Tricia's Musings

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



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Static Eliminator dryer sheets – natural , no chemicals

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My husbands off work today and it’s shopping day. Usually we get our groceries and anything else that we need on Mondays, his usual day off, but this week he’s off on Tuesday.

Chris is great about doing things around the house and doing the shopping. In fact, when he does the grocery shopping he’s pretty good about sticking to the list we make in advance so as a result he spends less than when I go with him! When I go I find a few other things to add to our groceries, usually things on sale that we could use during the week or in the near future so the bill gets a bit higher. LOL

Right now he’s at a friends jamming on the guitar but when he gets home we’re going to go to this HUGE health food store called The Big Carrot. It’s a store that sells organic groceries and other products like natural herbs, vitamins and natural weight loss supplements and so on. They also sell a lot of green products.

The reason we’re going there is to buy something called the Static Eliminator. I just found out about it last night. It’s basically a dryer sheet that can be reused about 250 times. We only do about 12 loads of laundry a month so that means a Static Eliminator dryer sheet would last us close to two years!

It has no chemicals on it, it’s hypoallergenic, eliminates static in the laundry and softens clothes. It basically does what a Bounce dryer sheet or any other popular fabric softener dryer sheet is supposed to do, but without all the chemicals. Plus it doesn’t leave any residue on your clothes or inside the dryer so it’s better for the machine and your clothes. It’s also better for the environment without all those chemicals and when you consider that you aren’t throwing out dryer sheets each week.

Now that we have our new washer and dryer and we can use less laundry detergent (and have it rinsed out better!) I’m experimenting with using more natural products to clean our clothes and soften the laundry – like vinegar, baking soda, Borax and hopefully that natural dryer sheet.

Hopefully we can find the Static Eliminator dryer sheets at the Big Carrot. If we do, I’ll let you know how it works for softening clothes and eliminating static compared to name brand dryer sheets.





So far so good with our new front load washer and dryer

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Our new high efficiency washer and dryer set finally arrived yesterday. Yeah! I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m thrilled to be doing laundry. Now that’s something you don’t hear everyday, is it?

The delivery men arrived early Saturday morning, something like 8:30 am. They were very quick in removing our old very heavy washer and dryer and then bringing our new set downstairs to the basement.

I thought I would have been able to try out the new washer and dryer by yesterday afternoon but it took forever getting everything set up! The old dryer was connected directly to our fuse box and we were going to hook up the new dryer that way, but in the end we decided to put in a new 240v plug so Chris had to run around to a few stores to try to get the correct junction box and cover etc so that killed a couple of hours right there.

We also bought two pedestals to put the new dryer and washer on because front load washer and dryers would require a lot of bending otherwise since the doors are so low to the ground. With my back being really bad lately we thought it would be good to have the machines higher. Boy do they ever look huge now that they’re up on the pedestals!

Between putting in a new electrical hook up for the dryer, attaching the pedestals and leveling the machines, cleaning and reassembling the old exhaust venting and then trying to get someone to help us lift the machines in to place (my husband didn’t want me to do too much because of my back) we figure it took us about 15 hours to set up the machines!

So I didn’t actually do my first wash with the new HE front loader until about 4:30 pm this afternoon! As I expected, my husband and I watched the machine wet and tumble the laundry for a little while before going back upstairs to wait for it to finish the wash.

We were amazed at how quite the washer is! It’s like 500 times quieter than our old 43 year old washer! The noisiest part is when the pump drains the water from the machine and it’s not the pump that makes much noise it’s just the water and air going through the drainage hose. It kind of sounds like one of those Australian instruments that they play at the start of Survivor. LOL However it’s still quieter than all aspects of our other washing machine!

Our dryer is a lot quieter than our old one as well! Yes it’s a little louder than the washer, but it only makes half or less noise than our old dryer. When we had the old dryer it always seemed that we were drying clothes at night and it was so load that we had to turn the TV up quite a bit if we were watching it .. and that’s from a dryer in the basement! The new one’s quiet enough to not interfere sound wise with what we’re doing upstairs.

Oh and it’s fast! We put our first load in to dry and the sensor estimated that it would be about 43 minutes, but after a few minutes of tumbling it readjusted the time to 25 minutes. Remember I said we’d put a load in our old washer for say 45 or 50 minutes and it still wouldn’t be dry when it was done so we’d have to put it in again for another 20 to 40 minutes. So I guess the new dryer (thanks to the super spinning the washer does) cut drying time by maybe as much as 60% compared to our old dryer.

I’m sure we’re going to save a lot of money with the new washer and dryer – especially when compared to our old 43 year old machines! Now if only we could cut some of our other bills and expenses, like finding cheaper car insurance we’d be set!

If I weren’t so tired and headachey I’d have taken some pictures of our new washer and dryer and the clothes spinning around. Maybe next time!

For those of you with high efficiency front load washing machines and driers were you amazed at how quiet they were too? Are you happy with your front loaders?

We’re getting a new High Efficiency front load washer dryer set

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My husband and I spent a lot of money this past weekend! We finally bit the bullet and bought a new washing machine and Dryer – High Efficiency models no less.

Not that we can really afford new appliances!

As you might remember our ancient washing machine broke down in August (along with a few other things in the house) much to our dismay. We couldn’t afford to replace the washing machine so we’ve been taking our laundry to a nearby laundromat for the last five months.

Two things happened that caused us to decide to make this big purchase.

One – my husband got a call from the bank last week. Apparently he’d used his banking card at a store that was being investigated for debit card fraud so they’d limited his card and wanted him to come in and get a new card. While he was talking to someone from the bank on the phone he found out that he was pre-approved for a personal line of credit. Since we’d never taken out a line of credit for our house we decided to accept the personal line of credit that the bank was offering. Not really intending to use it, but it’s nice to have just in case something happens like the furnace breaks down or something.

Two – once we had the line of credit we thought – “hey, the stores are all having January clearance sales right now … maybe we should look at washing machines and see if we can get a deal?”

So I spent a few days last week checking out all of the major stores that sell appliances in the Toronto area and did some research on washing machine brands. I eventually found a great deal on an Inglis HE washer and HE dryer set at Leon’s. $999 – can’t beat that price, especially for High Efficiency washers and dryers!

We couldn’t go to the store on Saturday because Chris’ parents were visiting, plus in the morning he helped a friend from work move … so first thing on Sunday we were off to the store. Now usually when a sales person approaches me in a store I start looking around for the nearest exit signs but this time we were interested in talking to the sales people about their washers and dryers – we wanted to find out if they’d had any complaints or returns for the models we were interested in and just as importantly if they had any in stock! LOL

Do any of you have High Efficiency washers or dryers? Front loaders? I know that they can have some problems with mold and mildew growing inside them. That was a turn off when I was looking into buying one, but at least we know about the potential problems and what we can do to help prevent them like keeping the washing machine and soap dispenser open when we’re done with a wash, running a cleaning cycle at least once a month, not always using just cold water to wash our clothes and so on.

Our new washing machine and dryer will be delivered this coming Saturday. I can’t wait! This will actually be the first washing machine and dryer that I’ve ever bought. Our current non-working washing machine and it’s matching dryer came with the house. When we moved in we were told that they were about 35 years old … and we’ve been here for 9 years now so that means our washer and dryer are 43 or 44 years old! Can you believe that? They’re older than my husband and I!

Needless to say I’m sure our old washer and dryer are/we’re energy hogs. I also never found that the washer cleaned all that well and the dryer .. well, sometimes we had to put a load in twice to get it dry so I’m sure it cost us a lot more money to use than our new machines will. HE front load washing machines are supposed to use something like 40% less water and 60% less energy and since the washing machine spins the clothes so much better than a top load washing machine the clothes should dry faster in the dryer.

If you guys have any tips for me about HE front load washing machines and dryers I’d love to hear from you. For example – what’s the best HE laundry detergent to use (keep in mind we have very hard water here in Toronto). Do you use a fabric softener and have you had any problems with it causing residue in the machine or dryer? Any tips like that would be much appreciated.

Now I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that nothing else breaks down. So far so good, but we’ve already had two scares in the last month. On December 20th our furnace started making a really high pitched circular saw sound when it turned on and we had to wait two days for the maintenance guy to come and check it out. It turned out that the bearings needed oiling. Sigh of relief!

Then, last Thursday night after my husband went to bed the TV froze … I thought it was the PVR, but it was the TV because it froze again two more times after I shut the TV off waited a bit and turned it back on … We have DLP HD TV and apparently that TV screen freezing symptom could be a sign that the DM board is failing. Since that night the TV hasn’t acted up at all … but we did take a look at new TV’s when we were in the store buying our washing machine and dryer – just in case! At least we have an idea of what TV models we liked (An LG Plasma or a Panasonic LCD made the top of our list).

I know the death knell is probably ringing for our TV, but I hope that it will keep working for a few more months. Seriously we just can’t afford for any more things to break down!

Anyway .. if you do have an HE front loading washing machine and or HE front loading dryer let me know what you think of it and if you have any tips for using them please do pass them on!

Happy New Year – did you make any resolutions?

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Happy New Year!

Yes I’m a little late in greeting the new year on this blog, but better late than never!

I hope that you had a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and ended the holiday season with a happy start to the New Year. Thanks to all of you have been regular visitors over the year(s). I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your visits and the thoughtful comments that you leave me.

I generally don’t make new years resolutions, but blogwise, I’d like to resolve to be better about replying to comments and getting out and visiting many of your blogs. I do visit many of them regularly, but I don’t always leave comments, I’ll try harder to leave comments this year. My main problem in not keeping up with this is because we (my husband and I) have so many blogs and websites to maintain that it leaves very little spare time, but I’ll try harder to make the time.

Another, necessary resolution, is that I’m going to try to lower our regular monthly expenses! As I’ve said many times we’re going through tough times and have no money to spare, but if we can lower some of our regular bills it might help a bit.

For example – our cable, internet and cell phone bill all come from the same company. We used to get a 15% discount for having three services with them but they changed that in August and now we’d have to get a fourth service (home phone) in order to qualify for the nice discount. I’m considering moving from the regular telephone line we have with Bell Canada to the Rogers Home phone as it will cut our phone bill in half or more. The rates are just so much better with Rogers … plus there’s that discount, but I don’t full trust the service. So I’ll think about that one for a while longer.

The other thing I’m thinking about is to drop down to a lower cable package to save money. I do like my premium channels. Considering that I’m sick with Crohn’s and there’s times when I can’t do much else other than watch TV (reading while in pain doesn’t work well for me, can’t concentrate) that will be a hard cut, but I think we might have to do it.

Our electricity company, Toronto Hydro, has a new billing system where the price of electricity used is higher during the day and lower at night after a certain time. It’s called “Time of Use” so we’re making an effort to run the dryer on the weekend or evenings when we do laundry and run other appliances that use a lot of energy in the lower cost time periods. We’ve always been pretty good about our electricity usage, but we can probably lower our bill by a few more dollars a month. Maybe ..

I’m also going to go in search of low life insurance rates to see if we can get a better deal. Our rates are already pretty low, but I might find something a little better.

Did you make any resolutions this year? Are they practical and ones that you can probably stick to?

House guests and an end of the year wedding

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My niece is getting married tomorrow! She planned her wedding in only two months or so! I’m sure she must be relieved that the big day is almost here.

They had been planning to get married in June 2010, butt her fiance joined the Canadian Forces and as a result of his upcoming training and possible deployment they had to move the wedding date up.

So they went from a beach wedding to one in a restaurant setting. Considering that it’s in a restaurant/bar you’d think it would be a small wedding, but from what I hear I think there’s going to be about 150 guests … I also seem to remember hearing that it’s going to be catered by a company other than the restaurant … I think it’s called Syracuse catering.

Right now we’re just waiting for my brother from Vancouver and his wife to arrive. They are in the air now and should arrive at the airport at about 8 pm. We’re looking forward to their visit. They’ll be staying with us until New Years eve and with luck they’ll be home in Vancouver just before Midnight on New years.

I’m sure our Lab, Midnight, will be really excited to see them. She hasn’t met my sister in law before, but she’s met my brother several times this year and she loves him. I think my brother is her third favorite person (behind Chris and I of course).

Actually, this wedding tomorrow, will be like a mini family reunion for my family. It’ll be the first time all three of my brothers, my sister and I have been together at the same time in a few years.

I just hope that my back holds up tomorrow. I was busy last week cleaning the house and cooking – standing for hours and hours at a time, and it aggrivated my back. I have a herniated disc in my lower back and when I stand too long my back really starts to hurt and so does my tailbone.

I must have really done some damage because over the weekend my left leg, which is had been numb since last January, started getting a hot burning feeling just above the knee. If I lie down once it starts the burning sensation goes away but later it gets an itching feeling. My back is a little better today than it has been for the last four days, but I know I’ll be sitting and standing a lot tomorrow and I think my back will start to act up again.

My Crohn’s disease was also acting up in the last few days. It’s a bit better today as well … hopefully it’s even better tomorrow.

So that’s two things that could ruin my good time tomorrow … but unless the Crohn’s or my bad back are really acting up I’m going to try to make the best of it. I mean, I’m really happy for my niece and I want to enjoy her big day. I’m also excited about seeing my whole family together again too.

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