D's Notebook

Tag: holidays (Page 7 of 19)

Weekend Notes

January 7, 2019 /

It is the last day of Christmas vacation in our house. It might hit 50 for the third-straight day, but no one seems real interested in getting outside and doing something. Probably has something to do with me telling everyone their rooms need to be cleaned up before anything else gets done today, and no one is moving all that quickly to start cleaning. C does have a volleyball practice in a bit, but other than that looks like one, final, lazy day to wrap up two-plus weeks of them.

So let’s look back at the weekend.

KU

Man, that’s about as shitty of a weekend as I can remember for KU sports fans. There were the big events: Udoka Azubuike getting ruled out for Saturday’s game at Iowa State because of an injury suffered in practice Friday, the Jayhawks getting run off the court in the second half by the Cyclones, and then Sunday’s announcement that Udoka is done for the season.

And then two smaller events, one of which that is, really, bigger: Gary Woodland getting caught by the red-hot Xander Schauffele and losing the Tournament of Champions by one stroke and former KU football great – and father of a current Jayhawk – Kwamie Lassiter dying of a heart attack at just 49. Seriously, there was a lot of bad texting amongst my KU friends this weekend.

The loss to Iowa State was miserable. Despite playing terribly, KU was still in a good spot with 1:00 to play in the first half. It was one of those “If they can survive the next minute, get into the locker room, make some adjustments, this is anyone’s game.” Then then gave up a bad and-one, followed by a bad possession on offense and a 3-pointer by Iowa State that, effectively, ended the game. The second half was brutal. Iowa State, who I had read was not a very good 3-point shooting team, hit just about everything they threw up. The KU defense seemed only mildly interested in guarding anyone and in the last 10 minutes often stood and watched while ISU had a glorified shoot around.

So a bad loss on paper, but in the grand scheme of things, it was just a single loss. One I had chalked up at the beginning of the year, a belief that was reinforced when Udoka’s injury was announced before the game. KU had a lot of work to do to get better, but Bill Self is always able to adjust and get the best out of whatever his mix of talent is. As long as Dok didn’t miss more than a couple games, KU would be fine, although the Big 12 race would clearly be a dogfight.

And then the Udoka news broke Sunday. This will sound dramatic to all you non-KU folks, but the season is over. In a season after a Final Four appearance, and in which they began a national title favorites, the loss of Udoka from an already flawed team means all the lofty goals of November are trashed. The Big 12 streak will end and KU will be fortunate to get to the Sweet 16.

If KU could suddenly find an elite shooter who had immediate eligibility I would hold out hope that they could right the ship. But this team’s fatal flaw is that it has zero reliable outside shooters in an era where you need multiple guys who can hit the 3. There’s no getting around that.

Some people have been saying today, “Well, if Silvio De Sousa gets eligible, that changes things.” He’s not getting eligible. If it was going to happen, he would have been cleared by now. I’m sure KU is doing everything they can to get him cleared, but that ship has sailed. He should head to Bosnia, or wherever Billy Preston went last year.

That’s not to say this is a terrible team, or that I will not still watch every game with great interest. In fact, this season suddenly becomes pretty much stress-free. Knowing the Streak will end this early in the season means there’s less pressure on the next 16 Big 12 games. Losses on Big Mondays won’t mean I’m awake until 3:00 AM replaying what went wrong in my head. The Big 12 race will suddenly be about KU being spoilers rather than favorites. Knowing they don’t have a chance to make a repeat trip to the Final Four should make March games much more tolerable to watch.

It all sucks, but it’s not the end of the world.

Colts

As KU was losing in Ames, the Colts were hammering the Texans in Houston. As I understand it only a pass interference penalty and a tipped interception kept the Colts from leading 35–0 before halftime. I was switching over during commercials enough to get the gist of the game without all the details. As impressive as the Colts performance was, I do temper my enthusiasm a bit knowing they were playing Houston, the biggest frauds in this year’s playoff field.

Now it is on to Kansas City for a very, very interesting matchup. The Chiefs should be healthy favorites; I give the Colts about a 10% chance of winning. As good as the Colts’ defense has been this year, they’ve not faced an offense like the Chiefs’. But the Colts’ suddenly stout running game makes an upset not entirely out of the question. Get a lead, start pounding the rock, convert third downs, anything can happen. Not that the Colts have ever beaten the Chiefs in the playoffs before, so there’s really nothing for my Chiefs fan friends to worry about Saturday…

Other Football

I caught parts of the other three playoff games. I’m really not sure what Seattle was thinking on offense, although I’m not an expert on these things. I laughed at all the people who were saying “No one wants to play the Ravens!” a week ago after the Chargers pounded them. I did see that stretch at the end of the third/beginning of the fourth quarters when the referees somehow managed to totally botch three consecutive plays in at least five different ways. All those guys should be done for the playoffs. And the last couple minutes of the Eagles-Bears game were simply fantastic for neutrals. What an ending!

Spidey

C, L, and I went to see Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse yesterday afternoon. It was really, really good! I was a little surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I’m not into movies based on comics,[1] nor was I a comics fan when I was little. I do recall owning some Spider-Man comics, though, and recognized the sense of humor that was unique to them in the movie. L has always been a Spider-Man fan, so she really enjoyed it. As we were walking out, we saw a little guy, maybe four, in his Spider-Man costume. She had the same costume when she was younger and I bet she would have worn hers if the movie had come out back then.

Weather

I think M is the only one complaining about our mild weather. She was supposed to go on a middle school ski trip yesterday to some hills down near Cincinnati, but with it being well over 60 down there, the trip had to be postponed for a couple weeks. She was most annoyed about having washed dishes for a month to pay for the trip. “If it doesn’t happen, I will have washed all those dishes for nothing!” she whined. I let the comment go, lest she think it through a little more and demand cash in exchange for her services.

Back to the grind tomorrow. M and C will get their volleyball schedules soon. We’re counting down the days until spring break. And after the first semester wraps up next week, M will be in her final semester at St. P’s.

  1. I don’t think I’ve seen any of the modern Marvel or DC movies other than Ant-Man.  ↩

Starting Off Strong (In Theory)

January 2, 2019 /

Happy New Year! Hope your celebrations were safe, happy, and the headaches/stomaches that resulted have passed.

Our New Year’s Eve went well. The Pacers game was good. Well, other than spending 15 minutes to travel three blocks right before our parking garage. Not sure what the hell was going on but traffic was a nightmare. The Pacers won by 8, the girls seemed to enjoy it, and our seats were decent. We were actually in the same section I sat for the KU-Michigan State game in November, just 17 rows higher and slightly to the side. Still low enough to clearly see the game.

IMG 1074

 

New Year’s Day was our standard, put away the Christmas decorations while watching football day. Always weird to see your home after six weeks of having a tree and decorations fill the open spaces. Our house feels much bigger today.

Ah, but the highlight – to me at least – of the week has been a musical discovery. Or rediscovery, rather.

I had forgotten there is a station on iHeart Radio that plays nothing but old American Top 40s. I haven’t checked it in months, maybe over a year. I don’t listen to it often because the countdowns are random. Unlike the ones on local radio or SiriusXM, they do not correspond with the same week back in the day as the current calendar shows.

For some reason I decided to check it Monday afternoon before we left for the game. The song playing was something not immediately familiar, but likely from the late ‘70s. So I decided to listen until the end of the song to place it properly. That’s when I heard Casey say he was counting down the top 50 songs of 1979. Nice! I enjoyed the next 90 minutes or so of listening to the end of that countdown. There were some great songs in there.

Anyway, the 1979 countdown ends and they roll straight into the 1980 countdown.[1] You might see where this is going…

I listened to a little of 1980 before we left. I caught a little of 1981 later in the evening. And we listened to a big chunk of 1983 while taking the decorations down. With 1984 coming up, you might think I would huddle up for six hours and listen to the entire thing. Somehow I resisted that urge, and only listened to a couple bits here-and-there, along with a longer stretch when I went to the gym. And I listened to a long chunk of the ’85 countdown while reading before bed. As I write this I’m in the middle of the 1987 countdown, which was right when my listening preferences were beginning to separate from what was on AT40 each week.

As you will expect, I’ve really enjoyed listening to these countdowns. Lots of fun trivia. Several songs I’ve mentally flagged to write about if I hear them later this year. Plenty of notes I’ve texted several of my brothers in music about. And tons of great songs. To be fair a lot fo really shitty songs, too.

I was going a little crazy when I couldn’t matchup the songs Casey was playing with the lists I found online of the Billboard Hot 100 from each year. It took some digging, both online and into my memory as I think I’ve battled this issue before, but turns out the radio show’s top 100 was based on a December 1 – November 30 year, while the official top 100 was based on January 1 – December 31. I was going crazy especially in 1984, when Casey insisted “Say, Say, Say” was the top song while every list I’ve ever seen lists “When Doves Cry” as the #1 song of that year. Knowing the radio show cut back into 1983 made that make perfect sense, as “Say, Say, Say” was huge at the end of ’83.

I suppose, when much of the countdown was put together without the use of computers, it was a huge effort to count the songs, gather interesting tidbits about the list, and then record the show in-between the regular December shows in time for its late December release. Makes sense that they had to start several weeks early to meet that deadline.

The more you know…

Finally, I was reminded yesterday about how I’m getting older.

I consistently go to the gym 3–5 times each week. I’ve been on that schedule since the girls went back to school in August. I’m on ok shape, although I haven’t switched my routine up for awhile. I have been on a medium weight, high repetition program since mid-October.

I mixed things up yesterday, moving to a plan for men over 40 I found online. I would be using lighter weights, almost exclusively dumbbells, and focus on form. For example, rather than doing leg presses on a machine, I would do squats with dumbbells. Easy enough, I thought. Those had been part of my routine until October, when I went to pressing more weight on the machine.

I decided to throw in shoulder presses at the top of the squat, something I used to do in every strength session. It’s a great movement that hits your whole body. After the first set, my legs felt a little weird. After the second I thought all the supporting muscles in my upper legs were going to tear. On the third, my back seized up. Terrific.

This morning my back is still crazy tight, the legs are sore. All this just from doing different exercises with 15 pound dumbbells, much lighter than what I had been lifting last week.

Getting old sucks.

  1. 1980 seems to be the year that the year-end countdown went to 100 songs.  ↩

Christmas ’18 Wrap Up

December 28, 2018 /

After a busy week, things are finally slowing down enough to share some details from our Christmas celebrations.

My in-laws came in from Florida last Wednesday. This is their second Christmas since going to Florida full-time, so Saturday my mother-in-law and the girls had their second annual baking day. They baked three kinds of cookies and a coffee cake for Christmas morning. S and I escaped to the gym and ran some errands, but it seems like fun was had.

Sunday evening we all went to see the light display at the former Indianapolis Museum of Art, now called Newfields. The grounds are all decorated and you stroll through at your leisure. Although we were told to allow 60–80 minutes to make it through the entire exhibit, the crowds were rather light that night and we made it through in about 40 minutes. It was a clear, cool evening, but dry and not so cold you were freezing body parts off. And the displays were beautiful. Even the cynical 14-year-old seemed to really enjoy it.

Christmas Eve was the normal rush of preparing for the next day’s meals in the morning, then getting ready for church. Yes, after taking two or three years off from Christmas Eve mass, we finally made it. Amazingly, this was the first time we’ve ever gone to St. P’s. In the past we went to one of two other churches that were closer to where the family gathering would be after. We figured after nine years of being parishioners, we should probably check out St. P’s. We got there early enough to nab a great parking spot and claim good seats, so it was a success as far as I was concerned.

After that came family gathering #1 in our old neighborhood at S’s sister’s and brother-in-law’s home. Lots of good food and family hanging out. It is a little weird to have kids that you don’t have to worry about, while there are three two-year-olds running around that need constant watching. The days where I was on continuous alert at family events don’t seem that long ago.

Back home to wind down the night switching back-and-forth between A Christmas Story and Christmas Vacation before bed.

Christmas morning, as always, was quick. The girls were all pleased with their gifts. M got a new Cathedral sweatshirt, an iPad, and a case and keyboard to go along with it. I was surprised she asked for the iPad, as we had to get her one for high school anyway. She said she wanted it now, though. C got a big makeup case, a hair-straightening brush, and a tripod for her iPhone. And L got Nikes – which don’t fit so we’ll replace them soon – a new headset for her XBox, and a pillow. Yes, she asked for an expensive pillow.

I think our girls are strange in their requests, but they were all very pleased. C even said this was the best we’ve ever done with gifts.

We also got, for our family gift, tickets to the Pacers game on New Year’s Eve.

After gifts came the two rounds of family gatherings at our house. First brunch, with the immediate family. This was probably the smallest one of these gatherings we’ve ever had. A few hours later some of S’s extended family popped in for dessert. Usually that visit tends to drag on forever. A couple years I’ve just gone somewhere and taken a nap, not because I don’t enjoy the company but rather because I’m exhausted. This year all the guests had cleared out by 3:30, by far a record.

The last three days we’ve been very lazy. The girls have spent hours watching shows, playing games, and communicating with friends on their devices. There have been a lot of lazy, eat-what-you-want, meals. Plenty of midday desserts. Lots of laying around doing nothing. S took the week off so she’s also been about as lazy as she can be. We’ve been talking about going to the gym for three days. We might get off our butts here soon and stroll over.

She took her dad and step-mother to the airport this morning. We took the leaves out of the table, put the high chair back into the basement, and washed all the guest sheets. I erased all the holiday channels from my SiriusXM favorites a couple days ago. We’ll keep the decorations up until Tuesday, but Christmas 2018 is officially over, I guess.

I hope all of you had excellent Christmases, and those of you who still have a few days off continue to enjoy your breaks.

That Old Christmas Spirit

December 17, 2018 /

As your kids get older there are dozens of trade offs as you leave old annoyances behind but also lose moments of joy that are unique to younger ages.

Sadly the Christmas spirit is pretty much gone among our girls this year. Yeah, L still has some moments where she’s down. She’s the only kid who has wanted to sit down and watch Christmas shows with me. She was listening to Christmas music before Thanksgiving, although she has not listened to much since then. She’s the only kid who is interested in looking for Elfie, and some days she forgets. She’s also in charge of our Advent calendar and many days I’m moving our little candy cane marker because she forgot.

The other two? Largely checked out to all the traditional stuff. They’ll stroll through and catch me watching Elf or Christmas Vacation, pause for a moment, laugh at me rather than the movie, and then move along. They roll their eyes when we bring up holiday things they used to love.

That bums me out a little. For all those maddening moments that came with having little kids at the holidays, there was also that sense of magic, wonder, excitement, and anticipation that just isn’t in the house anymore.

Last night we took one of their aunts and her two-year-old for a ride to look at Christmas lights. The girls did good helping little M spot cool things and keep him interested. I know they’re excited about their grandparents getting here Wednesday, our Christmas Eve gathering, and then Christmas Day at our house. Which, really, is what the holidays should be about: getting together with family and those you love.

Their lists reflect their ages. A lot of practical requests for things that will be used for months. At first this, too, bothered me. “Why aren’t they asking for anything fun?” I wondered. But over the weekend I remembered how I used to be annoyed at how they asked for toys that they would play with until early January then would ignore. So while the fun factor may be lacking, at least they’re asking for things that won’t be forgotten about before MLK day.[1]

And I should give M some credit. She has a pretty tight group of friends that had a special “Friendsgiving” day last month. They got together, made treats, and hung out for a few hours. When December rolled around they decided to do a Secret Santa thing. Last Friday after school we went to the Dairy Queen around the corner so they could exchange their gifts. C and I sat a few tables away, eating ice cream, and watching.[2] It was very sweet to watch M and her friends find out who their Secret Santa was and open their gifts. There were some very creative ones, and lots of hugs. Four of them are going to high school together, but there’s no guarantee that group will be as tight a year from now as they are now. C was kind of rolling her eyes the whole time. I told her that it would be really cool if she and her friends she’s known since kindergarten did the same thing when they are eighth graders in two years.

  1. L is still asking for some fun stuff. But it’s mostly Xbox/Fortnite related.  ↩
  2. L was at book club.  ↩

Another View of Shepherd

December 12, 2018 /

I’m in the midst of my annual re-reading of Jean Shepherd’s A Christmas Story. If I’m not mistaken, this is the 10th-straight December I’ve reviewed the collection of short stories that much of the movie was based on.

Every year I think, “I should go back and listen to some of Shepherd’s radio shows or read a biography of him.” Sometime this past year I actually took a look at the one biography there is of Shepherd. It’s surprisingly massive, and seemed a little over-the-top for what I was seeking. I did some searching and found a couple articles about Shepherd that I saved and just read this week.

One is written by Steely Dan member Donald Fagan, who was greatly influenced by Shepherd’s radio show in his teen age years. The other piece contains some clips of a few of his radio bits.

Maybe it’s just me, but it was interesting to hear more beyond the ultra-familiar scenes with Raphie, Flick, and Schwartz.

The Man Who Told A Christmas Story

More Than ‘A Christmas Story’: Remembering Jean Shepherd, Radio’s Great Teller of Tales

Song and Dance

December 11, 2018 /

A couple Christmas entertainment links to share this morning.

I had been kicking around the idea of writing about my least favorite Christmas songs. Alexandra Petri decided to take that to a whole other level and rank 100 Christmas songs. A few of these I’ve never heard of and I think she leaves out a few that get played a lot on your local holiday music station. But I dig her point of view.

A ranking of 100 — yes, 100 — Christmas songs

L is the only kid in the house that is still interested in watching any of the Christmas shows. We watched Charlie Brown the other night and, as always, the dancing kids got to me. Seriously, more people need to dance like these fools! I did some digging and found this breakdown of the dancers on 538 from three years ago. It’s solid and I totally agree on the kid they rank #1.

The ‘Charlie Brown Christmas Special’ Dancers You Most Want To Party With

Thanksgiving Weekend Notes

November 26, 2018 /

Our Thanksgiving weekend was, by one measure, perfect. We were intensely busy for parts of the weekend. At others we sat around and did nothing. Every long, holiday weekend should have that balance.

C and I went to watch some of her classmates play for the CYO girls basketball city championship Tuesday night. They lost, handily, but C had fun watching them.

Wednesday I snuck a trip into Costco before our builders sent some guys over to wrap up the final thing they still needed to fix. Their work took the entire day so I was glad I had all my Thanksgiving shopping done.

Thursday we did something new, for us, to begin our holiday celebrations: we walked the short course of the biggest Thanksgiving race in town. We were joined by a few friends and our three, two-year-old nephews and their families. It was chilly but clear and dry, and walking for about an hour was a nice way to kick off the day.

We scrambled home to get the food prep underway. I was taking care of the bird – I did two turkey breasts rather than a full bird – corn soufflé, dessert, and the obligatory Giada’s stuffing. We were running well behind schedule, but fortunately all of our guests walked and they were also running late, too. So it all worked out! It turned out to be a really nice day so after stuffing ourselves, we were able to sit on the back porch for a bit watching football on the outdoor TV. It was a small group for our family, only 13 counting the little ones. We will have a bigger group at Christmas.

A couple things different about Thanksgiving in the new house. First, we have double ovens, which made it much easier to get everything ready. The fact that the turkey took a lot longer than I expected which would have caused a much bigger problem if we didn’t have the other oven to throw things in. Second, at our old house you couldn’t see the TV from the kitchen. Over the past 15 years football became less and less a part of my Thanksgivings because I was usually in the kitchen working. Now, though, the family room is directly off the kitchen. So I could sneak peaks at the Bears-Lions game as I was prepping dinner.

Friday as traditionally been our Christmas tree day. That changed with the new house, too. We caved and finally got an artificial tree. We needed something that was tall but also skinny because of the space where a tree would fit best. So a week ago, when the girls had their snow day, we bought a fake tree and stashed it in the hall closet. Friday we busted it out and put it together. It looks pretty good, I admit. But I am very much missing the smells that come with a real tree. We got some of those little scent sticks you can hang as ornaments the give the impression of a fir, but they don’t work very well. As I saw other people driving around this weekend with their trees on top of their cars, I felt pangs of jealousy.

Saturday we went out to look for some more decorations. The girls were very excited that the nursery we went to had a bunch of llamas out for petting and pictures. M has been obsessed with llamas since before it was cool to like them. The look on her face was priceless. Of course, five minutes later she blew off Santa and then minutes after that she made C cry. Freaking teenagers.

S and I went out to dinner with friends that night. We had some excellent food, better conversation, and my pal and I drank some very enjoyable bourbon.

Sunday began with laziness. L really wanted to see the new Grinch movie. At first I thought it would just be she and I, but everyone ended up going. L really liked it. I thought it was ok and struggled not to fall asleep three different times. I prefer the original. Grumble, grumble…

There was, of course, a lot of football and basketball sprinkled in. I watched KU win two games in the NIT. We watched the Pacers lose. We watched some of the high school state title games. Lots of college games Saturday and most of the Colts game on Sunday. L and I even got outside Sunday to throw the football and baseball for a few minutes.

All in all a pretty decent weekend. We were very lucky to have pretty great weather the entire time, with several days in the 50s. Hopefully all my readers back in the Great Plains are safe and sound and digging out from the blizzard. We a getting a few flakes today but the windchill is expected to be around 10 tomorrow morning.

Holidays

November 1, 2018 /

I mentioned some time after our move last summer that we were all having a hard time making the small adjustments that come with a new home. Where are the cooking pots? Where are the cutting boards? Where is our stash of paper towels? Etc, etc etc.

The longer we’ve been in this house, the more all of that newness has become routine. What continues to be strange, though, are the seasonal things we did in the old house and how to bring them to the new house. Living in one place for 15 years, we had countless established routines that waxed and waned with the movement of the calendar. As we drifted from summer into our first fall here, I kept having weird, unsettled feelings, like I should be doing something. I was never sure what exactly it was I was supposed to be doing, but I felt a sense of unease left when those habits of 15 years were uprooted.

For example, at the old house, we always put up Halloween decorations as close to Oct. 1 as we could. We’d take a look at the weather forecast, our schedule of kid activities, and sometimes the weekend before Oct. 1, sometimes exactly on Oct. 1, we’d pull the boxes out of the basement and start spreading our lights, skeletons, witch, vampire, etc around the front yard. This year it took me a couple days into October to realize that we needed to drag all of that stuff out. Then we realized many of our items were purchased because they perfectly fit something about the old house, but were not as good of matches for the new setup. Oh, and it didn’t help that those young punks stole a bunch of our decorations a year ago.

We still got some decorations out. Just not as many as in the past. But it took us years to build up what we had. I suppose the same will be true here.

We stuck to the old plan for Trick or Treating last night. We left a bowl of candy at the front door of the new house and went back to the old neighborhood to hang with friends. C and L both dressed up – C as a “party llama” and L as a hot dog – and made their rounds. M decided she was too old to dress up and beg for candy. I think in truth she would have gone out again if it was up to her. But her friend in the old hood is a year ahead of her in school, and decided that high schoolers do not trick or treat. So M just hung out with her. Which was fine, but I was a little bummed that she let someone else make a decision that I’m not convinced she was 100% down with. Oh well, she still gets plenty of candy from all of our leftovers.

S and I sat in our old neighbors’ driveway next to a fire, eating chili and drinking beer while catching up. Fortunately it ended up being a cool but pleasant night. It had rained most of Halloween day but stopped just before trick or treating time rolled around. As we were getting ready to head out, the sprinkles of the next round of rain were just beginning. It poured overnight – our power went out twice – and today has seen a steady, bitter, cold rain fall. It’s been unseasonably cool here for several weeks, but November 1 definitely brought the feel of late fall with it.

And, of course, November 1 means the holiday countdown officially begins. I noticed two Christmas music stations on SiriusXM this morning. We saw a Miller Lite commercial that was Christmas-themed during SportsCenter this morning. With the countdown will come a whole new set of bumping between old traditions and new ones as we host our first Thanksgiving here and then decorate for Christmas for the first time.

Holiday Weekend Wrap Up With More Big News

May 29, 2018 /

Our summer is off to a very hot and hectic start.

Remember back when I was bitching about how cold it was in April? Mother Nature was paying attention and has punished me, and others in Indiana, who complained about her April offerings. This month is almost certain to clinch the hottest May in Indianapolis history. Yesterday was the hottest May day here in 107 years. It’s stupid. I’m assuming June is going to be wet and in the 60s.

We began the summer as we normally do, heading down to the lake. We went Saturday, taking one of our young nephews, and were joined by other family on Sunday. So the girls were super annoying Saturday without friends to keep them entertained. They were slightly better when aunts, uncles, and other cousins showed up. We had a second birthday party for one of the cousins. The rest of the time we just sweated in the heat.

Each of the past two summers, as we’ve closed down the house for the season, S and I have had a very brief conversation about whether the lake house is worth it. We really only spend six or seven fun weekends down there every season, but we’re paying a mortgage, insurance, taxes, and utilities for 12 months. We always talk about spending a weekend down there in the fall or winter, but never do it. Each of the past two years, the answer has been yes, it is still worth it. That math has changed.

We’re getting ready to sell the lake house, too.

It’s partially because we’re getting busier and it’s going to be tougher to get down there as the girls continue to get older. But it’s also because our new home in Indy is stretching us out more on how much money we’re spending on properties each month. It’s tougher to justify the lake house when it’s no longer in the comfortable financial zone to keep it.

We told the girls a couple weeks ago, and they weren’t happy. One of them cried for an hour. Too much change at once, I think. We explained our reasoning, but also pointed out that this will free us to do other things in the summer. They can have friends over more often. We might get to take some more, bigger trips. Eventually that logic has taken hold, but I still think they are, overall, disappointed.

When they were acting like being at the lake was a chore this weekend, when I spent 90 minutes in the heat working in the yard, when I thought ahead to all the prep for lake weekends and all the clean up after, I was ready to put a sign out when we left Monday morning. I’m sure I’ll be in a better mood in two weeks when we have friends down. But after six great summers, I’m kind of done with it.

We are just full of bombshells lately, aren’t we?!?!

Our home here officially went on the market today. We already have one showing scheduled. It’s been a hectic week or so to get the house as ready as it can be to start letting people walk through it. I believe I mentioned one of our next door neighbors had two offers the first day they put theirs on the market two weeks ago. That sets kind of a high expectation for how quickly things could happen. We also pushed our price up a decent chunk since they got more than their asking price, and we have more updates and a much bigger lot than they do. We could get an offer in a week, which would be pretty good, and I’m pretty sure I’ll be all stressed out since the neighbors were done so quickly.

We went over to meet the builder at our new house today. Even though we bought after it was 95% complete, we still had to run through some bullshit marketing surveys to satisfy their execs. They were putting in all the landscaping today, which made the house look better. Only problem is it is hot and dry, as I mentioned above, and they’re waiting on some final piece of paperwork to get the water line connected. We’re supposed to have a pretty good dose of rain over the next 36 hours as the tropical storm remnants pass us, but if the water isn’t hooked up soon, I worry we’ll have to start over in the fall. Oh well…

I hope all of you had safe and enjoyable holiday weekends free of major, life-changing decisions.

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