Tricia's Musings

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



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Archives for 2008

New to keeping pets? Visit Tame that Wild Thing

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Everyone that knows me knows that I’m quite the pet lover. I’ve been interested in all kinds of animals for as long as I can remember and I’ve kept several different kinds of pets too, ranging from lizards to my dog.

As a result of my interest in animals I keep my eye open for pet and animal related sites. Sometimes I can learn something new from these sites or I can refer someone else to the website so that they can get the information they need.

I was introduced to a site recently called Tame That Wild Thing. It’s just the kind of site that I’d recommend to people who are trying to decide what type of pet would suit their lifestyle best, or perhaps to those who are just starting out with a new pet and need to learn the basics quickly.

You can find information about birds, dogs, cats, hamsters, tropical fish on topics ranging from setting up an aquarium to raising a puppy and more.

The site is constantly being updated with new articles so it’s worth checking occasionally. I’m sure that many pet lovers will find this site helpful. I certainly could have used some of the puppy information 6 months ago!





Colorful tulips!

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Join Green Thumb Sunday

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We’re currently having a heatwave and thunder storms here in Toronto. My flowers are blooming, but once the weather gets done with them I’m not sure that they’ll have any petals left!

Here’s a look at some tulips that were blooming up until the last week or so:

orange tulips

As well as this fiery red fringed tulip –

fringed red tulip

I’m afraid the heat and rain ruined their blooms, but like I said the roses are blooming. There’s always something to enjoy in my garden.

BTW yes this post is a day late. I had yet another eye allergy on Saturday that left me with both eyes painful, blurry and sensitive to light for two days. I wasn’t able to post or do much of anything. Hence the late post. Sorry!

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!

Promote your sites and articles on Quassi

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I just joined a new site called Quassi.

It’s a new kind of site where you can promote not only your own sites but topics that you are knowledgeable about as well.

In addition to having yet another place to promote your sites you can also participate in revenue sharing at Quassi.

Here’s some information directly from the site:

At Qassia, you can add your websites for free, and without having to add reciprocal backlinks. You’ll get unlimited quality backlinks (as opposed to useless “no-follow” backlinks). You can also add intel. Short for “intelligence”, intel is a tidbit of information. Qassia rewards users who add intel in three ways.

1. Backlinks You get one backlink for every piece of intel you add. Every intel will carry a direct backlink to one of your sites. So the more intel you add, the more backlinks you get.

2. Credit When you add intel, you also get credit, in the form of Qassia dollars. Your net worth in Qassia dollars determines how well your websites rank in our directory.

3. Revenue When your intel is displayed, you get 100% of the advertising revenue generated by that page. That is not a typo, by the way: we give you ALL of the gross ad revenue.

This means that website owners have triple incentive to contribute intel. The contributed intel will allow Qassia to become a vast repository of intelligence, with unrivaled original content. And a vast amount of original content draws traffic like honey draws ants.

Right now Quassi is in closed beta so the only way to join is by getting an invite by someone who’s already a Quassi member. If you’re interested in joining just click on one of the Quassi links that I’ve added to this post and it should take you to my profile page where you should see a Sign Up button in the top left hand sidebar.

I just signed up so I can’t tell you how well Quassi does at promoting your site and bringing in traffic yet, but I’ll write an update post about a month from now and let you know how well Quassi has worked for me. In the meantime, sign up and list your sites and perhaps add some articles about topics you care about and start earning those quassi credits and sharing in the site revenue.

It’s a beautiful day

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I’d been dreading Friday. All week the news stations said we were going to bake!

Well the hottest day of the year so far has arrived and you know what? It’s a nice day.

It’s 34 Celsius outside. That’s 93.2 F. Normally that would be killer hot here in Toronto because when it gets hot here it’s usually also quite humid. The humidity makes whatever the temperature really is feel like it’s about 10 degrees hotter.

I’ve been outside several times with the dog and I’m amazed at how comfortable this hot day has been. There’s no humidity at all.

There’s a nice breeze so just when you do start to feel warm the breeze comes up and cools you off again.

It’s so nice! If you are in the Toronto area get outside. You won’t regret it.

Strangers at the door – do you let them in?

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A few minutes ago a man knocked on our door. We have a number of solicitors around here so I often ignore knocks at the door, but this man knocked so hard that the dog started barking and I decided to go to the door to find out who it was.

Well it was this man working for a company that I think was called Living Green. I stood in the enclosed front porch to talk with him as Midnight mostly watched from the screen door inside the house.

He asked me how old our water heater was. Honestly I don’t know. It’s a rented heater and it was here when we moved into the house. At the very least it’s more than 7 years old. Apparently our government is giving a rebate on water heaters that are older than 5 years. We can apparently have it replaced free of charge.

My first thought was ok well we’re renting our hot water tank in the first place so I could probably just call the company and have them replace it free of charge anyway …

He made it sound like if I didn’t let him in so that he could check the serial number and age of our hot water heater we’d lose out on the rebate.

I know our government is giving all kinds of rebates to those who upgrade their furnaces to more energy efficient models as well as those who work on their home to reduce energy usage such as improving insulation, replacing windows and yes replacing water heaters. So I wasn’t buying his pitch.

I’d had a gas company rep at the door a few days ago trying to get me to buy into a lower rate gas program too. Our house is oil heated (the tank was just filled up a few days ago at a cost of almost $800) so I wasn’t interested in his gas company pitch either.

I figure if these people that come to the door with sales or rebate offers are legit I should be able to get a pamphlet from them so that I can read the details of the offer on my own and also talk with my husband about whatever being offered.

Chris and I rarely let anyone that comes to our door with a sales pitch in the house. Particularly if we are alone in the home. You just never know if they are legitimate or not.

I’m not paranoid or anything. I’m just being safe. Plus … once you let a salesperson into your home, how the heck do you get them out? Also once you let a sales person into your home it’s a lot harder to turn down the offer – not impossible, but harder.

When I came back in the house I noticed that the TV was now set to closed captioning. Midnight must have hit the remote and turned it on somehow. I have no idea, but it took me a few minutes to try and figure out how to turn the closed captioning off again! I think she chewed on the remote as she would have had to press a few buttons to turn it on!

Puppies. You can turn your back on them for a second!

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