Tricia's Musings

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



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Give your loved one a very special day

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Valentines day will soon be here and it’s time to start thinking about a great gift for that special someone.

There’s a UK based company called Red Letter Days that specializes in providing special gifts in the form of an experience day. Now, an experience day is not only for Valentines, but since that’s the closest special holiday where we tend to pamper those we love I think it’s worth checking out.

Red Letter Days has an assortment of very special experience days that would make perfect valentines day gifts for him or for her.

You can gift the gift of a special experience day to your loved one in a variety of ways. There are special driving, adventure, pampering, flying, culture, gourmet, lifestyle, sports, wildlife and water related experience days. There are also special experience days for couples, and even junior experience days for kids.

Considering that Red Letter Days has such a variety of special experience days to choose from you should be able to give your loved one a dream experience.

As an example, if you wanted to get a special gift for your husband you might want to check out the activity gifts section. Perhaps the gift of a Ferrari or Aston Martin driving experience day might thrill him. Among the many experiences you’ll find body flying, Tandem Skydiving, tank driving, North pole fly in, the sports car thrill and many more.

There’s even an experience called the Yippee Ki Yay Action Day which sounds like it’s right out of Die Hard:

* Live Free or DIE HARD!
* Your mission is to play at being John McClane for the day
* Receive specialist instruction in evasive driving, weapons training and unarmed combat
* Like the movie, there’s even a helicopter rescue element in the final showdown
* Refreshments and safety equipment all included

For the ladies one might consider the Urban Spa Ritual, Mosimann’s Academy, a recording studio experience, An Italian Cookery Masterclass, Topshop VIP Experience, Makeover, Photoshoot and Four Prints, massage, chocolate wrap and several other luxury experiences.

You can use the personal gift finder to help you pick out the perfect gift for your loved one, or you can simply browse through the categories as I’ve done until you find something that sounds just right. If you can’t decide you can always purchase a gift card so that your special someone can decide on their own special experience.

Many of the experiences are located in the UK, but there are others that are located in other parts of the world such as Norway or Asia so I think that the site is worth checking out no matter where you happen to live.





New baby in the family soon

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I heard from my niece yesterday. She was writing up all her thank you cards for all of the baby gifts she received at her baby shower a week ago. She said that the baby room and one of their spare rooms are just filled with things for the baby! A good portion of which are things that they got as gifts.

She did well!

I can’t wait for the baby to be born. She due February 22nd. I was just thinking that it would be nice if she had her baby on the 18th though as that is our new Statutory holiday here in Ontario. The new holiday is called Family Day so I figured it would be fitting if she had her little girl that day. Of course this is her first baby so it will probably be late.

My niece took in a nice haul at her shower

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Last Sunday I went to my brothers house in Aurora for my niece’s baby shower.

Earlier in the week I’d gone out shopping with Chris to pick up something on her baby gift registry. Instead of getting just one item on her list I got three, plus one extra gift. I couldn’t help myself! Plus it didn’t hurt that everything I bought had an extra 20% off either!

I got her and Eddie Bauer diaper bag, a Jolly Jumper baby carrier, a soother pin with a cute little duck on it and a teething ring that can be put in the freezer.

A lot of people turned out for the shower and she got a lot of gifts. She did really well! We all passed each gift around and some of the things were so very nice.

My sister and her daughter were also at the shower so I got a ride back to the subway with them. Well, actually my nieces boyfriend came to pick us up in his parents Charger. I didn’t realize how much that car had changed over the years!

I remember when I was in high school one of my good friends boyfriends had a Dodge Charger. I think it was a 1970 or ’72 or something and that was quite the car! The newer Charger that my nieces boyfriend was driving looked like a toy car compared to the old Chargers that I remember. It was a nice ride though. Very smooth.

I’d say it almost looked like a kit car. Maybe I got that impression because it had billet grilles, fancy hubcabs and other add ons. I guess my nieces boyfriends father must be a car enthusiast.

It was great to see some of my family and my niece who’s expecting. She looked great. She due near the end of February and it looks like they are having a little girl.

I’m pretty sure when the babies born that I’ll be buying more gifts. That babies going to be spoiled!

I’m stuffed

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I’m stuffed and tired.

I spent the afternoon cooking a Christmas dinner for three that probably would have served eight to ten people easily. Naturally that means we have tons of leftovers!

I made mashed potatoes; mashed sweet potatoes with brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg; steamed asparagus with a little butter and lemon; sweet peas; stuffing with pine nuts; cranberry jelly; sweet and dill pickles, turkey gravy and of course the main entree – a 16 lb turkey. Yummy! We also had plum pudding with rum sauce for dessert. I also had a pumpkin pie on hand, but none of us had any of that.

My sister arrived around 4 pm and we ate at about 6. I had started preparing the turkey just after noon and it was in the oven by a little after one.

I did the majority of cooking, but Chris helped out by washing our good china, crystal and silverware before we used it. We hadn’t used it for a while and it was kind of dusty! Then he helped out by clearing most of the table and doing the majority of the dishes afterwords.

There’s a lot of food and turkey left over. We only ate a bit of one side of the turkey and I haven’t carved the rest of the meat off of it yet either. In fact we were all so stuffed and tired after dinner that I just put the turkey in the enclosed back porch (it’s cool out there and it’s -2 Celsius out right now) so it’s almost as if it’s in the fridge. Sometime later this evening I’ll work on getting the meat off the bone and pack it away properly.

Since we’ve had our puppy ( a month and a day, she’s 16 weeks old today) we haven’t had any guests over. We’ve had people to the door, but no visitors. So my sister was the first guest to spend some time with Midnight in our home.

My sisters voice is similar to mine and I have a feeling that we must smell similar as most of the pets I’ve had in the past have taken to her right away. Just as I expected Midnight loved my sister and she really liked our baby too. My sister used to have two dogs and she’s raised puppies before so she was very comfortable giving commands to the puppy and the puppy paid attention to what she said for the most part.

Overall it was a great day for all of us. Midnight is very tired. In fact she’s finally just settled down on the floor by the couch and she’s fast asleep. I’ll put her in her crate soon. Her eye has been good for the last few days but now that she’s so tired her eye looks a bit swollen again. I hope it’s just because she’s overtired and not yet another problem.

I hope everyone had a great day too and that you’re all stuffed with great food too!

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