Tricia's Musings

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



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Lower your student loan payments and save money by consolidating

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It’s been a long time since both my husband and were in College and University. Do you believe that we each went to school twice? I’m sure you can imagine how much we had to pay off in student loans as a result. In fact, Chris was the last one to go back to School and for part of his re-education he went to a private college and oh my, the cost of that was way too high. We just finally finished paying it off in 2003.

We were dumb. We didn’t really think about Student Loan Consolidation and we should have considering for a time, we were both attempting to pay off our student loans at the same time, and at one point Chris was paying off loans for both his rounds of College.

If you are in the same boat that we were you should think about consolidating your student loans.

If your student loans were federally funded you can combine all of your student loans through NextStudent borrowers and manage your loan with one easy regular payment. You can also save thousands of dollars on interest, and you might even qualify for a low interest rate of perhaps 4.5%.

When I visited the NextStudent loan page I saw that if you borrowed from them for your student loan consolidation you could actually lower your monthly loan payments by as much as 60%. There are no hidden fees, in fact there are no fees or charges at all, and you don’t get any penalties applied if you choose to prepay or make a larger payment.

I wish that Chris and I had either thought of doing something like this with our student loans or discovered a company like NextStudent when we needed it so badly. I don’t even know if a company such as this was around when we had huge student loan debts hanging over our heads.

If you have outstanding student loans think about consolidating them. You’ll save money and take some of that stress off yourself too.





Over did it in the Garden?

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I was working in the garden yesterday for the first time in seven months! Oh my how my back is hurting now (2:45 a.m.). It’s stiff all the way to the tail bone and the bottom of my left foot is numb. I must have pinched a nerve.

I hope I didn’t hurt myself too badly because I’d like to get back out into the garden later today to finish up my work. Well, ok, I got half of the flower beds in the back yard garden finished, I’d at least like to finish the other half of the backyard today. I’ll still have some planting at the side of the house, the front garden and the boulevard to finish after that. One task at a time.

I actually felt pretty good while I was outside working. My stomach wasn’t bothering me and I was happy puttering away and getting my hands dirty. It’s always that way when I’m in the garden though. I don’t know that I might be hurting myself until later. Actually I’m like that with a lot of things – when I get a sunburn it doesn’t come out for hours, often when I’m out of the sun and that’s when I go oh oh!

Several years ago when I first got my roses I was busy trying to plant all of them at once. digging holes, amending the soil and planting each rose one at a time. I think I had something like 25 roses to plant and it took me a whole day to do it. My heel kept hurting as I worked. I thought that I might have had a blister but I kept working. It wasn’t until the next day that I discovered that my left foot and lower left leg were black and blue and totally swollen up. I’d ripped a tendon from the middle of my calf to the underside of the middle of my foot! OW. It took a full year to heal! (healing took a long time because I was doing 12 hour nursing shifts- always on my feet!)

So while gardening might be good for me mentally – it’s a stress release and it makes me happy – it’s not good for me physically because I don’t notice that I’m injuring myself until it’s too late!

Please cross your fingers that my back is only slightly strained and is back in working order about 12 hours from now.

The missing flower

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Last week, I think it was Wednesday, I happened to look out my front window and I noticed that our very first tulip of the year was blooming in the boulevard garden bed. It was morning and I was still busy doing some things around the house, so I took note of the flower and made a mental note to go outside later in the day to take a closer look and perhaps even photograph the flower.

Unfortunately that was not to be.

At some point in the afternoon I looked out the window again and saw that the flower was missing. Someone had picked it – taking the whole stem and all.

I couldn’t believe it! Someone had taken my first tulip. I didn’t even get to enjoy it. Can you believe that?

A lot of young school children walk by our house each day. There’s an elementary school just a few blocks away. I suspect that it was probably a child that took the flower. If it was I’m not that upset. However I still would have liked to have at least taken a closer look at it and perhaps taken that photo.

The tulips shown above grow in the back garden but they aren’t blooming yet. I took that photo last spring.

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

They eyes have it – learn eye makeup secrets

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As I’ve mentioned before on this site I studied to be a makeup artist and a special effects makeup artist when I first came to Toronto. I’d always had a strong interest in makeup, and as a teen spent quite a bit of time holding makeup sessions for my friends – making them look spectacular for the parties or clubs we were going out to that evening.

I guess I’ve had a few different careers haven’t I? It seems these days I’m a sick nurse and I suppose developing quite a nice home freelance writing business. I wonder what will be next?

As a former certified makeup artist I can tell you that applying your Eye Makeup correctly is very important. As you probably already know, if you have nice looking eyes people spend more time talking to you and likely find you more attractive. As far as makeup goes, the eyes, lips and brows are probably the most important features to pay attention to when you are doing your own makeup.

If you’d like to learn new techniques, or perhaps simply the proper techniques for applying eye makeup you should visit makeuptip.com. If you want to learn how to give yourself a sophisticated, elegant or dramatic look you’ll find some great articles with step by step instructions. You can also read articles about how to create a natural look using eyeliner, and how to make your eyes look both brighter and wider.

Visit Makeuptip.com and give yourself a new look today.

Looking for glass door knobs

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Does anyone else have an older home that they are renovating? We’ve stalled on our projects so I’m living in a house that’s half done. I hope we get back to it soon.

Even though our projects are way behind schedule I’m still keeping my eye out for items that I need to complete the finished look. If anyone knows of any great sites to get glass door knobs I’d really appreciate it.

I really like them, and our house came with a couple of them – on doors that we are no longer using. When I put in a new door to our basement and perhaps one between the kitchen and dinning room I’d like them to be glass – French doors with glass door knobs. Unfortunately the two glass door knobs that we do have don’t match.

What we have been doing is going to the local Habitat For Humanity store that’s pretty close to here and having a look around for glass door knobs. We’ve also been watching for garage sales – sometimes people sell their door knobs at yard sales. Plus, whenever it’s garbage day we watch for people to throw out old doors. We haven’t found one yet, but someday we might find an old door with a glass door knob on it and we’ll just remove the door knob if we do.

Any other ideas?

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