Tricia's Musings

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



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Cream Cheese Bagels and Laptop Computers Do Not Mix!

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I’m such a dork. Look what I did yesterday –

cream cheese on keyboard

This is truly only something I could do. I’m such a spaz!

Yeah … well … I was eating breakfast while working on my laptop. Consider this a lesson learned.

I leaned over to write something down on a piece of paper and PLOP went one half of a bagel covered in cream cheese onto my keyboard. Wrong side up of course!
Ugh!

What a mess!

I took the photo that you see above after I’d swiped at the cream cheese covered keys with a paper towel. It looked much worse before I wiped it.

I quickly realized that if I continued to try to wipe the cream cheese off the keyboard that I’d probably end up pushing it into the cracks between the keys and likely under the keys as well. So I went upstairs and I got several q-tips so I could try to clean the keys without pushing the cream cheese all over the place.

My husband was home since it was his day off. He was just shaking his head at me as if I do this every day! Then he remembered that we happened to have toothpicks in the kitchen, so he brought me the box and I started using them to pick the cream cheese from between the keys.

The toothpicks worked great!

As I cleaned the keys I also discovered that there was quite a bit of dust under the keys … well more than dust – more like dust balls and surprisingly quite a bit of my very fine auburn hair! Bleh! Who knew I was losing so much hair! I sure didn’t.

Considering the fact that I ended up cleaning dust balls from the whole keyboard I’d say that it took me well over an hour – perhaps even two hours to clean the keys. I even finished up by vacuuming the laptop and keyboard to get all the fine dust that I’d loosened with the toothpicks. Then I gave the keys a swipe with a rubbing alcohol soaked cotton ball to give it a final cleaning.

After all that, the laptop looks almost brand new again! I didn’t realize how dirty it really was. Thankfully I didn’t spill liquid on the keyboard … at least the cream cheese dried out a bit and started to flake off after a while.

Oh yeah, the puppy got in on the action too once I pulled out the vacuum. She loves that thing! So she got a vacuum too. Hey … she’s shedding – I’m pretty sure I vacuumed some of the loose hairs right off her.

What’s the worst thing you’ve spilled or dropped on your keyboard? And did you manage to clean it off?





Personalized gifts, stories, songs and DVDs for kids

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I’ve just come across a site that I think parents will love. The site is called Kids Personally and they specialize in personalizing kids DVDS, children’s book , kids songs, gifts and several other items that can personalized.

I’m not exactly sure how they personalized kids DVD but they can actually put pictures of your child in popular DVDs such as Spiderman, Dora the Explorer and other DVDs that are popular right now.

The companies premise is that a child using a book that’s been personalized or listening to a song that’s about them will pay more attention and likely learn more from the story that’s being told. Plus I’m sure it would make a child feel very special if they were to get anything with their name or image on it. I know when I was a kid I felt very special when I was given a name plate for my door that had my very hard to find name on it.

Kids Personally even has items like personalized alarm clocks that sings the childs’ name. How cool is that.

I don’t have any kids, but I do have young nieces and nephews. I think I just found a great site for Birthday and Christmas gifts for them. Visit the site to hear sample songs and view some of the great items. I’m sure you’ll like them.

Garden awash in flowers

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My garden is alive with flowers this week. Almost all of the rose bushes are heavy with spring blooms and other flowers like my Johnson’s Blue Geranium are going wild.

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Here’s a close up of one of the tiny flowers:

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Needless to say, Chris and I are enjoying the garden this year. The plants are healthy and many are quite a bit taller than they were last year at this time thanks to the heavy winter snow coverage they got a few months ago. I’m sure that protected them and helped keep them healthy.

Even the bumble bees are enjoying the garden. Here’s a little fellow collecting pollen from a tulip.

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How is your garden doing this week? Is it full of blooms too?

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post!

Major thunderstorm – Crash, Bang, BoooooM!

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Holy smokes! We’re having one of the worst thunderstorms that I can remember in recent years!

About 15 minutes ago we noticed that there was quite a bit of lightening outside. Unfortunately that’s when our Lab pup decided to ring the bell we have on our door to let us know she had to go outside to pee.

Since the storm was just starting I took her out, but it was kind of frightening. There was constant lightening and the thunder was only a few seconds apart which meant the storm was right above us.

Chris came outside too because we had a barbecue earlier in the evening and he had to close up the bbq.

Of course Midnight dawdled and we all ended up being soaked. She didn’t seem frightened of the brightly light sky or the thunder though – that’s a good thing.

Now that we’re inside the lightening and thunder is even worse. Midnights a little bit nervous now but we have the TV on and that’s dampening the sound of the storm a bit. As luck would have it she wants to go back outside. I’m not sure if she really has to relieve herself or if she just wants to see what’s going on outside – either way, we aren’t going back out there until the storm settles.

I just checked theweathernetwork.com and we’re under sever thunderstorm watches and tornadoes are even possible to the east of us.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we lose power! If we do I hope it’s not out for too long.

I just knew I should have taken pictures earlier today of all my roses that are blooming in my garden. I bet they’ll be destroyed by this storm!

Wish us luck!

Get fresh decorating ideas and share your sense of style at Micasastyle

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Do you enjoy decorating your home? Perhaps you’ve redecorated your bedroom – bought new curtains, bedding, painted the room and added some interesting pieces that brought the look of the room together?

I enjoy decorating the rooms in my home. Heck, if you read through this blog you’ll discover that we’ve slowly been renovating our whole home – tearing down walls, refinishing floors, venetian plastering the living room dining room and many other DIY tasks.

I love the sense of satisfaction I get when I’ve redecorated a room or completed a renovation project. If we get compliments from our friends and relatives when they visit our home that’s just icing on the cake.

If you’ve decorated a room in your house or completed a renovation project – even if you hired someone to bring your ideas to life and do the hard work, you might be interested in showing off your project over at Micasastyle. It’s an online community where you can share your design ideas with others who are interested in home decorating or perhaps visit to get fresh ideas for your next project.

You can registered as a member of Micasastyle for free and add photos of your space. Show off your decorating style and share your ideas.

Members can browse through photos on the site and as they view images of other members decorating projects they can leave comments, rate the images and as I said earlier members can share images of their own home as well.

When members upload photos of their spaces they can add information about where they got certain pieces. For example if you were to upload a photo of your living room you might add information about the cool lamp or wall decor that can be seen in the picture.

When you visit Micasastyle you’ll see the most recently added images, most popular and most viewed images on the front page. You can also search for specific decorating ideas by selecting “explore spaces” where you’ll find all the decorating image categories such as kitchens, living rooms, bedrooms and more.

I think this is a great site to get fresh ideas and to share your decorating style. Plus, if you have completed a decorating project you can possibly enter Micasastyles upcoming contest and win $10,000.

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