These are currently my two favorite pictures of Samantha. One is my wallpaper on my computer and the other is my wallpaper on my phone. I sure miss her. I miss her all the time and wish that they lived closer, but especially miss her after a week together. We'll be out in Vegas for my birthday and spend a week together at Almanor again this year.
It has been a quiet week with Darla gone to Hollywood and then home for one night and now in San Mateo for the girl's Volleyball tournament this weekend. No, she is not a ringer on one of the teams, but is set up and selling her jewelry at the event.
I am hip deep in Employee Reviews right now with the Underwriter's reviews due this Friday. I was busy with the budget late in December (Our goal is $29,500,000 this year) and now reviews. I wasn't too busy to get a new Personal Lines Underwriter hired. Linda went in to SF on Friday and met with Harvey. He was equally impressed with her and his only issue is that we might be missing something because she is TOO perfect. I'll take it. I talked to her Friday and gave her a verbal offer which she accepted. The formal offer will be in her e-mail on Monday morning. She will be a great addition to the office and especially welcome in helping to grow our personal lines book of business. Many of our offices are 50-50 Commercial and Personal. I have six commercial Underwriters that will write $26,000,000 in premium and now two Personal Lines underwriters who will write $3,500,000. I hope to grow this unit to $10,000,000 in premiums before I retire and I'd like to see our office approach $50,000,000 in premium writings.
I had our first Open meeting for the golf group on Thursday and then poker on Friday night. It was good to see all of the guys on Thursday night and even nicer to have dinner prepared for me. We had a nice sweet and sour chicken with fried rice and pot stickers and I didn't have to cook that night. Darla was home on Friday morning and fixed a taco soup for the guys as I was hosting poker. I never win when I host and I was down to about $44 in quarters and I went on a dry streak early and was down to about $10 in change when we broke for dinner. I made a nice comeback after dinner and finished the night with about $84 in change. That was some nice change and a nice change.
Saturday, Darla was up early and Frieda joined Darla on the trip to the Bay Area for her gig. She wanted me to go, but I knew I'd be bored silly and I really didn't want to get up early and drive to a volleyball tournament. I slept in until about 9:30 and then was up for a big home cooked three egg ham and cheese omelet. I was over to the course to hit balls by 11 AM and we teed off at 11:25. I was happy to have a free round, especially given the cold, wet conditions. We've had a fairly warm winter with a lot of rain and a lot of nice Sunny days. Not this Saturday, which started socked in with fog and the overcast stayed around until about 4 PM. It never did warm up as the bitter cold (45 degrees) didn't allow my back to loosen up and I struggled to a 45+43=87. My buddy, John, who is an 18 shot a 38 on the front side and had a chance for a career round, but the cold caught up to him and he shot 48 on the back for an 86. We had a good time, but John couldn't catch a break and ended up losing $10 on our bets.
I'm writing this wrapped in a blanket as the cold has continued today. The wood floors are great and make the house seem much bigger, but they definitely are not as warm as carpeting. I've ordered a leather shoe bench locker from Amazon that will come in tomorrow. We will place that beside the couch and store our throws and pillows in there.
I was up fairly early this morning and off to church and a great sermon. I stopped at Lowes on the way home and picked up some 4 inch can lights for the kitchen. We have a box light in there now with neon tubes and we wanted to upgrade. I bought five lights as Charlie mapped out where he wanted to place them when he was here on Friday night. Charlie will install them for me when he gets back from his vacation to Mexico. He and Frieda are staying at the same condo we have in Nuevo Vallarta and will be golfing. They both play golf which is nice as they can do it together. They are staying at his sister's time share. It will be nice to see some update to the kitchen. We did the floors, countertops, stovetop, backsplash and hood a few years ago. I still want to have the cabinets redone. Darla and I know a couple at church that run a cabinet shop in Lincoln and I may pull the trigger on that this Spring.
We still have our Christmas tree up. Darla told me that if I got the boxes down from the attic, that she would put things away on Friday. She had to meet a client downtown and didn't get to it. I really don't think she expected me to get the boxes down. Hopefully, we will pack away our Christmas this week. She is quite particular about what displays go in what boxes, so if I tried to surprise her, I'd be handed my head. She is very sentimental about Christmas and hates to see it go. She has a friend whose Christmas tree stayed up all year. She will NOT talk me into that one. Funny thing is she still plugs in the lights every night on the tree.
I got a call on Tuesday afternoon from David asking if Darla and I wanted to go to the King's game against Dallas that night. . I told him that his Mom was out of town, but that I'd get a friend to join me. He said that we were about four rows from the floor and he would be sitting courtside. I told him that if he could see me that I'd better bring a guy friend. I called big John and he was lukewarm to the idea until he heard where we were sitting.
Well, that is it for this week. Darla is on her way home from the Bay Area. I may take her out for a burger for dinner and we can get caught up on things. I hope you are all well. We are still planning on taking a trip to Dallas to see Randy and Cake in April and it will be fun to see family. I love you guys. Ciao.
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