Just One of Those Days

Today was just one of those days where it felt like nothing could go right.  I knew it wasn’t going to be my favorite day as I had to clean the house, but it just seemed to go from bad to worse.  I started off cleaning the bathrooms which wasn’t fun, but tolerable.  After I finished up Meg’s bathroom, I decided to paint the area that I had repaired with plaster yesterday and to repaint an area on her bedroom wall that she had scraped with her papasan chair years ago.  The second part went very well and covered up nicely.  The bathroom, however, wasn’t as easy.  The paint that we had saved, had turned to sludge.  We had originally painted the bathroom in 2016, so I wasn’t sure that Ace would be able to find a match.  Thankfully, they were able to help me, but it cost me at least a half hour in time that I wasn’t planning on spending.  

The next item on my to do list started off well.  The light kit that I had ordered to repair a ceiling fan arrived four days early.  My dad had the afternoon free and was able to come up and help me with it.  We got everything hooked up, flipped the switch and  . . . nothing.  The light still didn’t work.  By the time Doug called on his way home from work, I was in tears.  I was super disappointed about the light and extremely tired from a long day of projects. By the time we hung up I did feel a lot better as we did came up with another plan that should work.  

I wasn’t the only Heinisch that was a little overwhelmed with their day.  Meg  had spent the afternoon trying to change her test schedule with the disability service coordinator due to a professor error.  That along with the fact that she had also found out that she was being underpaid at her part time job had ruined a good portion of her day.  Brett’s news wasn’t as frustrating, but did send him scrambling to find information.  Fortunately, by the time he headed home from work, he felt a lot better about everything.  Meg was also doing pretty well by the end of the evening.  

Cameron’s day wasn’t too stressful, but we did have quite a few items his on his list to get done once he got home from the boys’ soccer game.  We were able to do that a lot quicker than I thought that we would.  That was really nice.  I was also happy that Cal and Doug had ended their days favorably as well.  One more day until the weekend.  Can’t wait! 

Love My Odyssey

Yesterday, we had to drop the Pilot off at Fred’s Transmission in Elkhart as the transmission light kept coming on, especially in Florida.  Although another mechanic had looked at it and felt it was nothing to worry about, we decided to get a second opinion before Doug drove it to Florida in October.  Thankfully, Fred’s agreed with the first mechanic - a false positive light which they both said was typical for Honda vehicles.

Because Doug and I had to drive to Fort Wayne yesterday from Elkhart, we asked Cameron to take the Civic to school.  I don’t mind driving it, but knew that would be a little far for me in the smaller car.  Therefore, I spent yesterday driving the Odyssey.  I am not going to lie; I really enjoyed being reunited with my long time van.  I had spent almost nine years driving it and it had been my favorite Heinisch vehicle of all time.  

While I was driving to Elkhart to meet Doug, I realized that there was a good chance that the van was going to hit 200,000 miles while we were in it.  At first I was a little disappointed for Cameron that he wouldn’t be driving it when the milestone was reached.  It dawned on me, however, that I had driven the first 190,000 miles in it and it was only appropriate that I was there when the odometer rolled over to 200,000.  

I watched the dashboard the entire trip home from Portillo’s last night, not wanting to miss the moment.  I even practiced video taping it as Doug drove.  We made it to Old 30 just past Columbia City when the Odyssey official turned to 200,000 miles.  We were all impressed, but it wasn’t the first Honda that had reached that milestone in our family.  Doug’s gray Civic was at 224,000 when it finally died.  We’ll see if the Odyssey can beat it. 

Disappointing Times Two

Last night's tennis match at Bethany with Chesterton was cancelled due to rain.  We weren't surprised at all.  The forecast was absolutely miserable - mid 50's and rain.  Even though the rain didn't start until 4 p.m., it would have been horrible to have Chesterton drive close to two hours just to have the match called.  

Tonight's cancellation was extremely disappointing as the weather forecast called for dry weather.  Making it even worse was the fact that the boys had driven all the way to Kreager Park in Fort Wayne to play Blackhawk Christian and had even warmed up before the light rain started.  It didn't last long, but just enough to cancel the match as the opposing team did not have squeegees or towels to dry up the court once it stopped.  The boys were pretty disappointed, but made the best of it by stopping at The Magic Wand in Churubusco for ice cream.

Doug and I had had a long drive as well.  We had to drop the Pilot off at Fred's Transmission in Elkhart before making the hour and forty-five minute drive to Fort Wayne.  There was one big positive about tonight's match, at least for me.  It was the last time that I had to pick up Subway for a Heinisch child's sports' team EVER!  I didn't mind being responsible for the away team meals, but it definitely was a nice feeling to be done.  Doug and I celebrated with dinner at Portillo's.

Homecoming Float

This will be Bethany's first year hosting a homecoming weekend which will include a dance, a parade and several soccer games.  Cameron wasn't too sure about the event, but he did volunteer to host a work day on their class float at our house.  Thus, last night seven members of the Bethany senior class gathered in our basement to work on their float for homecoming.  They had picked Mario Kart as their theme and came armed with a ton of boxes.  

Cameron and his classmates spent the next 3+ hours printing templates for their Karts and cutting out pieces of the vehicles.  While they were working, Doug and I ordered pizza for them.  We also made a new appetizer, Mexi-Rolls, that seemed to be a hit as well.  It took them a lot longer to cut the cardboard than they planned, but they did get about halfway done before calling it a night.  Samuel was the last to leave, but that was because after everyone else left, he and Cameron turned their attention from homecoming to the Bucs game.  We didn't care how long anyone stayed.  We were just glad that Cameron took advantage of our basement to invite everyone and was happy to hear that they would all be back next Sunday night.  

A Weekend of Upsets

College football started last weekend and this week the NFL season began.  Needless to say there has been a lot of football watching at the Heinisch home.  Thursday started the week off with a relatively boring Bills vs Rams game.  All of that changed yesterday, however, as Saturday was filled with close games and multiple upsets.  For most of the afternoon we thought that #1 Alabama was going to lose to an unranked Texas, but they squeaked out a victory with a last second field goal.  The disappointment of Alabama winning was soon erased when Cal texted our group chat that Notre Dame had lost to Marshall.  We were all thrilled to see that.  The biggest upset of the afternoon was Appalachian State over Texas A & M, but that didn't really bring much emotion from any of us.

The game that we had all been waiting for IU vs. Idaho.  We didn't expect it to be close as the Hoosiers won 52-10 last year.  We set up the projector outside and started a bonfire just as the game was scheduled to begin.  We were surprised to see that the time had changed from 8 to 8:30 p.m.  Meg called and said that it was due to the heavy rains that they were getting.  I hadn't thought of that as our day had been sunny and warm.  The delay gave us time to watch Kentucky at the University of Florida.  Last week the Gators were the talk of the college sports world as they had beaten UTEP.  Unfortunately, this was not the case tonight as they lost a close one to the Wildcats.  

The IU game was definitely a wet one.  The students were drenched and the field was soaked.  We had talked about going to Bloomington tonight.  After seeing the videos, I was glad that we decided to stay home.  It would have been a soggy tailgate.  The other issue was the Hoosiers' play in the first half.  It was embarrassing as we missed two field goals and found ourselves down 10-0 going into the locker room.  I started to really regret that I had made fun of Notre Dame for losing as I was sure that we were next on the upset list.  Thankfully, IU turned it around in the third quarter and took control of the game eventually winning 35 - 22.  

Today's football viewing began with the Bears game which looked like it was being played in a monsoon.  It was hard just to see the field.  It must have worked in Chicago's advantage as they upset the 49ers.  That win, along with the Vikings walking all over the Packers and the Buccaneers victory made for a great weekend of football.  Cameron even won his fantasy football game, which might have been the highlight for him.  All in all it was a great weekend for the football fans in the Heinisch family.

Long Live the Queen

Meg texted our family group chat on Thursday to let us know that Queen Elizabeth had died.  I shouldn't really have been surprised as she was 96 years old, but I guess I was.  She had already outlived the leaders of my childhood including Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev, so I think I believed she was immortal.

The rest of the week I received numerous stories on my news feed about the Queen and the Royal Family. If I wanted to read them all I would have learned who was with her when she died, when Prince Charles would become the King of England and the news roles of all of her family.  I also could have looked at countless Tweets and Memes on social media about the Queen's death.  Instead, I let Cameron share his favorites with me.  We both enjoyed the one pointing out that the Queen died on the same day that the NFL season started meaning that "the US was back, baby."

Overall, I realized that I hadn't really followed the Royal Family for years.  I knew that Prince Harry and his wife were on the outs with the family and that there were rumors that Prince William had cheated on his wife.  I also saw pictures of Prince William's children, but I guess I just wasn't that interested.  My mom gave me a People magazine that she had received in the mail.  It had memories of Princess Diana in it as she had died 25 years ago last week.  I thought a lot about how famous she really was.  Her wedding was viewed by millions.  She was constantly in the news with stories of her humanitarian aid, the birth of her children, the poor treatment she received by Prince Charles and their subsequence divorce.  Her funeral was telecasted across the world and Elton John even wrote a song about her for the service.  

After Princess Diana's death, I think I just stopped caring about what the Royal Family was doing.  It's amazing to me that one person seemed to eclipse their entire family in popularity.  Maybe it was because she seemed like a real person, a true life Cinderella story.  It could have also been because she was incredibly beautiful.  Either way, she was the Royal that I followed, so I doubt I will be buying any Queen Elizabeth memorabilia.  I might however finally watch one of the half dozen or so movies made based on her life.  That might be interesting.  

Another Night, Another Three Set Win

Matt asked Cameron to play the #1 singles position tonight as injuries on Bethany's team have made it challenging to maintain the same lineup throughout the season.  Cameron has been flexible wanting to do what is best for the team, but definitely didn't mind the switch tonight as he actually prefers singles.  He told me before the match that he knew nothing about his opponent, but felt pretty good about their chances as a team.  Bethany had beaten Northwood 5-0 last year and were hoping for a similar score tonight.

Although the first set seemed to favor the consistency of the Panther player, we were impressed with how well Cameron kept his composure.  He was struggling with his serve and several double faults hurt him early.  Cameron hung in there, however, and soon found himself in a first set tiebreak.  Much as he and Breece had at Westview, Cameron easily won the tiebreak.  We were thrilled.

The second set was also extremely close as the game and set score didn't change much throughout.  There were long rallies and a lot of deuce games.  Cameron played very well and hit several nice cross court, forehand winners.  Unfortunately, it wasn't quite enough as he fell short in the second set.  Cameron and his opponent took full advantage of the ten minute break in between sets.  While they were resting, we watched the end of the #2 doubles match.  Both Noah and Gideon had won at #2 and #3 singles and #1 doubles were also going into a third set.  We were hoping that Tristan and Emerson would win so that there wouldn't be any pressure on Cameron as he started the third.  Thankfully, they obliged and we were extremely happy for the Bruins to pick up a key win this season over a sectional opponent.

Cameron's third set was even more intense than the first two.  The boys rallied back and forth each taking a lead.  Cameron stayed focused, played very well hitting some fantastic shots, and soon found himself with the score 5-4 in his favor.  He had two set points to win.  He did not convert on the first one, but took full advantage of the second winning the two and a half hour match.  Cameron walked over to his bag after shaking his opponent hand and went down.  His legs were cramping so bad that he couldn't stand any longer.  It took a little while, some ice and a few Ibuprofen, but soon he was up and visiting with Andrew, the Bruins' former assistant coach.  He had moved this year to New York and Cameron had really missed having him at the matches.  Needless to say, he was thrilled that he had watched him tonight.  We found out later that it was a good thing that Cameron won.  Andrew had told his brother, Daniel, to let Cameron know at the end of the second set "That he'd better winner as he hadn't drove all the way from Rochester to watch him lose."  Fortunately, Cameron was more than happy to honor his request.