T’was the week before Christmas … and you still need gifts for your nearest and dearest!
When people learn that I travel with my son fairly often, they always ask, “How does he do on airplanes? How does he handle airports and train stations?” And I can safely answer that he’s good as gold. The fact that so many people ask always catches me off guard – he transitions so well that it takes a minute for me to remember that for many people, traveling with children is stressful, difficult and nightmare-inducing.
After our parents had both passed away, my sisters took on the task of going through our mother and dad’s Arizona home, deciding what to do with their furniture, housewares, clothing and prized possessions. I was grateful to them for doing this since I couldn’t, and I knew they would divide things fairly.
This has been quite the year of travel for me – five road trips through 11 states! My latest adventure was spur-of-the-moment. I traveled with my daughter Melissa and two of my grandsons to Pensacola, FL to visit Mack, my 18-year old grandson who is a Marine and attending flight training there. It appeared that he would not make it home for the holidays and he was very homesick and missing his family. My daughter asked me to go with her because it was such a long drive.
The global economy is facing a severe energy crunch heading into winter. The price of crude oil isp ushing $100/barrel due to the continued conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Saudi-led OPEC production cuts of two million barrels/day and domestic oil production remaining one million barrels/day below what it was prior to the pandemic. The 15-million-barrel release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) recently announced by the Biden Administration thus offsets less than a week’s worth of these cuts. More concerning is that nearly half of the SPR’s inventory has been drained since the Russia-Ukraine conflict began and at approximately 400 million barrels, the SPR’s inventory is at its lowest level since the mid-1980s. This puts the U.S. in a vulnerable position if the world’s supply of oil gets further disrupted, since there is limited inventory in the SPR to meet any further disruption. At a minimum, oil prices would further spike.
Each Thanksgiving holiday since (well, we’ll get to that), the President of the United States has officially pardoned one lucky turkey, allowing the bird to live out its remaining life on a turkey farm. It should come as no surprise that this wasn’t always the case.
November has never been my favorite month. The trees have lost the fiery colors of October, we wake to frost-covered ground, frozen fog and a bleak November wind. The days grow shorter and shorter … The promise of snow is in the air.
As I type this, my husband and I are making big plans for the week ahead. Our dog, Bear, is turning 14. That’s 98 in human years.
As of writing this column, the 30-year fixed home mortgage interest rate is about 7.5%. If the Federal Reserve increases interest rates at its next meeting, this rate will likely go higher. Already nearly three times higher than what it was in early 2021, it is higher than at any time since the late 1990s.
Some old friends who relocated from Michigan to Florida a few years ago recently posted on Facebook that they know when fall has arrived in the Sunshine State – not because the leaves change colors, but because the license plates do. I have only been to Florida once and even though it is beautiful, I would never want to live there. Can you say hurricane? Yes, we have an occasional tornado, but it is not the same.
It’s that time of year again … twinkling lights, holiday music, a feeling of goodwill in the air. There’s so much excitement that comes along with the holiday season – and maybe that includes the arrival of holiday party invitations. While you’re out shopping for others, save some time to pick up something great to wear to that party! SHIFT in Downtown Flint has all your holiday fashion needs covered.
