Hey there Pop,

You will never believe what we saw today - a Bald Eagle flying down the river! It was amazing! He was fully grown and beautiful (I'm assuming it was a he, they're the only ones that get the white head right?). I tried to take a picture, but it only turned out as a blob in a tree. Sadly, my SLR was out of batteries and film, so I couldn't use that big old telephoto lens that you got me.

Scott just sort of caught it out of the corner of his eye and showed me - we're lucky to have seen it.

So other than that I don't have a ton to report. Well, I suppose that's not true...

- The basement flooded again, only not as bad this time. Not only did we not have the basement completely back together, but we were better at clearing up and the river didn't get as high. So it was a pain, but not as bad as before.

- Happily, since the flood wasn't as bad, the new wall that Scott put in didn't get damaged. Yeah, he and Fred put a wall up right next to the shelf you guys built. We haven't had time to paint it, but I guess that's for the best (it got a bit damp after all).

- St. Patrick's Day was fun and I heard/read a couple of jokes that made me think of you:

An Irish man shows up in a pub one day and orders three pints of Guinness. He takes sips from each glass until they are empty and calls the bartender for three more. The bartender says, 'Sure it's up to yourself, but wouldn't you rather I was bringing them one at a time? Then they'll be fresh and cold.'

'Nah...' your man says, ' I'm preferrin' that ye bring 'em three at a time. You see, me and me two brothers would meet at a pub and drink and have good times. Now one is in Australia, the other in Canada and I'm here. We agreed before we split up that we'd drink to each others honor this way.'

'Well,' says the bartender, 'that's a grand thing to do, all right. I'll bring the pints as you ask.'

Well, time goes on and your man's peculiar habit is known and accepted by all the pub regulars. One day though, he comes in and orders only two pints. A hush falls over the pub. Naturally, everyone figures something happened to one of the brothers. A group of the regulars corner the bartender and finally persuade him to find out what happened. With a heavy heart, the bartender brings the two pints and says, 'Here's your pints... and let me offer my sincerest condolences. What happened?'

The Irish man looks extremely puzzled for a moment, and then starts laughing.

'Oh, no, no, no! 'Tis nothing like that. You see, I've given up drinking for Lent...'

Funny right?

- I finally got a wii fit, it's been a lot of fun. I'm trying hard to do it every day, but not very well :-)

- Oh, I goofed up on the ice a while back and banged the Mazda into a curb - sorry. The good news is that it wasn't bad, just a bit of an alignment problem, Jacob fixed it and it seems fine now. I think that it's not much of a winter car, so I'll be careful from now on.

- I had my birthday, I really missed you. I went ahead and took the day off, I figured that my day would be pretty tough, so I figured I'd lay low.

- I finally went down to Wild Birds Unlimited and got a new feeder, along with a bunch of seed and some special food to help birds have healthy eggs during the nesting season. Hopefully it works.

- Mom called and said that Julie lost her house, apparently she refinanced at some point and got behind. I don't know where she moved or what's going on, but Mom says that now the people are ripping down the chimney and doing a bunch of other random stuff. Sounds strange, I told Mom to send me some pictures so I can see what's up.

- Scott got a job (I know, total shocker)! The tile work was really dropping off and we've been getting worried, and then he managed to find this position doing weatherization inspections. It's for a non-profit organization that helps low-income families take advantage of the energy rebate stuff. He's only been at it a week, but so far it's been good. He's off to Lansing next week for more training. And happily it comes with hourly wages and benefits!

- The card store downtown has closed - I'm so sad about it, it really was a wonderful place. I loved going down there and just hanging out with everyone there. She's going to have limited classes at her house, so I'll have some opportunities. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up with some of the ladies, they're all pretty great. But it really was one of my anchors, I mean, what am I going to do for 2 hours on Saturday morning?

Sorry to have rambled on, mostly it's been a hard winter and I'm very tired. I keep trying to be up and ok, but what I really need is some sun and time off to enjoy life again. Here's hoping.

Talk to you later Pop, I love you.