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New Neighbors Soon

March 16, 2008 by Tricia

I think I mentioned that my elderly neighbor, Sofie, the one that I’ve called my stalker from the day I moved in here because she watches me all the time when I’m outside in the garden or even watches through her living room window, had a minor stroke about three weeks ago?

Well she’s been in the hospital ever since and her family has told us that she won’t be coming back to her house. She’ll hopefully be moving in with one of them, but in the meantime she’s waiting to get into a rehabilitation hospital so that she can learn to walk a little steadier before she goes to one of her children’s homes.

I’m just starting to miss her. Believe me, I feel guilty that I don’t miss her more, but being watched ALL the time was really stressful!

Since she’s been in the hospital her oldest son has been coming around to her house almost daily – more than he did when she was living there! and he’s been working on her basement. Up until a few days ago I had no idea what he was doing down there – renovating? Repairing something? – all I knew what that it was darn noisy and he’d start making noise at about 7 a.m.!

It turns out that her basement was just full of mold! She had an old bed down there – one that I know she slept in sometimes in the summer because the basement was so cool and it was covered in mold all over the bottom of it. Mold also covered what little wood was in the unfinished basement too.

So her son’s been coming over and tearing things out of the basement and then hauling them away in his pickup truck. The basement always seemed kind of empty to me whenever I had the opportunity to go over there, but he’s managed to have things to haul away under his tonneau cover almost each day for the last two weeks. I sure hope he’s not removing things from the house that he shouldn’t be!

So I guess sometime in late spring or early summer we might have a new neighbor in Sofies house. We still don’t know if they’re going to sell the house or if perhaps one of her family members (maybe a grandson or granddaughter) might end up moving in.

All I know is that we’ll have new neighbors on both sides of our house because my Karaoke neighbors finally sold their home in February too. They’ll be moving out April 8th. I didn’t see the new couple that will be moving in, but it sounds like they might be in their early 30’s and it didn’t seem like they have any kids from Chris’ conversation with them when he met them the day they were looking at the house. Hopefully they aren’t as noisy as my old Karaoke neighbors.

Whatever happens with Sofie’s house has me a bit worried. We share our narrow, one car, driveway with her so if someone new moves in and if they have a car (Sofie doesn’t) we’ll have to work out some sharing arrangement I guess. I just hope they are nice and easy to get along with regarding things like that.

Do any of you have to share a driveway with a neighbor? If so, what arrangements have you worked out?





Filed Under: Home and Lifestyle, The Neighborhood, Toronto Tagged With: agreement, basement, basement renovation, children, Chris, compromise, elderly, Family, garden, get along with, hate, haul, hauling garbage, home, Hospital, house, idea, in hospital, karaoke, karaoke neighbors, kids, living room, living with son, manage, minor stroke, mold, mold covered bed, mold in basement, moving, neighbor, neighbors, new neighbors, noise, noisy, rehab hospital, share driveway, sofie, sound, spring, stalker, stroke, Summer, talk, watch, window

Grey squirrel enjoying a day in the park

March 15, 2008 by Tricia

Grab the Photo Hunt code.
Photo Theme. Visit participants.

This weeks theme is I Spy

trees at beach

I spied this grey squirrel enjoying a nice day in the park in the Toronto Beaches area and had to take it’s picture as it foraged among the trees.

I actually took this photo in January 2006. Yes, it was winter time and we’d gone to the beach because it was such a nice warm winter day. Now, warm here in the winter time means that it was perhaps 10 Celsius which really isn’t very warm at all, but when you’ve been experiencing weeks of below freezing weather just about anything above zero is warm!

We expect today to be another nice winter day and I think that later in the afternoon we might take our Labrador retriever puppy to the beach for the first time. I’d love to see her have some fun in the water, but I think the water will be far too cold so she’ll have to settle for running on the beach. I think she’ll be happy with that.

Hopefully I’ll get some great photos!

Filed Under: Home and Lifestyle, Our Puppy, Pets and animals, Photo Hunters, Photography, Recreation, Toronto, Wildlife and Nature Tagged With: beach, Beaches, cold, foraging, freezing, going to the beach, grey squirrel, happy, I spy, January, labrador retriever, park, photo, photo hunt, Photo Hunters, photohunt, picture, play in water, puppy, sand, shore, Squirrel, the beaches, Toronto, trees, warm, warm winter day, water, weather, winter

I need a few days in the sun

March 12, 2008 by Tricia

After all this snow I need a break.

Last year when we were planning to go to Vegas I got a membership with a travel club that offers great last minute travel deals. I think I’m going to search through the latest deals and see if there are any short vacation packages that we can take advantage of in the next two or three weeks.

Chris almost always has Mondays off work so he’s pretty much got a long weekend each week. I think it would be great to go to one of the Caribbean islands, Mexico or even back to Vegas just for a long weekend. I know that’s a really short holiday, but I think I’d feel better if I went somewhere that’s warmer than here for a few days.

Yes it is finally starting to warm up here in Toronto and with any luck all that snow we got last weekend will begin to melt away soon, but I’ve had enough of all this cold and snow.

Do you ever get that way? You know, just wanting to get away for a few days of sun and fun?

Filed Under: Entertainment, Great Sites, Home and Lifestyle, Recreation, Toronto, Vacation and Travel Tagged With: caribbean, Chris, cold, deal, deals, fun, holiday, island, last minute club, long weekend, long weekends, membership, mexico, monday, off work, package, planning, Toronto, travel, travel deals, vacation, Vegas, warm

My backs back!

March 12, 2008 by Tricia

My back is feeling a lot better! I don’t think I’ll be able to say it’s completely back to normal for a few days, but three days of really taking it easy and gobbling down aspirin to take the inflammation down in my lower spine seems to have really helped.

We have a dog training class tonight and I was really dreading going if my back was still acting up. Midnight gets so excited when she sees the other dogs and she’s in love with the trainer who talks in a loud excited friendly voice so she’s alway pulling on her leash (and yes sometimes barking!) while we’re in class. I was afraid that if my back was still really bad and she started pulling on her leash and jumping around while in her training class that my back would be done for! As it is I’ll still have to be careful, but I think there’s less chance now that a small movement will throw it out again.

Did all the snow and the subsequent shoveling get to any of you’re backs?

Filed Under: Entertainment, Health Fitness and Beauty, Home and Lifestyle, Our Puppy, Recreation, Socializing, Toronto Tagged With: acting up, aspirin, back, back is better, bedrest, care, class, dog, dog training, dogs, dread, friendly, hurt back, inflammation, jumping, leash, loud, Midnight, puppies, puppy, reading, resting, shoveling, shoveling snow, sore back, training

Graduated from puppy training

March 10, 2008 by Tricia

I’m pleased to let you know that Midnight graduated from her puppy training class.

She actually graduated on February 8th and we’re already going to intermediate dog training classes, but I forgot to make a post about her graduation. Actually … I even still had the photos on my camera up until yesterday!

Here’s the little grad:

IMG_3259

She was not at all happy to be wearing the graduation cap no matter how cute she looked in it. LOL

It was too big for her really so it sat lopsided and whenever she moved (which was often!) it pretty much fell off.

Prior to getting her cap and graduation certificate we had our last puppy training lesson. I guess it was more of a test to see how well the puppies had learned various commands throughout the course than a lesson. Or rather how well the puppy parents had learned commands as it turned out! We had to walk around with our dogs carrying a full cup of water and using only one had to control the dog and leash. … the floor was pretty wet after that exercise!

IMG_3242

Those are Chris’ feet BTW.

Another test was having the puppies stop at three different pylons to perform different commands like staying in place while sitting or laying down, listening to us when told to ignore something on the ground (food!) and finally sitting, laying down and sitting again for a treat … kind of a dumb trick.

The test that was the most fun was when the trainer paired up two dogs and had their owners stand a distance away and call to their dogs. This was to see if the puppies would go to their owners.

As you can see below Midnight failed … or maybe Chris failed. The other lab owner had a treat in her hand and Chris didn’t, so of course both dogs took off to see her!

IMG_3216

I’m thankful that the trainer didn’t grade the class. Midnight wasn’t behaving at her best that night and I’m sure she would have been near the bottom of the class if they’d graduated with grades!

If you have a dog did you do puppy training classes?

Filed Under: Entertainment, Home and Lifestyle, Our Puppy, Pets and animals, Photography, Recreation, Toronto Tagged With: camera, Chris, command, commands, cute, dog, dogs, earn, exercise, Food, fun, funny, graduation, graduation cap, happy, look, Midnight, obeying, parents, Petsmart, photo, photos, pretty, puppies, puppy, puppy in grad cap, puppy training, pylons, running to owner, spilled water, test, training, walk, walking with water glass, water

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