Rainy Weather!

Another week has passed on the shore of Lake Superior in my hometown. The weather has become rainy, and I hurt my back last weekend, so, it's been an inactive week for me! I don't know what caused it, but I woke up Monday morning with a sore back. The only things I can recall doing differently are the stretches the physiotherapist suggested, and lawn mowing. I'm thinking it was the lawn mowing—in my impatience, I was pushing the mower across the lawn, and then pulling it back with one hand. I can see how that would put a strain on the lower back. I won't do that next time. In the meantime, a couple of nights required T3s to get through the night; I've since backed off (see what I did there!) to Extra Strength Tylenol. It's getting better, but there was no golf this week. Wendy has been pruning the cedars in the backyard. I've been encouraging her to cut more off—she demurs. Wendy bought me a new whipper-snipper, so the edges can continue to be trimmed. The markets were buoyed by the Canadian and European central banks cutting their respective prime rates early in the week, but then the USA came in with blow-away jobs data, and investors turned to selling. Still, the strong USA economy allowed those three indices to turn in new all time records this week, while the TSX and I turned to the red, sigh! In hockey, the Oilers won game 6 over Dallas and advanced to the Stanley Cup final series which opened this evening in Florida with a loss. Vegas has picked Florida to win the Cup, so Oilers are facing their third straight series as underdogs—c'mon Oilers! They played okay, and I am not discouraged with one road loss! Football opened the regular season this week with Riders taking on the Elks in Edmonton. After last year's dismal season, it won't take much to show improvement, but we would like to be a contender—go Riders! They didn't have a great game today, and the O-line is still not creating running room, but, hey, they won! The Blue Jays are playing a bit better, but are still below .500, so they are not in contention for anything at this point. 

Erica writes, "This weekend is another episode in our Saskadventures. We are heading to the south west corner to see the Mysterious Rocks of Cypress Hills. Haaken is staying with us this month, so he is along for the ride. Our friends Tina and Guido, Marina and Lorne are with us. Eric finished his teaching gig at University of Lethbridge and just has to grade papers. I’m coming to the end of our busiest time at work. So, life is beginning to lighten up a bit. I joked the other day, that I finally had time to make a to-do list!"

Erin and Kristian are continuing through the process to see if he can qualify for the drug trial. He has to file reports regularly, and complete a number of tests and a lot of blood work at the hospital. We hope the trial goes well whether he's on the active side or the placebo side, and that we get one step closer to a solution to his long term eczema issues. We hope to have an answer on whether he's included in the trial by the end of the month. 

Travis and Joanna remain busy. We're all hoping to get away for a day trip to Grand Marais next week, so Wendy and Joanna have been consulting on that! Wendy has a business meeting one evening which is adding a complication to the mix. Andrew and Rosie would like to come along. We hope it all works out. The scheduled arrival of their new furniture failed, and they're now waiting until the end of the month for their new living room stuff. Travis got the new TV mounted on the living room wall, including some construction to hide the cords. We checked it out one evening—good work! 

And that's enough for this week!