Tricia's Musings

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



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Time to stop letting life pass me by

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My poor poor blog. I’ve been neglecting it lately! I’ve been neglecting my regular readers as well.

It just seems that I got so busy over the last month or so that I haven’t managed to do much writing in any of my many blogs. Life got in the way, you might say!

IMG_5901 For some reason my garden has kept me busier this year than the last few! Maybe it’s just that I feel more like working in it? Anyway … over the last two weeks or so my husband and I managed to add about 30 big bags of mulch to the garden beds (after weeding of course)! No wonder my back has constantly been aching lately!

We’ve also taken our dog to the beach for a swim in Lake Ontario a few times, plus we’ve attended a few events that have been going on in Toronto. Namely – the first annual Beach Ribfest and the Toronto Ribfest, the Mississauga Waterfront festival where we saw Bruce Cockburn play, Woofstock in early June and I think a few more things.

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Even though my Crohn’s is still flaring and makes me feel awful a good portion of the time I’ve decided to stop letting life pass me by. Toronto is a great city, with lots to do, especially in the summer. There’s something going on just about every weekend!

So, a few weeks ago I said to my husband lets try to attend one Toronto event every weekend. Provided the event is of interested to the two of us of course. So that’s what we’ve been doing. Hmmm maybe this weekend we’ll try to view the Molson Indy (we don’t have tickets). There’s also the Toronto Fringe Festival and the Outdoor Art Exhibition this weekend. Summerlicious is on too (gourmet meals for a deal of a price) – maybe we’ll eat out as well!

If you live in Toronto or within driving distance and you’re looking for interesting inexpensive things to do check out the Toronto Festivals and Events Calendar. I’m sure you’ll find something that suites your tastes.

We didn’t do anything special this past weekend, but last Wednesday was Canada day and we had a friend over. Actually it’s a guy that Chris works with at the hospital. So I was entertained by two talented guitar players (Chris and our friend) as they played guitar in our backyard for a few hours.

Unfortunately, due to the ongoing garbage and city workers strike here in Toronto Canada Day festivities were canceled. So no fireworks … but it seemed that many of our neighbors bought their own Fireworks and set them off on the street or the park just down the road from us, so we could see fireworks all around our house!

Odd that all the rest of the big Toronto events (Gay Pride parade, Molson Indy etc) can all go on with the garbage strike and city worker strike, but national festivities for Canada Day were canceled? Unfair!

It’s Chris’ birthday on Wednesday. I don’t know what we’re going to do yet, but I think Chris’ parents are planning on coming into town for a visit sometime on the weekend. When Chris was talking to his mom the other day she said they wanted to take us out to dinner, so i guess along with the other multitude of interesting activities that we might do this weekend, going out to dinner to celebrate my husbands birthday will be on the list.

Anyway … if Chris and I stick to the plan we’ll be doing something new and interesting every weekend so even though I might be a little busier than I have been in the recent past I’ll try to blog more often and I should have some interesting tales to tell about the things we’ve been up to – photo’s too!

Do you find that life gets busier in the summer? Do you try to attend various events or festivals going on in your city during the summer?

BTW A belated Happy Canada Day and 4th of July to my Canadian and American visitors!





We took our dog to Woofstock today

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I’m exhausted! My husband and I and our Labrador Retriever Midnight went to Woofstock today and after all that walking around in the hot sun I’m tired!

Woofstock is the largest dog festival in North America and it’s going on this weekend here in Toronto.

Instead of driving downtown we decided to take the subway. It was Midnight’s first time on the Subway so it was an adventure for her. She did well, but didn’t like all the long, steep sets of stairs that we had to go up and down in the subway stations. Why … well we don’t let her go upstairs with us in our house or go into the basement, so she isn’t used to climbing big sets of stairs. Otherwise she did really well on the train.

It had been an overcast slightly cool day when we set out for the subway, but by the time we got downtown the sun had decided to come out so it was quite warm walking in the crowds at Woofstock.

Midnight had a ball meeting all kinds of other dogs. Luckily every dog we met was fairly friendly. The only dogs that we saw not getting along were two un-neutered males that got too close to each other.

We came home with a ton of treats for Midnight. Two big Mammoth bones, a beef knee, 6 pigs ears, liver treats and two types of special baked dog treats.

We also bought two more leashes – the same kind that we bought last year at the show. It’s a leash that has rivet holes in several places and hooks at each end so that you can wear the leash around your waist as you walk your dog, or attach one end of the leash easily to a pole when you need to leave your dog outside a store for a moment or adjust the length of the leash in anyway that suites you. Obviously we loved the leash we bought last year so much that we wanted to make sure that we’d always have one!

We also got Midnight a new collar. It’s vinyl or rubber. It will be great to use when we take her to the lake for a swim as it won’t soak up water, stretch or get smelly like her current collar does whenever it gets wet.

Just before we left Woofstock we took Midnight to this area that had small pools that the dogs could wade in. She was hot (we’d been giving her water all afternoon and there were several water bowls near most of the booths) and needed a good soak. She got right into the small pool and the lady that was there managing the pools sprayed her with a hose. I took some pictures but I’m too tired to transfer them to the computer, crop them and upload them just now … so pictures of our day at Woofstock will follow in another post.

Midnight was wet when we got on the subway since her soak in the pool happened only minutes before we left the event. She’d shaken herself off a few times, but just as I feared she did a good shake while we were on the subway and got water droplets all over a lady who was reading some kind of diet pill review pamphlet. Oops! Luckily she didn’t mind!

Our dog is sleepy this evening, just as I expected. We wore her out!

Tomorrow if I feel up to it (remember I’m tired out too!) we might go down to the waterfront and see some of the final LuminaTO events. There’s going to be performances by Cirque de Soleil members in two areas of the Waterfront / Harbourfront area. I definitely want to see that! Being an outdoor event I’m pretty sure that we can take our dog with us, so she’s going to get some more outdoor activity tomorrow – more than likely!

Does your city have a lot of outdoor activities and events throughout the summer? Ours does! That’s one of the reasons I love living in Toronto. There’s always something interesting to do.

I think we’re in recession recovery mode now here in Toronto

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The news reports have been saying over the last month or two that our housing market here in Toronto was starting to get back to normal … well not totally normal, but close, and now I have true proof that it is indeed getting better. recession

My brother and his wife who live just outside of town decided to buy a Condo around the beginning of May. Their kids are in their 20’s and they don’t need a big house and all the maintenance that goes along with it anymore, so I guess that’s why they decided to move to a Condo.

They put their house up for sale on May 10th and it was sold on the 27th … not bad for a housing market that’s not quite as hot as it was two years ago! Hmmm I wonder if the people that own the house next door (currently inhabited by renters that are slowly driving me nuts) might decide to put that house on the market again soon? That house needs a lot of work though so I’m sure it wouldn’t sell fast without at least some of the work being done.

I was talking with my brother this evening and he was telling me about their new condo. It’s 1,400 square feet so it’s a good size. Two bedrooms, kitchen, sun room, living room/ dining room, balcony and all the amenities that go along with a condo such as party room, swimming pool, sauna and rooftop barbecues I think. Sounds pretty nice.

The building is about twenty years old and my brother says the kitchen is outdated so they are doing to renovate the kitchen shortly after moving in. They redid the kitchen in their current house too so I joked with him that he’s going to be a professional kitchen renovator by the time he’s finished the condo kitchen! They don’t know exactly what kind of kitchen reno they’re going to do just yet – ie tile floors or hardwood, stainless steel appliances or who knows maybe even copper sinks but I’m sure they’ll enjoy figuring it out and of course the finished product. It’s the work in between that might be a pain! LOL

I used to say I’d never live in a condo – especially after living in an apartment for 14 years before we bought our house. But now that I’m so sick with Crohn’s I can see the advantages of not having to trudge upstairs to use the bathroom and not having yard work and home maintenance to do!

How is the housing market in your area? Did it bottom out once the recession hit and is it recovering now like ours here in the General Toronto Area (GTA)?

I hate it when the power goes out!

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The power was just out here from 3:30 until about 4:30 pm. I hate it when the power goes out. I was in the middle of doing something on the computer – just about to publish a post in fact and boom … out goes the power.

For a while we seemed to have several short power outages each month, but it’s been pretty good over the last year … well except for that transformer that blew up in January that was just across from the hospital that’s just down the street from us. That caused the power to be out for about two hours.

At least we have a gas stove and a barbecue so if the power had been out for a long time we still would have been able to cook. Actually if was out for a few hours we’d probably have to cook as we have a lot of food in the freezer that would be thawing! LOL

While the power was out I was BORED. I couldn’t do any work on the computer or watch TV so I thought I’d go into my backyard and take some photos of the flowers that are currently blooming. Only problem was that my neighbors were in the driveway and their backyard BBQ’ing and talking loudly. I like quite when I’m taking nature photos so I ended up just staying inside with the dog and reading a magazine.

I have the news on now and I’m trying to find out what caused the power to go out, but it doesn’t look like they’re going to talk about it.

Does the power go out in your area every so often? For short periods or hours at a time? What do you do when the power goes out?

It’s so warm it feels like summer!

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It’s so nice here this week! Last week it was so cold, you’d swear it was still early Spring! Now it feels like July here in Toronto! Right now it’s 28 C and with humidity if feels like 30 C (86 F) and it’s supposed to be fairly warm over the next week or so too.

We’ve been spending a lot of time outside now that the weather’s nice. The weekend was cool – close to freezing! However I still planted most of the annuals that I’d purchased. Now that it’s warm out I’m sure my new plants are loving it.

Midnight, our Lab, is loving the weather too. She keeps ringing the bell we have attached to the door so that she can go outside and play with her toys. We don’t mind, we want to be outside when it’s this nice too. I mean, who knows – it might get cold again! This is Canada after all!

Are you having warmer than normal weather in your area too?

We’re having a barbecue tonight – chicken grilled over mesquite. Yum.

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