Tricia's Musings

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



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Trying to set up my brand new laptop

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Well I mentioned in one of my last posts that I was thinking about getting a new Laptop computer since the one I was using was getting slower and slower – well I broke down and ordered one online a week ago and it arrived on Monday afternoon.

My old laptop is still working, but it’s five years old and the hard drive is small and considering how much work I do with graphics etc it makes sense for me to have a computer with a big hard drive and a fast cpu.

So .. to make things more affordable I bought an Asus Laptop. The new Notebook is an Asus N53JF has a 500 gb hard drive, 4 gb memory, Intel Core i5-460M 2.53GHz, Blu-ray DVD player burner, 15.6″ Full HD display, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit and NVIDIA GeForce GT 425M graphics.

I know I’ve been saying that we have absolutely no extra money and here I am spending quite a bit of money in the last week on a new computer, a flip camera and even an iPod … but well … the computer is pretty much how I make my money and therefore living these days and the flip camera might fit into that picture too because the videos will help make the blog posts more interesting once we get them going. The iPod … well .. that was just for my husband and I .. a splurge that we’ve been wanting to buy for a long time.

The only other technological gadget that we need to update is our cell phone. The cellphone that we’re using is one that I got for free from a marketing company back in 2006. It works but it’s kind of outdated. I think it’s time I start looking for a new cell phone or as they say in Quebec .. Téléphones cellulaires … soon … but not quite yet.

Ok .. back to figuring out how to get my email settings from my old computer to my new computer …. it’s just not working! Grrrrrr.





We got an iTouch iPod

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Well I finally entered this millennium and got an iPod.

My husband and I were shopping in Best Buy last weekend and I told him that I wanted to look at the iPods, and as it happened some people from Apple were there and they had a special offer on the iPod touch.

I’ve been thinking of getting and iPod for years so it was about time I got around to getting one. I ended up buying the 32 gb iPod iTouch. It’s fantastic! We love it. I think that sometime in the near future my husband and I will be fighting over it and we’ll end up having to get another one. LOL

Each morning my husband scrolls through the Apps and downloads free Guitar and music related apps and at night I end up searching online in the Apps store for interesting Apps like restaurant finders, Facebook apps, Radio Apps and I’ve even browsed around for that app that will work with my Nike running shoes. I think the App is called the Nike + iPod App.

All in all it’s pretty cool. We’re both having fun exploring the iTouch.

Now we have to get to work and organize our music. My laptop has about 5 gig of music and the desktop which my husband uses the most (but that I used to use before we got a Laptop) has about 15 gig of music … and then there are all our CD’s that we want to burn. Hmmm … maybe we should have bought the 160 Gig Classic … but it doesn’t have all the other features – well if we decide to get a second iPod the Classic will be our second one.

So now that I’m having fun playing with my brand new iPod do you have any suggestions for me as to what accessories I might want to use with my iPod?

Oh and as for Apps … we’re totally new to Apps since we don’t have a cellphone that uses apps. What are your suggestions for Must Have Apps?

I might as well admit that the week before last we bought a Flip Camera too … so expect to see some videos soon! I’ve taken about 30 videos of my dog since we got the Flip!

I think I need a new laptop

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I’m seriously thinking about getting a new laptop computer. I really don’t want to spend the money, but my computer is running very slow and it’s hard drive is filling up. I’m working on moving some of the files off of the computer to make more room and I’m hoping it will run faster, but still … the hard drive will fill up again. If I don’t buy a new laptop now I’ll be getting one soon.

It probably doesn’t help that I have everything on my computer from all the photographs I take, to the new videos that I’m taking each day, all of our music, my ebooks and other books and tons of blogging related stuff.

So … if I were to seriously start looking at new Laptops what do you think I should be looking for? The main thing that I use my laptop for is to work on my websites and blogs. I’m on my laptop 16 to 18 hours a day – writing, writing, and editing. When I’m not writing I’m uploading photos or video and then editing them. So I need a computer that can handle graphics, and it’s picture quality must have fairly true to life color quality.

I’m still also toying with the idea of getting a Mac. I’d love a Mac but I’ve never had one or even used one. Odd since I do some much graphics work I know.

Any suggestions?

Adventures in Toilet repair – Oh Boy!

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Do you ever have one of those days when you’re trying to repair something and nothing goes right? We had that happen two weeks ago when we had to do emergency repairs to our upstairs toilet. Nothing went right.

A couple of weeks ago I noticed that every once in a while the toilet tank seemed to leak. This would happen every once in a while. It took me a while to figure out what was happening. As it turned out, it was the rubber gasket between the toilet tank and seat base that was leaking. If a little bit of pressure was applied to the back of the tank it would start leaking. Not fun!

So one Saturday two weeks ago we went to Home Depot and bought all the supplies that we needed to fix the leak. While my husband went to work fixing the toilet I started cleaning the bathroom, cleaning the bathroom faucets, the back of the toilet tank once it was off and I could see how dirty it was and the rest of the bathroom … and then, once he was ready we put the tank with it’s new part back on and tightened everything up and turned the water back on and …. it started leaking. It leaked a lot. Ahaaaaaa!

It seems that Saturday we took the tank off at least three or four times. We fiddled around with putting the gasket on in different ways, and we even got some plumbers putty to put in different areas to see if we could prevent the leak, but it still leaked every single time we put it back on.

It wasn’t until we’d given up and talked to someone at Home Depot again on the following Sunday that we finally figured out how to put the gasket on properly. I know it sounds silly, but the packaging had very basic instructions and we were just putting the gasket on loosely and that’s why it was leaking.

I’m glad that we haven’t had a lot of plumbing repairs to do in our house. We’ve done all kinds of home renovations, but plumbing definitely is not our specialty.

I’ll have to live with being exhausted I guess

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Well I saw my new endocrinologist about my thyroid last Thursday. I was seeing her because two years ago I noticed that I had swelling on the lower right side of my throat, where my remaining thyroid is. I had the left portion of my thyroid removed in the early 90’s because a tumor grew in it and the cells were precancerous.

The growth on the right side is also a tumor, but the one biopsy that I had a year and a half ago had fairly normal cells in it.

So anyway … I went to see the new doctor because I haven’t had any real follow up on this tumor and it should be checked on regularly, and as I’ve mentioned in a few posts recently I’ve been extremely tired so I’ve been wondering if that’s been my thyroid acting up.

The new doctor examined me fairly thoroughly – rolling her computer over on her poc cart so she could type in her observations as she talked with me. I did have an ultrasound of my thyroid in June and when she compared the tumors growth it had only increased in size by a mm or so – nothing much at all. She examined my neck, checked my pulse and took my blood pressure (110/70 very good)). As she did that I realized that my family doctor (the newish one (pain doctor) hasn’t taken my blood pressure in five years!

Once the specialist was finished examining me she decided that I didn’t need to get another ultrasound or biopsy just yet. She thinks an ultrasound once a year is just fine and if there’s any substantial changes (or symptoms) then she’ll get a biopsy done.

As for blood work … she’s holding off on that too. I don’t know why. I told her about how I’ve been so tired, that I could even fall asleep in her office if we stopped talking for a few minutes, how I was feeling extremely cold since September and how I suddenly gained weight at the end of November and beginning of December for no apparent reason … yet she could see that I’d had my TSH done in early November and that it was within normal levels so she didn’t want to do any more tests.

If it’s not my thyroid that’s making me exhausted I don’t know what else it could be. The way things are going doctor wise though I think I’m either going to have to either just get better on my own or become so ill that they’ll finally figure out what’s going on.

Tomorrow I see my gynecologist about my endometriosis .. that should be fun too.

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