Having a work holiday so soon after Christmas always seems odd to me. But I’ll take it anyway, I guess. Monday was MLK day so I had the day off. I went to Menard’s in the morning (I’ve been finally coming back to the basement of the house…it’s been unfinished too long. I’m doing some plastering and getting the door trim put back up.) and did some work downstairs but that was about it for the day. Only left the house to go to Starbucks otherwise. 

Wednesday was Beth’s birthday (59!) so we all went out to dinner at Salvatori’s to celebrate. I got her a card and some flowers at lunchtime, but she wasn’t home so I just left them for her to find. She likes stuff like that. Nothing else special since we have some plans to do a weekend getaway in FW next weekend, because the special thing we’re going to do was unavailable this weekend. Tune in later for more on that. 

Today, church was cancelled because of the weather. Basically everything’s been cancelled because of the weather lately, it’s been super cold and we’ve had a lot of snow. Just as well, because the church van is in the shop with a bad battery, a check engine light, and the hood won’t open (sounds familiar) so it was unavailable for morning pickups and we had several that were coming for baptisms. But it was bad enough outside for services to be cancelled, so that problem solved, anyway. 

Had a follow-up appointment Monday regarding the acid reflux. It’s been better since I started taking the medicine but the prescription ended 2 weeks ago. Which confused the NP I saw because I was supposed to have a 30 day supply and I only had 2 weeks worth. So I’m not sure what that was. But anyway it’s been better, so we’re in the wait and see phase, where we just see if I still need to take it or if a single round of it basically cleared something up. If the reflux comes back, I give them a call.

On Wednesday, Natalie and Churro and I had something of an adventure. Not a good one, though. After I got home from work, it seems that a couple hours prior, Churro found and completely ate an entire quarter-pound bar of dark chocolate. He was pretty wired when I got home, wanting to play and doing so aggressively, running and snapping at you if you picked up his toy and barking at you if you didn’t throw it fast enough. Nat was worried because she hadn’t realized what he’d done for so long, so she called a vet line and the vet she spoke too sounded worried about Churro too, and said we should get him in to the emergency vet clinic in Fort Wayne right away. So she called the clinic and they also said he should come right in. Well, it had been snowing all day so the roads were crappy and I didn’t really want to drive to FW, but I did anyway. Hoping all the while that he didn’t throw up in the truck. I took the truck ostensibly because it has 4 wheel drive in case the roads were slippery (which they were) but mostly because I was afraid he would throw up and I didn’t want that to be in the Santa Fe. Anyway, Nat and Churro and I were at the vet clinic (the same one that Nibbles the bunny died at) for a couple hours. His heart was racing when we got there and his bp was really high. They gave him something to make him throw up, which he did. Poor doggie puked his guts out. It smelled like chocolate. He didn’t feel great after that but they gave him something else to help with the nausea and his heart rate, and sent us home with some instructions, medicine, and two big bottles of activated charcoal to force feed him for a few days. He seemed fine after that. Nat tried the force feeding for a few days after that but he wasn’t having it and wouldn’t eat his food if it had any on it. But he still seems to be doing fine.

Saturday was our annual beef pickup day. In the morning Beth and I loaded up all the empty laundry baskets and went up to Wakarusa, and came back with some of the coldest stuff known to man. It amazes me exactly how cold to handle frozen beef is; the butcher must have their freezer set to absolute zero. The hardest part is digging through the freezer to find and discard all the stuff that’s so freezer burned it’s not worth saving, of which there is an embarrassing amount, and then find space for everything new. But we got it all in, after chucking who knows how much money’s worth of unused food. 

Today was the FCC soup & chili cook off and annual report night. I made the same lasagna soup that won me second prize last year, but this year only first place prizes were awarded and I didn’t make the cut. However, it was all gone by the time I went through the line a second time so people liked it. Beth was going to make something, since she is the soup lady, but in the end she didn’t because she wasn’t feeling very well and her back hurt too much to stand and make it. So we just entered mine and that was that.

This week was appointment heavy. Since Missy’s van had the problem with the hood latch, and I didn’t get it in to the shop in time for them to get the parts to get it fixed, we had to bring Missy back to school and keep the van at home for a few days. We got the van to the Toyota dealer on Tuesday and they had it all morning, but now the hood will open and they filled the windshield washer fluid as a courtesy. And such a little thing, such a simple tiny little issue with the van cost about $1200 to get it fixed. Holy crap. Anyway, this also meant that we needed to go deliver the van to Missy. After I was out of work on Wednesday, Beth and I headed to Muncie in separate vehicles, me driving the van, so we could drop it off with her. She’s well into her final term now….how is that possible….oh please let her find a job….anyway we arrived at her rental house, took all the girls out to dinner at IHOP (their choice), and headed back home again just after dinner because they all had stuff to do. 

Also this week Collier’s came to the house to do our annual furnace inspection. Afterwards, the humidifier is still leaking, though. Although it wasn’t when they were at the house to do the service. Of course. But I did get us signed up for the service plan again, hopefully that won’t fall through the cracks again. The fireplace in the living room doesn’t work, either…I wonder if they can still service that even though it’s >25 years old.

Saturday Beth and I had a date night, something we haven’t done in some time. We’ve wanted to go see the new “Wicked: for Good” movie for a while now and figured we’d better go see it before it was gone, because it’s a big screen kind of movie. I really enjoyed it, as with the first one, more than I thought I would. Not sure why I thought that way since I also really enjoyed the first one, but anyway as with the first one, we went to Goshen to see it. It’s old enough that the theaters only had it at certain times, and the Goshen theater had the time that worked best for us. We went out to dinner (sushi, of course) afterwards back in Warsaw.

 Last day of break. Christmas break has been good this year but chill. We didn’t do much traveling, but just tried to relax a bit and reset. Working around the major job of helping out Mary Jane. She had surgery on the 19th and was at the hospital in FW for several days before heading back to Warsaw and being in rehab at Miller’s for a week or so. Beth and I and Missy and Alex traveled back and forth to FW a few times in the first week to visit and bring her things from her apartment. The only fun thing we had planned was going to Medieval Times (we thought it’d be fun to get the whole gang there again, probably one last time). Getting there while working around the schedules was a trial in itself: Beth originally bought tickets for all of us before break, and told us the tickets were on the 29th. But then Alex’s work schedule came out and he was working on the 29th and couldn’t go. So Beth checked and realized that the tickets were not on the 29th, they were on the 28th…when Laura & Thomas were still going to be visiting us. So I called and got our times rescheduled to the 23rd (the date Beth told me to get) but then…as it turned out we couldn’t go on the 23rd either because Alex was working that date too. So we had to call and reschedule our time again to the 24th. Did I mention that there’s a fee of $50 for rescheduling which we did twice? Anyway we went to Medieval Times the day before Christmas. We were seated in the Black & White Knight’s section this time, too bad for us because he was the first one to get killed, by the treachery of the Blue Knight. That was the major plot line of this show, so they had half of the crowd cheering for the side that were clearly the bad guys, blue and their allies. But the good news is one of the good guys won in the end. Yellow & Red, I think it was. Not our guy, but one of our allies at least. Anyway, we only spent the one day in the Chicago area and drove back home afterwards, not even going to IKEA. 

Christmas was obviously the next day. We spent it at home, and it was pretty low key compared to past years. I put up the Christmas lights across the front roofline of the house and winding down the pillars along the front just after break started, and I put up the Christmas tree the same day but left the boxes of ornaments out for everyone else to decorate the tree if they wanted. Nobody did anything so I put the boxes away a couple days before Christmas. No stockings this year. When everyone got up on Christmas morning we opened presents: I got Beth the Warsaw Cut Glass ornament, Missy got mostly games and books and t-shirts, Nat got mostly clothes and beauty products, Alex got mostly games and clothes and Legos, I got a Lowe’s gift card and a family game. This year instead of over-doing a big huge family meal for way too few people, Beth decided that she didn’t feel like standing and cooking all day so we went out to eat at Ruby Tuesday instead. Hadn’t been there in forever but it was open on Christmas so that’s where we went. Laura and Thomas arrived Friday the 26th to visit a few days. The majority of the time we played Wizard or Azul, but Thomas brought expansion packs for Exploding Kittens so we played that a lot too. We went out to breakfast on Saturday and did some shopping all around the Village, then in the evening things went a little sideways. Natalie was out with a friend and somehow…I’m not sure about all the details…got caught up in the friend’s family drama involving a baby daddy, the kids, his mom, and his new girlfriend, and the drama escalated until Natalie was grabbed and yanked on and she slapped and spit on someone. Then the cops were called and Natalie was arrested for battery with body fluids. No, seriously. I got a call that she was being arrested and needed me to bring all her meds in case she had to spend the night in jail. She had the cuffs put on her and got a ride to the sheriff’s office, got booked and processed. We weren’t sure that she wouldn’t have to spend the whole weekend in jail since it was already after 5:00 on a Saturday, but once she was processed the bond was set at $505 and she has a court date in March, unless it’s all dismissed by then. We had her home by around 8:00 or so, and hopefully she won’t be hanging around with that friend any more. We had reservations at Cerulean for dinner, and the whole thing going on there made Beth and me late, but L&T went on and we were able to join them around a half hour later. We played some more games with L&T the rest of the evening. Sunday we had been planning to go to a Komets game in the evening, but as I found out less than a week ago just after I bought the tickets, the ECHL was on the verge of a strike over working conditions for the players, and as it turned out, the strike went on Friday and lasted through Sunday. 3 games postponed, including ours, so we had to punt instead. Beth and the kids and I went to church and L&T came over a bit later, and we spent a while playing games. I actually won a round of Wizard. Since there was no hockey game, we went out to see the new “Zootopia 2” movie, which I must say I was a little hesitant to see, because I loved the first one so much. I was afraid the sequel just wouldn’t measure up to the first one which was brilliant. But….not to worry, because the sequel in this case is at least just as good as the original one. They headed out for Chicago on Monday morning. And with that, the holidays were effectively over, but I still had a complete week off, which worked out nicely for me. We didn’t do much else, but I’ve re-started my Zwift membership so I did a lot of virtual riding in the garage, Alex worked, Nat was off with her bf a lot of the time, Missy saw some friends, and Beth and I helped Mary Jane a lot. She moved into rehab at Miller’s by the 29th so we helped her get all the things she needed to get comfortable there. Beth and Missy spent some time with her visiting and such. I got some general errands done: the whole-house humidifier started leaking pretty badly so I got a new filter for it and got us set up for a furnace/AC service plan, since we somehow had let that slip and hadn’t been serviced in 2 or 3 years. I got an appointment at the Toyota dealership for service on the minivan because something broke in the hood release and Missy was unable to open the hood at all. She had driven home for break with no washer fluid because the hood release just didn’t work any more. Unfortunately, they needed to order parts so I’m going to have to bring the minivan in *after* Missy goes back to college, which means we’ll have to drive her there and leave her without a vehicle for a few days, then drive both vehicles back there so we can leave the van with her. Oh well. For NYE, we did basically nothing. Nobody had any real plans and Beth and I were in bed by 11:30. 

Missy wanted to head back to Muncie on Friday so she could catch up and rest a bit before classes start Monday, and because technically the apartment isn’t supposed to sit empty for 2 whole weeks by the terms of the lease. Beth wasn’t feeling great so she stayed home; Missy and I loaded up to van and took the old familiar road back to BSU. Unloading the van at her apartment, I slipped on the ice on the sidewalk and fell right on my hip pretty hard…basically the same thing MJ did so I’m glad I didn’t end up in surgery and rehab. Anyway we unloaded Missy’s things and did some grocery shopping at Wal-Mart, then I headed back home. Her roommates were to arrive over the weekend so Missy was alone in the house without a car, but she seemed fine with that. For the rest of the weekend, there’s really nothing to report.