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Tricia's Musings

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

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We’ve just got to finish our living room dining room reno!

May 28, 2011 by Tricia

I know I say it just about every year, but this year is the year that we’re going to finish our renovations. I think the problem the other years is that I was the one saying it, but my husband wasn’t the least bit into doing it.

This year I think he might actually be starting to get the idea of just how fed up I’m feeling. Plus, hey … I tend to do more than half the work anyway … so what’s he worried about?

Just to prove that he’s starting to get the picture he actually tried giving his brother in law a phone call to see if he could come and help us one weekend. Our brother in law was on the computer looking for new hot tub cover at BeyondNice.com when my husband reached him … I swear he lives in his hot tub – honest, that can’t be good for you to be in it as much as he is!

We need to finish renovating our living room dining room. That means finishing our ceiling – which could mean putting up those tin ceiling tiles that I bought and prepped … oh … 10 years ago! We also need to finish one part of the flooring, plus add molding and quarter round. We also doing have a wall at the basement opening … yeah … big gap. and I’ve been living this way for years! I hate it and I can’t stand when we have quests or if anyone just “drops in”. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. So I want our renovations finished this summer … even if it means putting up a dry wall ceiling instead of the very expensive tin ceiling I purchased. If that’s what it takes to finish the job that’s what it takes.

You might remember that about a month ago or so I wrote a post complaining about how much noise my neighbors were making and how I was seriously thinking of selling our house as a result of how totally exhausted they were making me … well finally finishing or renovations would accomplish a few things … one – it would give us a little noise revenge for neighbors on both sides of us actually, and two if things did get bad enough noise wise that we do decide to sell we’ll have a finished house to sell … the way things are right now we could sell but we wouldn’t get quite as much as we would if we finished the living room dining room the way I’d like to finish them.





Filed Under: Home and Lifestyle, Home Renovation, Items to Try, Life with Chris, Toronto Tagged With: basement, big gap, brother in law, dining room, finish, garden, hot tub, house, husband, living room, molding, neighbors, noise, opening, prep, quarter round, reno, renovation, soak, ten years, tin ceiling, wall, weekend, work, year

Klutzy things happening to me!

May 28, 2011 by Tricia

Well I think I’ve got another tale to add to the I’m a Klutz or the “Pulled a Trish” file. Actually I guess I have two stories to add now that I think about it.

The first klutzy happening occurred two weeks ago tomorrow … when I fell down the stairs! My next door neighbors were being particularly noisy – their two and a half year old daughter must have been having a tantrum because we could hear her next door in the adjoining house (we’ve been having major noise problems) banging around with her feet and screaming and crying and then just as I was coming down the stairs she started slamming doors.

This is something she started doing back in February or so for the first time and it’s something that her parents should have figured out how to stop by now .. even it means making sure none of the interior doors of the house can swing for a while. Right????

Anyway … I was on edge and exhausted from not sleeping for most of the last week due to a particularly painful previous week (thanks Crohns!) and their daughter making lots of noise in the house next door any time I came close to falling asleep – so when the doors next door started slamming as I was coming down the stairs I lost my footing due to being exhausted and startled and I fell!

I landed on my left buttock and slammed my lower back into the back on the end of the stairs. I must have also hit my right wrist on the floor. My left foot had also hit some wiring attached to a timer in the wall and it must have hit the wiring hard enough to pull it right out of the timer … Later as I started to assess my injuries I noticed that my jaw hurt when I chewed and my neck hurt as well and pretty much my whole left side hurt as it took the brunt of the fall. I guess I fell hard!

For once the next door neighbors heard some noise from our side of the house!

Oddly enough I thought I’d be super bruised but I’ve yet to show any bruising even though I still feel very bruised on my left side … especially the butt area I figure it will be at least another week before the pain from my fall goes away.

The second klutzy act happened this past Wednesday.

We had some semi decent weather for a change in the late afternoon and I’d purchased some flowers to plant in my front planted boulevard. It looked really nice when I was done because I also grow perennial plants such as Siberian Irises and Peonies there as well so the annual flowers just finish off the area.

Now I don’t normally put mulch down on my garden beds until June because if you put mulch down too early you get lots of slugs .. but I decided to finish off the boulevard flower bed with some red cedar mulch just to finish the job … so I got out an already opened bag of mulch to use.

The mulch was really dry as the bag had been open since the year before and when I started putting it down on the boulevard it got caught up in the wind and blew up in my face … and into my eye. Yup … I ended up with the equivalent of a SLIVER in right eye!

OW!

Good thing the hospital is just down the street! My husband was home … he was actually off work because he had an eye problem that day himself! He was home because he had pink eye and since he also works at the hospital you can’t work with pink eye since it’s so contagious! so he was home and he walked me very carefully to the hospital on Wednesday where I met up with all my old co-workers that I hadn’t seen in ages. They’re all wondering when I’m coming back of course.

Two hours later I had a frozen right eye ball and a big gauze pad over my eye and a prescription for antibiotic ointment for my eye. The doctor worked hard to get the mulch out of my eye. It had embedded itself quite well. Yep … only something I could do! I guess I did so good a job of injuring my eye that the doctor was worried about infection of eye damage because she had the receptionist (one of my favorite emergency co-workers) set up an eye clinic appointment for the next day at the hospitals outpatient department.

I sure had fun on Wednesday evening wearing that darn patch. I’m allergic to the tape that was used. I need paper tape but the doctor didn’t use it and I forgot to mention it so I was stuck with the regular tape … that stuff gives me a rash and it’s so sticky that I think I could write a how to remove pimples paper about that tape! LOL

I actually had visits to the hospital four times this past week! I had two MRIs and then the accident with my right eye and follow up eye clinic appointment. The MRI’s were on Tuesday and Friday for my right and left knees. I’m finally get them checked out so I can find out why my right knee is giving me so much pain and giving out on me so often.

Anyway that’s my klutzy stuff … hopefully a third thing doesn’t happen!

Filed Under: Chronic Pain, Health Fitness and Beauty, Home and Lifestyle, Humor, Items to Try, Ontario Health Care, Pulled a Trish, Toronto, Walking

Waiting for decent sunny weather to arrive

May 28, 2011 by Tricia

The weather here in Toronto has been so crazy this spring. It’s been rainy and damp and then it will start to get sunny and warm up and then just as you start to think that maybe the weather is beginning to finally get nice a huge wind storm will come up and then the rain and cool weather will return for a week or so.

Sigh … I give up!

I tired of this weather and I can’t wait for it to warm up and for the sun to stick around. My plants on the other hand seems to love this weather. They’re getting enough water with all the rain and I guess the cooler temps is just right for my Spring plants. It’s like my garden was reading anabolic halo reviews or something because every time I look out my window at my roses they get bigger and bigger!

The biggest rose plants are along the fence that is going to be replaced next week by our neighbors. See the last post for the back story on that … yeah I still don’t even know how high the new fence is going to be … but I do know it’s going to be very similar to the fence one of our neighbors put up across the street, according to a conversation my husband had with our next door neighbors a few days ago so I guess I can put up with how it will look … but if they’re going to do it they’d better do it soon because my BIGGEST rose is on that fence – literally ON that fence, it’s called William Baffin and it’s a thorny monster and every single day it gets bigger and more brutish .. it’s going to be terrible to put up a fence around it next week!

Later today I’m going to go and knock on our neighbors door and ask some questions about the fence that they are so generously paying to put in or replace. On one hand I’m appreciative that they are paying for the new fence because we cannot afford to pay for a new fence between our houses at this time … and the current fence is truly falling apart – we’ve been repairing from our side for three years now. But on the other hand I’m simmering with pent up anger that they haven’t had the decency to come and do a face to face meeting between my husband and I to tell us exactly what kind of fence they’d like to put in and to get our input. It is after all on our shared property line so we do have a say in it’s height and design.

I don’t think they mean to be inconsiderate, they probably think they’re being helpful and that they’re doing us a favor and they’re partly right in that the old fence will likely fall down by next year if it’s not replaced … but I’d like some say in a fence that I’m going to have to look at daily. OF the four of us (my husband and the other couple) I’m probably the one who will look at the fence the most since I spend the most time in the backyard working in the garden or just plain looking out the window at my garden and thus the fence … so it’s very important to me. Whereas for the neighbors I think it’s just a fence.

Anyway .. back to the weather. Are you starting to get good weather in your area or are you longing for solid sunny weather in your area too?

Filed Under: Canada, Gardening, Home and Lifestyle, Items to Try, Life with Chris, The Neighborhood, Toronto, Tricia's Garden Tagged With: anger, big rose, cold, cool, design, falling down, fence, fence height, garden, neighbors, pay, rain, rainy, repair, roses, sick and tired, spring, sun, sunny, talks, tired, waiting, weather

It seems we’re getting a new fence – free

May 21, 2011 by Tricia

Well … it seems sometime in the next week or so we’re going to be getting a new fence. Well, to be more clear – we’re going to be getting part of a new fence.

What’s really happening is that our neighbors, the ones in the house that’s attached to ours (semi-detached house) are getting a new fence and they are replacing the part of the fence that we share between our houses. They’re paying for it and uhm …. we don’t know exactly what kind of fence they are putting in. Can you tell I’m a little uncomfortable with that????

Uh huh … I think we need to have a talk with our neighbors. My husband did talk to them about our noise problems last weekend and their daughter has been a lot quieter this past week. Thankfully! Unfortunately … when he was talking to them about the noise – last Sunday after I fell down the stairs due to exhaustion thanks to a week of no sleep (yes I’m severely bruised!) he never did get around to asking them about the fence design. I guess if worse comes to worse we can always just say no as the fence people are trying to put the fence in. That wouldn’t be that nice though.

I’m not super concerned about the design. I think that my neighbors really like the fence that another neighbor had put in last year and if I’m right I think they’ll get something similar and if so that will be perfectly fine with us as well.

The only thing that bothered me about the whole thing is the fact that they aren’t telling us much and well we have our roses along that fence and when I mentioned my concerns about them getting damaged the woman actually had the gall to say “Which ones can you live without?” Uhm … you just don’t ask a gardener that kind of question … especially when the roses in question are pretty much irreplaceable! Wow! I’ll be pretty upset if they kill my roses. The good news is that because of the trees in both yards they can’t dig new holes for the fences so they have to use the existing holes so that means my rose roots likely won’t get damaged.

They have one of those steel garages right up against the end of the fence and it borders on the end of our yard … it’s starting to fall down .. I think it might fall down when the fence comes down … that might be interesting. LOL

Anyway, I’ll take some pictures and let you guys know how things progress with the fence dilemma. I’m sure I’ll have a story to tell!

Filed Under: Gardening, Home and Lifestyle, Items to Try, Life with Chris, The Neighborhood, Toronto, Tricia's Garden Tagged With: damage, design, fence posts, free, gall, garage, grandfathered, neighbors, new fence, noise, noisy neighbors, odd, roots, roses, trees

I think we’re getting a park at the end of the street

May 21, 2011 by Tricia

It looks like they’re getting ready to do construction at the end of my street next week. I think I’d better enjoy this weekend while I can because it’s going to get noisy around here!

If I’m not mistaken I think they might be putting in some kind of commercial playground or at least it looks like it. My husband and I took a peek at some of the supplies they put on the site and it sure looks like they’re going to put putting up a playground for all of the kids. We could certainly use a decent park in the neighborhood, but this one might be a little too close to my home!

I guess I’ll find out what they’re really building once they start next week. I just hope they aren’t super noisy. My neighbors are renovating almost daily and that’s enough noise to deal with!

Filed Under: Home and Lifestyle, Items to Try, Life with Chris, The Neighborhood, Toronto Tagged With: construction, kids, Neighborhood, neighbors, noise, noisy, park, people, playgrounds, renovation

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