Visits to family...

Friday afternoon I took the afternoon off work to go and visit family. My first stop was at Merl and Ev's. Ev still makes the best fudge - very much like Mom's. She sent me home with a small plate of it. :) I didn't stay too long - they were leaving that afternoon for Friday night bowling - they belong to a couple's league. Their one living room window looks onto the side yard and crop area. Merl feeds the birds and gets a really nice variety of them - including 4 male cardinals and 3 female cardinals that I saw when I was there. It was very nice and relaxing.

Jeremy - Dick's son got engaged over Christmas. They have been going together for quite a while and are looking at getting married in 2009. Danny is back up at Rochester getting light treatments for the organ rejection maintenance. He'll be up there at least through the end of January probably. Robin and Daniel travel up there as much as they can and Dan can come home on weekends. Deb is busy with running the girls to school and swimming events. Sounds like the girls are keeping her quite busy. Tim is very busy - lots of overtime at his job in Boscobel. Samantha is still on maternity leave and is trying to find a job closer to their home in Cobb (right now she works at American TV in Madison).

After visiting with them for a couple of hours, I went to visit Monnie at the nursing home. She knew who I was right away (which Merl and Ev had warned me might happen). We visited for about an hour. During that time, she told me about "little Joe". Little Joe apparently is a young boy who lives in her room and cries all the time. She feels sorry for him and tries to help him. she also said that he goes away sometimes to pick corn and bale it up. She's still the same kind person - just has a bit of a disconnect with things it seems.

My next stop was at Dad and Gloria's. I picked up fish dinners (Dad bought) at Riverside Restaurant there in Darlington and took them up there. They have really nice baked cod dinners - though too much food! I didn't stay there too long - maybe an hour and a half - Dad and I were both getting tired. :) They seem well though - Gloria is handling things pretty well and Dad is cooperating in taking his medicines.

Dad has a doctor appointment Monday afternoon. I'm going to see if I can get off work to help get him there and back. Should be interesting...

Work is painfully busy. I really need to spend a week behind a closed door - people mean well but the phone and drop in interuptions really make getting the work done a challenge. I should get about 5 loans approved and closed this month (typically it's about 2 closings a month). That makes it a bit overwhelming...Oh well I'll try.

Not much else - we're above freezing now. That means all the snow is packing down and starting to melt - water puddles and icy stuff everywhere - bummers! I hope we can avoid floods in the lower lying areas.

Best wishes and take care!