Tricia's Musings

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



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I really should tidy up the spare room

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Considering how nice the weather has become I’m almost tempted to move the tropical plants that I keep in one of our sunny spare bedrooms (actually the only sunny spare bedroom) over the winter to the enclosed back porch or front porch.

Trouble is that as soon as I do that the temperature will fall! The back porch is a bit of a problem area as well. It gets a lot of sunlight and often gets too hot, even during the day time in late winter, so if I move any plants to that room I need to keep the window open during the day to help control the room temperature.

I want to move the plants for a few reasons. We’ll likely soon start to have guests drop in that want to stay overnight and a room crowded with exercise equipment and several plants doesn’t make a great place to stay. Also, if I move the plants I can finally start using the elliptical machine again. Yeah!

I’ve been out taking the dog on longer walks now that the weather is so nice, but using the elliptical a few times a week would probably help get me back into shape a whole lot faster.

Do you have a room in your home that gets cluttered over the winter with items or plants that are normally outdoors during the summer season?





Still recovery from my allergic reaction

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I can’t believe that my eyes still haven’t returned to normal after my allergic reaction on Wednesday night.

I certainly look a lot better than I did yesterday! However my eyelids are still a little puffy. Kind of like when you first get up in the morning puffy except mine stayed that way all day.

Hopefully the swelling will be gone tomorrow.

Maybe I’ll use a sleep wedge tonight so that I’ll sleep with my head elevated a bit. That will keep the swelling at bay!

I wish I knew exactly what triggered the reaction. I’m sure it’s got something to do with my allergy to dogs, cats and birds and probably all the pollen that’s floating around in the air. Still .. I’m kind of scared to go anywhere where there will be lots of animals again, like the pet store, as I have a feeling the reaction will be even worse the next time.

I think I’ll call my doctor on Monday morning and see if she can set up an appointment with the allergist that I saw a few years ago.

Anyone else having strange allergic reactions this spring?

Time to shop for the garden

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I find that we have seasonal expenses. I’m sure lots of people find that they shop more at Christmas time and that they have hefty bills to pay come January. Our expenses go up at that time too, but I find that we have another spike in our spending in April and May too.

Why? Well … I’m a gardener. Spring is the best time to go out and buy more plants for the garden or order from mail order or online shops. I always find that I buy seeds, bulbs or bare root plants and garden decor around this time. I also often end up with a new garden book or two as well.

One of the sites that I’ve been looking at this year is www.buy.com because they always have the best buy. I just type in garden or gardening in the search box and it brings up interesting garden items and gardening related books. I also check out their front page while I’m there too as they have some amazing weekly deals.

Check out the site if your shopping for something online. You’ll probably save money.

Cloudy vision?

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Last night I had a strange eye problem. It’s sort of continuing today, but isn’t quite as bad.

Wednesday evenings we take our puppy to her intermediate dog training classes. Usually when I go I put in my contacts and put on some makeup. These days, since I’ve been home sick (for over two years now!) I don’t really wear make up daily. Only two or three times a week at most when we’re going out. I’ve also tended to wear my glasses when I’m at home because I’ve always found them to be much more comfortable than wearing contacts.

So we went out for about two hours and when I got home I went upstairs to take out my contacts. Chris and I then put together a quick dinner and ate it while watching TV.

As we were eating I noticed that my eyes were bothering me quite a bit. I’d cleaned my glasses earlier in the day, but I grabbed a tissue and gave the lenses a wipe just in case they had a smudge on them.

That didn’t help. My vision seemed to be a bit cloudy. Almost like when you walk into a smoky room. You can still see everything but there’s this haze throughout the room.

I also noticed that my eyes were starting to feel a bit irritated. They had that tired burning kind of irritation.

Once dinner was finished I went upstairs and washed my face. After that, if anything my vision was worse. Not only did everything seem a bit cloudy, but my vision was also becoming somewhat blurry.

I got out the Windex and cleaned my glasses again. I even had Chris take a look at them to be sure there were no smudges. I also went upstairs again, washed my face once more in case it was makeup that was irritating my eyes and I put in some eye drops. The eye drops were “fresh tears” the kind that you use when your contacts are drying out and bothering you.

The funny thing was that you’d expect my eyes to be red and irritated looking for all the trouble they were giving me, but they looked ok. The whites were whites with not even the tiniest reddened areas.

It was a really weird feeling. I could watch TV but it was irritating since everything was kind of cloudy and blurry. Forget about checking my e-mail or doing anything on the computer though!

I guess my eyes started to get a bit better around 12:30 or 1 a.m., but they were still bothering me when I finally went to bed.

My eyes still weren’t normal this morning. I didn’t sleep well overnight and got up too early. So I took a nap for a few hours in the late morning. My eyes are a lot better now, but again, still not back to normal vision.

So now I’m wondering what the heck is going on. At first I thought it was because my contacts had irritated my eyes or maybe even my makeup. Now though I’m not sure. Maybe it’s allergies or a migraine symptom? I do have a slight headache today. Perhaps this proves I need a holiday? Maybe one of those beautiful St. Thomas villa rentals might do me good!

Have you ever experienced something like this? In both eyes at the same time?

Garbage pickers – identity thieves?

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Something odd happened last night. I took our puppy Midnight out front at about 12:30 a.m. so she could do her final business of the night and we were both startled to see two people picking through our neighbors garbage.

There were two guys riding around on bikes that had what appeared to be home-made trailers attached to them. They were stopping at every house to go through the garbage.

Now I don’t mind if someone takes something that I’ve set out that we no longer plan to use. Maybe a broken chair that someone thinks they can repair, an old TV or something like that, certainly not my Rimowa. In fact when I’ve put items like that out I’m usually glad someone came by and took it because I’m pretty sure the garbage men wouldn’t take some of the things we’ve put out.

These guys weren’t just looking for furniture, appliances or other loose items by the garbage though. They were actually opening up garbage cans or garbage bags and going through them.

When I first saw the two curbside pickers I was about to go outside with Midnight but I pulled her back and waited hoping they’d go away. Midnight must have realized I didn’t trust the two young men and she watched them from the screen door and let out low rumbling growls.

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