Tricia's Musings

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



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Out of this world gift idea

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I’m sure by now you’ve heard that you can have new stars named after you or a loved one, even those discovering new species sometimes offer up the chance to have the new species named after yourself (ie Stephen Colbert now has a spider named after him!), but did you know that you can buy the moon too? Well .. a piece of it, I mean.

Uh huh .. I probably should have left this story for my husband Chris to write about on Odd Planet since it is weird news – in my books any way.

A company called Lunar International is allowing people to order a personalized Lunar land claim for real moon property.

Here’s the description:

Millions of people have purchased their very own property on the moon, and now you can too. Lunar International, Earth’s recognized leader in lunar real estate, has designed an innovative plan to return mankind to the moon. Through our program, anybody who wishes to own land on the moon can do so by purchasing an officially authorized lunar land claim from our organization. Whether it be a gift for a loved one, a reward for a valued employee or simply a treat for yourself, property on the moon makes a unique and affordable gift that anyone can enjoy.

It would certainly make a great gift for the person who has everything!





We definitely need more lighting in our backyard

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At some point in the afternoon I realized that I hadn’t watered the garden in ages! In fact, I think the last time the plants got any water was when it rained last Monday (remnants of Hurricane Ike)! definitely

So at about 5:30 in the afternoon I went outside and pulled out the hose. I started watering the front yard and by the time I reached the back, Chris came out to join me with Midnight, our Lab puppy. Like most Labs, Midnight loves water and she tries to bite the water coming from the hose. I don’t know if she thinks it’s solid when it’s coming from the hose or what, but it’s hilarious to watch.

Needless to say we soon had a soaking wet dog!

So once I was done watering we decided to stay outside and sit on the patio having a drink or two while Midnight hopefully dried off. Of course it got darker and darker the longer we sat outside and Midnight being a black lab … well, after a while, we could barely see her when she was at the far end of the garden.

That got me thinking – we need more lighting in the backyard. We have solar lights, but they don’t really light up the backyard all that much, although they do help. We also have a very bright flood light that lights up the whole backyard, which I mainly use when I’m doing some extreme gardening after dark … but that’s too bright if you’re just trying to relax while having a drink on the patio in the garden.

So I visited Buy.com when I came inside and searched for outdoor lighting. I found a few lights that I liked, but I think the one I liked the most was this Outdoor pendant lantern in Misty pewter. I think that if we added a couple of hanging lanterns near the back of the yard they would look attractive and help us see Midnight in the dark!

The lantern is a decent price already, but since our money’s kind of tight right now I think I’ll keep an eye on Buy.com’s Weekly Deals page to see if it goes on sale in the near future. I do visit this page once or twice a month as they sometimes have great deals on things we need. Now that I’m actually looking for something in particular I hope it goes on sale soon!

Cool looking ergonomic office chairs

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I’ve just been visiting a website with really nice chairs. The store is called Designer Seating and they carry a wide range of Hag and Capisco chairs.

These designer chairs would be perfect for the office or home office.

I’d love to get one! The chair that I use in my home office area (the dining room table) is an office chair, but it’s so old that the arm rests are starting to fall apart! LOL … yeah, I do need a new chair.

Both the Capisco and Hag Chairs are modern in design, but in addition to looking cool they are ergonomically designed.

Capisco Chair
Capisco Chair

I guess the best way to tell about these chairs is simply to show you a picture of one. The one that I’ve added an image of, to the right, is a Capisco Chair model 8127.

You can click on the picture to see a large image if you want to read the descriptions beside each major component of the chair.

The chairs have been created to constantly adjust to your body’s center of gravity. So if you shift to one side the chair will adjust to your position.

Isn’t that cool looking?  You can sit in it  the way you normally would sit in a chair or sit so that your chest faces the back rest (that’s the way I understood the description on the website anyway).  It gives you great support no matter which way you sit on the chair.

It looks like the majority of the Capisco chair styles are adjustable, so if there’s a head rest it’s adjustable, arm rests – adjustable and so on.

One thing that I really like about this company is that they are environmentally conscious.

The seat of the HAG Capisco is made from recycled bumpers and plastic packaging from household waste. The plastic components are labelled by type for at-source-sorting. Both the production process and the choice of materials satisfy the most stringent environmental requirements.

I believe that this company is located in the UK. The prices are in pounds.  Unfortunately I can’t find any shipping information on the site so I don’t know if they ship outside the UK.  Either way, if you like the look of these chairs why don’t you visit the site and see all of their designs? I’ll bet you’ll find something that you’ll like!

A gas or electric fireplace would be nice in our home

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I was speaking with my sister-in-law last night about their upcoming move to a new house and the discussion gradually lead to my sister-in-law asking how our renovations were going. Of course this caused me to laugh, as our renovations have been stalled for a few years now.

You cannot believe how tired I am of looking at our unfinished living room/ dining room ceiling! It just needs a day or two’s more more and it will be finished! Hopefully we can get that done before the year is over.

Once the main floor reno is done I’ve decided that the basement will be our next project. Our house isn’t very big and all we are using the basement for right now is storage and as a laundry room, so it would be nice to make all that extra space usable.

I think I’ve mentioned what I want to do in the basement a few times now. It’s going to have a small spare bedroom, a storage room, laundry room, nice bathroom and the remaining area will be a rec room / TV room. Well, I think that’s the plan.

I’ve been thinking that it would be nice to put in an electric or gas fireplace when we renovate the basement. My brother renovated his basement a couple of years ago and he added a gas fireplace and it just makes the room. Plus basements tend to be cooler than the rest of the house, so having a fireplace down there would help us keep the room at a comfortable temperature.

Now as you know, I’m in Canada, but I happened to find what appears to be a great online store in the UK that specializes in both electric and Gas Fires. I know that I have several regular readers from the UK, so I thought this store might interest you if you’ve been thinking of renovating your home or perhaps replacing an existing fireplace.

The company is called HotPrice.co.Uk and they stock all of the leading brands of fireplace manufactures. Plus, as I said they seem to have a huge selection!

I haven’t given much thought yet whether we’d install a gas or Electric fireplace. Certainly we won’t be installing a full fireplace. Our house is just too old and that would be a huge renovation in addition to what we’d already be doing to our basement.

I think I’m partial to the inset gas or Electric Fires. They don’t take up much space and are as attractive as the outset fireplaces.

If you’re interested in getting a fireplace for your home take a moment to visit HotPrice.co.Uk. You can get Gas Fires in wall mounted, inset and outset styles in a range of traditional to contemporary designs. Their electric Fires come in both inset and wall mounted styles.

As I briefly mentioned earlier, if you are interested in a full fireplace, you’ll find a large selection of full fireplaces at HotPrice.co.Uk. They have designs made of limestone and wood, and you can even find full fireplaces that appear to be made of stone. They’re just gorgeous.

If I had a large home I’d want a full fireplace however since our space is already compromised we’ll likely go with one of the inset or perhaps a wall mounted electric or gas fireplace.

Do you already have a fireplace in your home? If you do, is it full, gas or electric? Do you enjoy having a fireplace in your home?

I’d rather stay in a vacation rental than a hotel

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When I was a kid my parents would always take two or more weeks off in the summer and we’d go on road trip vacations. I got to see a lot of Canada and much of the Us in this manner. Of course as a kid I didn’t really like being stuck in the car as we traveled from one destination to another, but the memories of all the places I’ve been and the sights I’ve seen are still fresh in my mind and I’m thankful that my parents chose to vacation in that manner.

We rarely stayed in hotels or motels when we took our road trip vacations. My parents would plan our trips ahead of time and we’d stay in cabins or vacations homes that they’d rented from the owners.

Now that I think about it I don’t know how they were able to plan our vacations and where’d we’d stay so efficiently. It must have been a lot harder than it is to now that we have the internet.

These days you can just get on the computer and go to sites like VacationHomeRentals.com and look for vacation rentals pretty much anywhere in the world.

In fact I was thinking of looking for vacation rentals by owner for Chris’ vacation time. We haven’t been on a real vacation in ages! I’d thought of renting a vacation home or cabin in cottage country for a week or so, but when our dog went into heat and a few other things happened we just decided to stay home for his holiday time.

There’s a blogging convention in Florida next weekend and while I’m not going this time, if I were I think I would have looked at some Florida rentals rather than staying in a hotel if I’d been going. I mean, since these vacation rentals are usually homes or cottages you have access to a full kitchen, a laundry room and all the amenities of home. Plus, if you are short on cash you can always share your rental with another couple. We might have done that had we been going to the blogging convention – shared a space I mean.

VacationHomeRentals.com is an easy site to use. Just type your destination area in the search bar or click on the map of the US or Canada, Europe, the Caribbean, Hawaii or the world and start narrowing down your search by clicking on city or area links. Just as an example, if I were going to Orlando next weekend for the convention there are plenty of beautiful vacation rentals in the area. I found a few for as low as $70 a night – beautiful condos and homes. That’s cheaper than most decent hotels and motels! If I go to the blogging convention next year I’ll be looking onto vacation home rentals. That’s for sure!

Have you staying in vacation rentals when you’ve been on holiday? How was your experience?

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