Tricia's Musings

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



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Shopping for the holidays and sticking to a budget

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Does it seem like time is flying by faster than normal or is it just me? This month has gone by so quickly I can hardly believe that we’re near the end of November already. Before we know it Christmas will be here!

I often procrastinate when it comes to doing my Christmas shopping. This year I’m determined to get it all done before the 24th! I hope I can do it! I mean, I have a history of doing ALL of my Christmas shopping on the 24th! LOL So to get it done well before that date it’s going to be a challenge.

Another challenge this year will be finding quality gifts, yet spending as little as possible. No, I’m not cheap. I generally give nice gifts, however, this year we have virtually no spare cash.

We don’t have Black Friday here in Canada, so I can’t count on a major sales day before Christmas to help me keep my gift budget low, so my plan is to keep a close eye on Online stores and watch for items I’m interested in to go on sale.

Online stores like Buy.com often offer Free Shipping on select items or items in certain categories, so if I do end up doing some of my shopping online I’ll be watching out for free shipping deals as that will also save quite a bit of money.

I’ve also bookmarked buy.com’s Holiday Superstore and I’ve been checking it every couple of days to see if they have any deals on items that I might want to give to friends or relatives as gifts. A lot of the items in that section are not only on sale for great prices, but they also come with free shipping as well! Now that’s a deal.

Have you already started shopping for the holidays? Are you watching your gift budget carefully this year?





Stupid Crohns – when will it end?

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Other than being sleepy from lack of sleep this week (and weeks past) I haven’t been feeling too bad this week … well, up until today anyway!

I really thought this Crohn’s flare was beginning to calm down. I was wrong. Today has not been a good day. My stomach, or rather my abdomen, has been in terrible pain all day. I’ve had severe cramping, fevers and oddest of all my feet have been freezing cold, yet clammy to the touch. Yuck, I know.

I was lying on the couch this afternoon, bundled up in a blanket to keep warm. My feet were like ice cubes and every once in a while I’d reach down to feel my foot because they were so cold they felt wet. As if I’d been outside walking in the snow in running shoes or boots with a hole in them … you know how your socks get wet when you don’t wear proper footwear in the snow? Cold wet feet. Uh huh … and my feet were damp. It must have been a result of all the fevers I’d been having, but it’s not a symptom I generally have (cold clammy feet I mean).

I think the abdominal pains are/were a bowel blockage. I have strictures (scar tissues and narrowing of my intestines) thanks to the Crohn’s so blockages happen more often than I’d like. I think it’s resolving now – finally.

I also have absolutely no appetite. I’m not really even thirsty either, although I’ve been making myself drink plenty of water as that’s one of the way I resolve these mini-blockages I get. It’s almost as if I took a handful of appetite suppression pills or something.

I hope I start feeling better by tomorrow. Honestly that’s one of the reasons why we didn’t meet up with our friends husband this evening. However, I expect we’ll be in and out of the hospital visiting our friend who just had open heart surgery several times over the weekend, so I need to feel better.

I just wish I could have at least one day where I felt completely normal and healthy. That’s not too much to ask for is it?

My house is rattling! Neighbor doing renovations! Argh

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Our neighbors are renovating again!

They moved into the house next door (it’s attached to ours) in June and for the first month they did some reno work. We’d suggested that they knock down at least one of their living room walls, like we did, to open up the space.

Believe me it really opens up the space in a small house … our house had an entry way, walls enclosing a tiny living room, a hallway to the stairs that allowed entry to the living room and or the dining room, and there was a wall between the living room and dining room. So that was one small space partitioned with four walls! uh, huh … first thing we did – day one – was to knock down the walls.

Anyway, when they were doing their first renovation they had one wall repaired because one of the pipes within the walls was leaking. Unfortunately the leak wasn’t fixed and now they are having major repairs done. They also seem to be redoing their basement and upstairs bathrooms. The other day we saw a huge box that probably contained a tub and other bathroom items like two stone vessel sinks arrive on a big Home Depot truck.

The sound coming from their house over the last two weeks has been almost unbearable. I think today was the first day that the sounds were tolerable. Last week I think they were using a hammer drill or something to break up concrete in the basement, and I’ve heard them use reciprocal saws (maybe to take down another wall?), hammering, drilling and the contractors have gotten into yelling matches a few times.

All the china and crystal in my china cabinet rattles around when they are working next door too. Plus I think there’s enough vibrations going on that it’s rattled a few doors open. I found our one true closed upstairs with an open door last night and neither Chris nor I have been in that closet for days. Weird.

I just hope they’re almost done – at least with the noisy stuff! I haven’t been sleeping well at night for a few weeks and with the noise all day I can’t even nap if I’m tired. It’s terrible. I’m like a walking zombie!

Have you ever had someone do major renovations in the home next to you? Particularly if you live/lived in a semi-detached? It’s horrible isn’t it?

Our friend is about to have heart surgery

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A couple of weeks ago I told you that one of our friends would be coming to Toronto to have major heart surgery. Well, the time has come. She should have checked into the hospital earlier today, and tomorrow morning she’ll be undergoing heart surgery.

She is so scared of the surgery that she doesn’t even know enough about it to tell me exactly what kind of surgery she’s having. I’m a nurse – I could help ease her fears if I knew what was going on … but she’s the kind of person that when she’s afraid of something doesn’t want to know anything more about it. I think that just serves to make one more scared! I’m sure her imagination is going wild.

All I know is that she has some scar tissue or thickening of the heart muscle and has to have surgery to correct it. That’s the most I could get out of not her ….

You might also remember that when I wrote about her earlier in the month I’d extended an invitation to her husband to stay with us while she was in the hospital. Well .. they never really got back to us about it. Chris had to call them several times before our friend finally told us her husband would be staying in a hotel near the hospital.

Nice of them to let us know, eh? I know they were probably both scared about the surgery and were in avoidance mode, but for me who’s sick at home, it’s a very big thing to invite someone into my home for an unknown period of time. My regular readers know I’ve been going through a bad Crohn’s flare and haven’t slept well in weeks so having a guest in our home would make things more difficult, but I offered because I wanted to help them out.

So as much as I hate to admit this, I’m a little ticked off. I mean, all we were trying to do was give him some support and companionship during this scary time and help him save some money (he doesn’t have a job) … but if that’s what he wants to do I guess that’s the way it will be.

I think her husband staying in a hotel is partly my husbands fault though. He kept telling him that he could take the subway from our house (small town folks are afraid of the subway! not all, but these guys probably are) and that it would take 20 minutes to get to the hospital. Well .. it only takes about 10 minutes and we’re very close to the subway … so I’m sure the travel from our house will be equal to the walk he’s going to have from the hotel (there’s no hotel that I can think of that’s closer than a 15 minute walk to the hospital).

On top of all that my friend who’s having heart surgery wants to diet while she’s recovering! She told me that she visited this page that lists the best diet pill and wanted my advice as to which ones she should buy. I told her she’d better check with her doctor on that. Some diet pills can be hard on the heart and that’s the last thing she needs while recovering from open heart surgery!

When Chris gets home from work we’ll call the hospital and see if we can talk to our friend. If she’s up for visitors we’ll probably go there for a short while. I don’t know if she’ll want visitors tonight though, she might just want to spend some time with her husband before her surgery.

I’m sure I’ll be on edge all day tomorrow wondering how her surgery is going. When the surgery is done the doctors plan to keep her sedated and intubated for a few days so that she can rest and recover. I’m sure that part will freak her husband out as there’s nothing like seeing someone you love unconscious and intubated.

Reminiscing about our trip to Vegas last year

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Do you ever think about holidays you’ve had in the past? Lately I keep thinking about our trip to Las Vegas last year. It’s hard to believe that just over a year ago I was in a hotel in las vegas actually, I was in Vegas for the first time in my life.

I had a good time meeting bloggers that I’d known for a few years. Well known them interacting with them on their blogs or my own blogs and talking with them on forums.

Unfortunately my trip to Vegas wasn’t the best holiday I’ve ever been on. My Crohn’s was acting up and I also partied a little too hard on the first night I was there. I’m sure the combination was what did me in for the rest of the trip. In fact, on the second day i ended up being so ill (not hungover, ill with abdominal pain from the Crohns and bad fevers) that I had to stay in bed all day.

I did manage to make it to the blogging convention that I’d gone to Vegas for in the first place, but I didn’t do much else. I didn’t even try my hand at the casinos!

Even though a good portion of the trip was kind of lousy for me I enjoyed the atmosphere in Vegas and I’d love to go again … sometime when I’m feeling really good so that I can do as much as I want!

Have you ever been to Vegas? If so did you have a good time?

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