Tricia's Musings

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



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My skin is so dry!

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My skin is so dry. It’s been dry all year, but I thought that at least once summer arrived it would get better. I mean, it’s usually quite humid here in Toronto during the summer, but this year it’s way cooler than normal. Some nights have fallen down to 10 c (50 F). Weird eh?

Maybe it’s my Thyroid that’s causing the dry skin? 20 years ago I had a tumor on my thyroid that was pre-cancerous and had half my thyroid removed. Then, this past spring I discovered that I have another tumor on my remaining thyroid. I do take Synthroid and my thyroid levels are normal … but still … maybe I’m slightly hypothyroid. That can cause dry skin and other problems.

I think I might do a little research and find our which are the best wrinkle creams to use for dry skin. Also which ones are fairly inexpensive! I do use skin creams – facial and body, but they don’t seem to be helping all that much lately so maybe I need to change brands.

Can anyone recommend any good skin creams for dry skin? Again, inexpensive ones … we’re on a tight budget lately! At least if summer ever does kick in around here I know the humidity will help too!





Jazz in the Park – every Wednesday

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In keeping with our plan to attend at least one of Toronto’s many interesting events or festivals once a week throughout the summer, Chris and I went to an outdoor Jazz festival last night.

It was Chris’ birthday yesterday and he loves Jazz music so he suggested we go to the “Mosaic Does Jazz” Jazz in the park festival that’s being held every Wednesday evening from 5 pm until 8 pm at the Coxwell Parkette from July 1st to Sept. 2nd. It’s close to our home and man, was the music ever fantastic!

We saw the Terra Hazelton Quartet and as I said the music was great. The singer had a beautiful bluesy voice just made for singing Jazz songs. She was accompanied by a Jazz guitarist, a bassist and a drummer.

We had thought that the music was to start at 8 pm so we didn’t actually get there until about 7! Oops! We brought a friend from work, our dog and three folding chairs and parked ourselves about 15 feet from the center of the stage.

I didn’t realize that there would be other things going on in the small park, but when we got there we noticed that there were a couple of vendors selling food like hotdogs and hamburgers, a coffee shop, a person doing massage, someone doing therapeutic touch and a jewelry booth with lovely pearl jewelry. I’m sure there were a few other tent booths that I missed.

There was a good crowd. Probably people that lived in or who were shopping in the neighborhood. Lots of kids too. One little girl, maybe a year old, kept trying to climb onto the stage! Oh and our dog barked whenever anyone applauded and that warranted a “woof” from the singer. LOL

Oh and in response to the person that commented on my post “time to stop letting life pass me by” where I first talked about attending a Toronto event once a week …

He said “An event every weekend? Isn’t that kind of overdoing it? Doing nothing can feel like a waste of time, but doing too much can be too.”

My response … well I’ve been sick and on medical leave from work for the last few years. Believe me, I haven’t done too much and I’m sick of it. Toronto is a great city with tons of things to do in the summer (despite the garbage strike stinking up the place!). Believe me, I won’t overdo it as my body won’t let me. Going to a park to watch musicians play won’t overextend me nor will going out for a couple of hours to one of Toronto’s many food festivals. I just want to get out and do things when I’m feeling up to it and as I said summer in Toronto is the perfect time to attend events, try foods that you’ve never tried before and just get out and feel alive.

Time to stop letting life pass me by

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My poor poor blog. I’ve been neglecting it lately! I’ve been neglecting my regular readers as well.

It just seems that I got so busy over the last month or so that I haven’t managed to do much writing in any of my many blogs. Life got in the way, you might say!

IMG_5901 For some reason my garden has kept me busier this year than the last few! Maybe it’s just that I feel more like working in it? Anyway … over the last two weeks or so my husband and I managed to add about 30 big bags of mulch to the garden beds (after weeding of course)! No wonder my back has constantly been aching lately!

We’ve also taken our dog to the beach for a swim in Lake Ontario a few times, plus we’ve attended a few events that have been going on in Toronto. Namely – the first annual Beach Ribfest and the Toronto Ribfest, the Mississauga Waterfront festival where we saw Bruce Cockburn play, Woofstock in early June and I think a few more things.

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Even though my Crohn’s is still flaring and makes me feel awful a good portion of the time I’ve decided to stop letting life pass me by. Toronto is a great city, with lots to do, especially in the summer. There’s something going on just about every weekend!

So, a few weeks ago I said to my husband lets try to attend one Toronto event every weekend. Provided the event is of interested to the two of us of course. So that’s what we’ve been doing. Hmmm maybe this weekend we’ll try to view the Molson Indy (we don’t have tickets). There’s also the Toronto Fringe Festival and the Outdoor Art Exhibition this weekend. Summerlicious is on too (gourmet meals for a deal of a price) – maybe we’ll eat out as well!

If you live in Toronto or within driving distance and you’re looking for interesting inexpensive things to do check out the Toronto Festivals and Events Calendar. I’m sure you’ll find something that suites your tastes.

We didn’t do anything special this past weekend, but last Wednesday was Canada day and we had a friend over. Actually it’s a guy that Chris works with at the hospital. So I was entertained by two talented guitar players (Chris and our friend) as they played guitar in our backyard for a few hours.

Unfortunately, due to the ongoing garbage and city workers strike here in Toronto Canada Day festivities were canceled. So no fireworks … but it seemed that many of our neighbors bought their own Fireworks and set them off on the street or the park just down the road from us, so we could see fireworks all around our house!

Odd that all the rest of the big Toronto events (Gay Pride parade, Molson Indy etc) can all go on with the garbage strike and city worker strike, but national festivities for Canada Day were canceled? Unfair!

It’s Chris’ birthday on Wednesday. I don’t know what we’re going to do yet, but I think Chris’ parents are planning on coming into town for a visit sometime on the weekend. When Chris was talking to his mom the other day she said they wanted to take us out to dinner, so i guess along with the other multitude of interesting activities that we might do this weekend, going out to dinner to celebrate my husbands birthday will be on the list.

Anyway … if Chris and I stick to the plan we’ll be doing something new and interesting every weekend so even though I might be a little busier than I have been in the recent past I’ll try to blog more often and I should have some interesting tales to tell about the things we’ve been up to – photo’s too!

Do you find that life gets busier in the summer? Do you try to attend various events or festivals going on in your city during the summer?

BTW A belated Happy Canada Day and 4th of July to my Canadian and American visitors!

I’m trying to use my Wii daily to get fit and active

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I’ve started using my Wii on a regular basis again. You might remember my posts when I purchased the Wii Fit and then the Wii Console (that I didn’t know I needed for Wii Fit) on Ebay? Well I used the Wii through January, but then my Crohn’s got worse and I just couldn’t use the game for a while.

I use the Wii mostly for exercising or playing games that get me moving. I haven’t used the Wii Fit all that much, but I’ve been trying out My Fitness Coach and the brand new EA Sports Active and I really like both programs. I like how they vary the exercise routines and I can use the Wii Fit board with some of the EA Sports Active workouts too.

Game wise I’ve been using Wii Sports to play tennis, boxing and bowling and I also have Wii Ski and a few other games that get you up off the couch and moving.

Last week I bought Mario kart as I thought it looked fun. My husband and I both played a few games one evening, but I didn’t really like it all that much. Maybe I should have rented it and tried it out first? Uh huh.

I’m glad I bought the Wii because with Crohn’s – when it’s bad, I can go through long periods where I’m not all that active due to the pain and other symptoms that I have so I’m trying to use it when I can just to up my activity level a little bit. Of course when I’m feeling semi-ok I also try to get outside and go for walks, work in my gardening (I have gardening marathons where I’m in the garden for 8 hours at a time) and do other things … but the Wii fits in when I’m not well enough to do a lot of outdoor activities.

I was wondering if any of you are also using PS3 players? And if you are, do you also have a Wii or have you tried playing any Wii games? I was wondering how the two game systems compare. Obviously my main goal with the Wii is to get a little more active and to use some of the great fitness programs that are available. However I was wondering – game wise – how do the two systems compare? It seems like there are a lot more true action games in PS3 so if you are a true gamer it might be more suitable to use PS3 over the Wii system.

Perfect weekend for getting things done around the home

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Chris was busy today while I lay like a lump on the couch. Yeah, my Crohn’s is up to no good again.

We have three screen doors on our house, two at the front and one at the back and all of the handles started not working properly earlier this year. The doors just didn’t latch closed when they shut. So Chris spent some time replacing two of the handles and then with my help he rehung the screen door at the back that had been rubbing in one corner at the base – which of course caused it to not close properly.

Now that we’re starting to get nicer weather and want to have the doors open more often to let air in, it’s important that the screen doors close securely. I mean, we live on a busy street and our dog could literally push the doors open if we didn’t make sure they closed properly.

Tomorrow, if it’s not raining and if I’m feeling a bit better I have a few more seeds to plant in the garden and then we might go out shopping at some electronics stores. Our Home Theater stopped working, oh … about two years ago and we’ve tried everything to get it working again, but it just won’t work.

Every time we turn on the Home Theater system we get an “overload” message. We’ve unplugged various addons from the back (DVD player, cd player etc) to see if that helped and it didn’t, we’ve also plugged the machine into a different outlet and that didn’t help either. Then, about two weeks ao, on the advice of a salesperson at an electronics store Chris took the Home Theater apart and checked to see if the heat sink was covered in dust (it wasn’t) and checked for fuses inside the machine. We did find about 5 fuses but none of them looked blown so I guess the system is just plain blown and we’ll have to replace it.

So … maybe tomorrow we’ll go out and see if we can find a new home theater system receiver (without speakers and subwoofer since we have those) that isn’t too expensive and see if that will work. I really miss having the home theater system. I mean, we can’t watch DVD’s easily anymore and I can’t listen to CD’s unless I put them on the computer. I know I’d listen to a lot more music if we could get the home theater system working again.

Anyway, I guess since it looks like it will continue to rain on and off all weekend we’re just going to get things done around the house – mostly inside stuff unless the weather really clears up.

What are you doing this weekend? Are you going out to do something interesting or just doing home maintenance stuff like we are?

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