Tricia's Musings

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



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Archives for February 2008

A great Toronto search engine

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I’ve found a great site to search for all things Toronto for those of you who live or who are visiting this great city. The site is called Toronto Major League Search and it’s easy and handy to use.

Say you need a cab and can’t remember the number for the cab company that you normally use, just go to Toronto Major League search and type in taxi or the name of the cab company and a results page will come up. You’ll likely be able to find the cab company that you’re searching for with a simple search such as this.

When you do a search you can also specify a location. For example I live in a part of the Toronto known as The Danforth so I did a search for Restaurants and I wrote The Danforth in the location area. This brought up about 6 pages of restaurant results. The various restaurant locations were shown on a medium sized Google map with the restaurant listings to the right of the Google map.

I did find that I got better results with my searches when I was more specific. For example I decided to search for Greek restaurants on Danforth Ave and more of the restaurant results seems to be on Danforth.

I do like that the site is tied in with Google maps. It’s nice to be able to see where something that you’ve searched for its located. It will save a lot of time in deciding which location to give my business to if I can pick one out easily that’s close to where I am.

Just like most search engines you can search for pretty much anything. give it a try and see if you find Toronto Major League Search helpful too.

Oh and if you know of a great business that should be listed on the site you can submit it using the link at the bottom of each page.





A full and lovely rose

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chicagopeace9

I think this will be one of my favorite roses in my garden this summer. It’s Chicago Peace, a hybrid tea, and I just started growing it last summer.

It’s choke full of petals and the blooms are quite large. It’s a can’t miss flower once it’s blooming in the garden.

I planted it near my patio so that I can enjoy it’s beauty when I’m sitting outside in the summer or perhaps entertaining guests outdoors.

Chicago Peace has a light scent. I’ve found you have to get close to the rose to pick up it’s scent, but once you can smell it it’s quite nice.

Sorry I haven’t posted for a while. I’ve been feeling absolutely terrible this week! Plus, as I explained on my gardening blog my mouse died yesterday and our internet connections been on and off thanks to heavy ice storms and rain!

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post!

Looking to buy or sell a property in South Africa?

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I just finished watching the latest episodes of Survivor and Lost and looking at all of that lovely scenery has me dreaming of exotic locals.

Do you ever think about living in another country or perhaps having a second home in another country? I know that several of my readers work from home and make their income from their websites, as I do. All we need is a good internet connection and we could work anywhere right?

Here I am talking about how nice it would be to move to an exotic location and I’m forgetting that some of you live in places that I’d love to travel to and perhaps move to!

If any of you happen to live in South Africa or if you’ve thought of purchasing a home there you should take a look at the Property Home website where you can view South Africa Property Listings. You’ll find property listings by real estate agents, private sellers, property developers and property landlords.

Not only will you find South Africa Houses for Sale, but you’ll also find properties to rent or “to let”.

One feature of the site that I really like is that once a real estate agent or property owner has registered one of their properties on the site they can then go and search for a prospective renter or buyer.

PropertyHome has a database of close to 50,000 prospective home buyers. Their system is set up in such a way that real estate owners can quickly and easily search for suitable buyers for their properties. In fact, within seconds of listing your property for rent or for sale you’ll be automatically provided with a list of prospective tenants and buyers whom closely match your property listing.

This sounds like a great way to market a property! I really don’t think that we have anything quite like this in Canada … not on this scale anyway. I think it’s great. If I were seriously looking for a home in South Africa I think I’d be happy to register and list what type of property I was looking for and then be contacted by both private sellers and real estate agents. It would save me time going through all the listings on several sites!

I also like the fact that if I were selling a home I could put up a listing, perhaps one that said “Real Estate Home for Sale by Owner” and immediately get a list of prospective buyers for that property. It sounds win win to me.

The very best feature is their special introductory offer. Property Home is offering all advertisers the opportunity to list their properties for free for a total of three months. I know that it’s not possible to sell or rent all properties within three months, but I think a high percentage are sold within that time period and if a seller or renter were able to find a new owner or tenant in that time it wouldn’t cost them anything at all for the listing!

At this point I have no idea if Chris and I will ever move out of the country or purchase a second property elsewhere but it’s good to know what’s out there isn’t it? Hopefully this information about Property Home might come in for a few of my readers.

Open up! It’s cold out here!

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Wordless Wednesday

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Aw … the deer want in!

If it keeps snowing here the way it has we’ll probably start to see deer wandering around! Honestly. We’re in the process of getting about 30 more centimeters of snow here in Toronto and those of us with small lawns literally have no place left to put the snow. We might also have an ice storm too. Oh goody.

I posted this photo of the snow almost as high as our car last week on one of my other blogs after last weeks snow storm and now the snow is piled higher than our car. I really can’t lift the snow much higher and when I do try it just starts to slide off. This is getting crazy! Apparently we’ve already reached or passed the February record for snow at our airport and we aren’t even half way through the month! This is certainly a snow year around here!

I wonder if any market research studies have been done about how this much snow affects people and their shopping habits! I’m sure a lot of shovels and snow blowers were purchased here in Toronto this month.

I’ll have to try to take a photo of our puppy trying to climb up the mound of snow on our lawn. She sinks into it right up to her neck. Still … she insists on climbing it so that she can do her business. It’s pretty funny.If you’ve been wondering where I’ve been the last couple of days I’ve either been hiding indoors since it’s been getting to -30 Celsius (-22 F) with the windchill – and when you’ve got a constant fever that’s really not much fun, or else I’ve been outside shoveling!

The scent of Hyacinth

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Purple Hyacinth looks blue

Sick of winter? Me too. I’m so looking forward to spring!

Lately whenever we go to the grocery store, a home and garden store of even some department stores I’m greeted by the scent of Hyacinth. Many stores are selling bulbs that have been chilled and forced to bloom. Perhaps you’ve purchased some of these prepared bulbs and have hyacinths blooming in your home right now?

If you do have some of these forced Hyacinth bulbs in your home, and if you live in a climate that gets cool in the winter be sure to plant the bulbs in your garden this spring. They won’t bloom again this year, but they will more than likely bloom right in your garden next spring. If you’ve purchased any other forced spring bulbs – like tulips or daffodils – you can plant those in your garden when they die down too.

The photo above is of one of my purple hyacinths. It looks blue though doesn’t it?

Only in the first winter that we had our house did I get the urge to buy some of those forced hyacinths … the rest of the time I’ve suffered through winter without the scent of hyacinth blooms indoors … forced to wait until all my bulbs come up in my garden each spring. Oh but when they do bloom in the spring the garden is just intoxicating to stroll in! Also, if we happen to have a nice warm spring day and it’s nice enough to open the windows the scent of hyacinth wafts into the house too. It’s beautiful!

Do you grow hyacinth? Indoors or outdoors?

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post!

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