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

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The Pentasa Fairy

May 15, 2010 by Tricia

I ran into one of my neighbors daughters earlier today. Well … I didn’t actually run into her, but you know what I mean. LOL

My husband and I had just come back from shopping and as she was walking down the street towards her car she stopped to say hello to us.

She’s the lady I have called in past posts – “The Pentasa Fairy”. Why? Well she works in a medical building and when she found out I was taking Pentasa for my Crohn’s (it’s an anti-inflammatory type medicine) she went around to several of the gastrointestinal specialists in her building and collected sample boxes of Pentassa for me. Between December and March she dropped off meds at my house twice and all in all she gave me enough that I went about 5 months without having to pay for this expensive medication. Pretty cool since we don’t have a drug plan. I figure she saved me about $800.

She’d just drop it off in a bag outside our door … she’d never knock she’d just leave the meds and go … We started saying oh wow the Pentasa Fairy’s been here when we’d find a bag full of Pentasa samples outside the door.

One of the first things she asked me today when we were talking was if I had enough Pentasa and when I said I’d run out of her “gift” she said she’d ask her doctors if they had any more. It would be sweet if she could get more because it really helps us out.

It sounds like she makes a habit of getting drug samples from the doctors in her medical building. She gets everything from blood pressure meds to medicines that treat acne for people she knows.

Many of our neighbors are Greek – not odd since we live in a fairly Greek neighborhood. While my husband and I were talking with our neighbors daughter she told us that they always refer to my husband as Saint Christo in part because he’s so nice is always doing nice things for the people in our neighborhood and also because his name means “Christ” in Greek.

She then asked me if my full name was Patricia and yep – it is. Then she told me that my name in Greek sometimes means Virgin Mary. LOL So Chris and I are Christ and the Virgin Mary. No wonder the neighbors were so happy when we moved in!

Do you do nice things for your neighbors or have one or two in your area that do very nice things for you? I love my neighborhood it’s just full of nice people like my neighbors daughter.





Filed Under: Health Fitness and Beauty, Home and Lifestyle, Inflammatory bowel disease, Items to Try, Toronto Tagged With: Doctors, drop off, Fairy, gift, good people, Greek neighborhood, meaning of name, medical office, medication samples, neighbors, nice, saved money

Darn food allergies

May 15, 2010 by Tricia

Well I think my weird new allergies have finally settled down. Man I hate having to add more foods to the list of things that I can no longer eat. Between my allergies and Crohn’s the list is getting fairly long!

So no more pineapple, no more shrimp or any kind of shellfish … and the list goes on. I never did eat much shellfish, but occasionally … perhaps for my birthday I’d ask my husband to take me out for Lobster. Now I can’t do that. Grrr

At least a lot of the foods that I can’t eat due to allergies are ones that I only ate once in a while – it would be worse if it was something that I ate regularly … Uhm … but then, now that i think about it- when I add in the foods I can’t eat because of Crohns (like corn or any kind, raw veggies and so on) I guess there is a lot of regular foods that I can’t eat that most people eat at least once a week if not daily.

Do you have some foods that you can’t eat because you’re allergic to them or because your body doesn’t react to them well? It kind of sucks doesn’t it?

Ok gotta run .. my neighbor just got a new tm-t88iv printer for their business that they want to show me … plus they want to put up a new fence between our houses in the backyard because the one we share is about to fall down so we have to discuss what we’d all like and when to get the work done.

Filed Under: Health Fitness and Beauty, Home and Lifestyle, Inflammatory bowel disease, Items to Try, Toronto Tagged With: avoid, cant eat, crohns, food allergies, list, lobster, neighbors, new fence, pineapple, react, reaction, sensitive, shellfish, shrimp, sucks

I hate reruns!

April 27, 2010 by Tricia

Why are so many shows still doing reruns?

The other night Miami CSI was a rerun, tonight Lost is a rerun arghhhh I hate it!

I think there’s been enough reruns this year … there were reruns on during the Olympics for most of the popular shows, then a lot of shows took a good chunk of March off for march break and March Madness … some of the shows have only had one or two new episodes since late February or early March. Grrrr

Lost being a rerun tonight really ticked off both my husband and I. At the end of last weeks episode it showed highlights of what was supposed to be this weeks new show. Even the website didn’t give a promo for a rerun until today. I wish there was an easier way to learn more about when new shows or reruns would be playing. The sites don’t help … especially for me, in Canada, as I can’t view the preview videos on any of the major US Network websites.

Sorry … I’m not feeling good tonight and I was looking forward to watching a few of my shows.

Filed Under: Canada, Entertainment, Items to Try, Television Tagged With: CSI Miami, grrr, hate reruns, lost, refuns

It was a lot of work but it was worth it

April 25, 2010 by Tricia

Have you ever done something that seemed difficult at first? Perhaps you didn’t want to do it … but then when you finished you got an immediate reward? There’s lots of things in life that are just like that and I just did one of them.

I just finished peeling and chopping up a fresh pineapple and when I was finished I tasted the “fruit” of my labor. Delicious!

I’ll bet that’s not what you thought I was going to tell you about.

My husband and I went to Costco yesterday to do a little shopping and while we were there I noticed that they had fresh pineapples from Costa Rica on sale for $1.99. I decide to buy two, but I dreaded peeling them. I think I’ve only purchased a fresh pineapple once before and that was a long long time ago!

So I approached the kitchen a little a while ago with trepidation, knowing I had to deal with the pineapples. First though, I did an internet search on how to tell if when a pineapple is ripe (and discovered that mine didn’t look all that ripe because they had a lot of green in them) and of course, how to peel one properly.

Armed with my new knowledge I grabbed one of the pineapples and decided to start peeling one. Turns out it’s fairly easy. Note that I didn’t say it wasn’t messy. My hands were covered in what felt like a slimy coating and there was pineapple juice on the cutting board and the counter. Good thing I had my new promotional hand sanitizers to clean my hands off with afterwords!

Our dog sat nearby tasting the occasional piece of pineapple that fell to the floor or that I’d toss to her. She loved it.

I think the one pineapple will last us three or four days. The cut up chunks filled a storage container right to the top. We’d better eat it fast since we have another pineapple waiting!

I’ve been trying to eat more fruit and things like pineapple lately. Trouble is with my Crohn’s I can’t eat a lot of fruit or raw veggies. However, since pineapple is supposed to be good for digestion, and it’s a natural anti-inflammatory I’m experimenting and hoping it will help. At least it tastes great.

Do you ever buy fresh pineapples? Don’t you love them?

Filed Under: Health Fitness and Beauty, Home and Lifestyle, Items to Try, Nutrition, Shopping, Toronto Tagged With: chop, cut pineapple, delicious, dread, fresh pineapple, hard work, peel, ripe, tasty, work, yummy

Our dog could live at the beach – no problem!

April 20, 2010 by Tricia

I’ve been really lazy about posting the pictures that I’ve taken lately. I mean really lazy!

I’ve had some pictures on my computer that date back to October that I hadn’t cropped or done anything with, let alone uploaded to my Flickr account!

If you’re a regular reader or if you’ve browsed through my blog you already know that I like to take pictures of my garden, my dog and events that I go to here in Toronto and elsewhere. I often post them when when I blog.

Anyway, I spent some time on the weekend working on my photos and uploaded some of the backlog to my Flickr account. Now they’re ready for posting. Of course I still have to go through my most recent photos ie the ones I’ve taken since my garden started coming back to life in March and get them ready for posting too.

Maybe I’ll spend some time doing that this week or on the weekend. Speaking of the weekend … I think we’re going to have to cut our grass this weekend! I don’t think we’ve ever cut our grass as early as April before! But it’s been green since March and it’s really growing now.

While we’re at it I think it’s about time we put out our patio furniture too! The weathers been beautiful so we might as well get our table and chairs out so that we can enjoy the garden and the beautiful weather in comfort.

Would you like to see some of the pictures that I’ve been holding on to for a while and not posting? Ok, well here’s a few of my beautiful Labrador Retriever Midnight at the beach and lounging at home.

Can you believe that on March 7th we had a day that reached 19 Celsius (66 F)? Yeah, here in Toronto! I know that probably doesn’t sound that warm to those of you who live in warm climates but that’s downright hot for the “Great White North” in March. LOL Well, my brother was visiting from Vancouver and we decided to get outside and enjoy the day so that’s how we ended up taking our dog to Cherry beach.

Here’s a shot of here in action trying to fetch a stick as it lands in the water:

Our lab chasing a stick into the water

Another action shot as our Lab, Midnight, races into the cold waters of Lake Ontario:

Black Labrador Retriever running into the lake

Midnight finally coming back to shore. She’d whine for us to throw a stick or even a rock into the water for her to fetch:

Our Lab coming out of the water splish splash

And here’s a picture of Midnight playing with some of her new doggy friends on the beach:

Our dog playing with some friendly Rottweilers at Cherry Beach, Lake Ontario, Toronto

Those Rottweilers were twice as big as here but she got along with them great.

Finally here’s a shot of Midnight in one of my favorite poses. I call it here “My feet smell terrific” position. LOL Does your dog sniff (and chew) it’s own feet too?

Midnight our Black Labrador Retriever looking adorable on the couch

Filed Under: Canada, Entertainment, Home and Lifestyle, Items to Try, Our Puppy, Pets and animals, Photography, Recreation, Toronto Tagged With: beach, beautiful day, Cherry beach, dog, editing, fetch, labrador retriever, March, Midnight, my dog, other dogs, photos, playing, swimming, upload, weather

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