Tricia's Musings

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



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I’m tired of freezing when I go to bed

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I’m starting to get sick and tired of our bedroom being freezing cold when I go to bed. Our master bedroom is the coldest room in the house in the winter. Changing into my PJ’s each night is quite the experience as I end up covered in goose-pimples! LOL

We live in an older house. It was build in 1927 and as a result it’s probably not quite as warm as newer homes. Our bedroom is upstairs at the end of a long hallway so that likely makes it harder for the cold air that builds up in the room to escape. Remember cold air goes down (as in down a staircase) and warm air goes upward.

When we moved in we had some duct work done including adding a cold air vent in the master bedroom. I’m sure this has helped to make the room warmer than it would have been without the cold air return vent, but it’s still pretty darn cold in the dead of winter.

We did have an electric heater that we’d use in the bedroom for the first hour or so after we went to bed, but it stopped working in early December and we haven’t replaced it yet. After suffering through a very cold January (February has been warmer here, but it will get colder soon) I think it’s time to buy a new heater.

I’m going to watch for an electric heater to go on sale and hope that I can get one for a good price soon.

Our last electric heater was a tall standing one that oscillated to move the warm air around the room, but I’ve been look at this Honeywell Cool Touch heater and it looks like it might fit the bill. The description says it will heat a large living space so it might be too powerful for our small master bedroom.

What we’d normally do with our old electric heater would be to turn it on when we’d come upstairs to use the washroom and wash up before bed so that it would take a bit of the chill out of the room before we’d have to go in there to get changed. It also had a timer on it so we could set it to run for only an hour or so. That would ensure that the room was warm as we were trying to fall asleep, but we usually didn’t need it to run all night. Not once the bed was warmed up anyway.

Do you find the the upstairs of your house is a lot cooler in the winter than the rest of your home? Do you use a heater in your bedroom or do you just suffer the cold?





Trying to eat healthier meals

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I’ve always tried to cook healthy meals for Chris and I, but over the last few months and especially the last two weeks since Chris got out of the hospital I’ve really stepped it up.

We’d occasionally have a pre-made frozen dinner such as Loblaws Blue Menu grilled vegetable lasagna, but after re-reading the ingredients list and cholesterol listings on the package we’ve even cut that out of our “occasional easy food menu”. Chris has really high bad and good cholesterol levels as well as very low triglycerides. He’s on medication now to control his cholesterol and given the way we normally eat we don’t think our diet has much to do with his high cholesterol levels even the docs say it’s probably genetic, but it sure can’t hurt either him or I to eat even better.

Lately we’ve been eating a lot of skinless boneless chicken breasts. I bake them in the oven in a casserole dish and they are very tender and moist. I also steam up to three different veggies in the microwave – usually carrots, broccoli and cauliflower. Last night we had Teriyaki chicken and tonight we’re going to have chicken breasts marinated in a honey Dijon marinade. Yummy.

Sometime in the future when we have a little extra cash I’d love to get a fruit and vegetable juice extractor. We used to have a juicer but we found that we didn’t use it as much as we should have and gave it to Chris’ aunt. Of course now that it’s gone, and now that we are really trying to eat healthy, I’d love to have a fruit and veggie juicer again. Store bought juices contain far too many sugars and well, buying veggie juices in a health food store is pretty expensive. I don’t see why I can’t make our own carrot juice and other juices right at home.

Each year we grow strawberries, raspberries, carrots and tomatoes in our “flower” garden so I could even save money by using the fruit and veggies that we grow to make juice too.

As I said we don’t have any extra money right now so I’ll have to wait until we have some spare cash and wait for a juicer to go on sale before we get one, but I think that’s definitely on our want list. In the mean time we’ll just eat as many fruit and veggies as we can – they certainly help fill you up and they’re healthy.

Do you read the ingredient labels on the items you buy in the grocery store? Have you been trying to eat healthier lately too?

Thinking about getting a home security system

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Back in 2001 when Chris and I first bought our house I remember that our insurance company told us that if we installed a home security system they would take a percentage off the cost of insuring our home.

At the time we were just about to start doing major renovations on our home – knocking down walls etc so it didn’t make sense to have a security system installed. (We still have some home reno projects (stalled ones) on the go too) Plus we live in a pretty safe neighborhood.

Even though our neighborhood has few break ins it’s always possible that something could happen. In fact there was a home invasion just a few blocks from us last year!

Earlier today I decided to take a look a the home security systems offered by ADT. They are offering discounts on some of the packages installation fees (one package is as low as $99 installation after a $200 mail in rebate!) and all of their monthly monitoring fees seem reasonable at a range from $33.99 to $48.99 per month.

I can’t remember exactly what the discount was that our insurance company was offering if we got a home security system, but I believe it was something like 10% off the monthly insurance payment. That discount would likely pay a large chunk of the monthly security system monitoring fee. Sounds like a win win situation to me!

Obviously a security system will help prevent a house from being broken into, or if it is broken into alarms will go off and the police will be sent to the house quickly likely preventing a large robbery. However, did you know that there are a number of other services that come with a home security system? Well … depending upon which one and which service you use of course …

You can get security systems that monitor your house for fire, carbon monoxide, flood detection and ones that you can push a button on the installed system or a hand held device to alert the police, fire department or ambulance in an emergency. Some home security systems even have a voice system where you can talk to someone directly at the monitoring service during an emergency.

I certainly like the idea of a security system that not only protects my house from burglars but that also monitors for fire and carbon monoxide! My parents had a security system that did all of that plus was able to contact the various emergency services and they were very pleased with it.

Chris has always like the idea of use having a security system so I guess we’ll look into it further over the next week or so and perhaps have one installed soon.

Do you have a security system in your home? Are you happy with the system and the monitoring service?

Oh my aching back!

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Over the last year or so my back has been going out and spasming when I do simple tasks. It seems that if I’m doing a task, say some housework, where I have to bend slightly forward such as sweeping the floor, vacuuming or taking care of my plants in the garden my back will eventually start aching.

Yeah, I’m out of shape. Being off on medical leave for three years certainly hasn’t helped me stay physically fit!

Earlier today I had a doctors appointment. The doctors office is only a few blocks away so I walked there. That went fine, but by the time I was halfway home my back started aching. It snowed fairly heavily last night so perhaps I was walking fun as I made my way over shoveled sidewalks and streets.

My back pain usually goes away fairly quickly if I can lie down for 20 to 30 minutes, but this time round my back is still aching on and off. I guess I won’t be going out to shovel snow this evening!

Anyway, since my back has been troubling me occasionally over the last year I think it’s time to get one of those back massagers. My husband has a bad back as well so he could use it too. In fact I’m certain he’d hog the thing if I got one!

I found one that I like at Buy.com. It’s the Homedics VC-100 Back Charger Massage Cushion. You can place it on a chair or a couch or even use it in your car. It comes with a 110V AC adapter for your home and a 12V DC Adapter for your vehicle.

The back charger massages the muscles of your lower back. That sounds good to me!

It’s inexpensive too. Only $19.99! Still … we are more than a little short on funds right now so I think I’ll keep an eye on the site and see if the massager goes on sale and then I’ll snap it up. In the meantime I’ll stick to our very old heating pad.

Now that I think of it, with that DC adapter for the car I’ll probably never see the back massager. My husband will steal it and keep it in the car! Hmmmm maybe we’ll have to get two of them.

What do you do for your back when you throw it out or when it suddenly starts to hurt for no apparent reason?

Frost already? Time to get the yard work done!

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Early this morning (6 a.m.) I was awoken by the sound of my dog retching in her crate. She must have eaten something that upset her stomach the day before, poor thing. I got her out and comforted her and after a while I could tell that she was feeling better so I took her outside to do her business.

Let me tell you, I was extremely surprised when I emerged outside to see that the car was covered in frost! I knew it was going to be cool last night, but I didn’t think we’d get frost! At that moment I knew that I was going to have to do some yard work today in order to prepare the garden for winter.

We have a number of tropical plants that needed to be brought in. Passion flower vines, another vine that I haven’t identified (might be a trumpet vine), and of course the cannas all needed to be brought inside. I also had three orchids, a Thanksgiving cactus and a Christmas cactus in the enclosed front porch and they all needed to come indoors as well.

As I was scurrying around outside gathering up all of the plants that need to be overwintered indoors I noticed that the lawn had a good covering of fallen leaves so once I was done putting the plants indoors I set out to find our rake.

Our rake is broken! The wooden handle was snapped off near the base of the rake. I guess I could duct tape it back together as a quick fix, but we might as well get another rake. So once I came inside I started looking online for a rake. I’ve decided that I want to get a Pivot Leaf rake as it’s an ergonomic design so it will be easier on my back when I’m raking.

This type of rake isn’t the cheapest on the market, but as I said if it helps keep my back from aching when I’m raking it will be well worth it. Now if I can just find one that’s on sale I’ll have it made.

I guess over the next week or so Chris and I will be outside doing a lot of yard work. It looks like winter is going to come early this year if that frost on the car is any indication!

Is it starting to get cool in your area too? Did you get your Fall yard work done yet or are you going to have to scramble to get it done too?

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