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Tricia's Musings

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

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Keeping in touch with a family that’s spread across the country

June 22, 2011 by Tricia

My family is really spread out across the country. I have a niece that just moved to New Brunswick with her husband, and my middle brother lives in Vancouver … just those two alone cover both sides of the country! So … we’ve all been talking lately by email and we’ve decided to try either setting up Skype or Google Chat.

A couple of my brothers have already set up Skype, and one of my brothers who happens to have just treated himself to a Mac computer is really experimenting. He’s been trying out things like Nettalk on his iPod and I think another application on his Mac and iPad, plus he’s the one who got all of us thinking about trying Google Chat although it seems like most of us are more familiar or more comfortable with using Skype.

I haven’t set up Skype on my computer yet. I’ve been too busy getting my yard and garden in order after all the Fence whoha. I’ve spent the last two weeks working on my garden and yard doing all the stuff that I would have done in the last two months if I hadn’t had to delay everything for that darn no character fence. Yes I’m a tired and not so happy camper .. but hopefully I’ll get happier as my garden recovers. Oh and speaking of the neighbors who put in the fence? They’ve barely spoken to us since they put it in and their kid is making a racket again. I almost feel like they were nice to us and got their kid to be a little quieter so that we’d go along with the fence and now that it’s in they could care less that their little girl is waking me up. She’s even back to slamming doors again. Sigh … I don’t think I’ll be using the video side of Skype … I’ll scare my family with how tired I look lately.

Anyway … I will install Skype and maybe set up Google Chat soon. I keep telling my family that too. Hopefully by this weekend. I want to experiment with it. In the mean time I’m still communicating the old fashioned way with my family … ie by phone. My second oldest brother’s birthday this past Friday, the one who bought himself a Mac, so I was sure to call him on his birthday. He had a great day with his family. Picnic with his wife, dinner out with his kids and I think he said he was thinking of getting a golf buddy tour gps watch for himself … yes another treat. Oh well he deserves it.

If I do manage to set up a Skype account I’ll let you guys know … maybe I can Skype with some of my blogging friends too. Of course if I do I’ll never get any of my work done …





Filed Under: Blogging, Canada, Computers, Cool stuff, Family, Home and Lifestyle, Internet, Items to Try, Socializing, The Neighborhood, Toronto, Web and Technology Tagged With: brother, brothers, busy, communicate, country, Family, fence, friends, garden, google chat, grrr, install, Internet, keep in touch, mac, neighbors, not happy, sister, skype, spread out, talk, talking, video chat

How did you bring in the new year?

January 3, 2011 by Tricia

Happy New Year to all of my readers and visitors!

I hope that you had a wonderful holiday season and that the new year brings you health, happiness and that at least one of your wishes for yourself come true.

I had a fairly uneventful New Year’s eve and new years day … pretty much how I like it. I used to do the party thing … ie go down town to the clubs or go to someones New Year’s Party or even hold my own … but it’s such a hassle after a while. I know, that probably sounds like I’m a party pooper, but my husband and I just like having a nice dinner together and doing our own thing.

Hopefully none of you partied so much that you’re now looking in to inpatient rehab centers wink wink. LOL With any luck the hangovers are long gone and life is back to normal for most of you?

So tell me .. what did you do to celebrate the New Year and did you make any resolutions?

I didn’t make any resolutions. Hey, I already quit smoking in October! That’s a big one! The 12th of this month will be 3 months for me. Also, thanks to the medication that I’m taking for my migraines I can’t even have a drink (another reason we didn’t go out to any parties for New Years) so I haven’t even had a drink for close to five months. Not that I ever drank much before that, but that’s two big things I quit doing all before the new year.

So what resolutions did you make and did you break them yet?

Filed Under: Canada, Health Fitness and Beauty, Home and Lifestyle, Items to Try, Life with Chris, Recreation, Socializing, Toronto Tagged With: break, hangover, husband, keep, new years, new years party, no drinks, parties, Party, party pooper, partying, quit smoking, quite, resolutions

Christmas Party this weekend

December 16, 2010 by Tricia

This weekend my husband and I will be going to a Christmas / birthday party at a friends house. Well … depending on the weather. The party is out of town – about a two hour drive, so if it’s snowing or if the weather is really bad we probably won’t go, but otherwise we plan to be there.

I haven’t been to a good party for a while. I already picked out the dress I’m going to wear – a little black dress of course, and jewelry – maybe my sapphire earrings and a blue chamilia beads necklace.

Our friend that’s holding the party always goes all out. She makes dinners that are course after course after course. I mean – you sit there for hours eating! I’m thinking of maybe making a cheesecake to bring with me to the party, but knowing how much food she’ll probably make I probably don’t need to bake a cake.

Hopefully the weather cooperates and we end up going to the party. I’m looking forward to going.

Filed Under: Canada, Entertainment, Family, Home and Lifestyle, Items to Try, Socializing, Toronto Tagged With: Christmas party, courses, dinner, dress, earrings, Food, friend, jewelry, little black dress, meal, weekend

We had a fantastic long weekend

September 7, 2010 by Tricia

You know what? I had a really good weekend!

I had sort of been dreading the long weekend because I’d started a new medication for my migraines about three weeks ago and it’s making me feel really odd (spacey, forgetful, mixing up words, tingling hands and feet etc) and on top of that my nephew and niece (and her fiance) were coming in from Chicago for the weekend, and my in-laws were coming in to town for a day or two to see all of us.

When I’m not feeling all that well I don’t really like having other people around or worse, I don’t like having plans to go out, especially when I’m not sure if I’m going to be feeling up to going out.

Luckily everything turned out ok.

My husband picked up our niece and nephew t the airport and took them to our family friends house where they were going to stay for the weekend. Oh and on the way there they stopped off at a restaurant bar and my husband bought my nephew his first legal drink. He’s 19 and thus it was legal for him to drink in Ontario. Our nephew was thrilled … oh and he’s the one who asked Chris to buy him his first legal drink. LOL

The next day my husband went over to the house with our dog to see the kids and to drive them to where ever they wanted to go in the city. He did that every morning – Saturday, Sunday and Monday so he got to spend a bit more time with them and they got a lift to where ever they wanted to start there day.

Surprisingly – for a 19 year old and two 23 year olds they didn’t spend a lot of time going out and partying. They did hit a few bars, especially on Saturday, but they didn’t go out clubbing like we thought they would. Instead they did things like taking a tour of the Rogers center, walking around the CNE (Canadian National Exhibition), touring a micro-brewery (SteamWhistle) and tasting their beers, going to the CN Tower, shopping, and going to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

I stayed home on the Saturday and just rested up.

On Sunday my in-laws came into town and we got together in the late afternoon with them and the kids at an Irish restaurant called Murphy’s Law and had dinner. My father in law usually doesn’t drink, but when he does he normally only has one drink. That night he had 4 double Bailey’s! It was interesting!

After dinner the in-laws went back to their hotel. Usually they stay at our house, but we’d warned them that with this medication that I’m on I’m feeling really off and that maybe staying over wouldn’t be so great. Usually they come in threes – Chris’ mom and dad and his aunt (although this time Chris’ aunt didn’t come) … so that’s a lot of people to land on someones doorstep when you’re not feeling so hot.

I wasn’t feeling too bad after dinner – a little wonky … I’ve found if I don’t drink enough water on this new medication (Topamax) I kind of feel drunk (and no I didn’t have any drinks with dinner) so we drove the kids back to the house and sat with them on the back patio for an hour or so talking. They were kind of tired. The day before they had walked everywhere they went .. we worked it out and we figured that they walked over 15 miles!

The next day, yesterday, was Labour Day Monday – my Birthday. So we all met up at Cora’s downtown for brunch. Well … ok breakfast … but it was 1 pm. I haven’t been to a Cora’s for a long long time and man – it’s delicious! I had French toast Brioche covered in a mound of assorted fruit, and a sunny side up egg and a few slices of bacon. I think it’s called “1990’s Harvest” on the menu. Delicious!

Shortly after we finished our meal at Cora’s it was time to take the kids to the Island Airport for their flight to Chicago. However, since there was a little bit of time before they had to board the Ferry to the island we walked over to an Irish Memorial.

I have to admit that I only glanced at the huge black stones at the Irish memorial at the port because just as we reached the memorial area jets flew overhead and I realized that the airshow was starting.

I’ve never been to an airshow! So while most of our relatives looked at the Irish memorial my husband and I stood by the waters edge and gazed up at the sky as jets and the famous Canadian Snowbirds did amazing areal feats overhead. I never thought I’d enjoy an airshow that much, but I loved it.

As we walked back to the Ferry area and airport check-in the airshow was still going on, so I was a little distracted in those last few minutes with our nephew, niece and her fiance. I actually almost tripped as I was walking along. Someone had stopped right in front of us to watch the jets do a fly by and I just missed tripping on the wheels of one of the most unusual baby strollers I’ve ever seen. I stopped long enough to ask the lady what it was and she said it was called a phil and teds explorer. I couldn’t help laughing at the name – do you remember the movie – Phil and Ted’s excellent Adventures?

Anyway … The weekend that I thought I’d struggle through because of in-laws and relatives being around turned out to be quite nice. I had two fantastic birthday celebration meals and seeing the airshow just topped off my birthday. I loved it.

How was your long weekend?

Filed Under: Canada, Dining and Restaurants, Entertainment, Family, Health Fitness and Beauty, Home and Lifestyle, Items to Try, Life with Chris, Migraines, Recreation, Socializing, Toronto Tagged With: aerial, air show, Birthday, birthday weekend, busy weekend, Coras, dinner, fiance, guests, in laws, jets, labor day, labour day, long weekend, meal, migraines, Murphys law, Nephew, new medication, Niece, port, topamax, Toronto, weekend

One more week of my husbands vacation – will I survive?

July 30, 2010 by Tricia

It’s been a busy week! I think I’m glad the weekend’s here, even though I’m going to be on my own for the next few days.

My husband has been off work for the last two weeks. The first week was a 1 week layoff from work due to budget cuts and this week was the first week of his two week holidays. Yes … he’s off for a total of three weeks!

Since we didn’t make any definite holiday plans (except for this weekend which just got messed up!) we’ve just been hanging out at home.

It’s been nice to have my husband at home, but it’s also thrown me totally off my work schedule. Every time I start to do some work on the computer – usually on one of our many blogs, he comes in and starts asking me questions about something else or suggests that we go out and do something. So my websites have suffered while he’s been off.

We’ve also had a few drop in visitors this week. One was Chris’ nephew and another was a friend from work that hasn’t visited for a long time. I didn’t mind having visitors over, but since I’m still not feeling so great and I’m way behind in my work it did disrupt things to some degree.

I was looking forward to going away this weekend. My husbands friend is having a big 30th wedding anniversary party and I was supposed to go, but since we can’t bring our dog someones got to stay home and take care of her. All I wanted was to go up north and hang out in a cabin (and later at my sister in laws trailer), just lounge in some of the rustic furniture and relax.

Now that I know I’m going to be home on my own for three or four days I’m scrambling to make some plans of my own. I’m going to see if some of my friends want to get together for a spa day or a girls night out (or both). If I can pull it off I think that will make up for not going up north this weekend.

It’s probably better that I stick around home anyway. I’m still not feeling all that well. I’ve been dizzy several times this week and I’ve had a constant migraine that gets worse, than dies down, then gets worse again – but never seems to go away. There’s no news yet on the head MRI that I had last week – hopefully that means that no news is good news.

So what are your plans for the weekend? It’s a long weekend here in Canada so that means we have three days to enjoy some time off.

Filed Under: Canada, Health Fitness and Beauty, Home and Lifestyle, Items to Try, Life with Chris, Socializing, Toronto Tagged With: busy week, cabin, cottage, dizzy, girls night out, girls weekend, go out, head, headache, holidays, husband, interupting, migraine, MRI, no plans, plans, questions, relax, stayed home, suggestion, survive, trailer, underfoot, vacation

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