World Cup

The 2026 World Cup started this past week and soccer has been on our television ever since Monday night.  I am not surprised as Doug, Cal, Cameron, and Nick have been talking about nothing else since June began. With the games being played in the US it will be a lot easier for everyone to watch them and there’s been a lot more hype about them in the media. 

To make it fun for everyone, we started a family pool, which really helped the enthusiasm for the group stage even with the casual fans in our family. The pool is more complicated than our traditional ones as we wanted to make it fair for everyone. Cal decided we should each get four teams from the beginning, and Nick suggested that we have a point system which wasn’t weighted as heavily as in our March Madness pool. The way we set this one up, someone’s team could win the World Cup, but they could still lose our pool if another person had two teams in the final four. I wasn’t sure how to make the selections fair at first, but after listening to the BigPicture podcast, I learned how to choose names with Scrabble tiles. My parents are not in the pool so I let my dad pick the tiles and even videotaped him so everyone knew it was fair. Lastly, I bought a two sided bracket to hang on our wall to keep track of it all.

The game so far have been extremely exciting. I chose Portugal and instantly regretted it when they tied a much lesser team. Even so, it has been a lot of fun and besides the US, I am heavily rooting for England, especially since Nick adamantly told Meg not to pick them in the first round and they have looked really good so far.  Hopefully Meg comes out on top as she has never won the Heinisch family pool. No matter who wins, it is going to be a lot of fun keeping track of it all and keeping in touch with everyone with the standings.

Together Again

Gabrielle flew down today to spend the weekend with Meg.  She had just ended a challenging relationship and was ready for a break from the situation.  Meg was thrilled to host her and made plans for a fun three days together.  I was happy for both of them as I was sure that this weekend was just what they both needed. 

Tonight, Paula and I received this picture from the girls.  They were enjoying Cosmos while watching Love Island.  Meg texted later to let me know that she had taken her hair down for the picture and couldn’t stop laughing at how it looked.  I didn’t care about anyone’s hair, I was just glad to see how much fun they were having.  Instant flashbacks to other pictures that the girls had taken over the years came to mind.  I am so thankful for Meg and my friendship with Paula and Gabrielle.  There was a lot of testosterone in our home while Meg was growing up.  It was nice to have a place to go or friends to hang out with that were all girls all of the time.  

Bad News from the Dentist

I had my annual check up today and unfortunately, got bad news from the dentist. The tooth that was hurting, would need a crown. I guess I wasn’t surprised, but we didn’t get dental insurance to pay for a crown this year. Even if we had, it wouldn’t have saved us much money.  I don’t think that the cost bothered me as much of the fact that I am so tired of all the issues I have with my teeth.

While I was there, the dentist also told me that the tooth above it would need a crown at some point in the near future because the two fillings in it did not match. To say that I was disappointed was an understatement. I take really good care of my teeth, but they break and chip easily. I wish it wasn’t the case, but some type of genetics must be involved as my mom and dad have both had issues with their own teeth. Hopefully, my children do not inherit this trait as it has made for a lot of mouth pain and a lot of expensive visits to the dentist. I guess for now I’ll just be happy that there weren’t more issues.

Survivor Wednesday

When Survivor season 50 ended, Doug asked me what we were going to do on Wednesday nights. It had become our ritual to just take the entire evening and make a fun night of watching Survivor. I hadn’t really thought about it, but he was right. I would really miss our Wednesday night, mid-week Survivor watch party.

Doug solved the problem for us when he suggested that we watch old episodes of Survivor on Wednesdays and asked me to pick the season. I called Cal right away to see what he thought. He and Maggie had been watching old Survivor seasons all spring and had talked about the different seasons multiple times. He gave me the list of his favorites through season eight and instantly I knew which one to start with - Survivor season six, boys versus girls. It was an all-time classic, and I did not remember very much about it except for one of my favorite survivor players, Rob C was on it.

From the moment we started it tonight, we were hooked. We watched three episodes and already couldn’t wait for next Wednesday to see what happened next. The show was filmed in the Amazon Rainforest and the tribes were split into boys versus girls from the very beginning. The contestants did not know this and it made for some very interesting comments and rivalries. I do not remember who wins, but Doug has already pegged Rob C as one of his favorite Survivor players of all time. I hope that I can handle all the innuendo’s, sexually explicit comments, and pettiness that has become a huge part of the season.

It wasn’t just the comments that were different about early Survivor.  Players actually had to survive in the midst of some pretty challenging conditions. I miss that part of the game.  Building a shelter, starting a fire, and finding food is no longer the mainstay of the series. Now it’s more about arguing, conniving and showing your vulnerable self. It must be appealing to the majority of our audiences, but Doug and I definitely like watching the contestants trying to survive on their own better. Cal even said after watching these, he doesn’t know if he could ever watch new age Survivor again. I can totally see why.

Letting the Reality Set In

I did really well yesterday at Mayo Clinic and felt pretty good about everything last night, but today I really struggled with Doug’s diagnosis.  Although, it doesn’t change anything about our life right now it does alter the plans that we had made for the future.  It makes everything very unpredictable as we don’t know how Doug will respond to the medication and what treatments will or will not work.  Chronic stress makes his situation a lot worse, so I am trying not to worry him about anything.  It would really help us if his dad let him have part of his inheritance now so that we could get our finances in order in case any changes to Doug’s health unexpectedly.

Thankfully, I had made plans to meet Robin and Robbi for lunch today.  They asked about Doug’s visit to Mayo Clinic but didn’t dwell on it.  They were both very positive and agreed to put us on their prayer list, but mostly we talked about CCW, the books we were reading and our summer plans which I really appreciated. Once I got home, I texted Jim which really helped as well.  He is definitely on the page that Doug should have access to his inheritance early so that he can retire or at least pay off our mortgage.  By the time Doug got home from work, I felt a lot better.  I don’t know what will happen, but it is very nice to know that we have the support of friends, our children and my family.  

Mayo Clinic

Doug and I left this morning for Jacksonville.  After a year of trying, he had finally gotten an appointment at Mayo Clinic.  I rode along for moral support and to take down any information that we were given.  I was nervous, but Doug felt very good about it as he said that this was just the next step in his health journey.  The campus for the clinic was large and I was thankful for the signs that directed us to the correct building.  It was very beautiful with white buildings, open spaces and cypress trees everywhere.  

We didn’t have to wait long to get in to see Dr. Dewey.  He was very nice and extremely knowledgeable.  He spent an hour and a half going over all the information that we had to give him, performing a physical test on Doug and answering any of our questions.  The diagnosis he came up with didn’t surprise us - Early Onset, Tremor Dominant Parkinson.  It was scary to think about Doug having a neurological degenerative disorder, but the doctor gave us hope.  Although there wasn’t a cure, there were medications for us to try and other procedures that could calm the tremors.  Dr. Dewey said that of all of the types of Parkinson’s, this was the best one to have.  As I looked at Lou Gehrig’s picture hanging on the wall, I realized that we were lucky.  There were a lot of worse diagnosis that we could receive.  I will have to remember that as I digest today’s news.  

Nick's New Job

At the end of April, Nick called to say that he had interviewed with a different company and they had made him an offer.  We were very excited to hear that as he had been thinking about switching jobs since his schedule of traveling to California every other week was long, and the pay was lower than market rate at his current position.  He asked Doug if he would look through the contract to see if it seemed reasonable and once Doug confirmed that it was a nice offer, Nick accepted the position.

Nick left this past week to start training with his new company.  His new position was also with a private carrier, but the company was a lot bigger than his other one.  The pay was better, but the best part was that it was based out of Ohio which would drastically cut down on his travel time.  He asked me to go over the insurance benefits with him, and I was impressed with how good they were.  I like Doug's benefits package at SI Goldman a lot and this was even better.  Nick's new position would change his schedule as he would now be two weeks on and two weeks off.  I was worried about that, but he and Meg liked it a lot better than eight days on and 6 days off from his last job.  One thing that we were all happy about.  Nick received this offer before Spirit Airlines shut down flooding the market with pilots looking for jobs.  Overall, it was a very positive move for him.