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You are here: Home / Archives for 2011

Archives for 2011

Keeping in touch with a family that’s spread across the country

June 22, 2011 by Tricia

My family is really spread out across the country. I have a niece that just moved to New Brunswick with her husband, and my middle brother lives in Vancouver … just those two alone cover both sides of the country! So … we’ve all been talking lately by email and we’ve decided to try either setting up Skype or Google Chat.

A couple of my brothers have already set up Skype, and one of my brothers who happens to have just treated himself to a Mac computer is really experimenting. He’s been trying out things like Nettalk on his iPod and I think another application on his Mac and iPad, plus he’s the one who got all of us thinking about trying Google Chat although it seems like most of us are more familiar or more comfortable with using Skype.

I haven’t set up Skype on my computer yet. I’ve been too busy getting my yard and garden in order after all the Fence whoha. I’ve spent the last two weeks working on my garden and yard doing all the stuff that I would have done in the last two months if I hadn’t had to delay everything for that darn no character fence. Yes I’m a tired and not so happy camper .. but hopefully I’ll get happier as my garden recovers. Oh and speaking of the neighbors who put in the fence? They’ve barely spoken to us since they put it in and their kid is making a racket again. I almost feel like they were nice to us and got their kid to be a little quieter so that we’d go along with the fence and now that it’s in they could care less that their little girl is waking me up. She’s even back to slamming doors again. Sigh … I don’t think I’ll be using the video side of Skype … I’ll scare my family with how tired I look lately.

Anyway … I will install Skype and maybe set up Google Chat soon. I keep telling my family that too. Hopefully by this weekend. I want to experiment with it. In the mean time I’m still communicating the old fashioned way with my family … ie by phone. My second oldest brother’s birthday this past Friday, the one who bought himself a Mac, so I was sure to call him on his birthday. He had a great day with his family. Picnic with his wife, dinner out with his kids and I think he said he was thinking of getting a golf buddy tour gps watch for himself … yes another treat. Oh well he deserves it.

If I do manage to set up a Skype account I’ll let you guys know … maybe I can Skype with some of my blogging friends too. Of course if I do I’ll never get any of my work done …





Filed Under: Blogging, Canada, Computers, Cool stuff, Family, Home and Lifestyle, Internet, Items to Try, Socializing, The Neighborhood, Toronto, Web and Technology Tagged With: brother, brothers, busy, communicate, country, Family, fence, friends, garden, google chat, grrr, install, Internet, keep in touch, mac, neighbors, not happy, sister, skype, spread out, talk, talking, video chat

Our Nephew is trying out for an NHL farm team

June 22, 2011 by Tricia

Our American nephew is coming to Ontario next month to try out for a hockey team. If he makes it the next step could be the NHL. He’s certainly talented enough. I have a feeling that he’s going to be living in Canada very soon.

There’s only one problem .. he’s already a Canadian citizen, which of course isn’t a requirement, but since his father is Canadian his dad was sure to get his three children citizenship while they were young so they are duel citizens – something that I don’t think you can do anymore – the problem is that he doesn’t have a Canadian passport. So my brother in law is calling us and emailing us with questions about the paperwork and of course it’s all a made scramble since there’s only a month or so left before he needs it.

Now I’m sure my brother in law could have figured out most of this on his own and probably a lot earlier than this if he wasn’t a computerphobe. Yep … he’s pretty much afraid to turn on the computer .. although he’s getting a little better than he was a few years ago. At this rate maybe by the time he’s an old man perhaps he won’t need our help with all the Medicare part D plans or other health care related forms that I’m sure he’s bound to run into by that time. LOL

We’re looking forward to seeing the two of them when they come for a visit in July. I think it’s going to be a fairly quick visit. The hockey tryouts are in another part of the province .. closer to my hometown than where we are living now, but my husband might drive out there and stay with them in the hotel so that he can spend more time with them and cheer on our nephew. Wish him luck!

Filed Under: Canada, Family, Home and Lifestyle, Life with Chris, Toronto Tagged With: american, brother in law, Canada, children, citizenship, drive, father, forms, hockey, hockey tryouts, kids, NHL, ontariio, paperwork, Passport, province, travel, trip, try, visit

Catching up with the neighbors

June 16, 2011 by Tricia

My husband and I spent the evening outside working in the front yard. We were putting compost and mulch down on the front flower beds.

We should have finished in about half the time that it took us, but since we were working out front and we had our dog with us, everyone going by stopped to talk to us or to pet our dog. Of course we know most of the people and or their dogs.

We also had a special visitor that took about 30 minutes of our time … a man that grew up in our house walked by and started talking to us. We’d actually kept in touch with his parents for a while when we bought our house from them, but we never met their five kids – well, until we met one of their daughters a year or so ago when she also walked by our house and stopped to talk to us. It’s hard to believe that they raised five kids in our small house, but they did.

It’s a great thing that overall our neighborhood is so friendly. While we were outside this evening we were told countless times how beautiful our garden is. Naturally it helps that all the roses are blooming and they look lovely. We were also invited to a couple of barbecues by some neighbors that we’re friendly with and we even got a few birth announcements. I knew a couple of our neighbors were due by I didn’t know that they had given birth, now thanks to spending so much time outdoors I think we’re just about caught up on everything that’s going on! LOL

Do you live in a fairly friendly neighborhood?

Filed Under: The Neighborhood, Toronto Tagged With: compost, dog, flowers, front yard, garden, Gardening, grow up, mulch, Neighborhood, neighbors, pet, raised, roses, talk

Everyone’s back from Mexico now

June 16, 2011 by Tricia

Well it looks like the gang that went to Mexico for the last week are back in Canada. Yep. Remember a few months ago I wrote a post about how my husbands niece was getting married in June … in Mexico .. and how we couldn’t go because we just couldn’t afford it? Well, the wedding was this past weekend.

My husbands mother, nephew, sister and brother in law all went to Mexico last week. His other brother (father of the bride) and the bride and groom and the rest of that family are from Chicago and they went to Mexico last week as well … so along with all the many other invited guests it was a week long party from what I understand!

I think they mostly stayed at the resort, but they did go on a few bus tours to a few places. I know my mother in law wanted to see some ruins. My brother in law told us about driving atvs and how much he liked the atv power steering. I guess he’d never had a chance to drive ATV’s before so he had a great time. I just hope he hadn’t been drinking too much when he did it!

We might go to see the in-laws this weekend, if we do I’m sure we’ll see lots of pictures from the wedding and hear some interesting stories about all the things that we missed!

Filed Under: Canada, Family, Home and Lifestyle, Items to Try, Toronto Tagged With: atv, brother, Canada, chicago, drinking, Family, fly, fun, mexico, mother in law, Niece, Party, resort, Toronto, Tour, Wedding, week

Another lay off coming up for my husband

June 13, 2011 by Tricia

My husband is going through temporary layoffs at work again this year.

He went through them in December of 2009, then for two weeks last summer and then again this past December and now this summer his going to have two one week lay offs. It’s too much.

There have been so many cuts to heath care positions in Ontario that this is what it’s come to in the last two years .. constant temporary layoffs and job cuts. It’s awful. My husband has been keeping his eye out for any other healthcare jobs but there really aren’t any that he likes better than the position that he has now.

I have a feeling that sometime in the next few months he might be in a totally different career. With me on unpaid medical leave and him being laid off four weeks for two years in a row … well somethings gotta change.

Filed Under: Health Fitness and Beauty, Home and Lifestyle, Items to Try, Life with Chris, Ontario Health Care, Toronto Tagged With: career, health care, Hospital, Job, layoff, month, new job, position, weeks, work

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