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!