Tricia's Musings

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



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My garden has lots of new Spring growth

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I’m so happy that Spring is truly here after the long cold winter that we had here in Toronto. We had some rain this weekend and even some Thunderstorms on Sunday morning but once things started clearing up it warmed up outside and my husband and I took advantage of the good weather to get some much needed yard work done.

I had actually been out on Friday afternoon because I had a doctors appointment downtown and by the time I got back home it was quite nice outside so I brought the dog out to the front yard and I started cleaning up the front garden beds. Just taking the dead maple leaves off the garden that we’d put on the garden beds in the fall to protect the plants made such a difference and it was nice to discover how many plants were already growing beneath the leaves. By the time my husband came home from work on Friday I had the whole front yard done and he was surprised.

I usually don’t like working in the front yard by myself all that much because so many neighbors stop to talk. It’s not that I don’t like talking to them, it’s just that when I’m busy working on something, talking tends to slow me down and since I’m usually not feeling all that well I’m working outside on limited time anyway … so they eat up the time I can work on what I’m doing. Plus … being a nurse … I always end up having some strange conversations with people. I guess everyone wants health advice. Someone always asks me about a pain or health problem they’re having when they catch me outside and I’ve even been asking about things like what’s the best progesterone cream to use LOL. Hey … I answer what I can and advise them to see their doctor for the rest.

When the weather was clear enough my husband and I worked on tidying up the backyard garden beds and we managed to get all of the flower beds cleared of dead leaves too. Everything looks great now. I can’t believe how much green was hiding under all the dead leaves! There are so many plants coming up! Everything from Snowdrops to Lilies, to Monkshood, strawberry plants, Daffodil, Hyacinth, Tulip and Iris leaves are all coming up too. Most of my Crocuses, at least in the backyard, are blooming and soon I’ll have quite a variety of other spring flowers blooming. I just love spring.

Is your garden or yard coming back to life after the long cold winter?





Our car has a big ding in it now, sigh …

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My pretty little Pontiac has a big ding in the front bumper now. I’m not happy … no not happy at all.

My husband was out shopping this afternoon and he parked in an odd parking spot that had a lamp post at the outer (rather than inner) edge of the parking spot so when he was backing out of the parking spot the front drivers side bumper hit the lamp post and smashed in.

This was the first accident my husband has ever been in and man … did it ever upset him. He’s still feeling unsettled. BTW I’ve never had a car accident either – I know I’d be just as upset if it had happened to me.

I’m upset because our car is damaged, but I’m glad that the accident happened in a parking lot. I mean – if you’re going to have a car accident I guess it’s best to have one at low speed in a parking lot and hit a lamp post and not another car or a person, right?

At first my husband thought he’d have to call for a tow truck to have the car towed to a garage since the car looked undriveable … but he worked at it and ended up pulling out the front drivers side wheel well which was making the bumper bulge out and that made the car drivable again.

It looks like we’re going to have to replace the front drivers side wheel well and the front bumper. I have no idea how much that will cost, but I’m guessing that it will be more than $1000. I’m not looking forward to this repair bill!

In other news I had my own accident. I slipped in a mall on Friday and now my back is sore. That’s why I wasn’t out with my husband today. I wish they’d had non skid flooring where I fell! Ah .. it might not have helped though anyway … my back is so bad these days that any little jar seems to set it off. Hopefully my back is feeling a little better in the next few days .. better than our car.

Spring has arrived

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Spring has definitely arrived in my garden. My crocuses have been blooming for the past week and now each day when I look out my window I see new growth in my garden beds.

Tulip, Daffodil and Iris leaves are pushing up through the ground and soon there will be other plants showing signs of life.

I’m so pleased to see more and more crocus flowers coming up and I know that in just a week or two I’ll have quite a variety of spring flowers in my yard. I love spring it’s definitely one of my favorite seasons. If you don’t grow your own flowers I hear that there are some good ProFlowers discounts that you might be interested in taking advantage of if your craving spring flowers too.

I’ll bring my camera outside with me tomorrow if the weather is nice and take some pictures of the crocuses in bloom and then I’ll post some pictures.

Battle of the Pumpernickel (or the Crohns is back)

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I’ve been quiet for a while because my abdomen has been acting up yet again. Yep … things were going so well for most of the last year, but Crohn’s has reared it’s ugly ugly head again and I’m suffering as a result.

It all started about a month ago … I bought a bread machine in mid-February because I wanted to start making healthy breads for my husband and I (even though I really don’t eat much bread or grains) and it seemed like the first few loaves that I made didn’t bother my stomach/abdomen at all … but towards the end of March I decided to try making my very first (and maybe my last) loaf of Pumpernickel bread and well … it seems that that turned out to be too much for my system to handle.

The Pumpernickel must have been quite strong because my husband would get stomach cramps if he ate a couple of pieces of pumpernickel in one day … for me all it took was half of a piece of bread!

Oh and the pain is still hanging around. I wasn’t completely pain free, but for most of the last year, my Crohn’s symptoms and the abdominal pain that I get from it was very tolerable, but once I ate that pumpernickel bread I was back in pretty much the worst pain.

Now I’m doing everything I can to calm my symptoms down. I’m not eating any breads or grains and I”m pretty much just eating baked or boiled chicken, potato and very mild bland foods that have never really bothered my digestive system in the past. I’m also drinking Aloe Vera Gel and talking acidophilus tablets as that can help calm the symptoms down too.

I’d rather just be concentrating on my websites. I want to change the theme for this one … I also want to try to find the time to check out seo elite … maybe now that I’m not feeling well would be the perfect time to sit back and do some reading and learn more about site SEO. I have several websites and because of that I never have time to learn a lot of new things anymore because I’m so busy just maintaining them.

Anyway … wish me luck on getting this stomach/ abdominal pain settled down again. I didn’t realize how much better I’d been feeling in the last year until the last few weeks when I began to feel so bad again. It’s awful. I hope I can get this under control again quickly.

My knees are sore

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My knee has been acting up lately.

Well, I say lately, but it’s been acting up on and off since the fall. I don’t know if I did something to it or if the weather has something to do with it. I’m fairly sure that I have some form of arthritis in both of my knees so that doesn’t help either. I’m sure the extra cold winter we just went through affected my knees.

I saw my family doctor last week and after telling her again and again that my knees are aching she’s finally sending me for an xray and setting up MRI’s for both of my knees. My legs aren’t formed properly – the tibias and fibulas are more to the outside of each of my legs so that puts my whole lower leg structure off – it’s called Tibia Extortia. I know in the past xrays have shown that there’s some wear on the bone and the MRI’s will show it to an even greater extent.

My family doctor of course also believes that some physical therapy will help. She thinks that using a muscle stimulator might help tighten up my quads and that might help my knees too. I don’t know … it might.

Hopefully nothing too serious is found with my knees .. but it’s obvious that something is going on as they’ve really been acting up over the last several months.

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