Thursday, December 31
I stayed up way too late the night before, but it was so nice to not be at work for another three days. I really enjoy this time of year because we get to miss a bunch of days of work and get paid for them. I also got up late, but it was nice to sleep in. Ben went to work, and Doug drank the night before and peed on the bathroom floor. Ben and I put an end to his drinking in our house. If he doesn't follow the rules, then he has to find a new place to live.
I turned on my bowl game. This year the Cougs were supposed to play Miami at the Sun Bowl but Miami as in Covid protocol and had to back out. We were paired up with Central Michigan instead when their opponent, Boise State, also backed out because of Covid. I think this is the third year in a row Boise State has made a bowl game but couldn't play for one reason or another. Anyway, the first half our game was pretty bad. Central Michigan had a 21-0 lead going into the locker room. I really couldn't be that disappointed though, most of our starters were seniors and they opted out of the game. It really did seem at that point that it was going to be a heavily one-sided game.
Well, we woke up a bit in the second half and we actually had a chance to win the game but came up short, we lost 24-21. At least we ended the season above 500 and we did win the Apple Cup after being disappointed since 2012. So, the season to me wasn't a huge loss. It still would have been nice to end the season on a win though.
Then to make matters worse, the whole world got some really bad news earlier that morning. My favorite celebrity, Betty White, passed away that morning. It was a huge loss and at first, I thought it might be another hoax, but it wasn't. She was a few weeks shy of her 100th birthday and there was a huge celebration lined up for her. It was just terrible news. The whole world was truly saddened that day. I wrote a Facebook post because I wanted to let people know how I felt that day.
"What a terrible way to end 2021. I just heard my favorite celebrity died this morning at the age of 99, just weeks away from her 100th birthday. I was looking forward to it and I'm sure she was too. I was drawn to her when I was a little kid watching the Golden Girls, one of my favorite TV shows in the 80's and 90's. Yes, it sounds weird for a kid under 10 years old to love the Golden Girls, but I did. Her character, Rose, was hilarious. As I got older, I loved watching her old shows and movies she starred in. One of my favorites, The Proposal, was absolutely awesome! Her dance to Get Low, by Lil Jon and the East Side Boyz, was probably the best thing ever! I will miss her comedy, her activism with animals, her wittiness, her kindness and the way she entertained us for many decades. We lost an American treasure. The honorary WSU Coug will be greatly missed! RIP Betty White!"
I ate lunch and watched more football. I gathered the recycle and dog food and headed towards Erika and Zach's house. I stopped at Costco for grapes and then went to the Hawks Prairie recycle to get rid of all the paper and plastic we've accumulated since Christmas. It was a lot of stuff.
I drove over to Erika's house to drop off some dog food, pick up the rest of my Christmas present and to talk about Doug and his issues. We were trying to figure out ways we could help him get over this self-destructive hole he was in. I was over there for about an hour chatting.
I called Ben and told him that we needed to find a cache today for the last day of the year since we got a badge for it. I told him to meet me over near Huntamer Park for a cache called Mobility 2 (GC9E14X) and when we pulled up to it, we saw all the snow that was pushed up against the fence. I looked at Ben, I don't think we're going to find this one today. There's too much snow here. He agreed. I looked at my app and saw there was one closer to our house at the substance abuse health center off of College Road. I followed Ben, we made the turn into the facility, and he drove right by it and made the circle again. I'm sure we looked like dorks but thankfully it was late enough that there weren't that many people around. We found Magically Minty (GC9G) on the ground, threw our names in it, got our photo and we put it back where we thought it was supposed to go...hidden from view.
We went home and I got started on my black-eyed pea dip for Nicole and Del's NYE party. I did the dishes as I went, cleaned up the house a little, watched some of the bowl games and Ben played his game with Josh for a while. We got ready, packed everything into the Escape and headed into Tumwater. We noticed some places on the highway were still icy but overall, the roads weren't that bad. We parked in front of their house, unloaded our stuff and headed in. We took a few minutes to settle in before digging into the delicious food.
Nicole made shredded chicken tacos and all the fixin's. It smelled so good. We all got plates and loaded them up with all the good stuff. We stuffed our faces with tacos, salsa, tortilla chips, my bean dip...which went well with the taco theme and sorta watched the Office but mostly caught up on what we've all been doing since the last time we were together.
After food, we started Jackbox, since it didn't require a lot of setting up. We just chilled on the couch and played together on our phones. We all love the drawing games. They are just too funny! Del's friends from Seattle arrived around 9:00 p.m. There were three of them, two guys and a girl. We introduced ourselves, they ate and joined in with the Jackbox festivities. We pretty much played that until almost midnight.
Nicole got all of our NYE traditions ready. We turned on the TV so we could see the Space Needle light up in colorful fireworks. 5...4...3...2...1...HAPPY NEW YEAR!! We stepped on our right foot, kissed our people, drank our wishes with champagne, ate 12 grapes, ate some of my black-eyed pea dip and texted people. Yes, we toasted to Betty White. Del, Nicole and I lit off the rest of my Roman candles in the front yard...mostly for funzies. We continued Jackbox for a little bit longer, Nicole went to bed around 1 a.m. and Ben and I gathered up all of our stuff, left one of our duplicate games for them to have, chatted with Del and left around 2:45. Del's friends stayed and spent the night. Ben and I got home around 3, unloaded the Escape, got ready for bed and went to bed around 4 that morning.
I was tired and I know Ben was.
Friday, January 1
I slept in until about 10:30 and tried snuggling with the kitties but they didn't want to because they wanted me to get up and feed them. So, I got up, fed them and then I fed myself. I got a yogurt, half a blueberry bagel and had some grapes. I found a bowl game to watch for a bit. I worked on my blog while I waited for Ben to get up.
He finally got up around noon and I told him to get some clothes on because I wanted to go knock out our first cache of 2022 before we got busy doing other stuff or it got dark. I picked one he would appreciate. It took him a while to get ready and when he was finally done, Dad called me to tell me about Grandpa's estate attorney stuff.
We got in the Escape and drove to The Fire Station Creation (GC9J0G6) just off of Lily Road at one of the many fire stations in Lacey and Olympia. We found a place to park out of the way got out and immediately spotted the cache in the corner at the fence. The cache owner had made this cute little fire hydrant and got permission to hide it on this property. It was an easy find in the snow. We signed our names, took the trackables and of course, got some photos in.
We went home, I walked the dog around the snow-filled neighborhood while Ben made some homemade McMuffins.
We watched the Rose Bowl and ate breakfast which was my second breakfast. The Rose Bowl this year featured Utah and Ohio State and it was a wild game. Ben got bored and went to go play his game for most of the day. I worked on my blog, logged my caches, Instagrammed my pics and continued watching this high scoring game. Ohio State ended up beating Utah 48-45. The defense was pretty much non-existent.
I did chores, watched pretty much all the bowl games, worked on my blog because my goal was to finally get caught up and talked to Mom a few times throughout the day. It was a pretty chill first day of the year. Let's hope nothing else bad happens and that things improve. I am hoping that Covid finally phases itself out, I get to do more traveling and things go back to normal as much as they can be. Every day is an adventure!
Next Adventure: A Friday Day Off: Errands, Geocaching and Some Shopping
No comments:
Post a Comment