I hope everything is fine there.

The weather has turned to winter again. I guess I knew it wouldn’t last but I was still hoping. I keep wishing spring would come faster (even though that means rain and mud). At least the days are getting longer which is very nice. I suppose then the next thing will be daylight savings time robbing us of the extra morning daylight. Oh well – wonder if I’ll ever be happy with the weather.

I visited Father and Step-Mother Friday morning. I managed to bring them brats (from a specialty farm near Arena), cheese (4 varieties from the cheese store), buns (town bakery), and fruit (strawberries and bananas) so they had a meal. Step-mother’s gift to Dad was Teriyaki steak for Valentines Day. He had me pick up a dozen roses for her (pretty peach colored ones). I think they both enjoyed themselves. Dad has an infection (again) so he’s on extra medicines which seem to make him sleep more often. I guess that’s probably good.

I had lunch that day with an old friend. She’s doing well but had some “man issues” to discuss. There’s no easy answer (and I honestly don’t think she’s looking for any) so I just listened.

Friday afternoon, I visited businesses and the office there to take care of some work things. It was a long day.

Saturday I was in Milwaukee. We had a nice time. Breakfast was at a diner that was both nice and economical (yes cheap would be the correct word!). Then we went to my daughter’s and watched a movie (Shaun the Sheep by the makers of Wallace and Gromit) and played a couple of games. We went to a marketplace in town then that had a lot of unique and interesting things. After that, we ended up doing a bit of grocery shopping at a mall called Bishops Bay (no water in sight!). Then a little shop-looking and by 2PM we were eating lunch at a place called BD Mongolian Café. I’ve never eaten Mongolian food (mostly seemed like Chinese stir frys). From there it was time for the trip back home. A nice day (like always when I get to spend time with family!).

Sunday I went to work in the morning. Then I did some work around the house, paid bills (yucky job but necessary), and a few other things. Nothing exciting let me assure you.

Today – well there’s still lots of options and lots of must-do’s on the list. I’ve already put in some time in the office (we’re officially closed – President’s Day).

Other than that (and I realize that’s not much) well no news from here.

Best wishes and take care!

Hi,

Everything is going well there I hope.

The weather is changing. Seems more like spring than January this weekend. At least we’ve reached 32 yesterday and today it’s supposed to hit 35. The winds are pushing the “real” temps into the 20’s but it’s still quite an improvement over the extreme cold that we’ve had lately. There are still some huge snow banks out there and this morning when I was walking there were some pretty heavy and long patches of ice. I guess we just can’t expect perfect weather but at least this is better I think than what we’ve been having.

Friday afternoon I visited Dad and my stepmother. I took down lunches (stuffed salmon, baked potatoes, green beans, salad, bun) so we could enjoy that. Don’t be too impressed – I got carry outs from a restaurant there in town. The meals were actually a treat thanks to my dog. We were out walking Friday morning and she (as she often does) stopped to sniff something in the street. When I looked down it was a crumpled up, snowed on $20 bill. The odds of me actually finding the real owner looked slim so taking it to them and buying lunches seemed like the best idea. The lunches were good.

Saturday I spent a good part of the day in the office working on some projects. As people try to adjust to the economy, they have gotten used to borrowing money to get out of tight spots I think and they want that to continue to be there “out”. Right now, I think that’s pretty dangerous and it’s a hard pattern to break. The farm markets are quite volatile and input costs are fluctuating so it’s a rough year to make loans. We seem to be doing a lot more loan servicing than anything.

Today, I’ll probably work on things around the house here and try and get some more work done on my required training for work. It’ll probably be a pretty boring day. The problem is that I don’t have time on the weekdays with work to get much else done. That leaves me only the weekend to play catch up. Most times, the weekend isn’t long enough.

Well, I’d better get going. So much to do and so little time…

Best wishes and take care!