Curling has begun!

Another week has passed on the shore of Lake Superior in my hometown. The temperatures continue to drift lower but still no frost, and the vines in the school gardens across the street are still green! It has been a pretty normal week for us, except that Wendy’s barbershop practice was cancelled. I found a knife-sharpener, and got my chef’s knife reshaped and sharpened—a small piece had broken off while working on some frozen meat! The RV is now winterized and parked around back. The markets continue to roil with each new fulmination out of the Orange house. Oil has surged, and taken together with the tariffs, USA inflation is surging as well. Investors are starting to worry about the FED raising the interest rates further to fight inflation. In sports, my Oilers lost to Utah, but responded with a win over them tonight. Pens are on a western swing and finding the going tough. Leafs blew a 2 goal lead in the third period against Buffalo. The Riders lost in Montreal on Monday, but scored late to beat them today back in Regina. This clinched a playoff spot for the Riders. The World Series is shaping up as a battle of low budget teams. I picked Dodgers and Rays to contest it, but the Dodgers were swept away by the Brewers. Rays and Guardian continue their battle to join the final series. But, my big attention this week was on curling as the first Grand Slam event of the season is playing out in Victoria. It certainly was a lesson in how the world curling power has moved off shore. Only one Canadian team advanced to the playoffs on the women's side and it's my longtime favourite, Einarson. On the men's side, four of our teams made the playoffs, but my favourite, Kevin Koe, was not one of them. 

Erica writes, “We are back in PA this week. It almost didn’t happen for me. On Sunday, we had a scheduling issue that required me to stay up north for the week. But, early Monday morning, my boss called and advised that I could go home. It was a Thanksgiving Miracle! This weekend, Eric and I are heading down to help Liam bring his motorcycle back for the winter. Eric has supervision meetings this morning, so he’s playing the role of Lincoln therapist. I told him if he could make enough money doing this, I’d be happy to drive. Liam finished midterms and now he has a week break. Haaken reports everything’s great. All is well with Greg and Kiersten.”

Yummy!

Erin writes, “We had a really good Thanksgiving. We ended up doing chicken breasts with garlic, onion, paprika, parsley, broth, other seasonings, butter—tasted amazing! I had to make another batch the next day. Gravy didn’t make it into the picture. I had a good short week at work, and an old friend came into town Thursday and since I’m ahead for the month, I took the day off to hang out—extra short week for me! One of my team had a birthday so I took them out for lunch yesterday, a real nice time. Then, I got back to work and Ryan let me know another old friend we had worked with has gone into palliative care. He was diagnosed with cancer just over a year ago. So, went from super high to real low. Please pray for his family to feel comfort. I'm taking a quiet day today.” Kristian notes that he's been putting in more and more time managing the tires recently. Many folks responded to the first snowfall to get their winter tires on. 

Travis and Joanna drove down to Duluth on Monday to see the vet for Marigold. The report and the therapies all seem to be positive, now we wait to see her level of improvement. Jasmine visited over here while they were gone. Otherwise, they've continued with production on the Bucket Decal orders—good business there. 

And that's enough for this week.