Family – Page 35

Slush, Margeritas and the Ocean – a salty bunch

March 3, 2007 by Tricia

I should have looked at this weeks Photo Hunter theme earlier. The theme this week is Salty and I’m having trouble figuring out what I could post for it.

We just had a snow and ice storm so I suppose that I could take a photo of the slushy streets as I’m sure the melting snow contains some salt. Yes, when we have ice storms I think they still use some salt in the mix when the city clears the streets.

My brother came to Toronto from Vancouver with his wife. He’s here for a business conference, but his wife just tagged along so that she could shop and visit with us, my sister and one of my other brothers.

Chris and I will be getting together with them this afternoon. I’m not sure what we’ll be doing – perhaps some shopping, maybe just walking around downtown and seeing some of the sights. Either way I plan on bringing my camera along. Perhaps I’ll find some interesting things to take pictures of. Toronto is an interesting city … and now that I know that next weeks Photo Hunter theme is architecture I know which Toronto building I’d love to get a shot of. You’ll love it!

Later this evening we’re going to meet up with my sister and my other brother and perhaps some of my nephews and nieces for dinner in a downtown restaurant. Maybe I’ll order a margarita and take a photo of it’s “Salty” rim? That would work!

I’ve been feeling so rotten lately that I haven’t been out much. It will be nice to get out and visit with my relatives as well as just be out of this house. Of course I think I’m going to be out for 10+ hours, so I hope I’m up for it. It’ll be a drag if I’m feeling horrible by the time our dinner out rolls around.

I’ll leave you with this photo that my friend Jordan sent me. It is Salty since it’s a photo of the ocean:

Have a great weekend!

Greek Food

February 22, 2007 by Tricia

Since I’ve been having kind of a bad week Chris and I decided to order some take out food from one of our favorite restaurants. We haven’t order from that restaurant for a long time, or treated ourselves to much take out since we are trying to watch our money, so it was quite special.

We ordered the vegetarian Mousaka, Spanakopita, Saganaki, and lamb chops. The two meals came with their yummy Greek potatoes and rice, and a nice tossed salad.

Mousaka is similar in some ways to Sheppard’s pie. The regular version has a ground meat at the bottom. Since it’s Greek food I doubt that it’s hamburger. It’s probably ground lamb or pork. The top is mashed potato. The vegetarian version is what we ordered and the bottom is made up of grilled veggies- mostly eggplant.

Spanakopita – is Filo (light flaky pastry) wrapped spinach and cheese.

Saganaki – is a type of goat cheese that is very lightly breaded with cornmeal and then they pour either Vodka or Ouzo on it and set it on fire – lightly toasting it. Yum.

Right, so it probably wasn’t the healthiest meal for me to have. Especially since I seem to have problems with corn meal. I had awful pain after eating dinner for hours and hours, but you know what? I loved the taste of it and that’s all that counts. I have to treat myself occasionally even if I have to pay for it.

If you’re curious and you’d like to see what food we ate, you can visit the Omonia Restaurant and look at their menu. I’ve eaten in the restaurant twice, but for some reason I enjoy their food better as take out.

What do you know- I checked to see if I spelled the names of the various foods we ate properly and I did spell all of our menu items correctly. This Greek neighborhood must be growing on me.

How we save money

February 14, 2007 by Tricia

I’m always looking for ways to save money since I really don’t have much of an income coming in while I’m sick at home.

One way that I’ve found to save a bit of money is to take a good look at our home insurance to see if we have anything on the policy that we don’t need to be covered for, and I’ve combined our home insurance with our car insurance as that has provided us a discount from our insurance company.

We don’t really have any outstanding personal loans, and have no plans to take one out unless our car breaks down or something. We’ve applied for 0% balance transfers credit cards and expect to save quite a bit of money when we use our new credit cards.

Another way that we’ve attempted to save money was by adjusting our mortgage from monthly payments to bi-weekly payments. Now for those with mortgages that might not really seem like much of a savings since we are paying pretty much the same every two weeks combined as we did when we paid monthly, but the bank only charges interest at the beginning of the month and by paying twice a month we’ve actually lowered the amount of interest on our mortgage and this will result in our paying off our mortgage several years earlier than originally calculated.

The final way that we’ve attempted to save money is by earning higher interest on our current accounts. We’ve set up accounts at a bank that offers good interest rates even on low bank balances. I suppose this isn’t a savings, but earning interest on a balance that we couldn’t earn interest on in our regular bank accounts does give us a small gain doesn’t it?

How do you save money or cut costs? I’m always looking for tips!

Sometimes I wonder about my husband

January 23, 2007 by Tricia

Yesterday, while I was still sleeping Chris was up and about. He decided to get some errands done.

I don’t know which order he did these in, but it doesn’t matter, I wasn’t all that thrilled when I found out about them.

One of his errands was to go to our hair dresser to get his haircut. He didn’t need a haircut, and without me there to tell her not to do it she gave him a BEAN SHAVE. Ok it’s not that bad, but it’s short, short, short. I’m not enthused. Plus, we usually go together. Yeah we’re one of those couples that do most everything together.

So now, when I need to get my hair cut he won’t need a cut.

He put us out of sync!

Chris also went and got his nails done. Yes you heard me right. I said he got his nails done.

The nail thing began last April.

You see he’s a guitar player and he’s quite serious about his music. Many of the top guitar players either coat their nails to make them stronger or wear fake nails and use them when they are picking. They holding up better than real unaltered nails in most cases.

My husband actually envies my nails. They grow fast and they are rock hard. I have to be careful that I don’t accidentally tap someone with my nail or hit them as I’m walking by as it really hurts.

So … last April he finally decide to get fake nails, but only on his right hand. You can read about my reaction to his fake nails if you’d like.

I think he’s had his nails done at least four times now. I’m slowly getting used to it but I still think it looks weird. I also don’t really like it when he touches me with those nails. It just feels weird. Do guys feel that way when they are touched by a womans fake nails?

Chris is funny. Over the past year he’s been very fixated on his nails and has been trying to get them in better shape. He’s got a few little bottles of nail conditioners and clear nail polish too! Plus he’s always filing the nails to shape them (files them wrong in my opinion, maybe that’s why they feel so darn weird), or filing callus’ off his hands.

I don’t mind nice smooth hands but the nails stuff is making me crazy.

I guess I just have to face the fact that I married an odd guy. At least he keeps me amused.

My traveling brother

January 9, 2007 by Tricia

My brother just came back from a trip to San Diego. He’s becoming quite the traveler. Every year he and his wife take at least two trips. Last year they went to Africa and went on safari. This year, they had the San Diego trip and in a couple of week they’ll be off to India. I only wish that Chris and I could travel like that.

Anyway, my brother called this evening and told me all about his trip. They went to the zoo and took in a few productions, and he told me they went to the most amazing restaurant. My brother never gushes over food and as he described their meals he was making me drool. If he enjoyed the restaurant then it had excellent food. Unfortunately I can’t remember the name of the restaurant that he was describing to me. I’ve been trying to see if I can figure it out by looking up San Diego restaurants on Discover San Diego, but I’m not having any luck. I’ll have to call him tomorrow and ask him what the name of the restaurant was. I’m going to write the name down, because if it was as good as he described I’m going to go there some day when Chris and I go to San Diego for a visit. At least in the mean time I’ve been learning a bit more about the city from my brothers travels and by reading Discover San Diego. I like learning about new places – especially ones that I’d like to visit.

Slush, Margeritas and the Ocean – a salty bunch

Greek Food

How we save money

Sometimes I wonder about my husband

My traveling brother

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