Tricia's Musings

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



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Your Life in Canvas – Check out PaintYourLife

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Have you ever thought how nice it would be to turn your favorite photo from your wedding into a canvas painting? Or perhaps you have a lovely photo of your parents together or your children that would make a beautiful portrait painting.

Well I’m pleased to tell you that PaintYourLife has made it possible to turn your photos into paintings.

PaintYourLife states that all their work is 100% handmade by portrait artists and as you can see from the photo that I’ve included above the paintings are of high quality.

I took a few moments to look through PaintYourLife’s gallery, looking at before and after comparisons of photos that had been sent in my clients and the paintings that the portrait artists had created and the work is just amazing.

It’s very easy to have a painting made of a favorite photo too. All you need to do is find a clear photo that you’d like to have made into a canvas. You can turn photos of people, pets, buildings or landscapes into paintings. It doesn’t have to be a high quality photo but if it’s a high quality photo all the better. You can send your photo to PaintYourLife via a digital upload or by postal mail.

Once you’ve picked out the photo that you want to have turned into a painting just visit the PaintYourLife site and fill out the request form. You can choose to have your painting done in oil, watercolor, charcoal, black or color pencil, pastel or acrylic. Then all you need to do is decide what size you want your painting and then tell the company whether you want the canvas sent to you unframed, Stretch canvas (Gallery wrap) or pick out a frame.

Doesn’t that sound easy?

Believe it or not once you send in your photo it can be made into a canvas in as little as 10 days! You’ll also get to preview your painting before it’s shipped to you.

I bet you think this service is expensive. It’s not really. You can get hand painted oil portraits or watercolor portraits for as little as $99. That’s quite affordable when you consider the high quality of the painting you’ll receive.

PaintYourLife portrait paintings would not only make a lovely addition to your home, but a beautiful gift for someone you love.





Chaos in the office!

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I was just speaking to my brother. The one that lives here in the Toronto area. He’s one of the senior employees at his workplace and they are renovating and revamping the whole office and their computer systems and software. By this I mean everything from new computer systems to the financial consolidation software they use, to the chairs they sit in.

Unfortunately for my brother, instead of closing down the office for a few days or moving the employees to an area that’s already been finished or that hasn’t been worked on they are trying to make them work in among the chaos.

He’s not able to get anything done so he decided to call me and see how things were going over here. We’re going to be having our big family reunion at the end of the month too so he wanted to square up a few details.

Poor guy. What else is he going to get done at work today – nothing! Hopefully they finish up his office over the weekend.

All alone

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Yesterday I was supposed to go to Brantford with my husband to see his family and spend some time with his brother before he goes back to Chicago, but I had yet another bad night and Chris went on his own.

So I’ve been home alone all day yesterday and all night.

That’s ok. I don’t think I make very good company when I’m not feeling well. I spent a good portion of the day lying on the couch mindlessly watching TV. I only do that when I’m really not feeling up to much else and I just hate it.

I’m hoping that I’ll start to feel a bit better this week. Chris took this whole week off work so I’m hoping we can do something fun on our own and maybe get a bit more work done in our garden.

One side effect of my brother in laws visit was that he brought a big bag of Cheetos with him. Now I haven’t had Cheetos for a long time! I love them – they don’t love me, but I love them. So … I’ve been snacking on them here and there.

Hey it’s hard to resist a snack that you like when you haven’t had it for years! LOL

Ohhhhhh what a weekend!

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I’m supposed to be in Niagara Falls right now.

Chris’ brother came to visit from Chicago and our house has been full of people since Saturday. Chris’ brother, T, brought his daughter and son, as well as a friend of his daughters so that was four extra people, then Chris’ younger sister came to visit with her husband and their young daughter. Include Chris and I in that total and that makes nine people milling around our tiny home!

On Saturday evening we went to The Taste of the Danforth. Never try going to the most crowded street festival you’ve ever been to with nine people! OMG we spent more time losing the teenagers and looking for them than doing anything else. I was so terribly disappointed since this was my first time going to the taste in three years and it was a disaster.

After we got back from the Taste of the Danforth more people came to our house! A few old friends of Chris and his brother showed up and we sat in the garden and talked, and drank until the wee hours.

On Sunday we were supposed to go to Ontario Place, The beach, a beach club, dinner and then the CN tower. Well … it rained for a good portion of the afternoon so we made it to the Beach Club and sat on the patio under under umbrella’s by the lake. It was actually pleasant even though it was drizzling for at least two hours while we were there. We then ended up going to a nice restaurant in the Beaches called Quigley’s. I had a few of the baby back ribs I ordered (very large portion sizes) and yum, all of the home made very delicious fries that came with my meal. I doggy bagged the remainder of my meal, and so did a few of the others we were with so we have lots of left overs to graze on this evening.

Our plans changed, again, as usual … and we were supposed to do the CN Tower today and Niagara Falls, but I just wasn’t up to it. I’ve been getting sicker and sicker over the last couple of weeks and two days of house guests, staying up late, drinking when I shouldn’t and being more than a little bit over stressed must have made me feel worse because I had a terrible night last night. I don’t know how many times I was up to the bathroom. I felt so ill, nauseated, in pain, fevers, chills … there was no way I was going anywhere today – including the doctors appointment I was supposed to have at ten a.m.!

I’ve spent much of the day lying on the couch groaning in pain. I’ve only just come back to life and it’s already after 7 pm!

I did have fun getting together with our friends and family, but considering how ill I’ve been it was too much for me. Plus I shouldn’t have drank anything! Not that I drank a lot mind you. Two drinks on Saturday and three on Sunday. That’s not too bad, but considering I don’t really drink much anymore that was enough.

I took photos of the crowds at the Taste of the Danforth and some lovely shots while at the beach – including one of my husband when he went swimming. He climbed up on some rocks and mooned everyone! LOL Yeah, I got a snap of that!

I’ll post some of the photos over the next few days.

Time for Taste of the Danforth

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Toronto is a wonderful city to live in. Beginning in May and clear through to fall there’s something to do almost every weekend. There’s the Toronto Street Festival, The Gay Pride Parade, Food Festivals, Caribana, the Just for Laughs festival and my favorite event of all – The Taste of the Danforth.

We moved into this part of Toronto, Greek Town, The Danforth, in June of 2001 and almost every year since we moved here we’ve been going to The Taste of the Danforth.

Unfortunately we’ve missed the last two years because Chris’ brother always picks this time of year to come for a visit from Chicago. This year he’s visiting again, but I’m determined that he’s not going to stop us from going to the Taste of the Danforth this year.

It’s a shame not to go. We only live about 10 minutes away from the festivities. It’s so easy to walk back and forth to the festival that it’s almost a crime not to go.

The Taste of the Danforth is of course on Danforth Avenue in Toronto. Several blocks of the Danforth are closed off and all of the restaurants and stores set up tables and serving areas outdoors. It’s a time to experience the culture of the area and taste the many foods of the various ethnic groups that live in this part of the Beaches and The Danforth village.

The area is mainly Greek so there’s naturally going to be a lot of Greek foods, but there will also be foods from India, Spain, China, Thailand, Muslim foods, Irish and even vegetarian foods.

The Taste of the Danforth is always held on the second weekend of August and it runs from that Friday evening at 6 pm until Sunday at 6 pm. In that time period there should be well over a million people wander the Danforth, tasting foods, stopping in beer and wine tents, putting their kids on children’s rides, and listening to live bands. This year along with a number of musicians and bands there will be performances by Second City and some of the performers from “We Will Rock You” the Queen and Freddy Mecury related theater production that’s running in the Canon Theater in downtown Toronto.

As I said I’m not going to let my brother in law stop me from going this year. He can sit in our garden if he doesn’t want to go. I’m going. The only thing that will stop me is my own health and I’m determined to go no matter what so I’ll have to be awfully sick if I don’t attend this year.

If you live in the Toronto area come on down! It’s worth the trip.

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