzzer beater on one of the quarter breaks that went in for 3. It had no business going in, but in the end it was the difference in the game. Oh well, we had a good time.

Saturday morning I helped a widow from our church move in to a new apartment in assisted living. She wasn't moving all that much so it only took a few hours, and just a few family members and a couple men from church was enough to get it done. 

 This is Beth's birthday weekend! She wasn't looking for it to be a big deal though. What she wanted was to go shoe shopping in FW and to get dinner at Storming Crab. So we did that. Otherwise, not much new to report.

I've been heavy into technical production at church lately, Jack is going to be gone all of February so he's training me to take it all over for then. Which means during the week I go in the church and spend a couple hours going over the sermon presentation and develoiong the slides. Everything is a little in flux at church since Jeremy left, since he was doing it before and there's no replacement yet, it's just volunteers filling the gap. 

The microorganisms have been back in me with a vengeance, I've been sick with a head cold for the past week. Finally getting better but still a river of snot going on. And tired...the kind of sick that makes you say 'I'm just going to lie down for a few minutes' and wake up 4 hours later.

I had a plumber make a house call this week, even though I was sick. It was a visit to get the anode in the water heater replaced, but in the end he said it wasn't really necessary and that if I just cleaned it out once in a while it should be fine. I also had used the pressure relief as a vent when I drained it last week, which he said to not do ever again. In the future, just drain it with the supply open and it'll force the gunk out the bottom, without risking damaging the relief valve.

Slow week. Beth and I called both the kids today and nobody could think of much to report. They have school, I had work, that's about it. 

We did have the annual soup/chili cook-off for the annual report at church today. Beth brought a crock-pot of her soala soup, but it didn't win. You never can tell with soup judges, I guess. I have been set-up deacon for the month, which has been a pain since there has been a lot of stuff to do. There was a birthday party at the church Saturday to set up for, then tear it down that same evening and set up for Sunday morning, then tear down and set up again for the chili cook-off, and set up for a Ladies ministry party next weekend. But it turned out we didn't need to set up the sanctuary for Sunday since the kids wanted to play dodgeball on Wednesday evening and they said they would get things set back up. So that was handy. 

I've started a project (another one, yeah I know) to reduce clutter at home. It's fun though. It is Legos. The kids got a million Lego sets over the years and rarely played with them after they were built. I saved all the instruction books. So now we have several boxes in the shelf downstairs that contain nothing but pieces of Legos in a big heap. So I'm digging through to find the pieces to build whatever it is in the instruction books, then bagging the pieces with the intent to sell. I'm hoping there's a market for it. There are a bunch of themed sets like Jurassic World and Avengers and Pixar, so maybe those will resell. We'll see. I got my first one all together today, a Lego City rescue helicopter. 

I did some plumbing work of a sort this week, it came to my attention recently (because our hot water has had a gray tint for a little while now) that we have had our current hot water heater for around 7 years, and I am supposed to drain and flush it every year and replace the sacrificial anode every year or two. Well, I've never actually done it. My guess is nobody ever does it. So I spent an evening this week draining the water (and a LOT of sediment) out of the bottom of the heater. With the water shut off, I drained the thing pert near empty into a bucket and emptied it into the shower...over and over and over again. Some really gross looking water came out of there, but it was pretty clean by the end. I flushed a lot of clean water out of it too to get as much out as possible. I also tried to replace the anode, but I could not get the plug to budge even a little bit. So, I have called a plumber to come in next week and hopefully he can do it. 

I'm back at work as of Tuesday, but even work has been pretty uneventful as was Christmas break as a whole this year. I did go in to work several times this week rather than just stay home, but I probably could've stayed home most of the time. 

Beth and I went to a horrible hockey game Saturday. The labs at work organized a group outing to see a Komets game instead of a Christmas party, and the game of choice was Saturday. And boy o boy did the Komets stink. They were playing the Toledo Walleye (nemesis) and scored the first goal about halfway through the first period, but from then on got out-skated, out-hustled, out-played, and out-scored by a lot. The final score was 8-2. But I wouldn't even say the game was as close as the score indicated. They should have lost by 10.

We didn't want to leave Missy home on her last day for the hockey game, so I offered to buy her a ticket and get one for a friend if she could find one to go and sit together, but she insisted she was fine to stay home and didn't really feel like going to a hockey game anyway. In the end, good choice for her. 

Friday Beth and I took Missy to see the new "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish" movie. Wow...I cannot begin to describe how much I loved it. So amazingly good. And the animation was incredible. And the story was great, and the ending was great, and it was great! I want to see it again.

Missy has gone back to school, as of today. Beth and I took her back to Muncie this afternoon shortly after church. We hit the Walmart to get a few things she needed for the dorm, and then found a really good fro-yo build your own sundae place not too far from the school, which we decided is good enough to go back to all the time. So, the holidays are over, everyone has gone back to work or school, and that just about wraps things up. I already took the tree down this week so Christmas is back in the box. 

Alex has gone back to school. Bummer that his vacation was spent almost entirely being sick, too sick to want to do anything even like seeing a movie, or do anything for NYE. But we did at least get him to church once, today. We thought everyone should see him once before we went back. Anyway we got him to O'Hare by around 2 pm for his flight at 4, but there was a huge crowd to check in and get through security. He got away without any difficulty, and Scott was all lined up to collect him from the airport in Seattle and get him to the apartment. Back to school. 

Speaking of NYE, it was also low key. We all went out to dinner at Oak & Alley with the Lancasters, then Beth and I went to their house to play some games (I got the family edition of Cards Against Humanity for Christmas, and we also brought Taboo) and eat some snacks, while their kids did whatever they were doing with their friends over. Alex and Missy didn't feel like going, which was fine, so they stayed home. We didn't even stay until midnight. Too late. We were home for midnight, said happy new year to the kids, and we went to bed. Nobody's feeling great. Missy started feeling sick this week too. I'm ok, still.

I went to another spin class at the YMCA this week. Many more people at this one than the last one. I also got a new cycling jersey and some cycling shorts to ride in this time, which I can see how some people might think it makes a difference. I might also try using clip-in shoes again in the class until I get used to them, since I can't fall over. That is, if I can actually go to any spin classes after work starts up again.