Another week has passed on the shore of Lake Superior in my hometown. The weather has turned positively salubrious with temperatures above freezing and sloppy streets. We topped out at +6° today. We took advantage to get out for walks although the sloppery(making up words!) sidewalks did pose some hazard. Wendy kept busy with chorus work as is usually the case. It is surprising to me how much call there is on a volunteer treasurer! She also performed my quarterly haircut—looking kempt(again!). On Friday we started, and I completed our seasonal teeth cleaning exercise with the Confederation College students. They usually work pretty slowly at it, but I had a third year student, and she plunged ahead relentlessly and completed the work in just one session. Today, I got my long-awaited meeting with the Low Back folks. They confirmed that the MRI shows Spinal Stenosis. I have three options: a program of exercises; minimal surgery to remove some of the impinging bone mass; fusion surgery to lock the impinging bone mass into a more favourable position. I gladly chose option 1! She assembled a raft of exercises designed to improve flexibility and the shape of my lower back. She also accepted my goals of being able to walk 18 holes of golf, and being able to curl again, and confirmed they were viable. Currently, I am able to walk 1km each day; I can walk 2 km, but then, I can't walk the next day. My target is 5 km; if I get to that, I feel I can walk a round of golf. Now, that I've had this consultation, I feel free to try curling at any time. The markets continued to whipsaw all week as the strong economic data raised the fears that the FED would keep raising rates. At least the green was stronger than the red, and I was able to make some money. In the world of sports, the #9-Jayhawks stood out. They claimed comfortable wins over #5-Longhorns early in the week, and over the Sooners today. I predict an upgrade in their ranking over the weekend. The Oilers, Pens and Leafs came out of the All-star break and need to get back to their winning ways. Oilers have moved to just one point back of first place in their division with their win today, but Leafs, inexplicably dropped a game to the little sisters of the poor tonight. The Pens lost their game today also, sigh! Much time this week was spent following the provincial curling championships in Manitoba and Alberta. Of course, I was following my guy, Koe, in Alberta; he made the playoffs, and is now in the semi-final.
Erica writes, "This week we started in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, then journeyed to Bogotá, Columbia, Toronto, Saskatoon and finally to Prince Albert. Boy—we love adventure!! Eric put in a full week of work while I took a day off. I’m finding that the swelling in my legs is a regular side effect of air travel, and causes a lot of sore and achy body parts. It took a couple days to get back to “normal”.We are celebrating Valentine's Day on Saturday as Eric is teaching classes next week. We will take a romantic stroll through Costco which doubles as a meal, followed by a movie. Liam is considering the possibility of missions; so, pray as he has further talks about this. Nothing new with Haaken or Greg."
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| Bronze Medalists |
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| Medalist! |
Travis and Joanna had as normal a week as they usually manage during the busy hockey season. We haven't got to see them all week, although there have been several phone chats, and many exchanges of text.
And that's enough for this week.
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