A Family Visit

Tonight my son, Quinn and his girlfriend, Mallory came from Athens, GA. (near UGA) and stayed for a few hours. Both had to work earlier and drove up in the evening afterwards. We talked and ate Banana nut bread and Cranberry bread and opened presents; hand-crafted jewelry for her, and clothes for him that he had needed for a long time. Carmella got lucky again today! They brought her some more chew toys of various types and a bright orange collar and leash. Now she will have a back-up for if she decides to mangle her current ones or to alternate every so often. She already chewed one leash in half (the purple one the shelter sent her home with), so it's good to have an extra one just in case.

Everyone wanted to give Carmella a big hug because she's so cute!

I had given her a bath earlier and had not put her regular collar back on yet after washing and drying it. She was smelling nice and her fur was soft. All the excess ointment residue had begun to make her grimy and smell stale. After her bath she was full of energy, bounding around the house waiting for them to arrive.

Mallory told me she'd seen the movie "Marley and Me" and that it was excellent.

Quinn filled me in on what was happening at work, and is still trying to get it authorized so that he can come and stay for about 3 days. His off days are usually at two opposite ends of the week, so it will take some persistance to get those two together next to one vacation day. I very rarely get to see him and he has not been able to drive for awhile because he has a benign brain tumor which causes seizures and had been in an accident about a year ago after one hit him unexpectedly, so he has to come when he can find a way up here (which hasn't always been easy).

The job he has is about 7 hours short of full-time and they don't provide him any health insurance, so he has to pay for all his doctors' appointments out of pocket (including medications), and he's supposed to be starting with a new neurologist soon. The company doesn't even give employees the option to be full-time and get benefits until they've been there for 6 months. He still has a few more months to go. It's a type of call center that deals with other companies that provide special offers to their customers and those who are interested in the offers are then transferred to Quinn's company to hear about them further and possibly sign up.

He's good at closing these sales so I hope he will move up quickly and will not have to stay at the bottom for very long. Apparently some employees in higher positions do get pretty good pay and benefits, but it's unconscienable that any worker in America is expected to go without health insurance and must work on Christmas!

Then I took some pictures of Quinn and Mallory while they were here, of Carmella and them, and of Carmella later with her gifts from them.

I can hardly wait to get my watercolor paper and start painting again. I now have lots of good subject matter to work with.

http://Giftbearer.etsy.com/