20210228 + Checking Buckets

20210228 + Up in the am and got a couple of things together. Then L&I tried to go to dog park but it was closed, so we went back home and took a big walk down to Creekside. When we got downtown the Creekside trails were all closed due to high water from the snow melting and the rain. We walked around for a bit and then back home. J headed to work and Hazel and I ran to Burger King to pick up some dinner. Home and we watched some TV while we had dinner. G joined us and we sorted a huge pile of cords L gathered from upstairs. We watched American Idol and then L yelled as the pot on the stoves was smoking, I burned the sap we had collected so far... GpaW gave us a call to let us know what was going on this week, he has an appointment tomorrow to get his test results back. We finished watching our shows, J home and we all headed to bed preparing for a busy week.

20210227 - 123 Burrs

20210227 - Up in the am and got a couple of things done and then L Hazel and I headed out for a couple errands. We went up to the pet store to get Hazel some more treats and swung by the Home Depot, but it was too busy on this pretty day so we decided to come back later. Home and we dropped L off and Hazel and I headed to Andy's to drop off some raffle tickets and then meet coach Shade at the baseball field to drop off the hot dog steamer. On to the dog park and it was a muddy mess and there were far too many big dogs and pit bulls there for Hazel and I to feel comfortable so we only stayed for a little bit. Since it was a short trip I decided to take Hazel over to the river side and let her see what she thought of the water... Well she fell in, over her head and I had to help her get out. She then ran and shook for a bit right in some burr bushes and got completely tangled up! I got her out of there, got her in the car and we went straight home, she cried the whole way home. I carried her in to the bathtub and then worked on her for about an 45 minutes taking each bur out one at a time from her twisty curly hair. Once she was free from the burrs L gave her a bath and she could quite crying. Once she dried off a bit I took her through the drive through at Wendy's to get her frosty. Home and did a couple of things around the house, J headed in to work and Owen came over to spend the night with G. I played them at Trouble and beat them twice in a row. G made ramen noodles for them, Owen had never had them before. The boys headed upstairs, L headed to bed and I watched a couple movies waiting for J to get home. J home, checked in and I headed to bed late.

20210226 - Go Lions!

20210226 - Up in the am and LJ&G at school. Hazel and I did our morning routine and I headed in to the office. I had a very busy day and finalized some things on a huge project I have been researching for about two years. Finished up the day and headed out of the office. Before long J headed out for the evening and G and I headed to his hitting lesson and I swung through the gas station to get a lotto ticket. G did good at his lesson and I checked in with Dolce about maple syurping. After hitting G&I swung by and picked up some pizzas for dinner. Home and we ate downstairs while we watched the new Tom and Jerry movie, it was cute. Upstairs and watched a bit more TV before heading to bed.


20210225 = Official Visit

20210225 + Up in the am and L headed to work and J&G online for school. Hazel and I did our routine and I moved in to the office. I was on the phone most of the day. I got a call and a text from a buddy, he was in my front yard, so I got off the phone and he came in for a nice visit. I haven't seen Gregg since the pandemic hit and and glad he stopped by. We chatted and caught up for a long time, such a pleasant surprise! I finished the day, L made dinner and D&DGF13 stopped over for dinner.

20210224 + Slow Boil

20210224 + Up in the am and everyone at school. Hazel and I did our morning routine and then I headed in to the office. Just another busy day. Gathered up the sap from the trees and boiled it down tonight.

20210223 - Don't Go

20210223 - Up in the am and L at work and I got J&G up for school at home today. Hazel and I were joined by G in our morning routine today and G took her out for a run. I got in to the office and had a couple calls and moved things forward. L home and took Hazel on a big walk in the nice weather today. I finished the day and went out to check the sap buckets and play with hazel a bit. G joined us and they played while I heated up some ribs for L for dinner. in for dinner and L and I relaxed and watched some TV. J home and D&DGF13 stopped by for a visit and to play and play with Hazel. Hazel is always sad to see people leave the house and watches them as long as she can. Got to bed in good time but awake until 2.

20210222 - Snack Buds

20210222 - Up in the am and L at school and I got J up for one of his classes. Hazel and I did our morning routine and then I got G up and headed in to the office. L home and took Hazel for a walk. I had a couple calls and in the afternoon Hazel and I went back to the school to pick up the free food. Home and finished the day. Boys took the trash out and L made dinner. J took off and and after dinner G played rummy with L&I until I realized I was missing a booster meeting and had to jump on a zoom. Finished up the meeting and L&I watched the Bachelor before she headed to bed and G&I stayed up and watched a funny movie.

20210221 - Drain & Tree Plumbers

20210221 - Up in the am and G&I down to the basement to replace the drainpipe. It didn't take as long as I thought and I think it is going to be ok, no leaks. After that I did a bit on the PC and watched the OSU basketball game with L&G. When the game was over I broke some ice out from under the garage door and then Hazel and I loaded up and headed out. We stopped at the gas station on the way to the dog park. We got to the dog park and there were too many dogs for me so we stayed on the other side away from the mess and there were just a few dogs that Hazel had some fun with. After about an hour we headed to an auction house to pick up some wins. We got our stuff and one more stop at Wendy's to see J and get us a couple frosties. Home and had our snack. J home and G joined us in putting out some maple sap buckets. In from the cold for the rest of the day and got some Booster stuff done. L made us some chicken soup for dinner and we hung out and watched some TV ending up on American Idol.


20210220 - Dog Shark

20210220 - Up LATE and getting some things done, sap buckets and spiles cleaned and ready, ebay shipped, rest of the weekend planned. I then dressed warm and Hazel and I headed to post office, Goodwill and the dog park. Hazel found a dog about her size and they tore off jumping and tackling and nipping and having a good old time. It is so cold there is no mud! We stayed about an hour and you can tell she’s bigger and stronger and more confident. We swung through Wendy’s and she got her mini frosty. Home and got G and headed to Dominican U for his pitching lesson. It has been a long time since he has thrown and he got stretched out and did good. Home for a bit where we removed some of G’s Pokémon listings from eBay for fear they are fakes. The guy that bought a card last night looked through our listings and let us know which ones to get rid of. G&I then ran to Dbat for his hitting lesson. He did really good hitting. Home and L reported water in the basement... I went down and had a look... Our main 3" copper drain pipe has cracked... So I made a list and headed to the Home Depot and got some supplies. home and D&DGF13 here. D helped me carry things to the basement and we chatted a bit. Kids left and I got the pipe sealed off good enough for the night, don't want to work on it with stores closed in case something goes wrongs... L&I watched a bit of TV before heading to bed.

20210219 + Fake

20210219 + Up in the am and LJ&G at school. Hazel and I had the house to ourselves and did our morning routine and then I headed in to the office lining things up for the day and weekend ahead. Got my stuff wrapped up and headed out of the office a bit late. Hazel and I ran to the post office and Chinese place up the road to get dinner. Home and ate and L&I watched a couple of good movies while I worked on an eBay issue. Apparently one of the Pokémon cards G sold was a fake...

20210218 - Midnight Pic

20210218 - Up in the am and L at work and J&G doing school from home today. Hazel and I did our morning thing and then I headed in to the office. A friend of mine from Holland reached out, his dog passed away a couple of days ago. Their dog was a goldendoodle named Lilly, purchased and named after our Lilly after they visited us years ago. She was outside and saw a swan on the pond, went after the swan and fell through the ice and floated under, unable to break through and get out. So sad... G got outside a bit today, shoveled the drive and took Hazel out a bit. L home and took Hazel on a walk and gave J a hair cut. I finished my day and Hazel and I went out to install a camera on the playset, she went down the slide by herself a couple times. Camera works AMAZING, see the pic that was taken at midnight!. In for dinner. J went to a friends, G ate with us and then back upstairs. i played with Hazel a bit and then L&I watched some TV. J home and G down at 10pm to start cooking and eating again.


20210217 + Brighter?

20210217 + Up in the am and LJ&G at school. Hazel and I did our morning routine and I took a call and then headed in to the office. I had a busy day of planning and designing. L home and took Hazel on a walk and then Hazel and I walked back to the school to get the free food. Home and finished off the day, J&G home from school and J headed to Wendy's for the night. L fed G&I and then we watched some TV and played rough with Hazel. I installed a new camera in the garage that is supposed to have better night vision as test. J home from work and we wrapped the night up early.

20210216 - No Like Boots

20210216 - Up in the am and everyone home, L made some blueberry muffins and J&G got online for school, no such thing as snow days anymore with all this technology... Hazel and I are out of sorts with all these people around all the time, and I got my morning wrapped up and in to the office for a call. Spent the day very busy and got a bunch moved forward. L took Hazel on a walk and dressed her in her ridiculous sweater and boots, she hates the boot... Out of the office and L had made some chili and cornbread. We ate and then J came down, confirmed his homework is done and went over to a friends for a bit. G down and ate and then vanished. L&I hung out watching TV, Gma&paW called and we chatted and D&DGF13 stopped by to pick up some warm weather clothes so he could work outdoors all day tomorrow. Up late doing nothing.

20210215 - Lookouts

20210215 - Up in the am and amazingly there is no school today... J headed to work and I had some bfast with L and Hazel and got a couple things done before heading in to the office. In to the office for the day and got a bunch of things moved forward and ready for next steps. Done for the day and came out to play with Hazel a bit while L got some dinner together. J home from work, he ran and got Conor and they went to Panera just as it started to sleet. They were only there a bit before they realized they need to get off the roads and came back to our house to study. I listed some things on ebay and played with Hazel and let her out and in about a hundred times, she loves the snow and coming back inside covered in ice pellets and shaking them off everywhere. J ran Conor home and L & Hazel watched them clean off his car. J made it home safe and L&I watched some TV to end the night.

20210214 - Cocktails & Chocolate

20210214 - Up in the am and L tried on her new Valentines Day dress I got her :-) L headed out to get some groceries, J headed to work and G started his last day of quarantine by heading back to the school to shoot the basketball. I got a couple things done on the PC and then caught up on the blog and started listing things on ebay. L home and I helped her get the groceries in and then bundled up and Hazel and I headed out to Goodwill to drop some stuff off and then on to the dog park. There were way too many dogs there today and Hazel and I kept our distance from the large barking biting packs and she played with a couple other smaller dogs that stayed out of the mayhem. We were there about an hour and then headed home with a quick stop to get a frosty from J. Home and L got Hazel cleaned up and I got ready for a night out. Bill and Tiff showed up and we headed to Creekside Cocktail & Chocolate Trail downtown. It was a little program where we got a passport from the visitors bureau and then walked around to 8 of the local businesses at Creekside and had some food and drinks and looked at art and just hung out and caught up. D and DGF11 met up with us towards the end. Home and we watched American Idol to round off a nice day.

20210213 - Soldering

20210213 + Up in the am, had some bfast and in to the office to plan the weekend and next week. I heard L yell from the kitchen 'THERE'S WATER UNDER THE SINK!'... I did an investigation and could feel a crack in the bottom of one of our old copper pipes. I took some measurements and pics and came up with a plan. I got the boys up and L hazel and I headed out. We dropped off some shipments, stopped at the gas station to turn in our winning lotto scratch off for another one, second one was a loser :-(  On to Reynoldsburg to pick up some auction wins, then Lowe's to get copper pipe and they had nothing larger than 3/4" We then headed to the dog park. Hazel stayed close for about the first 30min and then got a little braver and ran with another smaller dog. After an hr at the dog park we drove through Wendy's to get Hazel her frosty and then a stop at Gahanna Hardware to get some 1 1/2" copper pipe. Home and dug in to the drain repair and after about 2 hours I got the old cracked pipe unsoldered and an new pipe soldered in. We tested it and we are good! I got the tools cleaned up and we ordered Chipotle to support the GLHS Bowling team. Hazel and I ran to get dinner and L finished cleaning up the kitchen and put things back under the sink. Home and we ate and L&I watched Red Sparrow. J home from work and we all settled in for the night.

20210212 - Hazel Slide

20210212 - Up in the am and for some reason the boys don't have school today, but L does... Hazel and I did our morning routine and today while she was outside she decided it would be fun to play on the playset out back and went down the slide a couple of times! She went up and woke G up and I headed in to the office. Full day at the desk getting things done. Out and L Hazel and I ran to Popeye's to get some spicy chicken sandwiches for dinner, traffic was crazy horrible. Home and we ate and watched a movie. I had to help G with his xbox a bit. 

20210211 + Old Farts

20210211 - Up in the am and L at school and J&G online for school. Hazel and I did our morning routine before I headed in to the office. L home and checked on the boys and their homework. J finished up and headed to a friends for the night and G &I worked on the network a bit so he could play online with his friends.  That didn't work, so Hazel and I took a break and went and got gas. Home and L had made us a nice dinner. We ate in the living room like old farts watching Family Feud and Wheel of Fortune. G&I took another try at the network and finally got it working. L&I relaxed and watched TV the rest of the night.

20210210 - Supervising

20210210 - UP in the am and L&J at school and Hazel and I did our morning routine. Before I headed in to the office I got G, quarantine boy up, made him get dressed and took him some food. L home and she shoveled our drive and sidewalk. J home from school for a bit before running to a friends to work on a project. L made dinner for us and shoveled the drive again while waiting for it to cook. We took food to the quarantined and then ate at the table and played 'Stadium' an old marble ring game thing. We then cleaned up and I played with Hazel a bit while we had the TV on. J home in good time because the roads are terrible. Just hung out the rest of the night. Up around midnight when I heard a LOUD bang come from next door. The neighbor on the other side texted me right away, said it sounded like he threw something So I was up a couple hrs dealing with that...

20210209 + Bill's Better

20210209 + Up in the am and everyone home because we got some snow last night and schools have been cancelled. I got my morning things done and then headed in to the office. Spent the day in the office, actually everyone spent the day in their own space, kinda weird, but kinda normal in this crazy pandemic... Finished the day, J headed over to a friends for a break and and L made us dinner that we delivered on a tray to the quarantined patient. Our friend Bill V went home from the hospital today!

20210208 - COVID ALERT

20210208 - Up in the am and everyone at school. I was on a call and missed the calls from L&G, finally L got me while she was on her way to pick G up from school, he was exposed to COVID... G home and upstairs quarantined and L back to work. L home and ran G to get a test downtown at Children's hospital. So now we wait 24hrs... J home and L helped him with some homework. I headed to the post office and then Hazel and I went back to the school, neighbor dogs running and barking and attacking each other... we picked up our food. Home & L made us some dinner and I made some baseball calls. L got a call from the hospital and G is NEGATIVE! We are still going to keep him isolated for 10 days just to make sure... We watched some TV and then the Buckeyes play some basketball before heading to bed.

20210207 - Further

20210207 - Up in the am and helped J with some chemistry before he headed to work. L headed out on a couple errands and I headed in to the office to do some ebay and organization stuff. Out of the office and Hazel and I headed out to the dog park. It was super cold but there were like 20 dogs there. Hazel stayed close and safe and had one mean dog bark in her face as she sat between my legs. When the grumpy dog left she played a bit with some nice dogs and after about an hour we headed to Wendy's to get her a frosty. Home and we had our snack, no bath today everything was frozen so no mud. We had our snack and then I dug in to seeing how to help J with his grades. He is right his Chemistry teacher is making things way harder than any of his other teachers... L got some snacks ready and G&I headed downstairs to watch the Super Bowl on the big screen. J got home from work and went to visit a friend. We watched the game and then headed to bed.

20210206 - Cold Running

20210206 - Up in the am and got a couple of things done around the house. J headed to work and G, Hazel and I headed out to run some errands. We stopped at CVS and got some stuff to take to our friend Bill V, he's in the ICU with COVID. We dropped off some stuff for Boosters, dropped off the care package at the hospital and then on to Reynoldsburg to pick up some auction wins. Our next stop was Hazel's favorite, the dog park where she ran her brains out and her underside was covered in ice balls. She had a great time and is getting the gist of interacting with other dogs. We swung through Wendy's on the way home so Hazel could see J and get a frosty. Home and L gave Hazel a warm rinse to clean her up a bit. I did a couple more things around the house and then Hazel and I took a big walk. Home and listed a bunch of stuff on ebay. L made dinner and we hung out watching TV the rest of the evening.

20210205 - Cleaners

20210205 - Up in the am and L at work and J&G online for school. The school called and said J missed his 2nd period class, but I know he was online... so frustrating. Hazel and I got our morning stuff done and then I moved in to the office to try and organize things for a productive weekend and next week, a lot going on. J ran out for lunch. L home and did some house cleaning with Hazel's assistance. I finished the day, J headed to work and L&I ran out to pick up some dinner. Home and ate and just hung out.

20210204 - Low Pass

20210204 - Up in the am and L at school and J&G online. Hazel and I did our morning routine and got a bunch done. J ran some thins to the post office form me and then was late getting home to join his next class. I headed in to the office to finish the day as G came down for lunch. L home and had to run G and Owen to school to catch the bus for tonight's game. I headed out of the office a bit early to go see G's basketball game with L and J ran to pick up some things he had left at a friends house. L&I got to Pickerington and sat far from the other team tonight... It was a good game but our boys seemed like they just didn't want it as bad as the other team. G had a good game with 11 or 13 points and had an awesome steal he took down the floor for 2. They lost and it means their season is over. L&I headed home and the roads were horrible with hard blowing snow and slow driving. I dropped L off at home and then headed to the school to pick G up. Home and we all ate what L&J made for dinner. L&I watched some tv and I snuck off to bed early exhausted. Fell asleep ok but then woke up at 1:30 and was awake until 4:30 trying to figure out how to get all the things done...

20210203 - Has a Plan

20210203 - Up in the am and trying to get J to go to school, he says his butt hurts too bad... L gave in and he's doing virtual classes today... L&G headed out to school and I did some of my morning stuff in the living room, but harder w/ J in there so headed in to the office earlier today. L home and an to the dermatologist for a checkup. In the evening L made a nice dinner and D&DGF13 joined us and we all ate at the table together. The kids hung out and we chatted a bit and then they took off. L&I watched some TV. GpaW called in with a report from his biopsy and he does have prostate cancer, but he does have a plan and it sounds doable.

20210202 + Wants to Help

20210202 + Up in the am and it is a snow day so J&G in bed. I got up and around and had some bfast and did my morning routine, heading in for a call and staying in the office for the rest of the day. Eventually J&G headed out to do some sledding with their friends and L headed out to shovel some snow while Hazel supervised from the front door. J home and had a huge bruise on butt and G home, he had a blast. I headed out of the office and L had dinner ready for us. We all ate and then the boys headed upstairs. I made some calls about baseball and L&I watched some TV.

20210201 - Shot is GOOD!

20210201 - Up in the am and L at work and boys on their PCs for school. I got my morning things done and then Hazel and I went to pick up the school food, she did much better this week. Home and put the food away and then I moved in to the office. I finished my day and LJ&I headed to Pickerington to watch G in a tournament game. The boys played great and it was a super close intense game. We had some parents from the other team come and sit a bit too close to us and they were a bit too obnoxious for my liking... Our boys were ahead the entire game and lost in the last 2 minutes... such a heartbreaker! Home and picked up G at the school and then drove through Cane's to get some dinner on the way home.  Home and D&DGF13 were here playing with Hazel, who was home alone for 2.5hr for the first time. We all had soem dinner and then hung out a while before the kids left and everyone headed to bed.