Tricia's Musings

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



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Is winter here?

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It’s just about freezing here in Toronto. It’s been really cold and windy all day and right now it’s 1 Celsius out – that’s just above freezing folks! Brrrr!

Taking Midnight outside for walks and to do her business is becoming a major task what with all the extra clothing I have to put on just to stay warm!

My biggest problem with it being so cold today is that I banged my left thumb yesterday as I tried to close the basement door and my sore thumb doesn’t like me having to put on gloves.

Yeah … so I pulled a Trish – it happens! It’s been a while since I’ve done anything really klutzy so I guess I was due for a bonehead move.

I was bringing up a basket of freshly cleaned laundry and I set the basket at the top of the stairs as I reached the top step and of course Midnight came around to investigate what was in the basket. So as I pushed the basket forward and emerged from the stairs I was paying more attention to the dog than to my half-assed attempt at closing the basement door behind me. I didn’t notice that my thumb was in the wrong place until I felt the thumbnail get squeezed between the door and door frame.

**Picture a Fred Flintstone image here with big throbbing thumb held up in the air **

I hit my thumb hard enough that I decided to apply an icepack to it for a while just to make sure that it didn’t bruise. I guess it helped, but my thumb is sore and tender today and putting on gloves really hurts … so that’s just another reason why I’m not pleased that it’s so very cold today!

Plus … I think I saw a tiny bit of snow in the afternoon! Now that’s scary!

I sure hope it’s warmer where ever you are tonight!





Frost already? Time to get the yard work done!

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Early this morning (6 a.m.) I was awoken by the sound of my dog retching in her crate. She must have eaten something that upset her stomach the day before, poor thing. I got her out and comforted her and after a while I could tell that she was feeling better so I took her outside to do her business.

Let me tell you, I was extremely surprised when I emerged outside to see that the car was covered in frost! I knew it was going to be cool last night, but I didn’t think we’d get frost! At that moment I knew that I was going to have to do some yard work today in order to prepare the garden for winter.

We have a number of tropical plants that needed to be brought in. Passion flower vines, another vine that I haven’t identified (might be a trumpet vine), and of course the cannas all needed to be brought inside. I also had three orchids, a Thanksgiving cactus and a Christmas cactus in the enclosed front porch and they all needed to come indoors as well.

As I was scurrying around outside gathering up all of the plants that need to be overwintered indoors I noticed that the lawn had a good covering of fallen leaves so once I was done putting the plants indoors I set out to find our rake.

Our rake is broken! The wooden handle was snapped off near the base of the rake. I guess I could duct tape it back together as a quick fix, but we might as well get another rake. So once I came inside I started looking online for a rake. I’ve decided that I want to get a Pivot Leaf rake as it’s an ergonomic design so it will be easier on my back when I’m raking.

This type of rake isn’t the cheapest on the market, but as I said if it helps keep my back from aching when I’m raking it will be well worth it. Now if I can just find one that’s on sale I’ll have it made.

I guess over the next week or so Chris and I will be outside doing a lot of yard work. It looks like winter is going to come early this year if that frost on the car is any indication!

Is it starting to get cool in your area too? Did you get your Fall yard work done yet or are you going to have to scramble to get it done too?

Lovely fall asters in bloom

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New York Asters

My New York Asters are in full bloom.

Every time I look out my kitchen window it seems as if the plant has grown larger. I guess it’s just that more and more blooms are coming out and that makes it seem so much bigger each day.

It’s absolutely lovely though. There must be hundreds of small Asters covering the plant.

It’s getting cool here now in Toronto, but on nice sunny days I still occasionally see a bumble bee hovering around the Asters or some of my other flowering plants.

Election Night in Canada

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Well it’s election night here in Canada.

Chris and I are watching some of the early returns to see which party is in the lead. It was a tight race between the Liberals and Conservatives at first, but as the count moves west it seems the Conservatives are taking the lead.

I found that deciding who to vote for was very hard this time round. I’m sure many Canadians feel the same way. I believe the last three governments have been formed with a minority, which of course means, to me at least, that the majority of the voting population isn’t happy with the choices we have for leaders and political parties (and their agendas).

I’m pretty sure that this election will turn out yet another minority government.

The leader of the NDP party, Jack Layton, is the MP for my area. In the last returns that I saw for my voting region it looked like the Liberal leader was in the lead, but leaders of Federal political parties rarely lose their seats so Layton will probably win for this area, but judging from results coming in nationwide, the NDP will be in third or fourth place overall.

Note that in the rare instances that I discuss politics on this blog I never mention which party I’ve voted for. I keep my feelings about my political affiliation private in part because I come from a very political family and as a result I know how volatile politics can be. I don’t want that for my blog.

I will say that I want a leader that stands by the political agenda that he (she) set in their political campaign. Not one who says one thing and then changes their mind a week after they’ve been elected. That’s happened far too often in the last decade or so!

Anyway … this isn’t a political blog. I just wanted my readers in other countries to know what’s going on here in Canada this evening.

I still find it funny that we Canadians can hold a whole election – campaign and all in just 37 days, while it takes our US counterparts close to two years to reach election day. I don’t know how you guys do it. A month of political advertisements on TV, flyers on my porch and campaigners calling and knocking on the door day after day is enough!

Paying for a night out on the town

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Wow, I’m starting to slow down in my posting quite a bit aren’t I? It hasn’t been the best week for me. My Crohn’s has been acting up – the worst of the symptoms … bleh …

I think I might be feeling so bad this week because Chris and I went out on Wednesday night. His sister was in Toronto for a quick Government related course and then she was going back home on Thursday after a test for the course and then well .. as I said in my last post she and her husband were moving to a new house on Friday (with Chris’ help).

Anyway … when Chris came home on Wednesday we drove off to meet his sister at her hotel in the lovely section of Toronto called North York. Uh huh … she was staying in a Novotel and she was waiting for us in the bar.

That wasn’t the best idea! She’d already had 5 Cosmopolitans while she waited for us! Once we got there she talked me into having a Cosmo and Chris tried out a new beer. Chris and I were both hungry and while we tried to talk his sister into going down the street to the Baton Rouge restaurant for a meal we were snacking on some kind of pretzel/ beer nut/ cracker mix.

In the end I had three Cosmos and my sister in laws tally came to 8 cosmos all while sitting on these weird modern furniture style bar stools at the bar.

By the time we got to the restaurant my sister in law was of course too drunk to eat. She ordered appetizers but only had a nibble. I wonder how she felt the next day? LOL I guess I’ll have to give her a call and find out.

I wasn’t feeling so good even by the time we got home. I don’t drink much anymore, so three pretty much pure alcohol drinks were enough to make me pretty tipsy, but unlike my sister in law I did at least eat half my dinner before getting the rest packed up into a doggy bag.

The drinks, the snacks that I ate and probably the dinner that I had all combined to make my Crohn’s act up worse than it has been for a while. Yes I should have known better, but you can’t be good all the time. Even people on a diet cheat every once in a while right?

Hopefully I’ll be feeling a little better in a few days. Maybe not though. My Crohn’s just seems to be getting worse and worse as each week goes by … maybe Wednesday night isn’t even what caused this latest flare … who knows.

BTW it’s Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada so Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow Canadians!

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