Tricia's Musings

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



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Aches and pains

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I mentioned yesterday that we’re having a heat wave here. I’m still up at 4 a.m and the temp outside is 30 Celsius with the humidity! You’d think it would have cooled a bit more by this time but it hasn’t. Soon it will begin to warm up even more!

I think the humidity is taking it’s toll on me.

We have air-conditioning and it’s doing it’s job, but my knees and feet have started to ache. It’s normal enough for my knees to ache but my feet don’t usually hurt.

I’m not that surprised that they are hurting though, I’ve certainly injured them enough in the past! I think I’ve broken bones in both feet and I’ve done some major tendon damage to one of them too.

Do certain weather conditions make your old injuries ache?





The mooch is now a creep

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Earlier today as I was busy writing a post I had a knock on my door. I really don’t like answering the door when I’m not expecting someone because more often than not it’s someone selling something.

So I waited. When I heard the person leave I peeked outside and saw the person going down my driveway to the backyard.

Huh? Then I remembered that our Power company was going to change the electricity meter to a Smart Meter – I think this is one that can tell how you use electricity in your house (washer, dryer, computers). They had told us to put a sticker on our present meter if we wanted to be notified when they were going to make the change over. I do want to be notified as I might be working on my computer at the time and the power will be out for a short time.

Anyway, it wasn’t the power company. It was a guy that Chris and I both work with at the Hospital. I haven’t seen him in a long while because I’ve been off work, and well I haven’t wanted to see him either because he’s kind of creepy.

He’s the kind of guy that once you are nice to him he’ll come over every day, hang out for hours expecting to be fed, drinking your pop, beer or other alcohol etc all the while.

I opened the door and talked to him while he was on the porch steps. I didn’t even let him inside the enclosed porch let alone inside the house! Sorry, but this guy is a major mooch and he hasn’t been around for a while and I like it that way.

While I was talking to him he told me he’d visited at noon or so and knocked on the door. Here it was approximately 3 pm and all I could think of was “what, are you hanging around the house all day?” It just gave me the creeps.

When he finally left I had the shivers. The thought of this guy wandering around our house and maybe even sitting in our garden when I wasn’t aware that he was around just creeped me out.

There’s another guy that Chris used to work with that comes around too. He’s a nice guy in general, but in the three or four years that he’s been coming over on work time he’s never once brought anything over for us to replace what he uses while he’s here. Namely beer. He can sit and drink three beers in a half hour, then he goes back to work, checks out on his time card, and drives home.

I don’t like being mooched off of and I don’t like someone drinking like that (on work time or otherwise) and then driving home.

Our problem is that in general we are just plain too nice to people and we end up getting these hangers on who never do a thing for us except take take take all that we’ll give.

No more of that! I’m through with mooches … especially ones who’ve turned into major creeps.

You know anyone like that?

It is easy being green

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I’m glad to see that some of you really liked the eco-handbags in my last post. I really like the company and what it stands for as well as their products.

I really do think that I’m going to get one of their handbags. I need a new purse. I do, I really do.

As for living green. Laane said in one of the comments “If you’re really eco-friendly you recycle at home. Because all the transport costs a lot of pollution too.”

Well you’ll be pleased to know that recycling is the law here in Toronto. Our recycled materials are picked up every two weeks. Garbage is picked up on alternate weeks.

Green garbage – kitchen peelings, used paper towels, coffee grounds and other biodegradable “garbage” is picked up weekly. We do have a composter though so a good portion of our green garbage goes into the compost as well.

I’ve written a few articles on As the Garden Grows lately about living green and how to save money by living green. Making a few changes now can save you a lot of money in the future and none of the things that we to make our life greener are all that hard.

Check out those articles if you want to be a little more eco-friendly and save some money too.

Why do we have more money living in a house than an apartment?

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It’s amazing how much different our life is since we got our house six years ago. We’d been living in a small apartment, paying fairly low rent given the area – and we didn’t really have the same kind of bills that we have now that we have a house, but it always seemed like we were struggling to get by.

When we living in the apartment we were both paying off student loans, had a car payment, paid for cable, internet, car insurance, and telephone and paid our rent (only $725 which is cheap for a nice apartment in a good area of Toronto). We both had full time jobs that paid decently too.

I really have no idea how we got by without having applied for a student loan consolidation. We would have saved a lot of money on interest and our monthly payments probably would have been lower too.

Still we pushed on. The student loans were our biggest bills other than rent back then. I am glad that we don’t have student loans to pay off anymore. I’ve thought of going back to school but it’s the loans that scare me! If I ever do back to school you can bet your boots I’ll be consolidating the loans next time.

I think getting a house gave us more of a sense of responsibility. We used to buy what we wanted when we wanted. Now we think about it for quite a while. We still buy what we want but by the time we’ve put all that thought into it we’ve often saved the money to pay for that item outright.

I know our living expenses are higher in the house – mortgage, property tax, water bill, telephone, cable, cell phone, internet, electricity, oil for the oil furnace, insurance – no car or student loans anymore though, and yet we still seem to have extra money and I’m not even working these days.

Sure I make some pretty good money via the internet, but Chris makes less than he did when we lived in the apartment so income kind of evens out. As I said it must be just that we are more responsible with our money these days.

House Guests, the Museum and a Psychic Reading?

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Don’t you just hate it when people drop in unexpectedly? I do. Since I’m sick and never know how I’m going to feel from one day to the next I like to at least know in advance when someone might be coming over.

Well on Saturday we got a call from Chris’ sister. Her husband was coming to Toronto to go to a concert. We knew about this because he’d called the day before to ask Chris if he wanted to go – he didn’t, and to see if he could stay over Saturday night.

Ok, so we knew our brother in law was coming for a visit. Fine. But when Chris’ sister called she said she’d decided to come and that they were bringing their young daughter with them.

Needless to say I didn’t get any work done over the weekend. I have several posts to write and I’m slowly catching up. If you are one of the advertiser that’s waiting for an article it’s coming!

While our brother in law was at the concert Chris and his sister partied a bit – even going over to the neighbors who had pestered us twice that day to come visit with them while I ended up spending time with my niece. I wasn’t about to turn my back on my little niece and leave her to amuse herself in a very adult household. She’d have been bored to tears poor girl.

The next day we went to the Royal Ontario Museum. I’ve got some great pictures of the buildings! They re-did the ROM and the architecture is amazing! It’s all glass and crazy angles. Beautiful.

We also ended up visiting a psychic! There are few shops near my house and my sister in law had always wanted to get a Psychic Reading so she did. It was pretty interesting.

Guess what? She’s going to have some turmoil in her life, maybe around her job, but then things will settle down over the next few months and she’ll be very happy with both work and family. Wow … She is actually in the midst of changing jobs. Her new job is a government position and she’ll have to draw on all her past experiences in her new career.

I didn’t get a reading done. I didn’t want to end up depressed.

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