October is Breast Cancer Month, so please do get involved and help the fight against Breast Cancer.

Try to do at least one of the helpful tips listed above this month – more if possible, especially the one about seeing a doctor and scheduling a mammogram when recommended. I had two mammograms this year (a little scare but everything is OK), so I’m good for a while.

This October I’ll be looking for Pink products to buy.  What will you be doing to help the fight against Breast Cancer?

Chris ended up being admitted to the hospital last Friday because he had chest pains while at work (in same hospital he was admitted to – how convenient!).

If you read the post I linked to on my other blog you can learn more about his heart trouble. Basically they think he might have a rare heart arrhythmia that can cause sudden death, but haven’t been able to prove it just yet. We’ve been living with this since 2004. The doctor that admitted him to the hospital last Friday also noticed that on previous trips to the ER and or admissions his Cholesterol had always been quite high – both the good and bad cholesterol as well as having very low triglycerides, so he thought that it might be good to do an angiogram on Chris to take a look at his heart and make sure that he didn’t have any blocked coronary arteries.

As it turned out, we had to wait until Monday for the angiogram and the test was clear. His heart looks good from the inside. So he was discharged Monday evening with a prescription for Cholesterol lowering meds (Crestor) and instructed to set up some out-patient tests like a 48 hour Holter monitor and a stress test.

He’s been home all week recovering from the angiogram, but he’s feeling fine. He’s going to go back to work on Tuesday. He really only felt bad on Friday afternoon – so he wasn’t the best patient in the Acute coronary ward at the hospital because they had to keep telling him to stop wandering around the hospital. LOL he just didn’t want to be there since he felt ok.

Luckily the hospital is only a few blocks from home – a 10 to 15 minute walk. So I was able to just walk back and forth to visit. However, since I’m not all that healthy myself (Crohns, vitamin d deficiency and bad back pain over the last year) it took a toll on me and I’ve kind of been recovering over the last few days too. Believe me, it sucks to be sick, especially when your spouse ends up also being sick and admitted to the hospital!

As I said in my last GTS post my Amaryllis was in bloom so I took a whole series of pictures from buds to full bloom. I just haven’t had a chance to prepare the pics. They are still on the camera and I’m sure they need some cropping … so that will be next weeks Green Thumb Sunday post – hopefully!

I hope that your Christmas and Holiday season is as enjoyable as this cats apparently was! He sure looks tuckered out, perhaps it was all the turkey he ate?

Are you getting together with friends or family for the holidays? Cooking a big meal or going to a relatives to enjoy a BIG meal?

Have a great day! Merry Christmas!

The Sago Palm is common in warm climates, but it’s become more popular in Northern homes as a houseplant. The plant is native to Southern Japan. It’s an attractive plant with dark green leaves and a hairy trunk.

Since 2003, the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center has seen an increase in cases of Sago palm and Cycad poisonings by more than 200 percent. APCC data also reveals that 50 percent to 75 percent of those cases resulted in fatalities.

A chemical in the plant called cycasin is toxic and often causes permanent liver damage as well as neurological damage if enough of the poison is absorbed by the body. The seeds are the most poisonous part of the plant, although all parts of this plant are toxic, and the effects on humans are seizures, coma and death. Of course the seeds are an attractive reddish color so children and possible curious pets might be drawn to the plant.

Clinical signs of toxic poisoning are vomiting, melena (blood in stool), Jaundice, increased thirst, hemorrhagic gastroenteritis, bruising and later liver damage, liver failure and death.

If you have young children or pets in your home and you’d like to check to see if your house or garden plants are toxic you can take a look at this list of Toxic Plants. There’s also a list of non-toxic plants that you might also want to look at if you are planning on adding more plants to your collection.

So on to garden related stuff …

Last week, in preparation for Green Thumb Sunday, I went out into my yard and took pictures of most of the plants that were either coming up or that were blooming.

The garden looks very nice this year. Chris and I spent two days last weekend cleaning up the garden – trimming plants, getting rid of dead foliage, pruning roses and putting some compost that we picked up at a local park on Saturday thanks to Toronto’s Earth days’. (That’s a green recycling program where the city gives back the compost from the green garbage and other yard related wastes it’s picked up the year prior).

Needless to say my back took a beating and ached for a few days after I over did it in the garden. The effort payed off though as we had cooler temperatures and some rain last week and that really perked up the garden. Since the beds were tidier I could really see how my plants were progressing.

Now you might remember a post I made about a month ago. It was the one where I showed photos of our front yard still covered in snow and photos of our planted boulevard that I had spent the day cleaning up.

Well the front boulevard looks even nicer now! I planted some peonies that I’d purchased in early April as well as some Dahlias, Gay Feather and a few other plants to go along with the plants that have been growing there for a few years (iris, daylilies, malva, salvia, tulips) and we placed our short bamboo fence in front of it to finish off the look and protect the garden from the teens that like to stand outside my house talking before they go their separate ways after school.

This is what it looks like now:

and from another angle:

Just to give you a complete picture of how the front garden looks I’ll throw in a photo of the front flower beds too:

Now most of my plants are in the backyard. In a day or two I’ll post some photos of how the backyard garden looks right now and maybe a few photos of what’s blooming.

I hope your gardens are doing well right now!

My husbands cousin passed away on Friday and we’ll be in and out of town over the next few days as we visit with mourning family members, go to the visitations and the funeral.

I know that there are several people still waiting to be added to the GTS list. I’m sorry that I haven’t managed to check your sites and get them added to the list in time for this weeks Green Thumb Sunday posts.

However, if you are new to GTS and are participating this week, please feel free to leave a comment on this post (or my GTS post if I get it up before we leave later today) and other members will know you are participating and hopefully visit to see what you’ve posted.

Grab the Photo Hunt code. Photo Theme. Visit participants.

This weeks theme is Old Fashioned

Since this weeks theme is Old Fashioned I thought I’d show you what I call the ‘ol Milk Canister although I have a feeling it never held milk but rather coal or some other form of fuel according to the markings on the bottom of it.

When my mother passed away a few years ago I was assigned the task of inventorying the houses contents and then my brothers and sister and I picked out the items that we wanted. I won’t say that the divvying of items went perfectly but it went ok.

I remember this old canister from my childhood. My parents never used it. It was always stored in the basement. Our house was built in the early 40′s and until sometime in the 50′s it was heated by coal! I believe that this canister might have held some of the coal used to heat the house. I’ll have to look at the markings again to verify what it says but as I said it appears to have something to do with a fuel company.

My second oldest brother turned out to have major allergies and I guess the coal particles in the air aggravated his allergies so I believe my parents were one of the first in our neighborhood to change over to oil heating. I think oil was the main heating source for homes (in Canada) in the 50′s, 60′s and early 70′s. They eventually changed over to gas heating when the gas lines were being laid on our street.

The canister was an off white color when I brought it home. Some of the paint was beginning to peel off but over all the canister was in good shape. I thought it would make a great garden ornament so I painted it blue.

I should bring it in, in the winter and I usually do, but it was left outside this year! I guess it’s not too late to bring it indoors huh?

Since neither of the Sundays fall on an actual holiday date we’ll continue as normal.

I do realize that some of you might be out of town for the holidays or might have a house full of guests. So if you are not able to make your regular GTS post during this time that’s fine.

A tip – if your blogging platform allows you to post date your posts you could make a GTS post in advance and just post date it to the 23rd or 30th of December so that it will automatically post for you. I know WordPress has the ability to post date posts (just be sure to save it as published with a future date and it will automatically post on the date and time you set) and I’m sure some of the other popular blogging platforms have this ability as well.

As for the rest of the winter months … I noticed last year that some GTS members slowed down in their postings over the cool months of winter. Please remember that picture of your garden in the winter can be just as beautiful as pictures of your garden and plants during the growing season. Landscapes, older photos of your garden or plants, and photos of house plants are also welcome during this time. So keep on posting!

I must also apologize for my lack of regular posts over the last month or so. I’ve been quite ill and on top of that I have a new sick puppy at home. We got her on November 23rd and she’s been sick since we got her. As a result I’ve had to cut down on my blogging as it takes quite a bit of my time caring for her and treating her various ailments. Hopefully things will return to near normal soon!

If you are planning a wedding or hope to soon begin Wedding plans one site that you should visit is Weddingfavors.com. Naturally, the products that they specialize in selling are Wedding Favors of all kinds.

The Wedding Favors site makes it easy to select and purchase wedding favors in volume. You see they have a volume pricing calculator. Simply visit the site and browse through their lovely selection of wedding favors. When you find an item that you’d like to give to your guests as a gift simply click on the product link to learn more about the item.

Often the price for a single item is displayed, however right above the price you’ll find a box where you can type in the quantity of items you’ll need. Type in the amount needed and then click update prices. If you’ve qualified for their volume pricing you’ll see that the price per single item has gone down and a total price will also be displayed. You might also see a message that tells you how many more items you need to buy to qualify for the next volume pricing discount.

You can also click on the volume pricing tab at the bottom of each Wedding Favor item page to see the volume pricing chart.

I love this feature! I don’t believe that I’ve seen a volume price calculator on other wedding favor sites that was so easy to use. I’m sure this feature will make it a lot easier for those planning weddings to stick to their budget.

As for the selection of favors – there’s a wonderful selection. They have beautiful pewter photo frames, boxes, cameras, personalized wedding favors, favors by themes, candles, flowers, place cards, wedding bell favors, Bookmark wedding favors, crystal wedding favors and even bottle stop wedding favors. The items are lovely.

You can also check their Sale section or browse through their wedding favors by season to find items that suit a wedding for any season.

Visit the Wedding Favors site to see their lovely selection.

I have to cut down my beautiful sunflowers! We got an official notice stating that the flowers in the boulevard are overgrown and must be cut down to 0.92 meters (3 feet) by September 12th. The notice doesn’t say what will happen if we don’t do it, but I’m sure it will be a fine of some sort.

I guess it’s because we let the sunflowers grow as they wanted – all over the boulevard instead of just a thick line of sunflowers this year. We also have one that’s grown to about 14 feet in height!

I could see the complaint if we were a house on a corner and or if all our neighbors used their driveways, but we’re the second house from the corner and we are the only people out of 8 houses on our block that actually uses our driveway! We don’t use our car much since we live close to work so it’s not like seeing around the sunflowers as we back out is a daily issue and it’s not that hard to see around them anyway. Grrrr.

Sorry I’m so behind on my Green Thumb Sunday post. We had our family reunion over the last five days and I really didn’t have any time to get my blogging done. All the guests are gone now so I should get back to normal blogging again. I hope! I’m very tired though.

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.