I am on Christmas break for the next 2 weeks! Things wrapped on Friday, and I have enough time off and got things taken care of sufficiently that I'm taking all of the next 2 weeks. My next day at work will be Jan 5, 2026. Seems a long way away. Bet it won't for long.

Tonight was our first Christmas party of the season, possibly our only one. The Zastrows had a gathering for all the worship and technology teams at their house. Lots of food, and the groups kind of split between the upstairs and downstairs, somehow. I was downstairs most of the time. Beth came late, because she was in FW visiting MJ in the hospital after her surgery for the broken leg. I think we were the last ones to leave, like usual. I gifted Todd the "Crap Taxidermy" book I got last year (I think) because I had to see his reaction to some of the pictures. Hilarious.

Monday I had my third, and as it turned out, final tournament match on the Fresh Out of Bed and Head to Head year end tournament of champions. I lost, after knowing the name of the evil archnemesis of the Powerpuff Girls (Mojo Jojo) but not knowing the name of the orangutan leader in the Jungle Book (King Louie) or how many strings on a violin (I guessed 5, which was wrong, then she guessed 4, which was right). So that ended my run. As it turned out, the next day was the final so I came that close to being in it, but I think I probably would have lost anyway, based on hearing the championship game the next day. I didn’t know a couple of the answers, and also as it turned out, this years champion is the same person who won it all by defeating me in the 2020 championship. So she’s a 2-time winner, and I came close again. Oh well.

On Thursday night, Beth's friend MJ fell in her parking lot and broke her leg. The same one that she already had a lot of hardware in from a car crash 20-odd years ago. She called Beth from the parking lot before the paramedics even got there, I could hear her screaming over the phone from across the couch. She wound up being transferred from Warsaw to FW Lutheran, and had surgery a day or so later. Beth and I went over to FW to visit her yesterday and she was doing a little better but still in a lot of pain. 

I have seen the Komets lose before, but never quite like that. The annual Teddy Bear Toss was this weekend. Beth, Alex, and I went with Mary Jane, since Missy wasn’t home yet and Natalie had other plans. I went and raided the Goodwill for used stuffed animals and picked up a whole bunch the day before so we were well armed, but I got seats in a different section than we usually do because Beth has a hard time with the stairs. We were kind of in a corner behind the goal, but seated in the first row down from the walkway so very few stairs. Also behind the net, so when the Komets made it 1-0 about 5 minutes into the game I had to walk a ways in order to get the teddies around the net and onto the ice. By the end of the first period it was 3-0 Komets. After 2 periods it was 3-2, but the K’s made it 4-2 shortly into the third and that score held until there was about 2 minutes left in the game. At which point I said to Alex, “A 2-goal lead with 2 minutes to go…we should win this one!” Then KC pulled the goalie and scored right away. And again a minute later. And again with 11 seconds remaining. So the Komets lost 5-4 after such a promising start. One of the most deflating losses I’ve ever seen there. 

Missy was home the next day. She finished all her exams, had the screening for both films she’s working on (and they turned out amazing), and drove up for break on Saturday. She was here by afternoon. Full house again for a few weeks!

On Monday, Corey from Pulse FM called me for the Fresh Out of Bed and Head to Head year end tournament of champions. They’ve structured it differently this year, so the winner plays again immediately… not sure how the bracketology goes with this… so did my second opponent have a first round bye then? Anyway, moot point because I won both games (steamrolled the first opponent, rallied past the second). So I’ll continue on, but not sure when…

Tuesday afternoon was my work group’s Habitat for Humanity build. We went out to a build site in Mentone and were planning to do 4 hours of some sort of work, but unfortunately at the time they were in something of a holding pattern because they were waiting for the furnace guys to come and finish an install. We would probably have been painting the whole time but they haven’t been able to because it’s been so cold. So instead, we just did prep work for painting, which hadn’t been done either. It seemed to be a bit up in the air when they are going to be able to paint, but anyway we spent 2 hours going through the house and taping over the duct openings, electrical outlets, bathroom fixtures etc. 

The soup show season is in the books now, and we really kind of crushed it at the Wawasee show yesterday. Overall we sold 164 soups, which is an all-time show record for us. It got busy early on and never really tailed off until the very last 30 minutes or so. Traffic was very heavy all day, we kept hearing people talk about how crazy the parking lot was and how long it took them to find a spot to park. Beth and I had brought a somewhat smaller amount of soups to sell than we had for the past few years, just because we figured we had plenty based on how sales have gone this year. So we only had to carry 21 jars of soup home after the show wrapped up. 

Our new microwave oven has been installed. For several weeks or a few months now, we’ve been using the little one we bought for Missy to use in her dorm room a couple years ago as our primary microwave in the kitchen, and it’s not ideal. Too small, isn’t terribly powerful, and in the way. Especially during soup season. So Beth and I finally went to Smith Appliance and bought a new one (the old one, also from there, was over 20 years old, so I guess it was time). They put the new one in and hauled the old one away this week, and it’s very nice to have a nuke again.

Alex got a rejection from Winona IT on Thursday. They said they didn’t have any positions that fit his experience. Well, crap. Back to the drawing board.

Thanksgiving this year comes late in the month, which means that this is a year that there are only 3 weeks in between Thanksgiving break and Christmas break! Beth and I had originally had plans to go to Laura & Thomas' with the whole family for Thanksgiving, but Natalie wasn't going to go because she couldn't bring Churro, Beth didn't want to leave Natalie alone again for Thanksgiving, and then Alex couldn't get time off work for the trip, so it went from "we're all going" to "Alex, Missy and I are going" to "We're not going." At least I was able to cancel in advance, unlike a few years ago. In the end though, it was just as well we didn't go anywhere because the weather got pretty ugly this week. Heavy snow across the country. Actual lake effect snow, blowing further south than it usually does. Missy got home fine on Wednesday, but shortly afterwards the snow started in earnest. I actually used the snowblower Beth got me a couple years ago, more than once during the snowstorm. So anyway, glad to have stayed home.

Thanksgiving itself was low key. Beth got a giant turkey a couple weeks ago, but in the end she decided she didn't want to make it and we would have it for Christmas instead. As usual, she made a list of a million or so side dishes she wanted to make, and I had to remind her a coupe times "It's just us." But Mary Jane also came over, and Jacob (Nat's boyfriend) did for dinner as well (I think he had 2 dinners to eat on Thursday). MJ brought the sweet potatoes, and Beth made the green bean casserole, brussels sprouts, mashed potatoes, dinner rolls, cranberry sauce, and instead of the turkey, a crock pot chicken. In the end, everyone was saying that they filled up so much on side dishes that they didn't have any room for the chicken...which made us wonder why we even have the bird at all. I think from now on, holiday dishes around here are going to be bird-free. Side dishes only, since the bird is really everyone's least favorite part, and it takes the most effort. So why do it? 

Beth and I finally got around to shopping for a new microwave this week. It will be nice to have the old one over the stove gone and a working model in it's place. 

Today Missy and I drove her back to school. She was really nervous about driving back with the roads as bad as they've been for the past several days, so I drove back with her. I couldn't drive for her since, you know, I need to get home again and she needs the van, so we convoyed there. We went the usual way and the roads were fine. Things were clear all the way to FW so I almost called her and told her I was just going to go back home and she'd be fine the rest of the way, but it was also pretty windy so I stayed with her all the way there. Good thing too because she was stressing about how windy it was and the van was getting blown around a bit, so she was still really nervous. So I stayed with her all the way there, helped her unload her stuff, and then headed back home. No problems all the way there and back.

The 3rd and penultimate soup show of the season was this weekend, Yuletide Treasures in Columbia City on Saturday. Beth’s been so sore lately, and making soup is harder than ever, so I think this time she felt as unprepared as ever, but we had some of everything and plenty of Soala (renamed Christmas Harvest Soup this year, though). It wasn’t a record-setting show, but the foot traffic was fairly heavy and very consistent throughout the day, and by the end we had sold out of several of the lower-volume kinds and almost 4 dozen Harvests. In all we sold something like 146 soups, which was not an all-time record but not far off from it. 

We got a call from Matthew and Kim earlier in the week, asking if we’d like to go out to dinner with them on Thursday, and we did. We chose the Boathouse because neither of us had been there in a while, so we met up and had a nice dinner together. After dinner they asked us kind of on a whim if we were interested in seeing a movie too. They’d been thinking of seeing “Now You See Me, Now You Don’t” so they invited us to join them right then. Sounded like a good idea so we did. We all enjoyed it, although I’d say it was more entertaining than good. But it was a good time going out with friends, who invited us out!

Monday Alex had a job interview...for something more or less related to his field. It was for a position in software development with Winona IT. We are praying hard.

Saturday, Beth, Alex, and I road tripped to Muncie to visit Missy for the day. Beth got a large soup order from the website, so we detoured to meet the buyer in Fort Wayne on the way…12 soups, plus the 13th for free. Minor detour, then to Missy. We got there around lunch time and took her and both of her roommates out to lunch at IHOP. She had some shopping to do so we all went to Wal-Mart after that, then back to the house and got things put away, and after that Missy and both of her roommates had work to do and needed to get to the studio…soooo, we went home. It was a short visit, but Missy has just been super busy lately. It reminded me of all the times when I was in grad school and my parents would drive the 90 minutes to visit, we’d go out to lunch, and they’d go home.

 On Wednesday I called in to Pulse FM’s “Fresh Outa Bed and Head to Head” again, and won a decisive victory. It won me a couple tickets to a holiday lights show in South Bend, which maybe we’ll use and maybe we won’t. The following day I played against a first timer, and had a pretty decisive loss. The questions were a bit obscure, and I guessed wrong on a couple which left the door open and she guessed right with reduced options. Oh well, so I’m not in the hall of fame for a third time this year.

Tuesday was my first day as a visiting professor (of sorts). Trey at work has been teaching a class on materials science at Grace College, where a couple former ZB employees are full time professors now, both of whom I knew through work. Anyway, Trey was out this week and asked me if I could fill in for him at his class, basically by giving the same presentation I gave to the NPI group a couple weeks ago. I hit all the high points about UHMWPE and how ZB uses it, the pros and cons of each kind, etc etc. Some of the students were very attentive and asked questions, and some of them didn’t seem that interested, but apparently that’s par for the course.

Churro has been fixed. Nat’s been saving up money for a while to be able to pay for the procedure herself, and she finally got there recently. We took him to Community Animal Hospital in town, which was the most convenient and reasonable place to have it done. I took Nat and the dog in in the morning and we dropped him off… a very pathetic sight… the last thing I saw of him was his back end straining against being dragged into the examination room as we left. By the afternoon they were done, and Beth picked up a very pathetic little dog in a cone of shame.

Thursday Beth and I went to see Blues Traveler in Wabash at the Honeywell Center. What a cool show! The opening act was a rock band called Blackbird; the band is from Alaska and the people in the band are all native, I think. At least the leader is. They were really good! They played a set of around 30 minutes or so and did really well. Blues Traveler surprised me a bit as they opened their show with “Run-Around” which I had assumed would be their closing song. The whole concert seemed more like an extended jam session more so than a series of one song after another, but they did do all their other songs I recognized, “Hook” and “But Anyway,” plus “Devil Went Down to Georgia” and ended the concert with a cover of “Hot for Teacher.” Fun time. 

Halloween passed without much of a blip. Beth and I were setting up for the soup show most of the evening, and we were out getting fish & chips for supper afterwards, and our porch light was off the whole time. Alex was home and reported nobody came to the door. Natalie went out with a friend and her kids so at least she was doing the Halloween thing. 

Saturday was the second soup show…the one at the Brethren Church is usually the first one, but this year it is the second. We did well, but seemed like we were doing better than a lot of the vendors there. Traffic was not light, but not really heavy either. In the end, we sold 69 soups, which is pretty good for that show. Maybe a record for that show, but not overall by far. A decent day overall, I’d say. Beth has been making a lot of soup now so she doesn’t have to make tons of it in between shows this year, so we do have plenty left over to bring to the next show in a couple weeks. 

The first soup show of the season is in the books. Beth and I worked at the Depuy craft show at Lakeview Middle School on Saturday. We were in the foyer area instead of the gym, which I don't know if that was good or bad, but things opened up at 8:00 and while it was never swamped, it never got dead either. Traffic was light-ish but constant, so in the end we sold about 56 jars of soup. That's similar to what we would sell at the Brethren church craft show, which is next weekend. The good news is that Beth made plenty for both shows, so no need to make more this coming week. Especially chili. For some reason, the chili did not sell... we sold one jar all day. That was even with a pot of it for tastes. Most people declined to even taste it. Oh well, more for the next show, I guess. 

On Tuesday I gave a presentation at work. About poly! I am the poly guy. I don't even remember who, but at some point in the past year someone from an NPI group was asking me about poly, and I got some feedback that it might be good to educate everyone in the group about the same stuff. I volunteered with the group leadership to do a talk, so I spent an hour talking about the history, chemistry, and different types of orthopedic polyethylene, with a focus on all the different flavors of UHMWPE that ZB has. Fascinating stuff, if you're into that sort of thing.

 

This weekend was mostly about soup. Beth is almost satisfied with what she has made for the first two shows, which is good because the first one is next weekend. 

Alex is back home. He got back Tuesday, having spent Monday night at Laura & Thomas's again. The hotel was able to find most of his stuff, most not all. A few t-shirts are missing, his electric razor, and his retainer. Why? Nobody can figure out why his retainer and razor would have been taken. But they weren't with the rest of his things. He's left them a scathing review on hotels.com. Anyway, hopefully the motel losing his stuff experience won't color the whole trip. Although next time he says he would fly. Driving in New York is horrible. 

We were supposed to have our life group meeting today, and I felt bad about cancelling it but there was a men's event at the same time. Because it was wet and chilly, the even was held indoors at the church instead of back by the bonfire area. Basically it was cookout (hot dogs and burgers), fellowship, and worship for a couple hours, with a guest speaker. Life group would have conflicted, but hardly anyone's been attending anyway.

Indianapolis Colts 31, Arizona Cardinals 27

Today Beth and I crossed off a 'one of these days' item - more for me than her - and went to the Colts game in Indy. The ZB Club at work offered some discounted Colts tickets a few weeks ago, including "Banner Club" level tickets, for $70 each and I snapped up two. The Banner Club includes holding the Colts banner on the field during team introductions and slightly better nosebleed seats than regular game day tickets. We thought about getting a hotel overnight Saturday evening but with Beth's second hotel error of the last few months a couple weeks ago, in the end I decided that we'd just drive down to Indy early. I reserved a parking spot on ParkWhiz and we arrived there around 10:30 or so, plenty of time. Parking and getting in was no problem. We proceeded to the bowels of the stadium where Banner Club was staging. The banner is just that - a big banner that is basically the width of the field and about as long, solid blue with a big Colts horseshoe on it. I was in the anchor line, directed to plant my feet on the goal line and stay there while the opposite side stretched the banner out, and hold it taut without waving it, all through the team introductions. Then, as soon as Jonathan Taylor was introduced, start furling it back up, gather it up onto our shoulders, and quickly carry it off the field again and line up on the sideline for the national anthem. A different (enormous) crew was doing the same thing with the flag (the size of the whole field) that we did with the banner, only they waved it at the appropriate time. Then carry the banner back into the bowels of the stadium and stage it where it was when we got there. Very fun and very cool! After wrapping up, Beth and I went to find some lunch (got some bratburgers, which were terrible) and climb up and up and up to our seats in section 402, row 17. We missed the Colts first touchdown drive while eating and making our way up, but had really good seats I thought, behind the northerly end zone and with good sight lines to the entire field. The game itself was a good one, especially the 2nd half. A couple 3-and-outs for both teams early, traded off picks, but then nobody stopped anybody and every drive ended with a score except the Cards last one (failed on 4th and 7 from the Colts 9 yard line... whew!) and the Colts last one (one first down and then kneel downs). That last Cardinals drive really had a do or die moment... how often does a game come down to one play? Literally how that one last play went, either team would win. But it was an incomplete pass in the end zone on 4th down... although maybe they got away with a hold...maybe. After the game, getting out again was a nightmare. Beth was really hurting, so she wanted me to pick her up just outside the stadium but it was a mess of one-way streets going the wrong direction, streets blocked off, and streets under construction, or all 3. I had to walk back to her and tell her that I could find no way to pick her up curbside and she was going to have to walk for a while. Eventually I left her on the sidewalk by a hotel and went to get the car, but it was still so tricky to get to her again that she had to walk out into traffic and get in rather than me pulling over to pick her up. But we did make it, and got out of the jam in time to meet up with PJ and Linda at Upland Brewery, where we have met before. Although this was the first time we'd met Linda. They were on their way to an Elvis Costello concert on that side of town, so we had a nice dinner and visit before they needed to get there and we needed to hit the road. We got back home sometime around 11:00.

Meanwhile. Alex is away by himself. He and some online friends got an idea to go to Comicon in New York City which is this weekend, so he drove himself all the way there, found a motel and made all the arrangements himself. I did suggest he split the drive in half and stay at Laura & Thomas's house overnight on the way there and back, which he did. He got there in two good driving days (apparently New York is "three hours of driving hell"), got checked in, and was hitting Comicon today. The downside: at about 9:30 we got a message from him that the motel had checked him out this morning so they didn't have him as being there tonight. And all his stuff that was in the room is gone. And they don't know where it is. They were able to get him checked back in (someone from Hotels.com had to call them to straighten that out) but he has nothing with him. SO we just have to hope that the morning shift can find it before he has to hit the road tomorrow. 

Saturday was a real whirlwind tour of lower west Michigan. Beth made arrangements for us to go to the annual Ric's birthday chili cook-off at the Wiessner house this weekend, and also made arrangements for she and I to go to her 40-year reunion for high school in about 3 weeks. However she realized only Saturday that the reunion was not in 3 weeks, it was this Saturday. Yep, you read that right. She paid for us to have dinner at the reunion and everything. But she didn't want to miss the chili cook-off either. So we solved the problem (as well as we could) by driving ourselves separately from the kids (Alex drove the Honda). Beth made a crock pot full of her Mom's chili recipe (which she hasn't made in years, and I remembered when she was making it how much I like it) during the morning. In the afternoon we headed up north, and got to Ric's at about 6 (30 minutes early). So we dropped off the chili, and had a few minutes to visit before heading out again (left the kids there). We drove to South Haven where the reunion was at a newish place called Lake Arvesta Farms & Sports Complex, sort of a manmade lake/beach with mini golf and pickleball and ziplines and everything. Plus a restaurant and bar. We didn't get there until around 7:30 so we missed the dinner (as we had at the chili cook-off too) but we had a few hours to visit with some of her old friends. She had said on the way up there, that there were only about 5 people that she really wanted to see, and 4 of them were there. But it was a good time. We headed home around 9:30 or so, called the kids and found out that the chili had finished in the middle of the pack, but at least it got there, unlike the last 2 years (see 10/8/23 and 10/6/24).

Friday night was the Ladies' Ministry annual 5 favorite things party. Beth got a bunch of pens and notepads and such to pass out, and came home with some chocolate and hand lotion and such. Missy came up from BSU for fall break Friday night to join her at the party, and to go to Michigan with us for the chili cook-off. She'll get to visit for a few days. 

Metric century!  This weekend I set a personal record with a 60+ mile bike ride. The regular groups for the 2nd Mile Adventures rides on Saturday have been petering out a bit, as it does with the changing weather, so there was no posted ride for the B group and only a 'riders' choice' for the A group. At 7:30 there were only 5 riders altogether including me. The others were all from A group, and they were planning a metric century ride. Since there were no other B riders, I thought I might as well go with them and stick with them as long as I can. Then I thought I'd just turn around at some point like 15 or 20 miles out and head home by myself. They did sandbag a little bit, I'm sure, but I was still with them as we rolled through Sidney and on into North Manchester where we stopped at Casey's. Come on, they said, go for the metric century with us! So I thought then that I would call Beth to come pick me up at some point out there. Well, we rolled though Roann before 3 of the A group decided to pick up the pace, but one of them stayed with me all the way home. I got you into this mess, he said, the least I can do is stay with you. So we rode all the rest of the way (even the hard way up Bonestead Rd) up through Silver Lake and Claypool and back to the Trailhouse. It was so long that my watch battery died and I don't know exactly how far it was, but it was about 65 miles altogether. Quite the ride!

We have the Hyundai back, finally. They finished with it and I picked it up on Tuesday, so it wasn't there a full week. But yep, over $2700. It drives nice now though, at least. Hopefully nothing else will break soon.

Soup season is in full swing now. Stuff's been ordered, jars dug out of the closets and cleaned, and everything crammed into the closets downstairs is coming upstairs again. The kitchen and dining rooms are a cluttered mess and we can't eat at the table. She's adding a new show this year, the DePuy craft show at Lakeview Middle School, so she's a bit stressed that she needs to stock two shows in quick succession. Well, she's well on the way.

The most interesting thing this week was on Monday, I hauled the old leaky water heater to Lewis Salvage and scrapped it. It was worth $10.20, cash money! Saturday we drove out to Pilcher's because Alex needed a new pair of shoes again.

Not much else this week, except the car. Last Sunday it seemed to be making rubbing or pulsing noises or some sort, mostly when turning left, and it got worse rapidly. By Monday, it was sounding horrible and the noises elevated to what Beth called 'grinding,' so I called Boggs to get it in and see what's what. I was hoping it was something like worn blah blah blahs that are easy to replace, but no. It is the rear differential, had "let go" according to them, and needed to be replaced along with the drive shaft assembly. Not an easy job or a fast one. It is going to take about a week and cost about $2750. Sigh. Not what I need right now. So we're down a car. Good thing Alex has his back home. 

Soup season has started in earnest! Washing jars mostly so far, doing inventory and shopping. It's already apparent that we haven't set aside enough over the past year to pay for getting everything started up. Oh well, next year, I guess. 

To compensate for the eventful couple weeks before this, we had a very uneventful week. Only normal stuff: everyone going to their jobs as normal, Bible study groups as normal, bike rides as normal, and everything else as normal. We couldn't even think of anything to tell Missy when we called her on Sunday. She didn't have much to tell us, either.

I did start getting the pool drained and put away. Doesn't appear that there's going to be any more use of it, especially with Beth's ear thing only now mostly cleared up and better. I started draining it during the week and got it turned over and draped over all the outdoor chairs and tables in a day or two. Now it just has to dry and we'll put it away. It hardly got any use this year, mostly because of the ear infection. We'll put it away on top of the camper, which also got no use this year. 

I know it's been only a few days since the big road trip update, but there were some developments. While Alex and I were away, IKEA dropped off a replacement bed for Missy. The same one that they dropped off some weeks ago but only 3 of 4 boxes... this time, there were 4 count 'em 4 boxes! Which meant that on Saturday we had to go down to Muncie to drop it all off and get it assembled. I wish I had brought an electric screwdriver: there were a LOT of screws to put in during assembly, and my hand is sore. But we got it done and her room all put back together. We took the girls all out to lunch, carted away all the massive amounts of cardboard they still had cluttering up their apartment, and headed home by around dinnertime. 

Sunday was the church end-of-summer bash. Beth is still dealing with the ear thing (manifesting today as a migraine), and Alex was working, so I went stag. It was nice enough, there was a huge buffet style dinner (carry-in plus catering) so there was tons of food, and mostly fellowship with a short song service and message. I didn't stay long afterwards.

Road trip!

 Alex and I are back home. It was quite an adventure! On Friday we had a noonish flight from O'Hare to SeaTac. Beth was planning to take us to the airport, but she is still fighting that ear infection and was feeling awful on Friday morning. She was not feeling in any shape to drive us, so we took the truck instead and just left it in long term parking (actually daily parking because the long term garages were full and they were handing out vouchers). The flight was uneventful and we got there easily enough; Scott suggested we take the trail/subway from the airport to his place in the city which we did. Scott has an apartment very close to his work at the stadiums. He met us and we got unloaded there, then went to pick up the Honda (it was parked at the stadium, about a 10 minute walk away) and dropped off Alex downtown so he could get to PaxWest, which is partly the reason we flew out there this weekend when we did. He got a ticket for Saturday assuming that we could get him there in time to see everything that afternoon, but we were mistaken about when the exhibition hall closes (6:00, not 10:00) so things were pretty short for him. Meanwhile, Scott and I were going to the storage unit just to get the dresser; we were donating it to Scott but it turns out he doesn't have room for the desk (his apartment is TINY). On the way there, Scott had to make one stop here and one stop there and get a drink and pick up Laurie so we were not making good time. By the time Alex texted that he was done there, we hadn't even made it to the storage place yet. We got there, it took a while to wangle the dresser and night stand out of the unit and into the backseat of the Honda, but we did eventually get it. Then we dropped off the night stand at the dumpster of one of Alex's old apartment complexes (too big, don't need) with a 'free' sign, and then on to Laurie's so we could drop it off there. She and Scott both thought it would be better for us to leave the Honda at her place than near Scott's, so we did, and she drove us in her car back to get Alex. It was close to 2 hours after Alex texted that he was done before we got there. Anyway, we headed back to Scott's, got pizza down by the stadiums, ice cream near Pike Place (all easy walking distance) and turned in early. 

Sunday was a working day. We took the train/subway up to near where Laurie lives, then went out to breakfast together, then to her house to get the Honda and Alex and I got to work. First we took out and dropped off the desk at another of Alex's old apartment complexes with another 'free' sign. That took care of the big items that we didn't have room for, and we got to work unloading the unit and packing the car. We didn't have enough space for everything, so we took a couple totes of fairly light items (lots of plushies) to Laurie's to pack them up and ship them home, then started getting creative with packing the car. In the end, there were a couple more totes that wouldn't fit so we packed the stuff up in boxes and shipped them too, but I was kind of amazed by how much stuff fit into the trunk and back seats of the Honda. It was a LOT. Nearly everything Alex owns. By around 4:30 we were done, everything was either packed for shipping, already shipped, or in the car. And we even had room for our backpacks for the trip home. Scott and Laurie took us out to dinner at Dick's Drive-in and dropped us off at Scott's (again, better to leave the packed Honda at Laurie's in Redmond instead of in the city by Scott's) we just crashed for the evening after that.

Monday morning, Laurie picked us up at Scott's and we went out for breakfast at Blazing Bagels (last time there for Alex) and went to pick up the car and hit the road. Laurie gave us a goody bag for the road packed with snacks, and we departed Redmond at around 11:00. About 90 minutes down the road from Seattle is a small town called Roslyn, which I've wanted to visit for a while because it is where the exterior scenes for the tv show "Northern Exposure" were filmed in the 90s, which Beth and I loved. Now it looks basically the same as it did then, but less shabby, and tons more people walking around taking selfies... and built up quite a bit as a place for outdoor activities. Hiking, MTB, snowmobiling and such. We walked around taking selfies in front of the Roslyn Cafe mural and KBHR studio and so on, visited the gift shops, found some lunch from a food truck, took pictures of the Brick and Dr. Fleishmann's office, then hit the road again. We got as far as Missoula MT on Monday before stopping for dinner and just getting a room at one of the motels that was at the same exit. 1697 miles to home.

Tuesday was a big day. We got going relatively early in the morning but departed the interstate after a couple hours to head to Yellowstone. I know all the travel guides say you need a week to see it all, but I had ChatGPT plan a quick drive-through visit and catch the highlights. It did a really nice job, too. We did pretty much what it said except we cut one thing and added another. We drove in through the west entrance, went down to lower geyser basin, walked all around (We both got splashed by a boiling pool. It was shower warm when I got splashed, but much hotter for Alex), drove down the road to the next basin (too much traffic there, went on to the next) and on to the upper geyser basin (where Old Faithful is). The next eruption was only about 10 minutes after we got there, so we got to check out the whole eruption. We had lunch at the lodge after that, then went back to the middle geyser basin (still a lot of traffic) where the grand prismatic pool is. We walked all around there, then headed out and drove all along the road by Yellowstone Lake, through the entire park and out the east entrance. So you need a week, but we gave it about 4 hours. And had an amazing adventure. We did skip the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, which ChatGPT had recommended, because of the extra driving it would have added. We were in by around 11:30, and headed out by around 3:30. We then had to cut across the entire middle of Wyoming to get back to the interstate. Long and straight drive until we got to a mountain range that didn't look like it had a good place to cross. Then a multi-hour drive up a bunch of deserted switchbacks and passes and back down even steeper switchbacks in the dark. Finally arrived in Sheridan, Wyoming to spend the night. 1280 miles to home.

We got going in the morning thinking of stopping at Devil's Tower and Mount Rushmore. In the end, we decided to skip Mt. Rushmore and get down the road. But we did hit Devil's Tower, briefly. Canadian wildfires are burning still and the smoke plume was covering Wyoming and the Dakotas, so for a chunk of the morning I wasn't sure we were going to see much, but we did head to the tower. It's about an hour or so off the interstate. We got there, stopped at a convenience store/restaurant at the park entrance, and took some pictures there because the views were pretty good. I re-enacted Close Encounters with a paper UFO on a stick, which Alex didn't think was all that amusing but anyway I had to. We got some pictures and headed back to the interstate. Stopped to look at it for maybe 10 minutes. It was at that point Alex said he didn't mind if we skipped Mt Rushmore. So we just hit the road again. About 3 hours later we arrived in Wall, SD, home of the famous Wall Drugs (been there before). Alex isn't interested in browsing, but he wanted to get lunch there at the cafe. However, the line was crazy long so we punted and grabbed lunch at the DQ and headed out again. We stopped for dinner somewhere in MN and kept going to get some more miles behind us so we could for sure make it home the next day, and stopped for the night in Albert Lea, MN. Same hotel as 3 years ago. 530 miles to home. 

We got on the road again early Thursday, ready to be done with the driving. We made good time, got lunch at the Wisconsin Dells, and got to Chicago just as traffic was getting really bad. I was hoping we could get to O'Hare before traffic got bad, but it took too long to get to the truck and get moving again, and there was a massive amount of construction going on nearby. I was so scared for Alex to have his first time driving in Chicago traffic be through rush hour, but he did just fine. We tried to stay together, but there was too much traffic and we got separated pretty quickly. We had phones in the holders so we could communicate hands-free if needed, and we did a few times, to make sure we were both still on the same road and doing ok. Traffic was crazy heavy and slow all the way from O'Hare to the Indiana state line, and that's a long way. I told him we should re-group at the travel plaza on the toll road, but he thought I meant the welcome center just over in Indiana so he stopped there and called me. I was only around 5 miles ahead but doubling back got me into even worse traffic and it took at least half an hour to get back to him. But there was a Wendy's right there so we got dinner and waited for traffic to lighten up a bit, which it did, and by the time we got back on the road it was moving just fine. We finally got home around 9:20 pm after a very long day. What an adventure! 

Updating on a Friday instead of a Sunday as usual because Alex and I are going to be starting a big road trip tomorrow. Things have not worked out as hoped vis-a-vis Alex's job situation since graduation, and since Missy is back at school we are down a car which has been inconvenient, plus I don't like having things in limbo like we do now, with the car just left in the care of Scott and Alex's stuff in storage in Redmond. So, assuming Alex is going to be home for a while yet, Beth will drive us to Chicago (Beth is still dealing with the ear infection, but still improving, so we're hoping it goes well) and drop us off at O'Hare, we will fly to Seattle, retrieve the car, pack up Alex's stuff (we will cram the car as full as we can, ship a few totes with what won't fit, and leave what won't fit or ship. We're donating the desk and dresser to Scott, who says he can use them). Then we're going to drive from Seattle home. I'm looking for interesting stops along the way, so I'm not sure how long it will take, but we may not go that way again so why not? Everything I see online says you need a week to see Yellowstone, but I'm trying to figure out what we can see in an hour. Maybe Devil's Tower, Mount Rushmore, Wall Drugs, the Badlands, but definitely NOT the Corn Palace. That place is lame.

Meanwhile as we prep to be gone for a week or so, the water heater in the house has started seriously leaking. I had thought the water on the floor of the laundry room downstairs was condensation from the AC but it started getting bad enough that it seemed it couldn't be. Once I looked under the water heater it was clearly leaking. And then once I noticed it, it started getting worse very quickly. I went out and bought a new water heater on Wednesday hoping it could be delivered in time that I could get it installed and wouldn't have a massive gusher downstairs while I'm gone. It was delivered on Friday, and I immediately dropped what I was doing and started work on installing the thing. Which was tricky because it turned out I ordered the wrong size, or at least a different size than I had thought. The old leaky heater was short and squat, and the new one is taller and narrower. Same capacity but it made making the connections awkward, and I had to run out to Menard's once to get new longer connections, and then to Lowe's to get some new longer connections that don't leak. Getting the thing in place wasn't hard, it was getting the pipes attached so I didn't have MORE water getting out than I had before. It took a while, and a lot of fretting and cursing, but I got it done and in the end there were no apparent leaks. And I even got the old one out and up the stairs into the backyard. The bottom of the old one is really corroded, no wonder it was leaking so bad.

Anyway. Tomorrow morning Alex and I head out for an adventure!

Beth is finally starting to feel better from the ear infection from hell. The antifungal drops continue, and she no longer has constant sharp pains but it still does zing too often and she still gets feverish throughout the day, especially in the evening, and she gets worn out quickly. But even with all that, she’s finally doing better. 

Friday my group from work got together again for a cookout at the boss' house. We met there at lunchtime and were treated to a pulled pork BBQ. Afterwards as usual we play lawn games, it was Kubb this time, I think we did that last year as well. We usually do something as a group like this to say farewell to the interns we've had for the semester, we had 2 for the summer. 

Saturday was my first 50+ mile bike ride! Nate from 2nd Mile Adventures had been planning a 50-miler for a few weeks specifically to get me my first one. It was a good ride, I could have gone further. We went from Winona Lake about halfway to Plymouth and back around, pausing in Bourbon along the way. It was a B-group trailing the A-group day, they were doing 80-ish miles. But at the end I had just over 54 miles, so I deserved a cookie at the farmer's market. 

Later Saturday the whole family (except Missy ☹) went to see the new “Fantastic Four: First Steps” movie. It was really good. I appreciated that they didn’t spend a lot of time on the origin story, which we’ve seen too often already with the other Fantastic 4 movies that were terrible. We all thought it was really good, maybe Marvel will get back to making movies that we care to see now.

 Beth’s ear thing is still going on. She still has the stabbing pain and terrible itch, and running a fever and everything. She saw Dr. D on Monday, and he could tell her that it’s still infected but told her not to irrigate any more so the ENT can get an accurate view of what’s going on. But she couldn’t stand it because the itching was driving her crazy and did anyway. The nurses were able to get her an ENT appointment on Thursday. The 5th time she’s seen someone about whatever it is that’s going on. So the ENT told her… it’s a fungal infection! How totally gross. And that all the antibiotics and drops and such have been making it worse. The ear should be kept totally dry. Except now she has some new drops to take twice a day, and she’s going to continue to be uncomfortable for at least another week. 

Meanwhile on Thursday, Missy and I loaded up the van and the truck with her things and moved her into her apartment (house) in Muncie. We kind of blew it with getting her a new mattress; we didn’t get around to shopping for it until last week and so it’s not here yet, so we had to pull her old mattress down from her bed at home and take it with. Plus all the IKEA stuff that she and Beth bought last month. Speaking of which, the IKEA bed was incomplete. Nobody noticed until yesterday that only 3 boxes of the bed were here, and they were numbered 1, 2, 4. But the website made it look like there were only supposed to be 3 boxes, so we decided to go with it and hope all the parts were there. NOPE we unloaded everything and got to work assembling the bed, only to find that parts were missing before we even got past page 1. And they weren’t parts that you can do without. The angle irons holding everything together weren’t there. The drawers and gliders weren’t there. The whole back side of the bed wasn’t there. So we called Beth to see if there was anything in the garage that we had forgotten (she was still home waiting for Alex to be off work) and there was not. Beth called IKEA and the best they could do for us was to have us pack everything back up again (are you insane?) and cart it back home, and they would come pick it up and deliver a new bed next week. In the meantime, Missy and I assembled her desk and chair and unloaded everything. She has a small bedroom but it’s in what seems to be a nice old house. Beth and Alex were there around 8:00 and we did some shopping at Wal-Mart and Menards to get her a small dresser (since there are no drawers now) and a cot-type thing to get her mattress off the floor, and a fan because it was hot as blazes in there. We had her all moved in and taken care of, and new furniture assembled, by around 10 so the rest of us left her there to do all the arranging and decorating that she didn’t want help with. On to her senior year!

Tuesday I called into the morning show on Pulse again and won Fresh Out of Bed and Head to Head again. No contest, really. I called because I thought they were giving away tickets to the Funny Pharm on Friday, when Corey from the morning show was doing his first headlining show. Turns out they didn’t have those tickets but I asked for them anyway so Corey said he’d get me a couple passes. I won the contest again on Wednesday and Thursday, too, so one more and I’m the hall of fame again. Anyway, by Friday Beth was still not feeling well enough to go and Alex was going out with friends, so I took Natalie with me. High praise from her: she said it was better than she thought it would be. It wasn’t a-list comedy but still it was a good time and Corey did a great job. He even called on me at one point (‘yeah, blue shirt!’) when he was asking the audience how long they’d been married. He also had a joke about Stanley Cups that took me a hot minute to realize he was talking about expensive water bottles and not hockey trophies. 

Friday was another outing that Beth didn’t feel up to: the labs at work had organized attending a TinCaps game. Nobody else really wanted to go either, mostly because it was so hot out. So I went by myself, met up with the ATS folks there. Good seats, lower deck along the first base line. However sometime around the 3rd inning the thunder started and the rain came shortly thereafter. I headed up and under the roof of the stadium when it started sprinkling so I didn’t get wet when the heavens opened and the deluge started. The grounds crew got the field covered pretty quickly and about half of the crowd left. Everyone who stayed just milled around in the aisle under the roof until the rain stopped, which was about 45 minutes. It started sprinkling again as they were uncovering the field again so I was afraid the next round was coming, but it lightened up and they got the game going again. In the end the TinCaps beat West Michigan 3-0 in a not very interesting game. 

Finally, Saturday was a wedding between two kids that grew up in our church, Lily and Derek. They had the wedding outdoors, risky this time of year, but it went well. It was pretty hot but tolerable and there was plenty of shade. It was a nice service, standard except instead of a unity candle, they welded a unity cross. I can say that that is something I've never seen before, and I'm glad they didn't burn a hole in her dress or his rented tux. 

 Beth is still down with the ear thing. By Thursday afternoon the ear pain and terrible itching was back again, but she missed getting another appointment with Dr. D so she got one at Medstat and late enough in the day that I could go with her. They checked her out and found her ear was all plugged up again and inflamed. The NP irrigated the heck out of her ear…said there was something in there that was moving slowly… and when it finally came out it was disgusting. A HUGE mass of slimy gunk. Her ear felt better when it came out, but it really begged the question, what’s going on in there? They didn’t change the meds she has, but they did make another appointment to see Dr. D on Monday and gave her a referral to an ENT. By the weekend, her ear was feeling better, then worse. This is getting ridiculous. She’s irrigating all the time to keep flushing whatever that is out; at least it feels good while she does it. 

Softball has ended. The last of the tournament (without my team) was this past Tuesday. I went to the ballpark to watch the games with the other FCC team. They won the first game I saw but got beaten pretty hard in the championship game. So the other FCC team was 1st place regular season, 1st place all-night tournament, 2nd place season ending tournament. My team was last place regular season, didn’t play in the all-nighter, last place in the season ending tournament. Oh well, wait until next year!

The good news is Beth doesn’t have shingles inside her ear. The bad news is her ear is infected badly enough that it is swollen shut, hence all the ear pain and headaches and fever and such. She called in to see Dr. Dick on Monday because she was worried enough about the possibility of shingles after going in to the ER. He gave her a different antibiotic than the ER did and added some drops. We’ve been putting olive oil in her ear for a few days because of the itching. Anyway, hopefully that will sort itself out pretty quickly now. 

The softball season has ended for FCC-Knight. We were excused from the tournament Tuesday, losing to one of the two teams we had beaten during the regular season (once out of 2 games). It was a good game, we did our best but were lacking our best player and the only one likely to hit a homer during the game. Even so it was back and forth, we led multiple times during the game but never held a lead for more than an inning. In the end we couldn’t hold a lead in the last inning and they walked us off. We lost 14-13, which guaranteed us last place in the tournament (at 0-2) AND regular season standings (at 2-10) in the lowest division. But we have fun! The other FCC team will compete for the tourney championship next week.

Friday my group at work went on our annual boat ride. One of the team members lives on the Barbee Lake chain. We met at her house and all took a cruise on their boat around the lakes and pulled in to Lake Life restaurant, where they have some pretty good burgers. Then cruised around the lakes again after lunch for the rest of the afternoon. Unlike last year, the weather was beautiful. I wasn’t there last year (I think Alex and I were going to Washington) but everyone had all the stories about how they got caught in a huge downpour while out on the lake. This time, it was sunny the whole time. Nice afternoon.

Odd wrap-up to the weekend. Beth has been having pain in her ear for a few days now, and it’s accompanied with a terrible headache. To top it off, she tried cleaning her ear out with a q-tip and what came out was black. Yeah, black. She saw the doctor on Wednesday and was told it wasn’t infected, but it was full of wax and very irritated. He removed a lump of wax the size of half a peanut, gross. The headache remained but she was up and about until Saturday evening, when it all seemed to go downhill fast. By evening on Sunday the pain and itching in her ear was so bad that we brought her in to the ER. They told her it was swimmer’s ear and gave her some medication, but it was also very irritated and there was some sort of rash inside her ear, and it could possibly be shingles. INSIDE her ear. It’s very concerning. 

Saturday was the un-garage sale for Beth’s work. We got up early and went over to Presby to work it for the day. As before, we were doing child care, checking the kids in at a little play area and keeping an eye on them while the parents shopped. For some reason though, it just never got off the ground this year. In past years there have been huge lines around the building to get in… this year there were maybe a dozen people in line at opening and things never got busy. We only had around 8-10 kids get checked in all day. There were long stretches when there was nobody at all coming in. Nobody is sure why, but maybe the weather (thunderstorms that day) and maybe the deportations going on these days has people afraid to go to things like that. Nobody has any better theories. So anyway we worked until close at 2 and helped pack everything up – there was a lot left over. 

The softball tournament started up this week. We’ll have to win the championship through the losers’ bracket… we had a game end in a way that I don’t recall ever happening like this before. Going into the bottom of the 6th inning, we were ahead by a couple but the other team got a rally going and scored several times to pull ahead. They were still batting when the clock ran out, and as soon as it hit zeros the umpire called ballgame. So sort of a walkoff but not really. And the game next week is do or die….

Wednesday I rented a hedge trimmer because the bushes by the road in front of our house have gotten out of control. Unfortunately I didn’t ask how much the rental would cost before I committed to it, or else I may have just gone to buy one from Menard’s. It was $77 to rent it overnight. Maybe it would have been cheaper during the day if I could have just had it a couple hours, but anyway so be it. I’m sure any trimmer I bought would have had a lot less power than the one I rented. It took the branches of the bushes (all 3 of them) right off in no time, and I was done with it within maybe half an hour or so. And they look really nice. With a pair of hedge clippers it would have taken all afternoon. And it was really hot.

It has been a really good weekend. Friday was opening day at the Elkhart County Fair, which we have never been to, but this year the big concert was Barenaked Ladies with Sugar Ray and Fastball. Which sounded awesome so I got tickets for everyone to go. Alex and Missy were really excited about seeing BNL too, but I don’t think they knew anything about the other two. Beth and I were excited about all 3 of them. Natalie decided late in the game that she wouldn’t go, as she didn’t want to be in a big hot noisy crowd and her boyfriend had plans for them that evening anyway. There was a family thing going on, not sure. So since I had an extra ticket I asked a few friends if they’d be interested. Everyone was interested, but the first one who actually could attend was Josh S. I thought he would really appreciate it as he’s a big music lover. We headed to Goshen Friday evening for a 7:00 show, and found out how big the Elkhart fair really is. The parking lot alone is enormous. Better than anything we have in this county. Anyway the concert was great! Start to finish, all 3 bands did a great job and we had a really fun time. I really liked Fastball, more than I even remember liking them before. They have a real rockabilly vibe. And Sugar Ray was just like they used to be back in the day as well, really fun. And BNL did somewhere around 25 songs, all of which were good ones. All the hits and a lot of songs I didn’t know. But really good al the way through. And at the end all 3 bands came together to play “Summer of 69” which was also really rockin’. Great show beginning to end. 

Sunday we all went up to Michigan for an open house for Alex / birthday party for me & Neill. We held it at Judy & Neill’s cottage on the lake, and had snacks (cupcakes, veggies, fruit, chips, etc) for everyone to drop in & out as they could. Pretty much the whole family came out for most of the day, almost all the cousins came to visit. Even Nat and Jacob drove up for a few hours during the party. Ted took everyone out around the lake on the pontoon boat, and we had ice cream cake. Good time, nice to see everyone.

I think I've figured out what's wrong with the lawn tractor. Earlier this week I found what appeared to be a broken fan... the actual fan, all the blades attached to the hub which had the middle broken out. Which jogged my memory a bit (see 5/26/2020) to remember that the same thing happened 5 years ago. I found the replacement fan that I bought at the time in my Amazon records, so I bought another one. Looks like this is just the same thing happening again. So should be an easy fix.

This week Beth and Missy finally got to have their getaway. Remember a couple weeks ago when Beth made a hotel reservation for the wrong weekend and didn’t realize it until that wrong weekend was already over and there was nothing that could be done about it? Well, she made some new reservations (much cheaper for the actual weekend they were going, for some reason, which was good) and they headed off this week. They left Thursday morning, and first order of business was the Indy Zoo. Unfortunately it was hot as blazes that day and Beth forgot her hat. But they did see a Lion with the hiccups. They were completely done in from the heat by mid-afternoon and headed back to the hotel to chill. The hotel room was very nice but Beth also forgot her swim suit. On Friday the primary order of business was IKEA for Missy’s apartment this school year. Which was good, and they got a lot of the things they needed, but after the hot zoo day yesterday they were both pretty worn out. Since Beth was away, I made grilled pork chops for dinner (with a roasted brussels sprouts dish as well) and they both came out perfect. Best pork chops I’ve ever made. The girls came home Friday, but had book club in Wabash and didn’t want to miss it, so they came home via Muncie first and then Wabash so they were out late. Nice weekend getaway for them both. 

This week was the big FCC vs. FCC softball game. Team Knight vs. Team Williams. Team first place vs. team last place, hee hee… it was announced on Sunday the last two weeks so people from church could come out to watch the game, and many did which was really cool. We lost the first game of the doubleheader to Christ’s Covenant and then played Dave’s team in the nightcap. We stayed with them for the most part, but they’re basically better than us and eventually won 17-12. But we had fun! I even told a dad joke from third base while Dave was pitching. “We can’t drink any of the pop we brought to the second game tonight.” Why not? “We lost the opener!”

I had one of the most arduous bike rides I’ve ever gone on Saturday. The 2nd Mile “B” group was only me and one other guy (Stuart H) and we took the prescribed route south of town towards North Manchester and back up north through Sidney. Unfortunately it was pretty windy and hot that day, and the wind shifted just so that no matter which direction we turned, we were headed straight into the wind again. It was headwinds all the way out, and all the way back :(  And after I got home again, as soon as I showered I fell asleep for about an hour and a half. It was 43+ miles altogether, but it felt like more than that.

 It was a pretty quiet July 4 weekend for us this year. I barely realized that I had Friday off until it was happening. We didn’t get any fireworks, and we didn’t go see any. Sunday we did all go see the new “Jurassic World: Rebirth” movie in town, which was really fun and enjoyable although more of the same for the franchise, and dead-on predictability of who would live and who would get eaten by dinosaurs.

Also during the weekend the lawn tractor broke. Somehow, not sure what yet. The engine still seems to run just fine, but all of a sudden in the back forty it just quit moving. I had to push the thing all the way back up to the house. Not something I need right now... 

Tuesday the softball team had the first of several doubleheaders scheduled in a row (to make up all the rainouts). The good news: we were playing both games against the team in our division that hadn’t won a game all year. The bad news: we didn’t have several players including a pitcher, so suffice to say we didn’t have our best team. That manifested in us getting blown out by the winless team twice, 19-4 and 23-4. Which immediately catapulted us to last place in the bottom division…. But we have fun!

Beth has had a rough weekend. She made some reservations for her and Missy to go to Indy for an overnight trip in July, to Ikea and the zoo and maybe a few other things just by themselves, but she got an odd email Friday acknowledging her checkout of the motel and asking her to rate it. Which was odd because she hadn’t stayed there yet. Come to find out that somehow she made the reservation for this week, and it had already passed, so there was bugger all to do about it. Not sure how because she swears she checked the date 3 times. So that was a couple hundred dollars blown. On Saturday, she had found out about a dueling pianos special show going on at Tippy Creek Winery earlier in the week and thought we should go! But when she found out about it, she said they didn’t say anything on the website about needing tickets. So when we got there, it was listed on the sign as ‘ticketed event’ so we had to go ask if we could still get any. We could, so I just asked for 2… and as they rang it up they said ‘ok, that’ll be $84’ and I almost choked. We still went, but it was a lot more than I had been expecting. Two wine slushies were also about $24 because of the commemorative plastic cup. We also were supposed to have brought lawn chairs because the tables were all reserved seating, which we also didn’t know. However one of the servers was kind enough to help us find a place to sit; there was an older couple at one table with spaces for their friends who weren’t going to show up, and she asked them nicely if we could sit there with them and they were agreeable. So we had good seats for the show. I would have put in a request for a song but it seemed that the going rate for a request was a $20 tip, and we’d spent enough already.

 No softball game this week because it had rained earlier in the day. Yeah, it downpoured for about 15 minutes at around 3:30 or so, and CCAC called off all games because the field wasn’t draining. Baloney, though. I drove by just after work and the fields were dry. But what can you do. We’ve had a lot of rainouts this year, but it felt like someone just didn’t want to bother. Speaking of rain, it’s been the kind of hot and humid lately that means that it could thunderstorm out of the blue at practically any moment. Which is what it did on Tuesday, which I realized was happening after a few minutes because I wasn’t near a window and it was noisy where I was. And I had left the truck windows … and sunroof … open because it was so hot and it didn’t look like rain. So a mad dash to get out to the truck in pounding rain and get the windows closed. It wasn’t too terribly bad in the truck, but things were pretty wet. A lady at work had a convertible with the top down so it was worse for her.

 Missy and I went back to FW to pick up her framed self-portrait that we dropped off at Hobby Lobby a couple weeks back. She’s so proud of it, and rightly so. It looks beautiful. Such a great picture and such a nice job framing it.

The van finally has air conditioning again. It hasn’t worked in a while, at least since before Missy came home for the summer. It’s been getting hot so I took it in to get the AC recharged early this week, but at the Pit Stop they told me it wasn’t that it needed to be recharged, it was that the compressor was bad and needed to be replaced. Which they don’t do at the Pit Stop, so I made an appointment to get that done at the Boggs Auto on old 30. That was Thursday, and by the afternoon they had a good news/bad news situation for me. Good news, it’s not the compressor that is bad, it’s the flow sensor, which is a much cheaper fix. Bad news, it’ll take another day for the parts to come in. So it wasn’t so bad, actually. They just had the van for another day before I got it back on Friday with a working AC. 

Tuesday the softball team got another W – but we tried hard to blow it. We spent the first few innings building up a big lead, and the later innings losing it. By the end, we’d fallen behind by a few runs, but we mounted a comeback late and shut them down at the end for a 16-12 win. 

Saturday Beth and I went out with the Harrisons for our/their anniversary. Yep, we have the same anniversary, only theirs was several years after ours. Anyway, we picked them up and headed to a new-ish restaurant in Nappannee called Ruhe 152 Italian Bistro. Beth and I had never heard of it, but Rob used to work pretty much across the street from it so he knew about it. Anyway, it’s obviously an Italian restaurant, and it’s really good! I had lasagna like always, which was excellent. 

Missy has turned 21! Legal drinking age, so we all went out to Applebee’s for her to get her fist drink. We had dinner though, and by the end she didn’t really feel like it so we didn’t. She couldn’t find anything on the menu that she thought she would like, so she decided to do it some other time. We just did presents and an ice cream cake for her at home. Aunt Judy came to visit for the day as well to see her. We got her some clothes and some cool pottery for her room and some books, and finally presented her with the pink knitted dragon that I bought for her at the craft fair in the spring without her noticing I was doing it (see 3/2/25). She loved that. 

There was no softball game this week, because we postponed it because several of our players were helping out at True North VBS this week at church. Including me. Beth and I were guides for the 3rd and 4th graders this year, so basically the same job we’ve done for a few years now… we had some good kids but we also had a few kids that did not want to participate and basically didn’t want to be there in the first place. Unfortunately we also weren’t as impressed with the VBS program this year… we didn’t think it was as interesting and engaging as the Lego program last year or Keepers of the Kingdom or Making Waves from the past few years. There was a lot of talking to the kids, enough that they invariably got restless and bored, and the songs weren’t as memorable or as fun. It was good, but just not as good. Anyway, we had a good time with the kids and they did have some fun and learn some Bible lessons. 

This weekend was also Father’s Day, which I never like to make a big fuss about so we just grilled for dinner (so I usually wind up fixing most of the special meal for me anyway…) Beth got me a nice present this year; a power washer. I guess she’s got some work for me to do. I’ve already tried it out and surprisingly it does a pretty good job. I did some washing of the backyard patio and it works better than I was expecting. I assumed that an electric washer bought from Amazon wouldn’t have much cleaning power (like the ones I rented from Menard’s last time) but this one seems to do a pretty good job. At the hardest setting, the washer was taking some surface layers off the stones and concrete on the patio. It also takes dirt right out of the driveway concrete so I’ll have to give that a full wash sooner or later.

The truck has new shoes. As you recall, I left the truck at Discount Tire overnight last Sunday, to deal with it on Monday. That meant that all 4 tires needed replaced. Well, at least I knew it was coming...the truck had those tires on it when we bought it and they weren't in the best shape then, and I was told the last time I had them rotated that they would all need to be replaced soon. I've known they were on the way out for a while but I've been delaying as long as I could. Which was until now. So that came to around $1400 altogether, ouch.

Thursday this week was Zimmer Biomet night at the Wagon Wheel Theatre for their production of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat." A show that I love, but it has been updated at some point and I don't love that part. For some reason, someone chose to update the narrator as a tour guide at a museum for a group of middle school age kids, and the story is all a big VR presentation to them, so what you have is the show with a dozen kids with their phones out milling around on stage pretty much all the time. I seriously could have done without that. I literally felt like shouting 'get those kids off the stage' a few times. But regardless, I enjoyed the show although I'd rank it below the production I saw at Loy Norrix High School back in the 80s. And, the tickets were free. ZB is a big sponsor of the show so the night before opening (final dress rehearsal, I guess) was ZB night where any ZB employees got free tickets. Pretty cool, that. 

Softball was back to our regular ways on Tuesday. We lost to Pathways 22-8, but at least we scored against them this time. And, due to a bunch of re-scheduling that has had to happen league-wide, it was officially a practice game. Won't count in the standings except as a playoff position tiebreaker, if necessary. So we had a couple guys play different positions than where they normally would, specifically pitching. And it did not go particularly well... 

Odd bike ride on Saturday morning. It was the annual Dunes Day ride (I never go that far, though) and I was planning to ride in the 30-40 mile group, but when I got up in the morning the fog was so thick I actually thought it was smoke from the Canadian wildfires. They've been giving advisories to stay indoors lately because the smoke amount has been so high here, and I'd heard that it was supposed to be even worse on Saturday, so I wasn't sure there would even be a ride if it wasn't safe to be exerting yourself outside. I rode to the starting point but when I got there by 6:45 it was deserted. So I wasn't sure if the ride was still on. But nobody was there, so I just rode back home and went back to bed. Turns out, the smoke was pretty much all fog, the ride was still on, and the starting time was 6:30 and not 7:00 as had been on the website. Missed it, oh well. 

A short week at work, and not much happened this week. The whole family did go to N Manchester on Wednesday to deliver dinner to a family in our church that someone had surgery this week, and that's nearly all that happened this week...Saturday we all went up to Nappanee to Coppes Commons mostly for something to do together, but we found it closed (except for Rocket Science) when we got there. Otherwise, I'm working, Alex is working, Beth is working (a little), Nat is working, Missy is looking (Lowe's hasn't called her back since telling her the computers were messed up with her employment, but she doesn't want to go back there anyway). Beth and I also went to Lowery's to pick out some fabric for the camper curtain that I took down because it wouldn't stay up any more. It's a northern woodland animal scene, should be cool in the camper. Now I have a sewing project. Saturday there were a few graduation parties to attend for kids from church. 

The biggest event of the week was softball getting our first win of the season! And it was one that we'll still be talking about 5 or 10 years from now. We were playing a doubleheader, and in the first game of the evening, we played Harrison Center pretty close for the whole game, trading big innings and small, until we were down just 1 going into the last of the 7th. I was hitting the ball pretty well all day, had a bunch of singles, scored a few runs...and with 2 on and 1 out, I hit a high fly ball that while it was caught, it drove in the tying run. In their half of the 8th inning, our wheels came off and they scored 8 runs. Then in our half, their wheels came off and we scored 9. I even scored the winning run. That was an amazing game, one the likes of which I don't think we've ever been in before. So we got the W 20-19 in extra innings, then lost the second game of the doubleheader 18-6, a mercy loss. I guess we were spent.

There was an unusual occurrence today: I was on van duty for church but I had to run home to get Natalie to work on time in between services, and shortly after dropping her off I ran back home for something and noticed a hissing noise coming from the front drivers side tire. And I found the source easily enough; there was a big crack with a big hole in it. The tire's time was up. I knew it was coming sooner or later, though, so not a shocker. I was able to get the truck over to Discount Tire across US30 from us before it went totally flat; I was walking home when the Purvii saw me at the intersection and picked me up and took me home. Which was nice, so I didn't have to walk across 30. So now the truck is sitting in the parking lot there and I'll have to deal with it tomorrow.

It was literally just a few days ago when I realized I had a day off today. Memorial Day! It barely even registered. So that's cool, a day off I hadn't even counted on. Not that we did much with the long weekend. I rode with the 2nd Mile group B on Saturday (Bronwyn came out again, but she was lagging a lot and decided to drop out by the time we got to Eisenhower School. I raced to try to catch up with the group and finally made it back up to one lone rider, the only other B, after several miles of hard riding). We all went out to see the new "Mission Impossible" movie on a Saturday matinee. I cut the grass. I fixed the drone (the one that Beth and the kids got me for my birthday last year and broke right away; the lifetime warranty wasn't for life because they declined to replace it after it broke a second time.... I replaced one of the motors in one drone with a good motor from the other drone, and it flies again!). I went for a run Monday and a geocaching bike ride later that same day. So anyway. Chill weekend.

Softball was rained out again this week, second time in a row. And we were playing that winless team again, too, darn it.

Beth and I went to see a comedian in Fort Wayne Friday night. A few months ago we happened to be driving past the Clyde Theater and Beth spotted an upcoming show... Henry Cho....who we just happened to see 35 years ago at a Rose-Hulman homecoming show during my senior year. Of course we had to go. Back in 1990 he was just a young comedian trying to make it in this big harsh world, now he's a member of the Grand ole Opry. He is still just as funny as he was back then when nobody had ever heard of him. There were seats at the theater this time (see 1/23/22) so we were all good. He had an opening act who was ok, but we liked him better than the opening act for the comedian we saw in SB a couple years ago (see 7/16/23). Henry Cho did a pretty long set complete with a Q&A session (still with the jokes) and then did a set of 'requests' where he asked the audience if they wanted to hear a particular joke that he'd done in the past. There were a couple he did that I can actually remember from when he did the show at Rose... being the only Korean kid in the neighborhood playing army with the other kids (it's all of us against....you) and cowboys & Indians (I was always the cook). We even happened upon the Foxes at the show as well. Anyway, great show, we had a great time. We were going to spend the night in FW at a motel but in the end decided not to, one because the motels were all pretty expensive, and two because the power went out at the house while we were away. 

So yeah, the power outage. There was a big wind storm while we were gone, and the power just went out. Tree fell, probably. It was still out when the show let out, and when we got home, and when we all went to bed a bit later, and in the morning....and it was off long enough that I started to worry about the meat in the freezer, since last time (see 7/21/24) the power was out for multiple days. Last time I borrowed a generator from Trey, but this time when I got up and the power was still out I went out and bought a generator myself. A small one, big enough to run the freezer in the garage and the fridge, and charge all the phones. However we found that it cannot run the freezer and the microwave, at least not at the same time. But it can do a toaster and the freezer. Anyway, we now have a generator so the power will never go out again. And I thought for sure the power would be back by the time I came back from Menard's, but it wasn't so I ran the generator from around 9:00 until around 2:00 when the power finally did come back. 

Softball was rained out this week. We were scheduled to play another winless team, too...

Mother's Day weekend, and you know what that means....flowers! Beth wanted to get flowers for the gardens again this year, so Saturday we did some shopping at the old Sherman & Lin's place. The selection wasn't as great, but we did find a lot of flowers that will look nice. Now we just have to get them into the ground. Probably in a couple days. The weekend was a lot about yard work, too; I borrowed a power washer from a guy at work to clean up the patio mostly. It worked a lot better than the last one I rented from Menard's, but still not as good as the first one I rented, although maybe the grime is just getting more set in there or something. But it did a pretty good job cleaning overall, and I also cleaned up the front patio and the siding on the back of the garage near where the neighborhood cats all spray. 

Another weekend job was to put up a new ceiling fan in Missy's room. Her old fan has been buzzing and blowing out light bulbs a lot lately, so last weekend the girls went shopping and got a new one. The new fan is much brighter and quieter, and it also hugs the ceiling much more so it's easier for her to get in and out of bed. That's always good.

Went out on a bike ride again on Saturday morning even though it's still pretty cold. It was only me and one other older guy (Stuart), and since the A and B groups were going the same direction for the first several miles we tried to keep up. That didn't last long; by just a few miles we were lagging and soon after we told the A leader to just go on and leave us behind to do the B ride. Shortly after that, we lost sight of them. They beat us to the rendezvous point too; we were doing basically the same route except B was truncated, but after a while we would be on the same route again on the way back, so A rode about 10 miles further than B. But we never saw them again. 

Another loss for the softball team. We were never in the game. Never got anything going, and I pulled that sore tendon in my hip again (not like the first time, when I pulled it real bad stumbling down the steps). We couldn't play at anything in that game, and lost 10-0. You shouldn't get shut out in this league... usually you can score runs by accident. Not us though. 

Alex is back to work at Kroger. He had no problem getting the job back: when he went in to ask about working there, they essentially asked him if he could start right away. Like, tomorrow? Today? Right now? So I guess they're shorthanded. He should get some hours, which is good. He needs to find a real job in his chosen field, that he went to college for....hopefully that can happen soon.

Summer mode is definitely on now. The house is now completely full again, and will be for the foreseeable future. Last Wednesday Beth, Alex, and I went down to Muncie to pick up Missy and her stuff from Ball State, since she is now done with her junior year and is officially a senior. We headed out with the truck just after I got out of work and made a few trips loading everything into the truck and her minivan, so everything went into one trip. Took several cart loads to get everything out of her third-floor dorm room, though. Anyway, she's the third young adult we've added back in to the house, so we're full up, no more please. 

Saturday morning was the first live & in person group bike ride of the season. Slow pace, short trip overall, or maybe it just seems like that... we did about 22 miles and averaged like 12.5 mph (3 riders, I'm the youngest) so it was definitely not pushing the limits. Even the A group was a slow, short ride (for them) so we're just getting back into the saddle after a winter on the trainers, I guess.

The rest of Saturday was about yard work. Mowed in the front, cleared weeds in the flower beds, hauled away the remaining winter leaves beside the garage and in the corners and gardens, etc. Placed a few more stepping stones in the bare spot behind the garage. That sort of thing.

Alex and Beth and I are back from Washington! And Alex has graduated from college! He has no job as of yet but we'll work on that. We'll let him get a break first for a little while, though. Beth and I left Warsaw last Thursday for an afternoon flight to Seattle (in a rare good deal, economy parking at O'Hare was full so they were letting people park at hourly for the same rate...park closer and save some cash). We got to Seattle around dinnertime and met up with Alex at the Tipsy Cow for dinner. Friday, Alex had some things to do so Beth and I ran some errands - going to Target, driving around, getting a storage unit for Alex's things which coincidentally turned out to be the exact same storage unit that we had for the past 3 years until last fall when we cleared it out and are now back in - and rested at the hotel until meeting Alex and all his friends for dinner. We told Alex we would like to take him and his friends out to dinner, expecting just 2 or 3, but the crowd grew to 12 plus us by the time everyone came out. We weren't expecting every single one of his friends. But no matter, we had fun meeting everyone and they seemed to be good people and enjoyed meeting us. Saturday Beth found a place to get her nails done (for the first time in years), then later on we 3 went to the Redmond City Center and to Seattle; I had told Beth about the big antiques/stuff shop at Pike Place and she wanted to go visit it, but the nearest parking we could find was quite a walk away and then down a huge amount of stairs to the waterfront, and by the time we got there, she was done in already. We weren't there very long at all. Maybe an hour altogether in the city. Sunday was the big day: we met for breakfast at the Redmond Pancake House and then headed to the Lynnwood event center to drop off Alex to get ready. That was about 90 minutes before it was opened for guests. As we're sending Alex off, he can't find his tassel. Looking everywhere...in the box, in his hat, in the car, it is not there. He must have left it at the place where he was decorating his mortarboard last night! Back at campus! Or maybe it's in his car! Or maybe in his apartment! Oh no! Panic! So he goes in all panicked, and Beth and I hightail it back toward Redmond to see if we can find it. We realize on the way back that there is very little time left and we'll be lucky if we can go back, get ready, and come back in time, let alone look for the tassel. On the way he does text us that they had an extra tassel for him so crisis averted there, but we are rushing to get ready and driving as fast as we can to get back there in time. We never should have planned to drop Alex off and go back to the hotel, it's too far. So we're rushing to get there and traffic is getting worse and worse as we approach. 15 minutes before the ceremony starts we're still down the highway and Beth is just in tears that we're going to miss it. In the end I drop off Beth at the events center with a couple minutes to spare and go park; I walk in at about the same time the graduates are walking in. But we made it. It was a nice ceremony, there were some very good speeches including from one of Alex's good friends who the student body selected to speak. There was a reception at Digipen immediately after so we went there for refreshments and for Alex to see some friends and such, then dinner at Redmond's later on. Monday was a long day. We got started working on clearing out and cleaning up the apartment in the morning, then took a break to go see Scott at his new apartment and go get lunch with him. It turns out that Scott's car died recently, but at his new place he has good access to public transit so he's going to make a go of not having a car for a while. So I asked if he might be able to keep Alex's car for the summer in his parking spot at the apartment, and he said sure! So that'll save like $120 a month. Scott came back to the apartment with us to help clean up and get everything into the storage unit... took us several trips but we got it all out... and the apartment wasn't really that dirty either. So all packed up and moved out, not even any keys to drop off, after the like fourth run to the storage unit we were done and went out to dinner with Scott and his new girlfriend, who seems very nice. Alex had a gathering to go to at the campus afterwards, so Scott dropped him off there on the way back to his apartment with Alex's car. Alex stayed with us at the hotel overnight, and by 9:00 am Tuesday we were at the airport. Our flight left Seattle around noon SeaTac time, and closed the book on that stage of Alex's life. On to the next....

The return of FCC softball! Opening night was tonight. There are 3 divisions this year, and both FCC teams are in the bottom one. We opened up against each other, and though we played close for a few innings, they pulled away from us and won 21-7. That may be a portent of things to come. 

Easter weekend. As always, Beth started planning the big family dinner for the big family gathering without seeming to realize that there is no big family and there would be 5 people here. Or that to actually do what she’s planned, that she would have to be on her feet in the kitchen cooking literally all day which is no longer an option. But to her credit, eventually the massive meal with the zillion entrees and side dishes did get pared down to just a few. She got some ham steaks for me to grill for everyone, and she cut out almost everything else. She did make a cranberry salad and some veggie and potato dishes, and we had Mary Jane over for dinner (brought the total to 5) and she brought her sweet potatoes. So was Easter dinner brought back down to earth. I think Beth would really like to be the matriarch hostess of a huge family but that is not in the cards.

Anyway, Missy came home for Easter weekend. She had some later classes, so she wasn’t home in time to go to the Good Friday service with us. The rest of us went out to Mad Anthony’s for dinner afterwards, intending to be home before Missy arrived, but not so. We had probably the slowest service ever – I think they forgot about us more than once – and in the end took everything to go since over an hour after ordering we still didn’t have anything. We took all the food to go and ran home so Missy wouldn’t be waiting for us locked out at home. Anyway, she stayed for the weekend, leaving a bit after the Easter Sunday services. Everyone’s in the home stretch for the college year now…

Went out antiquing this weekend with Beth and Nat. There is some sort of shop-local event going on in Pierceton, so Beth wanted to drop in at Kelsea Designs and see if there was anything she needed there. Turns out there was: she found a cut glass candy dish that is the exact same pattern that her mom had back in the day. We chatted with the proprietor and her mom for a while before moving on to Syracuse to get lunch and decide not to stop at the antiques places there, but instead move on to Nappanee and check out the place there. Beth found a glass that she really liked and a slag glass pitcher which she also liked, but decided she wouldn’t get both and only got the glass. I surprised her with it when we got home.

Friday was a game day at Trey’s for the work group. We all ditched work for a team building event, as it were. We went out to lunch at Biryani Kitchen (as per uzh) and then went to Trey’s for board games. We played a round of Codenames, a round of Wavelength and another of Rise of Augustus.

Alex has gone back to school for the home stretch until graduation. I think it was a really good thing that he came home; he had several appointments during the week, most notably with his counselor, and his  psychiatrist (and dentist, too!) and getting his meds adjusted. He’s felt so awful, so anxious, for a long time now and he finally started feeling better with the meds adjustment as it was time to go back. So we didn’t get to do a while lot this week, but it was still a good thing that he was here. 

I’ve taken my old bike to the Trailhouse to get the crank adjusted or fixed. There has been a creaking noise every revolution of the pedals for a while now that’s getting worse, but when I move my hells outwards it tends to stop. Annoying noise, and I don’t want to ride pigeon toed either, so hopefully they can replace the bearings (I assume that’s what it is) and it’ll be good to go. 

Wednesday we all went to Fort Wayne, Alex just wanted to go to the mall and shop around a bit for something to do. Nat and her friend came as well. Alex wanted to go to Potbelly in FW, he’s been a few times to one in WA and likes it so he thought it’s be fun for everyone to go. It’s a sub shop, basically….anyway, we hit the mall, mostly B&N for us and places like GameStop for him. A couple hours later, head home.

Friday was shoe shopping day. I’ve wanted to ditch the Sketchys I’ve been wearing because my feet hurt all the time now. Alex has worn out his shoes again, like he does, and since he needs a size 15 we went to Pilcher’s. We both found a nice pair of Brooks shoes.

Saturday, it was time for Alex to head back. But first, there was a Pokemon card pre-release even of some sort at a cards & gaming place downtown Warsaw, so I took Alex there. It was lasting longer than I thought it would so I wound up dropping him off and leaving, then picking him up later. Apparently, everyone there got some new Pokemon cards and got to trade them with others and play the battle game. He was there for a couple hours at least, said it was a really good time. We headed to Indy soon after he was done, leaving plenty of time since it was supposed to be so crowded, so of course it wasn’t and there was no traffic and we had time to kill when we got there. But he got off with no problems and Scott picked him up in Seattle. Not the most fun ever for a spring break, but it was good to have him here.

It must be getting close to being spring, because the church softball coaches meeting was last Tuesday. The season starts April 22, and as of now FCC still plans to have 2 teams (still going through signups) but the league commish can’t say how many teams will be in the league so we’ll have to wait and see how things shake out. 

Alex is home! He arrived on Saturday. Nobody was able to take him to the airport in Seattle so we told him to take an Uber there instead of parking in the long term lot, because even as expensive as it is, Uber is cheaper. The Uber was about $90, long term parking for a week at SeaTac would probably be at least $200, probably more. Anyway, Beth and I went to a kids’ business fair at North Webster Community Center (like last year) because some kids we know from church have businesses. Evora makes beaded jewelry and Liddie made stickers, and we saw a few others we know. We bought a few things that were cute. After that, we headed out to the Indy airport, and picked up Missy along the way to go with us. Alex got in without difficulties, his bags arrived where they were supposed to, and we headed back home again dropping Missy off along the way again. Got back home around 11, and Alex was so exhausted after the long travel day that he couldn’t get up for church.

Today is Selection Sunday, and my annual bad NCAA tournament bracket picks are in: I’ve picked Michigan State, Florida, Tennessee, and eventual champion Duke for the Final 4. I know I’m being a homer for MSU and really felt like I should have them no further than Elite 8, but what can you do. It’s just a free bracket at work with the only prize being your name written on a poster with a Sharpie. 

Since Missy’s been home this week for spring break, on Saturday we all went up to Michigan to visit family for the day. We started off going to the cottage to visit Ted for a couple hours, then hopped over to Stephanie’s for a few hours, then tracked down Ric at his friend’s house where they were out in a shack making maple syrup. They had the boiler going pretty hot and heavy and it was practically raining inside from all the steam condensing. We visited him there for a while before going out to look for somewhere to eat and heading home. 

Missy was also supposed to head back to Muncie on Sunday evening, but the weather was so bad (stormy) that she didn't want to drive back in it, so she decided to stay overnight tonight and go back tomorrow. She's already got things taken care of for class she'll miss tomorrow and it's no big deal. She's so organized.

Missy is home! She is on spring break. She left school on Friday and arrived late in the evening. Unfortunately the kids have spring breaks that are different weeks, so we're not going to be doing much that's fun....I'm going to be working like normal, Beth will be doing her normal things, and we'll just sort of try to do some fun things while she's here, but fun like shopping and going for coffee and not like vacation at the beach. Well, Missy's looking forward to some down time, and she should get plenty of it. She's got some appointments that we made while she'll be home too, but that's not real fun, I guess.

We did take her to a craft fair at Lakeview Middle School on Saturday. There were a lot of the usual suspects there, some baked goods, some sewn goods, some 3-D printed goods, some wooden goods...but two things really made it for us. One, we ran into several friends, in particular our old babysitters Katie (Katalee, who was running a shop selling cool stickers and magnets) and Jenny who was there with her bunch of kids, and two, there was a lady selling knitted goods and Missy found a pink knit dragon that she loved, but it cost $35 so she put it back, and a little bit later while Missy was talking with someone I snuck back and bought it and hid it in the car, and Missy didn't notice. I'm going to give it to her for her birthday :)

Missy came back home this weekend. She just texted Beth and asked if she could come home, just because she needed a break. So of course she could! She drove up Friday after classes (but she skipped the latest one) and spent the weekend. We didn't do much, but the weather started getting kind of blowy on Sunday afternoon so she thought maybe she would stay another day. She checked into what classes she could blow off and left Monday afternoon instead. Restful weekend, mot much else to report. 

I finally did something about the leaking faucet in the bathroom upstairs this week. Leaking from around the base of the handles, not dripping into the basin. We've had a washcloth wrapped around it for at least a few years now to keep the water from leaking all over the vanity, and I finally got to the point where I thought I really should do something about it. I bought a faucet at Menard's a couple years ago, but quite a while back after I unboxed it I thought it seemed really chintzy so I never installed it; last weekend I went to Lowe's and found a much better one. Installing wasn't that hard, except for the awkwardness of getting underneath everything. And there was enough patina all over the hold-down bolts that I couldn't get the nuts off, so in the end I cut them off with a Dremel. After that it came out very easily :) and the new one went in place pretty easily, except for getting the fixtures tightened up around the basin from below. Hurt my shoulder getting up and around in there. Hard to see, too. But we have a new faucet in the bathroom. The flow is quite a bit less than the old one, but maybe that's a good thing. 

On the same topic, now that I fixed the upstairs bathroom faucet, Natalie told me that the downstairs toilet has been leaking. She thought it was leaking around the floor, which is gross, but I got a plumber in here to take care of it and it turned out to be from the tank. The gasket between the tank and bowl was basically shot: it crumbled in the plumber's hand when he took it out and it was so old that it was an odd size and he had to run out to find a new one that fit ours. But he got it all taken care of and I found a coupon for Summers in the Lake City Saver, so all good! 

Beth and I picked up her framed cross-stitching of the floral cross in FW Saturday. It is beautiful! 

The Super Bowl was today. Beth and I were kind of half-hoping to find a friend having a watch party of some sort or something like that, but no dice, so we just watched it at home. I made some homemade salsa from a recipe I found on the internet that is supposed to be the best, and it was good, but I think we should have let it sit overnight in the fridge before we ate it. We just ate it as soon as it was done. Beth kept talking about making all kinds of snacks for the game but in the end I think she caught on after I told her we didn't need anything fancy and it was just going to be us at home. It was kind of like Thanksgiving when she makes 8 dishes with enough for a huge extended family that isn't here and I have to keep telling her "It's just us, you know." I think she needs to hostess something pretty soon. Anyway, the game was forgettable. So were the commercials.