Sunny Days

Another week has passed on the shore of Lake Superior in my hometown. The weather has been lovely, and we have enjoyed our walks with Kali, as well as working in the yard. The lawns took another cutting, and are looking about their best of the year. Wendy spied a fox on our street on Wednesday evening, but it appears to be a different animal from the one that bothered us last Spring. Anyway, we’re being more careful with Kali’s excursions. Wendy caught up with dental work getting a filling and cleaning on Friday. MLB heads to the final day of the regular season, with the Jays clinging to their hopes of a Division Championship. Playoffs begin on Tuesday. The first Grand Slam Curling event is underway in London ON featuring the top 16 teams in the world. Four Canadian teams advanced to the playoffs, but it was two Canadian and two Scottish teams in the semis, and they were playing each other. It was #4 Whyte over #1 Mouat, and #5 Dunstone over #2 Jacobs. I’ll be cheering for Dunstone, but the Scottish guys are playing great! On the women’s side, we had three teams in the tournament including my favourite #4 Kerri Einarson, but only #1 Homan advanced to the playoffs against one Japanese team and multiple reps from Sweden, Switzerland and Korea. The world is curling too well! It will be Homan against the Swiss team, #2 Tirinzoni, in the final. My longtime favourite, Kevin Koe, has slipped to a #27 ranking, and was playing in the Tier 2 event. He made the playoffs along with two other Canadian teams. He has advanced to the final where he’ll play USA team, #23 Casper. In the CFL, the first place Riders travelled to Edmonton for this week’s contest, but slunk home with a loss. My college football teams, #10 Texas, #7 Oklahoma were on the bye this week. 

Toyota Highlander

Erica writes, “This week brings us to Regina to pick up our new-to-us Highlander. We are staying with Erin. Liam and Mercedes plan to meet up with us on Saturday, and we will celebrate Mercedes’ birthday a few days early. She turns 20 on the 30th. On Friday, I sang for my supper at a community hall in Paddockwood. We had the full band for the first time in a few months and it was great! It was a busy week for both of us and we are looking forward to a break this weekend.”

Aside from hosting the Baileys this weekend, Erin is living and dying with the Jays in their final series of the season! Kristian continues with his coursework at Sask Polytech. 

Travis, Joanna, the boys and Marigold continue to thrive. Along with fielding calls from hopeful former Puckshot patrons, Travis keeps busy with Bucket Decal orders. Joanna is busy as well with work at Jangles. Andrew and Rosie push forward with their work and training programs. Gemma has her next practicum assignment lined up in Nanaimo. Jonas continues with his promising research at UBC. 

And that’s enough for this week. 

Equinox

Another week has passed on the shore of Lake Superior in my hometown. The weather continues to drift to the cooler side as we head into Autumn officially this weekend. We’ve had several showers, but enjoyed comfortable temperatures throughout. I have continued my woodwork on the FastTrack boards—only one completed so far. Wendy keeps busy with her two choirs, and especially with the business end of the Sweet Adelines. On Tuesday afternoon, I got my new partial plate from my dentist; it looks remarkably like the old broken one (and that’s by design!).Then, that evening, our chorus was invited to open the city council meeting by singing O Canada—that was an honour. We both had medical appointments this week, and I’ve supplied bloodwork for another visit later. My appointment was mostly good news, but I am being scheduled for another colonoscopy—not looking forward to that bottle of bad koolaid! Wendy’s prognosis was a bit troublesome on the blood chemistry report, so she’s looking to return us to our long-abandoned keto diet. Otherwise, both lawns received a fresh trim, but there remains plenty of yard work to do. The markets received quarter point cuts from both the Bank of Canada and the FED, so they rallied nicely. The FED acknowledged that Trump has accomplished the rare feat of raising inflation while diminishing employment—yeah, the USA economy is in trouble! Riders have the week off, but BC did them a favour by beating Calgary. #11-Oklahoma caught a tough, ranked opponent this week, while #8-Texas had a rematch with the Little Sisters of the Poor. Sooners rode a 10 sack performance by their defence to the win, while Longhorns had a blowout win as expected. The Jays are struggling to the finish line, still holding first place, but switching between poor pitching and bad hitting along the way. Their magic number to clinch first place is 5 and they have 7 games left. 

Erica writes, “Big news this week—Wheeler/Dealer little sister, Erin, wheeled and dealt! So, we are buying a new-to-us-Toyota. It’s a Highlander! It should be the same base as the Venza, so we hope it will fit in our not-a-garage. Our plan is the pass along the Venza to Liam and then we will need to sell the Jetta. It was a busy week with meetings and working Bingo. But, all in all, a pretty normal week.”

Along with Erin’s new career in car sales, this week she was featured as a Birthday Celebration organizer! Kristian’s birthday was on Tuesday, and the big score was a new phone—iPhone 16 which is a six generation upgrade for him. His XS has not been charging consistently lately, so he’s glad to move up. The birthday supper involved a trip to Dairy Queen. The contractors have returned and installed the other privacy fence on her patio. It looks good. 

Travis & Joanna, along with Andrew & Rosie joined us for pizza and cards on Sunday night. Marigold came along to entertain Kali. It was fun. 

And thatr’s enough for this week. 

Back Tracking

Another week has passed on the shore of Lake Superior in my hometown. The weather has been fine, with a few showers on some of the nights, so I also got in some more golf practice. I have completed one FastTrack board for Liam, and have two more cut out. I also completed two Pegs & Jokers sets, so Wendy and I tried out all the new games—fun! We got the company of Ed & Barb on Friday, and enjoyed a beautiful sunny day of touring with them today. Our choirs reopened practice sessions after the summer hiatus. Sweet Adelines practice Monday evenings, and Silver Sounds practice Thursday mornings. Those will form a part of our weekly program until December. The markets took a bit of an upturn as continued bad economic news from the USA has convinced the pundits that the FED will cut the prime rate next week which is usually good for stock values. We’re in the “Bad news is Good news” phase of things. Baseball continues its inexorable drive toward the playoffs with about 14 games left, and the Blue Jays holding a 3 game lead over the Yankees. The Riders put up a ghastly effort tonight, losing to Montreal in the rain. In college football, #7-Texas and #13-Sooners had easy wins. 

Erica writes, “It has been a busy week—back into the swing of work, and several evening meetings and events. We did enjoy one evening out at Christopher Lake. Eric and I led singing at The Quest's Golden Camp, for retired folks—which we aspire to become. It was wonderful and they blessed us with good food, many hugs and a wonderful gift. I also had the opportunity to play and sing at three Care Homes with Mystery Train. If only I could make a living at this! Thursday was the end of this year's accounting designation exam, named the CFE or Comprehensive Final Exam (former the UFE). We joined a group in Saskatoon and celebrated with the writers. They will find out their results at the end of November. Eric got some organizing done at the house in anticipation of our moving the fridge into the kitchen. This should be interesting as it will require the removal of the fridge doors—more to come on that next week. The news of Bonnie Baxter starting her Doctorate (way to go Bonnie) has also led Eric to a renewed interest in exploring his Doctorate. He isn't teaching this year, so it might be a good year to start. We have also been exploring our vehicle situation. The Venza is in great shape, but is also 11 years old. We can get a fairly decent recovery on a trade in, but the cost of a newer vehicle is more than our first house—yikes!! We are also debating whether or not Liam needs a different car. The Jetta, which is low in miles but high in years, has been very reliable. However the experience last winter with a delay in getting servicing done, and thus leaving Liam without a car, makes us wonder if we need to get something else for him. All this costs money, and we would rather not spend it, but it is what it is!”

Kristian has his school program pretty much locked in now, and is beginning to enjoy the experience. Erin has been very busily trying to catch up to artificial deadlines at work, and is succeeding. She also received the first part of the installation of her new privacy fence. Looks good!

new privacy fence being installed

Travis has been so busy with his BucketDecals contracts that he hasn’t had time to get his new desk built. I was thinking he had managed it without me, and that I was off the hook—but not so fast! He dropped by today with Marigold; we enjoyed the visit. 

And that’s about enough for this week. 

Cooling Off!

Another week has passed on the shore of Lake Superior in my hometown. The weather has taken on an Autumn-like mode with showers and cool days. I did manage to get over to the golf course for some practice, but still haven’t played since I returned from the trip west. We continue to catch up on our medical appointments and look forward to getting our next round of Covid and RSV shots as soon as they become available. I’ve progressed a bit on the game boards I’m building. Wendy keeps busy with her choir business, and is considering getting back to our renovation projects here. We still have the side entry and our bedroom to complete.

Economy Cooling Off!

The markets are struggling into September as the USA economy continues to falter due to the Trump regime. As the chart shows, employment has been on a steady downturn all year. The Riders prevailed over Winnipeg on Sunday in the Labour Day classic and returned to beat Winnipeg, again, for the Banjo Bowl today. College Football featured Texas with an easy win this week, and Sooners won a difficult matchup over Michigan. Blue Jays continue to lead their division, but questions remain over their bull pen. 

Eric writes, “We came back to Saskatchewan after a week and a bit of travel. We did not get to do whale watching, unfortunately, because of weather, but we saw the Cabot trail before driving through Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to get back to Montreal and fly home. Eric had an eye appointment in Saskatoon on Thursday, so, we spent Wednesday in Regina where we met up with Liam and Mercedes and watched Jaws on the imax screen—celebrating the 50 years of Jaws. Friday, we were both back at work. Saturday was a relaxing day. Next week, we will start to get organized and back into our routine. Eric has had three new interns start this week, the last one joining on Friday. It is fun training new people. Erica’s band has some performances coming up soon.”

Kristian has struggled with both ends of his bus rides to school. The morning schedule calls for him to be off around 6:00, and the afternoon trip has a lot of options in northwest Regina where he could get off! Erin has been extra busy as some of her reporting schedules were moved up.

Kristian Patio Clear

An extra bit of business at home involved clearing away their patio developments so the condo people could install new privacy fences. They bought a new drill/driver, and Kristian managed the dismantling on Monday—good job! 

Travis and Joanna have decided to retire from their PuckShots business. It was a very busy time photographing all those teams (over 100), and dealing with all those people (over 1000), and they will now be able to focus their energy on the other parts of their business and lives. Trav is impressed with the production of his new printer, and feels it will facilitate even more BucketDecal business. Their boys seem to have returned from the kennel with some kind of cold, and now that Marigold is back home, she seems to have caught it as well. Tonight, they took us out for supper at Applebys; it was a great meal and a wonderful couple of hours of visiting—Thanks guys! 

And that’s enough for this week.