Week notes 2026-44

It was Halloween week! Naturally we did not pick up any chocolate for trick-or-treaters until Halloween itself; we had to go to 3 different stores to find some. It used to be you could count on cheap chocolate the next day, but retail stores seem to take everything off the shelves as soon as possible to push Christmas décor now. We had a slight panic-inducing moment to start the week: we discovered a tick on our dog's ear. Luckily, from everything we researched, it appears it hadn't been attached for more than 24 hours. We were able to remove it easily with tweezers, and the bite site1 was small. It swelled up of course, but within a day it went back down and turned into just a bit of a scab. One week later, she is also acting normal: full of energy, running around, scattering her toys everywhere. We're confident that she is okay, but will be taking our vet's advice and get some blood work done in a few weeks to confirm. Back to Halloween - we actually handed out candy! We generally…