Tricia's Musings

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



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Archives for July 2008

Oh my aching back!

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My back is aching. As I said in my last post Chris and I had a very busy day – hiking, visiting with a neighbor and then gardening.

Gardening has been taking a huge toll on my back lately. Sometimes I can garden for quite a while without my back bothering me, but other times it starts hurting almost right away.

My lower back goes into spasms after I’ve been leaning forward for a while. Heck, even when I sweep the floor (which I did early this morning – it’s amazing how much hair that dog is shedding) my back often goes into spasms and sometimes aches for hours afterwords.

I have a weird back. I was born with two of my lower vertebrae fused on one side. So one side is normal and the other side of my lower back isn’t. My back never bothered me much in the past, but I guess it’s starting to catch up with me now. At least the pain goes away after a few hours if I lie down and let the muscles in my lower back relax for a while. Well most of the time it does.

I think I’ll find our heating pad and put some heat on my back.





I spent a lot of time outside today … busy busy

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Chris and I had a busy day today. We took our puppy Midnight over to the Brickworks for a walk by the ponds and through the forest and while we were there we attended a walking tour of the lost rivers of Toronto. Quite interesting. I took a number of pictures too. I’ll post more about that portion of our day when I have the pictures ready to post.

When we got home we noticed that our neighbor Sofie was sitting on her porch. This was a big surprise because Sofie had a stroke back in February and was hospitalized for about three months and has been living with her youngest sons family for the last month. They brought her for a visit to her home even though there’s no way she can ever live there every again as she needs to be cared for throughout the day now. It was kind of sad, but also very good to see her.

I sat on Sofie’s porch talking with her for about two and a half hours – directly after coming back from our nature hike. I didn’t even go inside my own home to get a drink so by the time my visit with Sofie was over I was thirsty and tired. However after a brief bit of downtime (by this time it was 7 pm) Chris and I decided to go out into the garden to finish putting mulch on the garden beds.

Do you know how messy red cedar mulch is? I’ve got it in my shoes, socks, probably down my top and after washing my hands when I came back inside the bathroom fixtures and sink had a red tone to them. Yep … lots of red dye everywhere! Luckily it came off easily!

It was a busy day! We went out for our hike at about 11 am, didn’t get back until 3:30 and then I visited with Sofie until a bit after 6 pm. Then after only about half an hour of downtime we were back outside in the garden until 10:30 pm! So I guess I spent about 11 hours outside today.

Time for a rest!

Obsessed Relatives

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I guess everyone has a memorable relative or two don’t they? Mine was my Aunt – she was a massive political fanatic and collector of books, material (as in sewing material), china and shoes. As in over collector really. Her apartment was jam packed with items. You had to move books aside just to sit down!

Chris has an Aunt that’s quite similar in some ways. She’s a pack rat as well but she’s fascinated with collecting papers and books. She used to be a teacher and she kept all her students old tests and things like that. She’s also extremely religious so a good portion of the papers she collects are newsletters from church and so on. Like my Aunts apartment, Chris’ Aunts home is also jam packed with stuff. There are rooms you can’t even get into I’m told. Oh yeah, she’s very selective as to who she lets into her home – only a few people are allowed in regularly.

The reason why I’m bringing this up is because Chris’ aunt regularly sends us items. It could be anything from religious jewelry to religious booklets to information about a Church in Toronto and so on.

Do you have any relatives that stand out like the two that I’ve mentioned? Pack rats or obsessed with some ideal?

Don’t get me wrong both of these ladies are wonderful kind people … their just a little obsessed.

Happy 4th of July!

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I just wanted to take a moment and wish all of my American friends and visitors a very happy Independence day.

I hope that each of you have a great day whether you are spending the day with family, attending 4th of July events, parties and fireworks or just enjoying the day relaxing.

Have a great day AND long weekend!

We celebrated Canada Day on Tuesday. Instead of going to see the fireworks as planned we spent a good portion of the day gardening and then we had a nice meal and just relaxed. It was a good day.

Here’s a good one. Some left a comment on one of my husbands blog posts about Canada Day yesterday asking “Do Canadians do anything to celebrate July 4th?” LOL No – that’s your day, however many Canadians are likely starting their summer holidays today so maybe that’s how some Canadians are celebrating. 😉

Our neighborhood and neighbors are changing fast!

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My immediate neighborhood seems to be going through a lot of changes lately.

I think I mentioned a few times that my Karaoke neighbors on the other side of our semi-detached put their house up for sale something like last October. Well they finally sold their house in February and the new neighbors haven’t moved in yet but they’ve been doing renovations like tearing down the ugly fake stone wall and the popcorn ceiling and stuff like that. They expect to move in at the beginning of August.

Then there’s the house beside us where my stalker oops I mean elderly neighbor Sofie lived. She had a small stroke in February was hospitalized and then she moved in with her youngest son. So her house has been empty, but the family plans to either sell it in the fall or put it up for rent. I kind of hope they sell rather than rent. I can just imagine a series of really bad neighbors if they rent the house out. If that happens maybe Chris and I will look towards getting out of here. Hey I hear Wilmington real estate is pretty nice. Now that’s an idea.

Just a week ago one of the houses across the street and one down the street from us went up for sale so that will mean two more new sets of neighbors in a few months or so.

In general we have a very good neighborhood and most of us are fairly friendly with each other. Heck, at least three of my neighbors give us food when they are celebrating. Remember the Greek Easter feast that the neighbor behind us gave Chris and I in April? Yum!

Other neighbors come over to our house or backyard to party or we go to their house to party. I think our newest neighbors who are renovating right now will be like that. The man is in a band and plays guitar and as you probably know my husband also plays guitar so they already get along famously. The wife is really nice too and I think we’ll get along well.

I just hope that the houses going up for sale end up having really nice people buy them that fit into the neighborhood well. Hey people don’t have to mingle, but hopefully they are nice and say hello every now and then.

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