One book read!

 I finished "All Good People Here" by Ashley Flowers yesterday. It was a good story, with a few twists and turns that kept it interesting. 

Now I'm turning my attention to finishing "Snow Crash" this month, but still have a few hundred pages to go on that book.

What are you reading?

 I have a goal to read 12 books this year. I'm off to a good start and plan to have 2 books finished by the end of January.

I'm currently reading "All Good People Here" by Ashely Flowers and "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson.

Time to "burn the ships?"

Have you ever heard the expression “burn the ships”? 

It may be time for me to burn my ships, but I'm not quite there yet...stay tuned.

For now, enjoy this picture of Luna!

Thanksgiving 2020

 Thanksgiving 2020

Well, Turkey Day 2020 has come and gone without much fanfare! We all decided against having Laurie's parents over, too much risk of exposing them to Covid, since Laurie is still teaching in person, Collin and Dylan have been out of the house/around some friends lately. We kept it small, with just 3 guests, one of which was Debbie, it was good to have here here for the day again!

Table looking good and ready for everyone to sit down to eat! I did 2 turkeys again this year, which is serious overkill, but we had plenty left to make Turkey Pot Pies with!

We were all glad to be together, everyone healthy and doing our best to get through 2020!

Spotify 2020 Review

It's always fun to get this recap from Spotify on what I've listened to over the year. 

#1 Song? Brown Noise...it's on repeat each night to drown out my tinnitus!

Feeling so relieved and happy!

Today truly is the happiest I have been in a very long time! I feel such relief and hope for the future, that I have not felt in a long time!

We are celebrating with beers, a fire and going to be doing some smoked wings later on tonight!!

We voted!

 Collin and I were in line at 6:30 am when the polls opened! Only took 45 minutes total and I was glad to share Collin's first time voting with him!

24th Wedding Anniversary weekend

 We got out of town!

Yes, we finally got out of Akron for the first time since March! Tomorrow is our 24th wedding anniversary so I booked us a hotel in downtown Columbus, arranged for the boys to puppy-sit and we hit the road Friday after Laurie got done with work.

We got a suite and the Westin, downtown. The staff was nice and provided a bottle of wine, but he suite we got "upgraded" to was a total let down. It hadn't been updated in 20 years and the furniture was definitely retro! I complained and got all the points I used refunded, so that makes it better.

We have not opened the wine yet, but I'm sure it's nice.

For dinner on Friday I made reservations at Hyde Park Steakhouse and wow, did that place come through. Considering that this is the first restaurant we have been to since early March, I was a bit nervous, but no need. It was excellent.

The staff was attentive without being intrusive and they even managed to honor my request for as private of a table as we could get.

We got a nice bottle of wine, splurging for us, but on the low end of the price scale for them.

Laurie went with her favorite, a nice filet. I had never had dry aged beef, so I got a bone in steak that had been dry aged for 56 days!

To say that my steak was "good" would be a disservice to the chef! It was absolutely amazing! Certainly one of the best steaks I've ever had.  Laurie's was equally as good. Our side of Brussels sprouts and Lobster Mac & Cheese were outstanding!

We finished dinner with nice Old Fashioned (yes, we were using Uber). Speaking of Uber, Laurie left her phone in the Uber and as soon we realized it, the driver had it to our hotel in 15 minutes!

That concluded Friday!

Saturday was  day full of exploring what we could in Columbus. Some things we wanted to do (Columbus Brewing Co. closed due to Covid) were closed, but we made the best of it. We spent some time at the North Market downtown, were we got fresh apples and apple cider.

We then headed to the German Village, which I have to say was a bit disappointing. I'd like to go back when I can get around much better and perhaps we'll discover more there.  We visited the Book Loft, which was really cool. I only made it through 5-6 rooms as I was not feeling that great 2 1/2 weeks post surgery. @velerie stephens would love it.  It was HUGE!  You could easily spend a couple of hours in there.

 

We stopped for some great fudge at Schmidt's Fudge house. Had to have some fresh fudge and it really is quite good.

By this time I was quite thirsty and ready to be off of my feet! We found a couple of places to have some adult beverages!

Antiques On High

A berry sour! Quite good!

Had a flight of some nice IPAs and a Stout!

After that I had to retreat to the hotel for some rest!

We couldn't really decided what do do for dinner, so we ended up playing it by ear and had a enjoyable evening out. We visited Elevator Brewing for a beer. We were quite impressed with the bar that was brought to Columbus from the Chicago World Fair in the late 1800's. 

We then found Two Truths on the north end of the Short North district. The bartender was great, making us a couple of nice Old Fashioned cocktails. We actually ended up bringing in Tacos from a take out taco place just up the street.  That was a our Saturday.

Sunday was just a drive home with a quick stop at Ikea for a few things.

We came home to some puppies that were quite excited to see us and even made a few "small" messes for us to clean up as Dylan left them inside, but not in their kennel, but it was OK!

Puppies are getting big!

 

Halloween fun!

 Halloween Fun 2020

Yesterday was a great day! Laurie and the kids organized an outing to a pumpkin farm with herself, Collin and Marissa, and Dylan and Jada. I chose not to go because I wasn't sure I was up for a couple of hours of walking around the farm.

They had a blast and brought home pumpkins to carve! We got a fire going, ordered pizza and wings and carved pumpkins.  Everyone had a blast.  It was the first Pumpkin Jada had ever carved! I guess her family just never did that type of thing.

After the pumpkins were carved and lit up on the front porch we watched Gretel & Hansel. It was a decent movie, but not really scary at all. That was the end to a great day with the kids!

Here is the album of photos from yesterday.

Horror Movie Month

October is here!

I'm going to try and watch a bunch of horror/scary movies this month, something I think about doing every year, but don't get around to it. 

I'm off to a start this month though. I'm going to keep a list here of what I've watched so far. Got a suggestion? Leave a comment!

• Red Dragon
• House of a Thousand Corpses

• Can't go wrong with this classic

• 10/03/2020 
• Lords Of Salem 

• Laurie really did not like this one, she had to put on a lighthearted comedy when it was over

• 10/04/2020 
• Scream

• Love this classic movie

• 10/05/2020 
• The Walking Dead
• Had to stay up to date with TWD
• 10/10/2020 
• Gretel and Hansel
• Wasn't scary at all, but not a bad movie overall