Tricia's Musings

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



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I’m about to give up on our DLP TV

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I think some time in the near future we’re going to have to look into getting a new TV. Not that we can afford one!

Why? Well, about five years ago we bought a DLP TV. It has a great picture, but it has this special light that shines on this spinning disc in order to make the picture. Trouble is that, oh about once a year or year and a half, the light starts to burn out and it costs about $150 to replace it!

When we bought the TV DLP’s were fairly new and we were told the cost of the light would go down but it doesn’t seem to have reduced in price at all. So it’s an expensive TV to maintain. Oh and last year we had to replace the color wheel!

If and when we do get a new TV I think we’ll look into an LCD TV or one of those new LED TV’s.

Anyone else have a DLP TV?





I don’t like award shows

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I’m so glad the award show season is almost over! In case you can’t tell I don’t watch award shows or even any reality shows (except Survivor). I just don’t like them.

Plus … all the magazines and some of the websites I like to visit are filled with award show talk and photos of celebrities in their Gucci watches and designer clothes for about a week after each show. It’s like there’s a black out on almost all other news until award season is over.

We did start watching the Grammy Awards on Sunday – mostly because the shows we normally watch weren’t on due to the Grammy’s, but we quickly turned it off … not even the chance of seeing some of the musicians Chris and I are interested in performing was enough to make us stay tuned in.

So … do you love watching award shows or do you hate them like I do?

Darn – I think I might be getting the flu now

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I’m grumpy and not feeling well again today. I know … I’m always not feeling well (thanks Crohns), but it just seems like the past few weeks have been worse than normal.

I’m actually starting to wonder if I might be getting the flu or something. Last week I had a few days that I had sneezing sessions – like 5 to 10 sneezes in a row. Now that leaves you feeling weird, even if it does kind of clear your head!

The sneezes seem to have stopped, but yesterday and today I’ve had really bad stomach cramps – worse and different from normal. Plus I’ve been nauseated as well. Yes I do occasionally get slightly nauseated with the Crohn’s, but this is worse than normal. At 5 a.m. I really thought I was going to have to run to the bathroom because I felt so bad.

So it’s either the flu or my Crohn’s is worse than ever. Oh and when I do get the flu or a cold it seems to drag on forever, probably because the Crohn’s has my immune system in high gear so it’s fighting the germs but very slowly losing the battle. I’d rather have 24 hour flu’s and 48 hour colds like I used to! Either way I’m not doing much. I run a number of blogs and I must say between my husband being sick and my not feeling well my blogs have been badly ignored.

What have been doing is simply lying on the couch watching TV. Unfortunately a lot of the shows that I normally watch have been running re-runs lately or have been canceled due to those darn award shows. During the day I watch a few channels that play old sitcoms. Trouble is that I’ve seen some of the shows oh … maybe 50 times in my lifetime! LOL Oh and the commercials! One station puts on a commercial for technical colleges and schools at every commercial break. Ahhhh … don’t they have any other advertisers?

Anyway I’m sorry that I haven’t been writing as much lately and that when I have it’s been either about my or my husbands health. At least blogging about these things seems to help get it off my chest.

Oh … Chris went back to work today. He should be home soon. It looks like his day was going well, at least from the time he called me this afternoon to check in. Hopefully he won’t have any more chest pains or dizzy spells. I’d hate to get another phone call that he’s been admitted to the hospital again.

Where’s the off button for the snow?

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Well … we’re in the midst of another big snowstorm here in Toronto. Man I’m getting sick of snow!

It wouldn’t be so bad if I only had to look at it, but of course it’s coming down so heavily that I had to shovel a couple of times today. One poor man that lives on the corner across from me has been out shoveling most of the day … that’s one of the things about having a corner property – more to shovel! Plus he did some shoveling for the older lady on the corner across from him too.

Chris was up at 5:30 am for a 7:30 shift but he too did a little shoveling before he went to work, then our new neighbors (the renters) beside us must have shoveled the beginning of the driveway that we share. So by the time I got out I still had a lot of shoveling to do as it snowed heavily in the morning, but not as much as I would have if Chris and our neighbor hadn’t helped out a bit. I shoveled some of our corner neighbors sidewalk – in part to be nice and also because when I take Midnight out for a quick outing to do her business we walk up and down that section of the sidewalk as she finds a place on the snowbank to do her thing.

Still, my back went out after only about five minutes of shoveling. Darn back! it seems I can’t do much of anything that requires me to bend slightly forward (let alone lifting heavy snow) like sweeping, vacuuming, doing the dishes, sitting on the couch and leaning forward to read something or leaning forward as I watch tv … all of those things throw my back out or well, put it into spasms. I want to have my back xrayed to see if something is wrong. It’s been bad like this for about a year now and I suspect that my Vitamin D deficiency has something to do with it.

With my back aching I wasn’t able to do too much today. I had been planning to do at least 30 minutes on the Wii Fit balance board, but that didn’t happen. At least I can add my shoveling activities to the calender! For those of you with Wii Fit – don’t forget that you can add light, medium and heavy activities by going to the calender – it helps build up those fitness credits for the fitness bank and you might as well count your none Wii activities too. I’ve counted some of my time playing Wii Sports as “light” activities (even though they feel at least moderate to me!).

Luckily with my back I find that if I lie down on my side or flat on my back for a while the muscle spasms tend to stop. That’s not the case today as my back is still spasming as I type, but it sometimes takes the ache away.

As I waited for my back to feel better I watched some TV. I like watching old sitcom reruns like All in the Family, Fresh Prince and so on. One of the channels that I watch these old shows on bugs me though … well I mean the commercials it plays! They always have these commercials for “schools” that will teach you how to be a CSI, parole officer or that teach you how to get healthcare jobs. It drives me nuts because every single commercial break has one of these ads and if it doesn’t it’s that AGI commercial offering funeral insurance! Bleh! Luckily with the PVR I can put the show on pause for a few minutes and then fast forward through the commercials – when I remember to do it!

So how’s the weather in your area? I’m thankful that we didn’t get an ice storm! Our snow storm is apparently part of that big ice storm that hit the States earlier in the week, but without the ice. Thank God!

Dog sprayed by a skunk? Here’s the solution

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Yesterday evening after my husband had been watching a show about California’s green energy program a show about Skunks came on PBS. It was part of their Nature series.

I’ve always been kind of fascinated by skunks. There were several in my hometown neighborhood in Ottawa, and now that we have our own house here in Toronto I’ve noticed that we have a number of skunks around here too.

I’ve never had a problem with skunks. If I see one I stay away from it and try not to startle it. Plus I know that they don’t climb, so our yard being solidly fenced all the way around (in the back) it’s unlikely that we’ll have any skunks in our backyard unless they dig under the fence.

Now that we have a dog I’m a little more cautious about skunks. Midnight, our Labrador Retriever (18 months old) thinks every animal or person she comes across is a potential friend. Typical of the breed I believe.

We always walk her on leash in our neighborhood. In part because it’s the law around here and secondly because she’s so excitable I’m afraid she’d run out in front of a car if we didn’t!

There are some nice off leash areas here in Toronto, but the only one that worries me as an area where she might disturb a skunk is the off leash area in Taylor Creek park. It has a large wooded area, trails and of course that pond that she likes to take a dip in every time we go there.

One great tip that I picked up from the “Skunk” show was how to easily remove that skunk smell if you or your dog gets sprayed by a skunk.

Get rid of that skunk spray smell

Go outside with a bucket and the following three ingredients:

  • 1. 1 quart of 3% hydrogen peroxide (you can get that in your local drug store)
  • 2. 1/4 cup Baking Soda
  • 3. 1 teaspoon liquid detergent

Mix the three ingredients together in the bucket. I think it will fizz up, so use it while it’s fresh.

If it’s your dog that’s been sprayed by a skunk use a pitcher or measuring cup to gently pore the solution over your dogs fur. Be careful not to get it in your dogs eyes. Let the solution sit on your dogs fur for about five minutes and then rinse with clean water.

I know the old cure is to bath your dog or yourself in tomato juice but they said on the show that that just covers up or masks the smell for a while … the real cure is the solution I listed above.

One other thing that I learned while I was watching the show was that it seems that where feral cats are located in cities there are often a lot of skunks. In one town discussed on the show the cats and skunks were actually hanging out together. Since there were so many skunks in town they were becoming a problem for the residents so once the towns people discovered the correlation between the feral cats and skunks people stopped leaving food out for the free roaming cats and the skunk population went down!

Most of the years we’ve lived here I’ve seen a few free roaming cats regularly visiting my garden during the day and night. I didn’t see them very often last year, but I think that might be because of the dog. Anyway … that got me thinking that we might have more skunks running around this area because of the free roaming cats too. If you’ve noticed the same in your area encourage your neighbors not to leave food out for the cats and other opportunistic animals and maybe you’ll notice a drop in skunks in your general area too.

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