Tricia's Musings

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



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Cooking Christmas Dinner This Year

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Are you cooking Christmas dinner or are you going over to a family or friends home to dine?

I didn’t cook a Christmas dinner last year or maybe even the year before that, but this year I’m going to cook even though there will just be three of us.

Chris is off until Thursday, so earlier today we went out to a grocery store and I bought a fresh turkey, Cranberry jelly, peas, potatoes, sweet potatoes, asparagus, stuffing mix, pumpkin pie and plum pudding. Yes, that’s a lot of food, but mmmmm it will be so very good!

I love turkey and if I do say so myself mine usually turns out pretty good. Sure we’ll have leftovers forever but that’s ok. Chris can go back to work with delicious turkey sandwiches.

I’ll probably freeze some of the left over turkey too. Left over turkey is great to have around when you’re making a home made soup, stew or even a stir fry.

What will you do with your left overs … well, if there are any I mean.





Christmas with the in-laws!

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How is everyone on this lovely Christmas Eve?

We’re having a quite Christmas here this year. I don’t think we’ve celebrated Christmas on Christmas day with Chris’ family in years! It’s always a day or two before Christmas or the following weekend. It seems that no one can manage to get together on Christmas day for some reason.

When my parents were around we had this problem too of course, but we tried to alternate Christmases between the families.

Anyway … Yesterday we went to Brantford to have Christmas with Chris’ parents and his two sisters, their spouses and their kids.

It didn’t quite work out that way though.

Chris’ younger sister had been to Sarnia the night before seeing friends and as they returned home they discovered that their young daughter was very sick so they ended up in a walk in clinic. My niece has strep throat so bad she won’t even drink any liquids! I don’t envy my sister in law at all today!

Chris’ older sister and her husband didn’t make it either! It turned out that she had a cold or the flu and since they are going to Hawaii on Christmas day she wanted to rest and get better before their flight.

So as it turned out it was just Chris and I, Chris’ parents and one of his aunts.

Chris nephew was in the basement with a friend while we were visiting, but for some reason he didn’t want to eat dinner … so that dinner for 12 or 13 people ended up being for only 5!

So that was Christmas with the in-laws.

Oh and I’ve said before that my mother in law can’t really cook … I think she said she cooked the turkey for 10 hours. It was good but it was very dry.

We brought Midnight along for the day so she could meet the family. She was afraid to go in the house when we first go there! I coaxed her in and then we kept her on her leash for a while as we led her around the main floor showing her the house and introducing her to the in-laws. She did pretty good while she was there. No accidents (actually she hasn’t had an accident for close to a week so she might be housetrained!) and she didn’t jump on people too much. Over all I’d say it was a good experience for the puppy. (and us)

I’d rather look at roses than endure this cold wind!

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Beautiful Graham Thomas English Rose.

Winter hit Toronto early this year and we’ve had snow cover for most of the last month! Thinking back to last winter, I think we’d only had one snow by this date and it melted shortly after it fell. I guess it’s about time we had a real winter around here.

Yesterday it did warm up a bit, but it rained and rained and rained some more. Then in the late afternoon strong winds arrived bringing with it very chilly weather. Right now it’s only a little below freezing, but thanks to the wind it feels extremely cold outside.

I’d much rather remember how lovely this rose looked in October when I took this photo when I have to take the puppy outside in the cold!

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

My secret garden admirers

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Now that we’re out several times each day walking the puppy we’re meeting all kinds of neighbors. Not too many with dogs yet though … I guess we don’t walk our pup at the same time as our dog owning neighbors.

Of course, Chris is a talkative friendly guy so he already knows quite a few of our neighbors – way more than I do! But I’m getting to know more of them these days.

I find our puppy needs to go out around 3 or 3:30 in the afternoon … of course that’s when all the kids are walking home from the schools down the street so we often get mobbed by puppy loving kids and teens. Midnight just goes nuts doing her excited little puppy jumps when a new person crouches down to pet her and tell her she’s adorable.

One of the neighbors that I ended up talking to the other day knew me by my garden when she saw where I was coming from. “Oh you’re the person with the fantastic garden and all the roses!” she said.

We’ve found that a lot of our neighbors are secret and sometimes not so secret admirers of our garden. Some even walk down our driveway in the summer to have a look at the backyard. That’s a little startling if I’m busy digging in the garden or if I’m inside the house and I see the security light in the drive way go on and hear the sounds of human foot steps walking down the drive. You never know who it might be right?

Anyway, this one garden admirer got talking about my garden and told me her daughter is getting married in the summer. Then she astonished me by asking if maybe I’d like to supply the wedding flowers? I don’t know about that … it depends on when the wedding is and what’s blooming of course.

We agreed to talk more about it sometime in the Spring. I’m not sure if I’ll do it or not. I guess it depends what the bride has in mind, but you never know this might turn into something interesting for me.

Sourcetix has a wide selection of tickets for concerts, theatre and sporting events

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Tired of sitting at home each night watching television? Not interested in any of the latest movies in the theaters? Well, when was the last time you treated yourself to a live event?

Sourcetix.com has a fantastic inventory of tickets for events such as live theatre, concerts, and sporting events. Say there was a concert that you wanted to attend, but you’ve heard that the tickets are sold out. Check Sourcetix.com. They often have tickets for sold out or hard to get tickets for events and the prices are quite reasonable.

This site just got a make over so not only is it easy to navigate, but it’s also quite pleasant to view as well. You can search for an event to attend by looking up your city, or you can pick the category that you are interested in.

In the sports category you’ll find listings for all of the major sporting events like NHL games, NFL, MLB, NBA, MLS, PGA, WWE, Nascar and boxing. If you’re looking for Concert Tickets you can choose from categories such as top sellers, kids favorites, top venues and Las Vegas shows. Theatre categories range from Cirque Du Soleil tickets, to ballet, broadway, off Broadway, Musicals, plays and opera.

You’re bound to find an event that you’ll enjoy. Perhaps you could make it a family outing or a special romantic evening with your loved one.

Sourcetix.com is also having a promotion. Right now you can get 5% off the cost of your ticket purchase if you use the promotion code “source07“. The prices are already reasonable, but who would turn down an extra 5% off the price? I know I wouldn’t!

Here’s an idea – Tickets to a concert, sporting event or the Theatre might make a nice gift for someone close to you as well.

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