Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



You are here: Home / 2007 / Archives for July 2007

Archives for July 2007

It is easy being green

by

I’m glad to see that some of you really liked the eco-handbags in my last post. I really like the company and what it stands for as well as their products.

I really do think that I’m going to get one of their handbags. I need a new purse. I do, I really do.

As for living green. Laane said in one of the comments “If you’re really eco-friendly you recycle at home. Because all the transport costs a lot of pollution too.”

Well you’ll be pleased to know that recycling is the law here in Toronto. Our recycled materials are picked up every two weeks. Garbage is picked up on alternate weeks.

Green garbage – kitchen peelings, used paper towels, coffee grounds and other biodegradable “garbage” is picked up weekly. We do have a composter though so a good portion of our green garbage goes into the compost as well.

I’ve written a few articles on As the Garden Grows lately about living green and how to save money by living green. Making a few changes now can save you a lot of money in the future and none of the things that we to make our life greener are all that hard.

Check out those articles if you want to be a little more eco-friendly and save some money too.





Anti-virus program slows my computer

by

My desktop computer is so slow right now! I’ve got two Firefox browsers open, my email program and Norton anti-virus is currently scanning my whole system for bad guys.

The antivirus program is a hog. I have no problems when I normally have two browser windows open, my email program and sometimes even adobe photoshop … but start up Norton and forget doing much anything else unless you want to do it very very slowly.

It slows my laptop too, which is newer and faster than my desktop PC so I know it’s the Norton’s antivirus.

Does it slow your computer down too? Do you do regular system scans for virus’?

Why do we have more money living in a house than an apartment?

by

It’s amazing how much different our life is since we got our house six years ago. We’d been living in a small apartment, paying fairly low rent given the area – and we didn’t really have the same kind of bills that we have now that we have a house, but it always seemed like we were struggling to get by.

When we living in the apartment we were both paying off student loans, had a car payment, paid for cable, internet, car insurance, and telephone and paid our rent (only $725 which is cheap for a nice apartment in a good area of Toronto). We both had full time jobs that paid decently too.

I really have no idea how we got by without having applied for a student loan consolidation. We would have saved a lot of money on interest and our monthly payments probably would have been lower too.

Still we pushed on. The student loans were our biggest bills other than rent back then. I am glad that we don’t have student loans to pay off anymore. I’ve thought of going back to school but it’s the loans that scare me! If I ever do back to school you can bet your boots I’ll be consolidating the loans next time.

I think getting a house gave us more of a sense of responsibility. We used to buy what we wanted when we wanted. Now we think about it for quite a while. We still buy what we want but by the time we’ve put all that thought into it we’ve often saved the money to pay for that item outright.

I know our living expenses are higher in the house – mortgage, property tax, water bill, telephone, cable, cell phone, internet, electricity, oil for the oil furnace, insurance – no car or student loans anymore though, and yet we still seem to have extra money and I’m not even working these days.

Sure I make some pretty good money via the internet, but Chris makes less than he did when we lived in the apartment so income kind of evens out. As I said it must be just that we are more responsible with our money these days.

Massive headache

by

Yesterday, all day, I had a massive headache. It just would not go away. I took Tylenol several times and it didn’t really help. It helped my fevers – fevers that I have almost daily anyway, but it didn’t take the headache away.

I’d say the headache lasted for more than 24 hours! I have no idea how I managed to get any posting done yesterday, but to be honest my work was done at a drastically slower pace than normal.

I think I must be fighting the flu bug that my husband brought home with him on Wednesday. He’s almost better today, but I’m deteriorating. I actually fell asleep on the couch in the night and couldn’t rouse myself until 4 pm today!

That’s not good.

I think I still have the remnants of a headache hanging around but for the most part it’s pretty much gone.

I just hope it doesn’t come back, and that if I’m fighting Chris’ flu bug that I’m successful in my fight. Living with Crohns and getting the flu could be a very bad thing!

Meta

Search this site

Tags

blog blogs camera Canada Chris computer crohns dinner dog Family flower flowers Food friends funny garden Gardening Green Thumb Sunday Health and Fitness Health Fitness and Beauty holiday home Home and Lifestyle house husband IBD Inflammatory bowel disease Internet Music neighbors pain photo photos plants puppy Shopping sick sleep spring Toronto TV Video visit website Wordless Wednesday