Tricia's Musings

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



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Glad this busy Saturday is over!

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I’m coming to the end of yet another thoroughly busy day. I started out this morning by doing a little bit of house cleaning. Actually, it was more than a little bit of house cleaning as I was tackling the basement which I like to call our storage area.

I think it’s just about time for us to have a yard sale. Unfortunately I don’t think our yard is big enough! We have a lot of stuff we could get rid of, and believe me, I wouldn’t miss any of it.

I have a few boxes in the basement that I really haven’t unpacked from when we moved from our apartment ten years ago! I even found items that I used to use when I was a jeweler, I hung on to some of the tools because some of them could be used in the house, but items like my jewelery scale that I used for weighing gold that only weighed up to 300 grams or my old micrometers for measuring pieces of gold or metal, and of course my old ring sizing mandrel – what would I need any of those things for now? My sister is still in the jewelery trade I suppose I can give her some of my tools if she wants them and then sell the rest. Who can’t use extra money?

We also store extra or spare furniture in the basement. I was going to refinish a few of the pieces, but I don’t think I’m going to use them now so I’d be perfectly happy to let them go in a yard sale.

The basement is a big job so I only put the morning into it for now, then in the afternoon I went out shopping with my husband. We were about to go to the Toronto Humane Society to look at dogs that are up for adoption when we were done shopping but it was too late in the day. We’ll got tomorrow or Monday. Like I said in my last post I’ve been thinking of getting a second dog for quite a while now and because of recent events I want a true guard dog. Ha!

Then, an old friend came over for dinner. An old Russian friend from back in the days when I worked in the jewelery trade. It seems like everyone was corrupt in the business in those days except my sister, myself and a few other people and by corrupt I mean doing other things other than jewelery. Anyway these friends of mine have always had my back so they’re going to keep an eye on this situation too.

Now I’m ready to just relax!

How ’bout you? Did you have a busy Saturday too?





Finally rearranged the living room

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Remember that mini-renovation project that turned into a bigger job that I told you about last week? Well, my husband and I finally finished it!

You see, in preparation for our new TV my husband and I decided that we wanted to rearrange the living room. Sounds simple enough, right? The only problem was the electrical outlets where the TV was going to go in the “new arrangement” weren’t hooked up! We’d disconnected them a few years ago when we were doing other reno projects in the room and never hooked them back up.

So my husband had to rehook up two electrical outlets and we put baseboard molding along that wall. We still have to put baseboard molding around the rest of the room (and finishing putting the Tin ceiling in too!).

We did finish the electrical hook up and the baseboards, but we didn’t rearrange the room because that’s when I started getting sick with this terrible head cold. Yes I still have it! Luckily it’s not quite as bad as last week, but now I’ve got fevers with it, so I’m hoping it’s not about to turn into pneumonia or something. Sigh.

Yesterday we got word that our TV will be ready for pick up on Friday, so since it was my husbands day off and I was feeling ok we decided to get to work and rearrange the room.

I’m now sitting on the opposite side of the room typing this post on my notebook computer and it feels weird! We used to have the loveseat and couch close together sort of in an L-shape but now, I’m on one side of the room on the big couch and my husband is on the other side on the loveseat.

Let me tell you, rearranging all that furniture wasn’t an easy task!

We have really big living room furniture! We have a large leather couch, love seat and an easy chair. Plus we also have a 50″ HDTV and a big dog crate in the room. The living room and dining room are connected (we knocked down walls when we first got the house) so it’s like one big room, but of course we do have a dining room table so it’s two rooms in one big room. The actual living room is about 15 feet wide by 20 feet long. Not a lot to work with when you have big furniture. LOL

We moved the big couch, easy chair and love seat around several times before we finally found just the right spots for each of them, We thought the TV was going to go on the opposite wall from where it had been, but we discovered that it looks much better in the corner by the window on an angle. Yes, it blocks the window just a little bit, but this configuration works best.

It does make the room feel a lot bigger, but it’s going to take some getting used to!

Do you ever rearrange the furniture in your living room or bedroom? If you do, do you find it feels a little strange for a few days?

Well my Redneck neighbors are finally gone!

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The nightmare is over …

Ahh … a sigh of relief! My redneck nuisance neighbors are finally completely gone – only three days after their rental lease ended!

These are the neighbors that moved into the house next door in January. I call them rednecks because they were loud, didn’t take care of the house or property (you should see the weeds in the backyard, some are five feet tall!) and well … they seemed to collect tires and cars!

As they slowly moved out of the house next door (moving began the second weekend of August) I counted a total of 16 tires being moved from their backyard and maybe the basement! Who the heck needs 16 tires?

They were the worst movers too. They borrowed a truck from a friend (looked like a UPS truck but it was painted silver) for a few of their moves but they didn’t know how to pack the truck. It seemed like they were just carrying things out one at a time and hadn’t packed anything at all!

I thought that they were finally out of the house on Saturday, but on Monday the guy showed up with his son and they started hauling stuff out of the basement! However, they didn’t take much of it away. Instead they put a big HD flat screen TV on the front porch as well as two single mattresses and some other stuff and left it there until today! They’re lucky that nobody stole it off the porch!

I think that someone was casing the house last night though … there was a guy standing outside my house last night for about 15 minutes and he kept looking at my neighbors porch. He was also trying to call someone … I wouldn’t be surprised if he was trying to contact someone with a truck so that they could steal that TV!

Oh and on Monday when the guy and his son were hauling stuff out of the basement window they piled most of it in the driveway. It was garbage bags full of clothes, a tacky set of cupboards, a very used dresser and a bunch of other stuff. Our driveway looked worse than it did during the 6 week long garbage strike (at least it smelled a bit better!).

If I needed any proof that they were ignorant low class people I got it on Tuesday when the home owners son and wife came to take a look at the house and clean it up! They let me come in and they showed me how their renters had painted the walls (tacky colors and stripes on the doors???) and how the paint was peeling and bubbling everywhere because they must have used latex paint over oil paint!

The carpets were ruined as well! They got a puppy in January shortly after they moved in and from the looks of it the dog did his business on the carpet – several times. There were stains all over the carpet in the living room, dining room and hall way.

I know they kept the dog in the kitchen most of the time, but the dog ruined that room too. The home owners had put in nice laminated wood flooring in the kitchen before they rented the house and now the floors are scratched and bubbling up in places. Not something that usually happens to laminate so that dog must have been peeing all over the place and they must not have even tried to clean it up! Can you imagine cooking meals in a kitchen that had uncleaned dog pee in it? Yuck!

The rednecks also broke two chandeliers and a window. The chandeliers were ones that my old neighbor (Stalker – Sofie) who’s about 88 years old now, made when she was much younger and worked in a lighting factory. So they’re old chandeliers and had sentimental value as the woman had made them herself! They also managed to crack the porcelain tile in the bathroom. How, I don’t know!

All in all I think that it cost the homeowners more to rent to these low class people than it should have! They tore out the carpeting today and are having it replaced. I think they’ll also have to replace the kitchen floor, fix that cracked porcelain, repair at least one window pane and repaint most of the house! Oh yeah, and clear out all the weeds in the backyard!

There were some new people looking at the house the other day and they might move in as early as September 15th. They haven’t signed the lease yet though, so I don’t know if they’ll be my new neighbors or not. In a way I’m half hoping that they don’t move in because they were recommended my the former renters! Ah! They’re friends! If they do move in I hope that they don’t turn out to be anything like the people that just moved out as that was a nightmare for Chris and I (yes we fought over the things that our neighbors were doing because they frustrated us so much!) and an even worse nightmare for the home owners!

I’ve I’ve learned anything from this it’s that renting out a house is kind of scary! You never know what tenants you’ll get! (or in our case neighbors!)

Have you ever had nightmare neighbors or rented a house or room to someone that just destroyed the property?

Whew … got my brother and his wife all moved into their condo!

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Boy, am I tired!

My husband and I got up early today and traveled outside the city so that we could help my brother move from his house to his new condo! Figures it was a hot, muggy and rainy day! (well it only rained a little where we were, but there was a huge downpour here in Toronto!).

When we arrived at my brothers house we discovered that they had started the move earlier than planned. I guess my brother and his wife got up early and started moving boxes outside beside the moving truck and when my sister-in-laws sisters and one of their husbands arrived they started moving the really heavy stuff (bed, china cabinet, freezer etc).

Still … there were lots of boxes to move and pack into the truck so even though the truck was at least a 1/3 packed when we got there, there was still a lot to do. Luckily there were a lot of us helping so it only took about an hour to pack the van.

Then the waiting began. My brother had to wait until the lawyer received the payment from the person who bought his house, and then the money was supposed to be transferred from his own bank account to his lawyer to pay for the condo … all before they could get the key to the new condo so moving in could begin …

We sat around talking in their backyard as we waited. I hadn’t see my sister-in-laws sisters since my niece’s baby shower about a year and a half ago! Lots of catching up to do!

My brother only had the elevator in the condo until 5 pm – after than people aren’t allowed to use it for moving or deliveries. So we waited and waited, calling his lawyer every once in a while to find out how things were progressing and if they could get the key to the condo soon. If he didn’t get the key on time we were all willing to come back on Wednesday morning to help them complete the move.

In the end, they didn’t get the key until 4 p.m.! Luckily their new condo was only a couple minute drive from their old house! We scooted over there and started packing things onto the elevator at about 4:15 pm.

We broke up into teams to make the work go faster … my sister-in-law, my husband, my nephew and my niece’s husband were upstairs unpacking the elevator and moving things into the condo, while the rest of the gang were downstairs unpacking the moving truck and loading up the elevator.

We really had some good team work going! Can you believe we unpacked and moved a full moving truck of household items in 45 minutes!

Between the moving, the heat and the effects of a long day I was a sweaty red faced mess by the time the final elevator load was moved into the condo!

While all this was going on our dog, Midnight was at home in her crate. I think we left her on her own for about 9 hours! That’s the longest she’s ever been alone. Man was she happy to see me when I came into the house and let her out of her crate! She just circled me and circled me, occasionally taking a good look at my face as if to ask “Are you really here?” LOL So she’s one happy puppy this evening!

And I’m one tired person this evening …

To top things off, about two hours after we got home i got a call from my brother in Vancouver. Guess who’s coming back into town for a quick business meeting? Uh huh … he’s flying in tomorrow night and he’ll stay over at our place for two days before returning home.

So I guess this is the week that I help my brothers! Hmmm I wonder if my oldest brother will call about an upcoming visit now? LOL

Moving out of State or across the country? Try U-Pack Moving

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It seems like a lot of people in my neighborhood are packing up and moving away this year. At one point, back in June, the two houses closest to use were empty and a house a few doors down went up for sale and the owner moved out almost immediately after she sold her house.

The house beside us, Sofie’s – my elderly neighbor, just went up for sale. She had a mild stroke in February and her family spent the summer fixing up the house and they just put it up for sale a week ago. Now another neighbor is selling their home too.

All these neighbors moving away and new neighbors moving in got me thinking about the hassles of moving. It’s a big job and it can be quite expensive to move too, especially if you are moving to a new city or perhaps even a new State.

I just learned of a company that offers what I think is a unique moving system. It’s called U-Pack Moving.

The concept is simple. You contact them regarding a Truck Rental and then on your moving day they’ll deliver a trailer or one of their ReloCubes to your home, you pack the truck with your items and then the company will drive the truck to the location of your new home.

The cost of your move is based on the amount of space your items take up in the trailer or the ReloCubes rather than the weight of your items. You can save a lot of money this way.

Plus, I don’t know about you, but when you rent a moving truck to do a move yourself … well .. someone has to drive it. I know when we moved I wasn’t comfortable driving the truck so my husband had to do all of the driving. Since the U-Pack Moving company drives the truck for you that’s bound to ease some of the stress of a move especially if you’re moving out of State!

If you are planning a move in the near future you might want to go online and get a free quote for their Moving Services or you can call their 1-800 number to get a free quote.

I wonder if any of my neighbors that have moved away have used a moving service like this. It sounds like a great idea.

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