They moved into the house next door (it’s attached to ours) in June and for the first month they did some reno work. We’d suggested that they knock down at least one of their living room walls, like we did, to open up the space.

Believe me it really opens up the space in a small house … our house had an entry way, walls enclosing a tiny living room, a hallway to the stairs that allowed entry to the living room and or the dining room, and there was a wall between the living room and dining room. So that was one small space partitioned with four walls! uh, huh … first thing we did - day one - was to knock down the walls.

Anyway, when they were doing their first renovation they had one wall repaired because one of the pipes within the walls was leaking. Unfortunately the leak wasn’t fixed and now they are having major repairs done. They also seem to be redoing their basement and upstairs bathrooms. The other day we saw a huge box that probably contained a tub and other bathroom items like two stone vessel sinks arrive on a big Home Depot truck.

The sound coming from their house over the last two weeks has been almost unbearable. I think today was the first day that the sounds were tolerable. Last week I think they were using a hammer drill or something to break up concrete in the basement, and I’ve heard them use reciprocal saws (maybe to take down another wall?), hammering, drilling and the contractors have gotten into yelling matches a few times.

All the china and crystal in my china cabinet rattles around when they are working next door too. Plus I think there’s enough vibrations going on that it’s rattled a few doors open. I found our one true closed upstairs with an open door last night and neither Chris nor I have been in that closet for days. Weird.

I just hope they’re almost done - at least with the noisy stuff! I haven’t been sleeping well at night for a few weeks and with the noise all day I can’t even nap if I’m tired. It’s terrible. I’m like a walking zombie!

Have you ever had someone do major renovations in the home next to you? Particularly if you live/lived in a semi-detached? It’s horrible isn’t it?

She is so scared of the surgery that she doesn’t even know enough about it to tell me exactly what kind of surgery she’s having. I’m a nurse - I could help ease her fears if I knew what was going on … but she’s the kind of person that when she’s afraid of something doesn’t want to know anything more about it. I think that just serves to make one more scared! I’m sure her imagination is going wild.

All I know is that she has some scar tissue or thickening of the heart muscle and has to have surgery to correct it. That’s the most I could get out of not her ….

You might also remember that when I wrote about her earlier in the month I’d extended an invitation to her husband to stay with us while she was in the hospital. Well .. they never really got back to us about it. Chris had to call them several times before our friend finally told us her husband would be staying in a hotel near the hospital.

Nice of them to let us know, eh? I know they were probably both scared about the surgery and were in avoidance mode, but for me who’s sick at home, it’s a very big thing to invite someone into my home for an unknown period of time. My regular readers know I’ve been going through a bad Crohn’s flare and haven’t slept well in weeks so having a guest in our home would make things more difficult, but I offered because I wanted to help them out.

So as much as I hate to admit this, I’m a little ticked off. I mean, all we were trying to do was give him some support and companionship during this scary time and help him save some money (he doesn’t have a job) … but if that’s what he wants to do I guess that’s the way it will be.

I think her husband staying in a hotel is partly my husbands fault though. He kept telling him that he could take the subway from our house (small town folks are afraid of the subway! not all, but these guys probably are) and that it would take 20 minutes to get to the hospital. Well .. it only takes about 10 minutes and we’re very close to the subway … so I’m sure the travel from our house will be equal to the walk he’s going to have from the hotel (there’s no hotel that I can think of that’s closer than a 15 minute walk to the hospital).

On top of all that my friend who’s having heart surgery wants to diet while she’s recovering! She told me that she visited this page that lists the best diet pill and wanted my advice as to which ones she should buy. I told her she’d better check with her doctor on that. Some diet pills can be hard on the heart and that’s the last thing she needs while recovering from open heart surgery!

When Chris gets home from work we’ll call the hospital and see if we can talk to our friend. If she’s up for visitors we’ll probably go there for a short while. I don’t know if she’ll want visitors tonight though, she might just want to spend some time with her husband before her surgery.

I’m sure I’ll be on edge all day tomorrow wondering how her surgery is going. When the surgery is done the doctors plan to keep her sedated and intubated for a few days so that she can rest and recover. I’m sure that part will freak her husband out as there’s nothing like seeing someone you love unconscious and intubated.

When you think about it this sign is sooooo true. There are fish in most water areas and what do fish do … eat and crap … so yeah … don’t drink the water.

Of course … another reason to not drink the water might be because an elephant’s been in it too …

That’s one way to take a shower!

I hope that everyone is having a great Wednesday!

I have Crohn’s and I seem to get more abdominal pain at night, so depending upon how much pain I’m in it affects my sleep. Sometimes I get very very little sleep.

Of course, the less I sleep I get, and the more tired I am the more I hurt … it’s a vicious cycle and I just can’t seem to get myself out of it.

I keep thinking that if I could just be knocked out for a few days to a week it would break the cycle of pain and get me back into a decent sleep cycle again.

I never used to have trouble sleeping. It’s a terrible feeling to fall asleep for only a minute or two, hear a noise or feel a pain that wakes you up and then be up for hours again before you can fall asleep again for perhaps as little as a few minutes.

Do you ever have trouble sleeping?

I’m only writing about this now because I’ve just gone through three days with only about six hours sleep. I’m baked!

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For many of us it’s beginning to get cool outside, for some it might even be snowing. Actually it’s snowing here right now as I write this …. but even though it’s cool outdoors do you ever stop to take a look at what’s left of the flowers and trees in your area? That’s one of the things I enjoy about Autumn. Looking at how plants change as the weather cools. I love looking at flower seed heads, leaves changing color and so on. Don’t you?

Near the beginning of November Chris and I decided to go to Taylor Creek park here in Toronto with our dog. We figured it might be her last outing in the forest while the weather was still kind of nice. While there, I took some time to take some photos of our surroundings.

One of my favorite plants to play with as a child in Autumn was always Milkweed. The pods that were once green would die down and turn grey and then burst open to let loose thousand upon thousands of white feathery seeds.

I’m surprised that I didn’t pluck this Milkweed seed head from it’s stem once I’d taken it’s photo, only to blow on it and release it’s seeds into the wind.

Do you remember the pictures that I posted of the interesting natural water filters that I call “The Elephants” in early October?

Well here’s what they looked like a couple of weeks ago, surrounded by trees with leaves of red, orange and gold:

They do kind of look like elephants, don’t they?

I know this is a Green Thumb post, but how could I not include a picture of our dog. I mean, she’s the reason we went to the park in the first place and that’s why I managed to get these great pictures …

Here’s Midnight, the Yuppy Puppy (nicknamed because she’s spoiled), coming out of a pond that she discovered after a quick dip in the cool water. If you look closely you can see the water still dripping from her legs.

And here she is a short while later, still wet and perhaps finally getting a little tired after enjoying a nice romp through the woods.

Chris and I might go to the park this afternoon if it’s not snowing or raining. It’s a nice place and it’s definitely a good outing for an energetic puppy!

I had a good time meeting bloggers that I’d known for a few years. Well known them interacting with them on their blogs or my own blogs and talking with them on forums.

Unfortunately my trip to Vegas wasn’t the best holiday I’ve ever been on. My Crohn’s was acting up and I also partied a little too hard on the first night I was there. I’m sure the combination was what did me in for the rest of the trip. In fact, on the second day i ended up being so ill (not hungover, ill with abdominal pain from the Crohns and bad fevers) that I had to stay in bed all day.

I did manage to make it to the blogging convention that I’d gone to Vegas for in the first place, but I didn’t do much else. I didn’t even try my hand at the casinos!

Even though a good portion of the trip was kind of lousy for me I enjoyed the atmosphere in Vegas and I’d love to go again … sometime when I’m feeling really good so that I can do as much as I want!

Have you ever been to Vegas? If so did you have a good time?

That happened to me on Tuesday.

My hair grows really fast for some reason. I always say that my hair and my nails are my healthiest body parts, and HA they’re dead! Anyway … as a result of my fast hair growth it seems that I could get my haircut every two to four weeks, but who can afford that! Not I, not at the prices they charge for womens’ haircuts at decent salons anyway.

I tend to get my haircut every 6 to 8 weeks, but since my hair grows fast and seems to get wavier the longer it gets, the last week or so before I finally give in and pick up the phone to make an appointment is full of bad hair days. Except of course the day I’m supposed to get my hair cut!

So ladies, does this happen to you too?

I’m sure it happens to guys as well, but I know that most aren’t as fussy about how their hair looks as most women are …

I found this picture at a humor site and I just had to show it to you!

I have no idea if it’s photoshopped or if someone was extraordinarily lucky in getting two dogs to stand up and look like they were dancing. Either way it’s a fantastic photo isn’t it?

I love the dogs little sweaters too, don’t you?

Speaking of snow and bad weather … Did you know that there’s supposed to be a shortage of snow tires here in Canada this year? Why? Well, the province of Quebec is enforcing a new law that requires all vehicles in the province to have snow tires and that’s created a shortage in the rest of the Canadian provinces that need them. I wonder if there will be an increase in the sale of tire chains due to the winter tire shortage in some areas of Canada where winter tires are truly necessary?

Here in Toronto it’s not really a MUST to have snow tires. As I said earlier it snows here and then it often melts away fairly quickly … well, except for winters like last year! I think most people in Toronto use All Season tires on their cars, but Chris was talking about getting snow tires this year. One way or another we’ll need to get new tires soon - All Season or Winter - as our tires are kind of old and starting to go bald. Definitely no where close to winter safe.

I guess we’d better start looking for new tires soon (and the funds to pay for them!).

Do you change over to winter tires in the winter time?

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My garden is finally starting to die down. I just took a peek out the window at my backyard and it looks like there are only a few stubborn “dumb” roses, Monkshood and a few of my New York Asters still blooming away as if it were still summer or early Autumn.

Some of the roses that are still blooming look so perfect that I think I might even go outside and cut them and bring in a final small bouquet of roses to enjoy indoors. Unfortunately, if I do that, they’ll probably drop their petals once they are greeted with the heat indoors!

One of the flowers that I enjoy each fall is the Toadlily. It generally blooms from sometime in September until Mid-October or so, but this year my Toadlilies were blooming up to sometime last week. We had a little heat spell here last week (not hot, but warmer than usual weather) and that might have marked their demise as they are no longer blooming and the plants have started to die down for the winter.

Aren’t they just gorgeous little flowers? I love the spotted petals and I assume that’s where they got “toad” from in their name.

I sometimes wish that the toadlilies would bloom in the summer so I could enjoy them while spending time in the garden during nice weather, but they definitely brighten the garden in Autumn when most of my other flowers have stopped producing blooms.