Don't Panic!

Yesterday morning, my wife noticed a strange smell -- a "first day of winter furnace" smell.  Hmm.  Maybe we need a new filter, I figured.  I don't change those nearly as often as I should.  "I'll stop and pick one up after work.  Oh, and the other four things I've been meaning to pick up at the hardware store, too."

No problem finding everything on my list:

• Furnace filter
• New kitchen faucet nozzle
• New stopper for running toilet
• New ceiling fan light bulbs

When I got home, I went straight to work on those repairs without even taking my work clothes off.  Dunking my hands and shirt sleeves in cold toilet tank water; replacing the kitchen faucet nozzle over the disposal; up and down the stairs to replace the furnace filter; cleaned the bathroom sink drain with draino; etc.  Ada needed to go potty.  Helped out with that...



Something is wrong.

ACK!  My wedding ring!!  Where is it!??!

I should mention at this point that I've lost more than 55 pounds over the past year.  In the cold, my wedding ring can almost slip off.  I thought it was almost.  Yesterday it really slipped off.

I practiced my parenting patience tool:
Stop
Take a breath
And
Relax

OK.  Where have I been.  (Go back and read the list.  Toilet.  Sink.  Disposal.  Basement.)  Ugh.  The worst places you can imagine to have potentially lost a wedding ring.

Long story of searching and near state of panic later -- my ring was in an outside open pocket of my work bag.  As I'd slipped by bag off of my shoulder, it must have caught my ring just enough to pull it off.  I was so focused on getting chores done that I didn't notice right away.

Oh... and it turns out that in the midst of all that.  I discovered the furnace is broken.  No pilot light.  No power to the ignition module (which was just replaced last January).  So, we had a fire and spent the night with the gas oven on trying to keep the house warm.  I'll be calling the furnace guy in 40 minutes.

Skating

It took us until this year and the very end of this year's skating season, but we finally took the girls out ice skating at Steinberg Rink.





I was impressed that both of the girls got around walking in their skates just fine. In fact, it got my hopes up that they'd take the ice more quickly that I had imaged. But, they didn't. Both girls had an absolute blast out on the ice with Daddy supporting most of their weight.

Today's back pain has been totally worth the joy I got from having them argue over who got to go next, and finding out that Ada threw a fit when I took Ellie around for two laps IN A ROW without taking her in between.



By my fifth lap around, I thought I had a good position for crouching to keep my balance and not kill my back. I felt really low to the ice, like Anton Ohno!  By the end of the eighth lap, though, my hamstrings were starting to ache a little bit. (Still I ran 10.5 miles later that afternoon!)  Luckily, the girls were ready for lunch, so I got a reprieve.

Needless to day, next season, I think we'll get out a few more times.  I'll need some practice to get my back in shape for it.