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You are here: Home / Archives for 2008

Archives for 2008

Getting ready to open your pool? learn more about chemical free pool systems

April 10, 2008 by Tricia

Now that spring has arrived I’m sure many of you have taken some time to enjoy the nice weather. Perhaps the weather’s nice enough in some areas that you’re even starting to think about how you’ll enjoy your summer?

We don’t have a pool. Heck, with our small yard we don’t even have room for a pond. However, some of our friends have pools and they are already starting to talk about preparing their pool for the upcoming hot days of summer.

Do you already have a pool? Perhaps your big landscaping project this year will be the addition of a pool or spa? If so, I’m envious!

If you already have a pool or if you’ve been thinking of installing a pool have you thought about what kind of treatment you will use to maintain the pools water quality?

I know if we were lucky enough to have a pool I’d want to try to use an environmentally friendly pool treatment system. You see, we have an organic garden. We don’t use any chemicals on our land to get rid of pests or to fertilize our plants, so it only makes sense that we’d try to maintain a pool or pond with the same chemical free standards.

If you’re interested in learning more about environmentally friendly pool treatments you should visit Ecosmartepool.com. They specialize in chlorine free pools and spas.

I think everyone knows that Chlorine treated pool systems aren’t the best. Certainly chlorine isn’t very good for the environment.

Now you might be thinking that salt water pools are a safe alternative? I know I did before I read some of the articles at Ecosmartepool.com.

Salt water pools actually use chlorine generators to keep the water clean. Chlorine generators can make it easier to maintain your pool, but they require a lot of maintenance and one type of Chlorine generator makes a byproduct that is messy and not easily disposed.

Wouldn’t it be much better overall if you could use a system that was 100% chemical free?

EcoSmarte specializes in chlorine, salt water and hazardous chemical free pool systems, spa systems, and pond systems. They also carry EcoSmart filter glass media which is used for pool treatment systems.

The EcoSmarte pool systems use natural oxygen to maintain clean pool water. There systems are easier to use than chlorine based systems and safer than ozone. The natural oxygen system is also much more effective than bromine or bacquacil.

The people behind EcoSmarte believe in protecting the environment and are in fact against Salt water and chlorine based pool systems. They even donate 5% of their profits to environmental charities.

You’ll save money by using the EcoSmarte pool system too. Think about it. You won’t be purchasing chemicals regularly to maintain your pool system. Plus, the EcoSmarte pool system is energy efficient. It costs less than $1 a month to operate.

With all of those benefits it’s certainly worth considering isn’t it?

EcoSmarte offers a 60 day satisfaction guarantee and a 5 year warranty on all purchases. Visit their site to compare their pool treatment system to several other types of treatment systems, then if you’re interested in learning more about their product you can contact them for more information and a product brochure and a free quote.





Filed Under: Health Fitness and Beauty, Home and Garden, Home and Lifestyle, Living Green, Recreation, Services, Sports Tagged With: 5 year warranty, 60 day satisfaction guarantee, articles, brochure, chemical free, chlorine, chlorine free, Chlorine generator, clean water, eco friendly, eco pool, EcoSmart pool treatment, EcoSmarte, effective, environmentally friendly, filter glass, messy byproduct, natural oxygen, no hazardous chemicals, one dollar a month, pond treatment system, pool treatment system, profit donation, quote, safe, salt water, save money, spa treatment system

My head is pounding

April 10, 2008 by Tricia

I wonder if the problem I’m having with my eyes is really a migraine? All day I had a mild headache, but it’s quickly becoming a major head banging migraine.

I think I’m just going to lie down and watch some of the returning television shows tonight like ER, 30 Rock and others. Hopefully my head will stop pounding soon.

Speaking of TV. Did you watch Survivor? The fake idol came out in the end and it was hilarious!

Filed Under: Health Fitness and Beauty, Television Tagged With: ER, eyes, headache, migraine, night, problem, show, shows, Survivor, Television, TV, watch

Cloudy vision?

April 10, 2008 by Tricia

Last night I had a strange eye problem. It’s sort of continuing today, but isn’t quite as bad.

Wednesday evenings we take our puppy to her intermediate dog training classes. Usually when I go I put in my contacts and put on some makeup. These days, since I’ve been home sick (for over two years now!) I don’t really wear make up daily. Only two or three times a week at most when we’re going out. I’ve also tended to wear my glasses when I’m at home because I’ve always found them to be much more comfortable than wearing contacts.

So we went out for about two hours and when I got home I went upstairs to take out my contacts. Chris and I then put together a quick dinner and ate it while watching TV.

As we were eating I noticed that my eyes were bothering me quite a bit. I’d cleaned my glasses earlier in the day, but I grabbed a tissue and gave the lenses a wipe just in case they had a smudge on them.

That didn’t help. My vision seemed to be a bit cloudy. Almost like when you walk into a smoky room. You can still see everything but there’s this haze throughout the room.

I also noticed that my eyes were starting to feel a bit irritated. They had that tired burning kind of irritation.

Once dinner was finished I went upstairs and washed my face. After that, if anything my vision was worse. Not only did everything seem a bit cloudy, but my vision was also becoming somewhat blurry.

I got out the Windex and cleaned my glasses again. I even had Chris take a look at them to be sure there were no smudges. I also went upstairs again, washed my face once more in case it was makeup that was irritating my eyes and I put in some eye drops. The eye drops were “fresh tears” the kind that you use when your contacts are drying out and bothering you.

The funny thing was that you’d expect my eyes to be red and irritated looking for all the trouble they were giving me, but they looked ok. The whites were whites with not even the tiniest reddened areas.

It was a really weird feeling. I could watch TV but it was irritating since everything was kind of cloudy and blurry. Forget about checking my e-mail or doing anything on the computer though!

I guess my eyes started to get a bit better around 12:30 or 1 a.m., but they were still bothering me when I finally went to bed.

My eyes still weren’t normal this morning. I didn’t sleep well overnight and got up too early. So I took a nap for a few hours in the late morning. My eyes are a lot better now, but again, still not back to normal vision.

So now I’m wondering what the heck is going on. At first I thought it was because my contacts had irritated my eyes or maybe even my makeup. Now though I’m not sure. Maybe it’s allergies or a migraine symptom? I do have a slight headache today. Perhaps this proves I need a holiday? Maybe one of those beautiful St. Thomas villa rentals might do me good!

Have you ever experienced something like this? In both eyes at the same time?

Filed Under: Great Sites, Health Fitness and Beauty Tagged With: allergy, blurred, blurred vision, blurry, Chris, cloudy vision, comfort, computer, contacts, dinner, eating, Eye, eyes, headache, help, home, irritated, irritating, make up, makeup, migraine, night, puppy, sleep, strange, strange eye problem, symptom, tired, watching, watching TV

Garbage pickers – identity thieves?

April 8, 2008 by Tricia

Something odd happened last night. I took our puppy Midnight out front at about 12:30 a.m. so she could do her final business of the night and we were both startled to see two people picking through our neighbors garbage.

There were two guys riding around on bikes that had what appeared to be home-made trailers attached to them. They were stopping at every house to go through the garbage.

Now I don’t mind if someone takes something that I’ve set out that we no longer plan to use. Maybe a broken chair that someone thinks they can repair, an old TV or something like that, certainly not my Rimowa. In fact when I’ve put items like that out I’m usually glad someone came by and took it because I’m pretty sure the garbage men wouldn’t take some of the things we’ve put out.

These guys weren’t just looking for furniture, appliances or other loose items by the garbage though. They were actually opening up garbage cans or garbage bags and going through them.

When I first saw the two curbside pickers I was about to go outside with Midnight but I pulled her back and waited hoping they’d go away. Midnight must have realized I didn’t trust the two young men and she watched them from the screen door and let out low rumbling growls.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Great Sites, Home and Lifestyle, The Neighborhood, Toronto Tagged With: article, bark, bikes, bylaw, Chris, city, city of Toronto, credit card slips, creepy, curbside, curbside shopping, curious, dog, door, furniture, garbage, garbage bylaws, garbage pickers, garbage picking illegal, growling, home, house, identifying papers, identity, identity theft, illegal, important papers, interest, interesting, lawn, low rumble, Midnight, neighbor, neighbors, neighbors garbage, night, old appliances, old furniture, older teens, picking through garbage, picking through garbage bags, puppy, receipts, strange, strange behavior, theft, thieves, tired, Toronto, young men

I’m So Stuffed!

April 7, 2008 by Tricia

Chris and I went grocery shopping in the early evening and we came back with fresh Halibut steaks, new asparagus, corn, fresh organic strawberries and salad fixings. We also bought some wine – a Pignot Grigio.

So guess what we had for dinner?

I marinated the Halibut in a mixture of chopped chives – fresh from the garden, dill, paprika and a tiny bit of cayenne pepper and a splash of the white wine.

As the fish marinated, I prepared the asparagus by rinsing them and snapping off the woody ends (they were young asparagus so the ends were pretty good). I then placed them in a microwave steamer container. When I cooked them I put them in the microwave for about four minutes, took them out, drained the tiny bit of water that was in the container, added a tiny bit of margarine and a splash of lemon juice and microwaved them again for 30 seconds. Yummy.

I shucked the husk off of two corn and steamed them in the microwave as well (5 minutes).

As if the fish that Chris eventually barbecued on the grill, the asparagus and corn weren’t enough I also made a salad with fresh chives, green onion, sweet onion, organic salad mix, tomato, radish, cucumber and tomato.

We also had a glass or two of that lovely wine and I’m a little light headed right now.

For desert we finished off some fresh pineapple that we already had. I chopped it up and mixed it with some of the strawberries that we’d purchased at the grocery store.

The meal was delicious, but it was much larger than we normally have these days. So I’m stuffed.

I think I might head for bed soon!

What did you have for dinner?

BTW Our puppy got to taste a few new foods tonight. We gave her a small piece of strawberry, fish, and radish. She seemed to love them. We also gave her some cucumber, salad leaves (spinach and lettuce) and a tiny piece of pineapple. She’d had a taste of each of those before. She’s not big on the leaves but seems to really like cucumber.

Filed Under: Dining and Restaurants, Health Fitness and Beauty, Home and Garden, Home and Lifestyle, Life with Chris, Our Puppy, Recreation, Shopping Tagged With: asparagus, barbecue, Chris, cook, corn, cucumber, delicious, dinner, first barbecue, fish, Food, fresh chives, full, glass of wine, green onion, groceries, grocery, grocery store, halibut, halibut steaks, leaves, marinate, microwave, mix, onion, organic, organic greens, organic strawberries, Pignot Grigio, pineapple, puppy, purchase, radish, salad, shop, Shopping, steamer, strawberries, strawberry, stuffed, tomato, white wine, wine, yummy

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