Tricia's Musings

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



You are here: Home / Archives for Home and Lifestyle

Everyone’s back from Mexico now

by

Well it looks like the gang that went to Mexico for the last week are back in Canada. Yep. Remember a few months ago I wrote a post about how my husbands niece was getting married in June … in Mexico .. and how we couldn’t go because we just couldn’t afford it? Well, the wedding was this past weekend.

My husbands mother, nephew, sister and brother in law all went to Mexico last week. His other brother (father of the bride) and the bride and groom and the rest of that family are from Chicago and they went to Mexico last week as well … so along with all the many other invited guests it was a week long party from what I understand!

I think they mostly stayed at the resort, but they did go on a few bus tours to a few places. I know my mother in law wanted to see some ruins. My brother in law told us about driving atvs and how much he liked the atv power steering. I guess he’d never had a chance to drive ATV’s before so he had a great time. I just hope he hadn’t been drinking too much when he did it!

We might go to see the in-laws this weekend, if we do I’m sure we’ll see lots of pictures from the wedding and hear some interesting stories about all the things that we missed!





Another lay off coming up for my husband

by

My husband is going through temporary layoffs at work again this year.

He went through them in December of 2009, then for two weeks last summer and then again this past December and now this summer his going to have two one week lay offs. It’s too much.

There have been so many cuts to heath care positions in Ontario that this is what it’s come to in the last two years .. constant temporary layoffs and job cuts. It’s awful. My husband has been keeping his eye out for any other healthcare jobs but there really aren’t any that he likes better than the position that he has now.

I have a feeling that sometime in the next few months he might be in a totally different career. With me on unpaid medical leave and him being laid off four weeks for two years in a row … well somethings gotta change.

A smelly situation

by

Wow … the neighbor that I wrote about in my last post, the one that made a ton of noise last weekend while renovating was actually kind of human this evening! That’s a first.

I actually had to call him earlier in the week. I didn’t want to, but I had to. You see, they’ve been renovating a lot and haven’t done much with their backyard and as a result they’ve piled up some stuff in their backyard … like an old carpet that they pulled out of the house and several other things and with all the rain that stuff got wet and I think it started to rot and smell and well … it smelled so bad that it made me wonder if something had died in their yard!

He finally came by this evening and after doing some renovation work inside for a few hours he came outside and started cleaning up some of the mess. I think that mosquitoes had started breeding in the wet rug too because I’ve been getting bit by them all week and I almost never get mosquito bites lately … but I must have had 100 this week alone! I’d better not get West Nile thanks to my neighbor and his wet rotting rug! LOL

My husband and I happened to be outside in the backyard doing some work when our neighbor came outside to clean up his mess and we all started talking. It was the first decent conversation we’d had in months. I guess one the machines that he’s using inside needs a new part or something so that was slowing him down .. he and my husband were saying something about thrust bearings but I’m not sure exactly what they were for.

Anyway … he bagged up the smelly stuff but didn’t take it away yet. Hopefully he’ll be back tomorrow with his dads van to haul it away then I’ll know for sure that I’ll be able to enjoy my beautiful garden without that awful smell!

Inconsiderate people – Sick and tired of them

by

The neighbors in the house next door showed up this afternoon to renovate their house. This is the house on the other side of us that`s been unoccupied for over a year.

I don`t understand why our neighbors only show up to renovate sporadically. For example they didn’t show up all week or even last weekend, and then today then arrived at about 3:30 pm with a few relatives and started banging away.

My husband and I went out in the late afternoon and when we came home it was after 8 pm and there was a huge van squeezed into our shared driveway. It was so big it was hanging out over the sidewalk. I hate it when they do that because people passing by can`t walk on the sidewalk and there are a lot of people going by with strollers, carriages and even handicapped people so it`s not fair to block the sidewalk. Plus I`m pretty sure that if the police came around they`d get a pretty hefty fine, but of course they`d probably come to our door first thinking it was our vehicle. GRRRRR.

Then .. just a little while ago they started using a hammer drill or some other kind of loud drill. It shook our house. Bad enough for us … but their house is a semi-detached too and their closest neighbor (ie their semi-detached partner) is an elderly lady! Poor Helen is about 85 years old and I`m sure she doesn’t need to hear that kind of noise. It probably made her think her seniors life insurance was running out! LOL

I can`t believe how inconsiderate they`re being. I wanted to go and talk to them – about the noise and the van in the driveway but my husband doesn’t want us to have anything to do with them. He figures they`ll get a ticket for parking the van that way at some point and that the elderly ladies son will eventually speak up for her. Her son is a wimp so I don`t know about that …

Anyway I`m kind of sick of inconsiderate people.

We’ve just got to finish our living room dining room reno!

by

I know I say it just about every year, but this year is the year that we’re going to finish our renovations. I think the problem the other years is that I was the one saying it, but my husband wasn’t the least bit into doing it.

This year I think he might actually be starting to get the idea of just how fed up I’m feeling. Plus, hey … I tend to do more than half the work anyway … so what’s he worried about?

Just to prove that he’s starting to get the picture he actually tried giving his brother in law a phone call to see if he could come and help us one weekend. Our brother in law was on the computer looking for new hot tub cover at BeyondNice.com when my husband reached him … I swear he lives in his hot tub – honest, that can’t be good for you to be in it as much as he is!

We need to finish renovating our living room dining room. That means finishing our ceiling – which could mean putting up those tin ceiling tiles that I bought and prepped … oh … 10 years ago! We also need to finish one part of the flooring, plus add molding and quarter round. We also doing have a wall at the basement opening … yeah … big gap. and I’ve been living this way for years! I hate it and I can’t stand when we have quests or if anyone just “drops in”. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. So I want our renovations finished this summer … even if it means putting up a dry wall ceiling instead of the very expensive tin ceiling I purchased. If that’s what it takes to finish the job that’s what it takes.

You might remember that about a month ago or so I wrote a post complaining about how much noise my neighbors were making and how I was seriously thinking of selling our house as a result of how totally exhausted they were making me … well finally finishing or renovations would accomplish a few things … one – it would give us a little noise revenge for neighbors on both sides of us actually, and two if things did get bad enough noise wise that we do decide to sell we’ll have a finished house to sell … the way things are right now we could sell but we wouldn’t get quite as much as we would if we finished the living room dining room the way I’d like to finish them.

Meta

Search this site

Tags

blog blogs camera Canada Chris computer crohns dinner dog Family flower flowers Food friends funny garden Gardening Green Thumb Sunday Health and Fitness Health Fitness and Beauty holiday home Home and Lifestyle house husband IBD Inflammatory bowel disease Internet Music neighbors pain photo photos plants puppy Shopping sick sleep spring Toronto TV Video visit website Wordless Wednesday