Back to B-Town

Doug picked up Cam as soon tennis practice was over.  I had spent the afternoon packing the Pilot so that I would be ready to leave as soon as they called me from Bethany.  My Mom rode with me to Milford to bring the van back for us.  The trip down was uneventful except for a couple of rain showers.  My Mom texted me when she got back to our house.  Her six mile trip was a little more stressful than ours.  Doug had ran the gas down to E and by the time she got to the high school, the gage said that she only had six miles left.  I knew that she would be fine as I have run it down to one mile before.  She, however, wasn't as confident.  Thankfully, she made it safely.  Doug said that he was just getting back at her for all of the times she beat him at Oh Hell!

Once we got to Bloomington we first stopped at Brett's apartment.  The supplies we brought for the tailgate took up a lot of room and we had to pick up Meg and Cal for dinner at Red Robin.  Our meal was definitely an interesting one.  Cal had been out to the bars with his friends beforehand and was pretty hyped up when we sat down.  Needless to say the conversation was lively and loud.  Brett met us toward the end of the evening.  He had been at Andrew's for dinner earlier in the night.  It was close to eleven when we headed to the car.  As Brett walked to his, he looked at Cal and then laughed as he said to me, "Ok, I don't ever want to hear anything about me having too much to drink again!"

Hope I Can Help

Last night I received a phone call from a good friend of mine that was also a teacher.  She had an issue that she wanted to ask me about as I had had experience with the same situation several years ago.  We talked and texted several different ideas over the next few hours.  By the time that we got off the phone at 9 p.m. she felt really good about her first step in solving a long time problem.

I was very happy to have been of some help to her tonight.  It was nice to be respected for my teaching style and ability to solve challenging learning situations of all types.  When I first hung up with her, however, I actually didn't feel glad to have been of service.  Instead, I was extremely anxious  and needed a few minutes to relax before I could join Doug for the Packers and Bears game.  All the memories of how hard that situation was for me came flooding back.  I remembered how much work it took to change the issues into a positive learning environment for my students.  That was one of the toughest years of my teaching career with most of my time and energy put into that one problem.  Tonight, I was finally able to calm down once I realized that I didn't have to get up and go to school tomorrow and face the issue.  Instead all I had to do was to be supportive of a good friend.  I knew that I could do that and once again was ever thankful that I could walk away when it became too overwhelming for me.

Ready for This to End

I have felt absolutely awful since last Tuesday with headaches, joint pain and overall fatigue.  I've spent more time resting than normal and have lived on Tylenol.  Along with the physical pain, my anxiety has hit an all time high.  This morning was terrible.  I woke up at 3:30 a.m. and could not fall back to sleep.  Thankfully, Doug was available to take Cam to school so I could go back to bed after I made his lunch and told him to have a great day.

Meg woke me up at 10:30 a.m. this morning when she called.  She wanted to check on me as she knew from our conversations last night and over the weekend that I hadn't been feeling the best.  Although I still had a headache, I was glad to talk to her.  She was happy to let me know that she had finally figured out how to get the memo that she needed from the DSS.  Now she would be able to meet with her professors about her eye disability.  Besides today's classes she also had plans to go to Chick Fil A for dinner tonight and to a cooking club meeting.

Although she wanted me to admit that I hadn't been feeling well because she left for college, she said that she really thought it was due to the hormonal changes that occur to most women later in life.  Doug would agree with her on that statement.  As I realize that this might definitely be the case, I have decided that the best course of action would be to continue resting, exercising and eating well.  I followed that routine for the afternoon and by the end of the evening I actually felt well enough to play Oh Hell.  I am positive that I will never enjoy this new normal, but at least now I have a plan on how to deal with it.

Big Win

Bethany played Prairie Heights tonight and came out on top of a lopsided win with varsity taking the match at 4-1 and JV following suit at 7-1.   Cameron played number two singles and had an excellent evening winning 6-2.  Although we were happy for all of the Bruins, we were extremely proud of Cam's strategy for his game.  He had learned a lot from his tournament play at Jimtown over the weekend and used that tonight to his advantage.  His coach must have taken notice as well as Cameron was a feature on tonight's Bethany tennis blog.  Cam appreciated the recognition.

Nine Years and Running

Doug figured up that this was our ninth year in a row of visiting Bloomington for Labor Day weekend.  Our activities had not changed much over the years, but the amount of Heinisch children living in Bloomington had.  Today we ended our weekend of fun by playing Ticket to Ride and eating lunch at Crazy Horse.  We were glad that Cal was able to join us again as we knew that he had a lot of work to do today.  As he told me earlier in the week, "back to reality."  We said our goodbyes after lunch.  Nick had to get back to Purdue to meet his parents so he dropped Meg off at her dorm.  Cal and Brett walked off together as Brett headed to the Union to work and Cal headed home.

         

Our trip home was uneventful.  Cam slept for part of it and Doug and I watched two episodes of Breaking Bad.  As soon as we unloaded the Pilot, Doug started mowing.  Grandma Jane offered to take Cam to Goshen to meet his friends for a movie.  I appreciated that as it gave me time to wash Cam's tennis uniform and unpack.  We found out on the way home that Triton did not have a full team, so Cam will have next Saturday free.  Thus, I'll have to start packing again soon.

Doug and I had dinner at Hacienda tonight while waiting for Cam.  It was very relaxing.  We saw him walk by on his way to Honey's after "Scary Stories to See in the Dark." We all left around 8:30 p.m. and made it home in time to see Nadal make it to the semifinals of the US Open.  No one stayed up late tonight as the weekend had worn us out.  I was not sure that Cam was ready for jazz band tomorrow morning, but as he couldn't make it Friday, he agreed to be up at 6:05 a.m.

Bloomington Day #2

Doug and Cameron were going to go golfing this morning, but Cam was too tired after thirty-four games of tennis yesterday.  Thus, while he slept in, Doug went jogging.  Brett slept in as well as he had worked a lot this past week.  Once everyone was ready we got Noodles & Company and picked up Cal for lunch at Oliver Winery.  It was a beautiful day for it and we enjoyed the time together.  The boys played bocce ball after we ate and Meg and Nick took a walk all while I impressed Doug with my bee catching skills.

                


We dropped Cal off at his house.  He had to catch up on some sleep before he headed to the library to do some work for Miso and finish his homework.  Doug took up some items for him that he left at our house and was impressed that both of his dressers fit in his bedroom with the new bed.  Cal really appreciated having a queen size mattress and said that it was extremely comfortable.  Our next stop of the day was Target.  We couldn't believe how crowded it was for the Sunday of Labor Day weekend.  Meg needed a chair and rug for her room while Brett had a few items for the apartment on his list.  It took a little longer than we expected, but we found everything they needed and I was able to make a few purchases at Yankee Candle as well.  Before we left Brett was proud to show us the new Pete statue that he had wanted for quite some time.  It had finally gone on clearance.

We dropped Cam and Brett off at his apartment and then went to Meg's dorm room.  She was proud of how clean it was.  It looked great to us.  We helped her with a few items before I took Doug to Garlic Fest.  I picked Cam and Brett back up so we could walk through the art fair.  It was nice to look at the booths even though we weren't going to buy anything.  Doug finished at Garlic Fest and walked down to meet us.  We had just enough time to start a game of Ticket to Ride before meeting up at Bucceto's for dinner.  It wasn't crowded, but the service was extremely slow.  Thus, we were thankful we had left early.

The rest of the night didn't quite go as planned.  Doug, Cam, Nick and Meg had plans to watch IU soccer play UCLA.  Unfortunately, there was a lightening delay that continued until a storm finally forcing the game to be postponed until tomorrow.  Nick and Meg decided to watch Beauty and the Beast in her dorm instead while Doug and Cam made the best of it getting slushies and breadsticks.  Brett and I had bought tickets to see the horror movie, Ready or Not.  It was really good.  Afterward we met Doug and Cam at the apartment for more Ticket to Ride.  As Brett had to work early and we were tired from a busy day, we all headed to bed a little earlier than last night.

JV Tourney #1

Cameron played in his first JV tournament today.  It was held at Jimtown and although Cameron did not win a match, he did feel very good about his performance.  He was slotted at number two singles against Northwood and Jimtown to start.  Both of their players were older than Cameron and were extremely consistent.  Cameron learned a lot during the matches and came away with some ideas of what to work on in the future.  His last match was his favorite as he got to play with Aaron at number one doubles against Concord.  They led for awhile, but ended up losing 8-6 after several close games.  All in all it was a good experience for Cameron's first high school tournament.

As soon as Cam finished playing we left for Bloomington.  The match got out a little later than we expected, but traffic was light, so we were still able to make it to Brett's and unload the Pilot before he got out of mass at 5:30.  Our first stop of the night was Pizza Xpress as we knew it would be late before we would eat dinner.  We then headed to Garlic Fest where Meg and Nick met us there.  They had stayed at Brett's last night and enjoyed breakfast with him at Village Deli this morning.  Today they mostly walked around campus before they caught up with us.

Garlic Fest was the same as last year with live music, a beer garden, art tents and garlic booths.  Doug and Parce stayed for several hours while the rest of us caught a little bit of the action and then walked up and down Kirkwood.  I found a couple of IU football items for our front porch, while Meg bought a new IU scrunchie.  Cam looked for something for Bailee, but didn't buy anything.  Cal did not join us.  He had gone to the IU vs Ball State game at Lucas Oil and was too tired to do much else.  We were at the game the last time they played in Indy in 2011.  IU lost that game, but thankfully, that was not the case today.  Since we couldn't attend the game, Cam and Doug had listened to it on the radio on the way down and were pleased that IU was officially 1-0.

Tonight we all went to Mother Bears for pizza. It was a long wait, but no one seemed to mind as there was a lot to talk about.  Once dinner was over, we went back to Brett's to watch The Banana Splits Movie.  Brett had been anxious to see it ever since he had heard about the movie months ago.  It was not everyday that a 1970s children's show became a horror movie.  Death by lollipop and banana car weren't the usual plots for a scary movie, but it did make for several humorous scenes in a show that we could all agree was as bad as we expected.