Tricia's Musings

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



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Archives for August 2010

Strange weather this summer

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I don’t know what’s going on with the weather this summer. Up until a week or so ago this was the hottest summer I could remember in a decade.

Now though it’s like it’s suddenly autumn. The days are cooler, it’s raining almost every day and the nights – the nights are really cool.

I do appreciated the rain. Our garden really needed it and frankly I was getting tired of having to water my garden pretty much every day (and water some of the potted plants twice a day!).

I guess the break in the heat isn’t that terrible either. In one of my last posts I was talking about how we were trying to find ways to cut expenses since we’re going to have to add car payments to our monthly budget now (man that was nice having a paid off car for several years!) so NOT having the air conditioners on for the last week or so has been nice. At least I know our electricity usage is getting a bit of a break.

Speaking of weather. All day it looked like it was going to rain. It would get really dark and I’d think – “ok, it’s really going to pour soon” – but then the skies would lighten up again and things would be ok for a while.

Just a little while a go the skies were so dark I though we were going to have a thunderstorm, but again, I could see the skies brightening up on the horizon so I though that it wasn’t going to rain … but it fooled me. All of a sudden it started to rain hard and surprise – it started to hail.

We haven’t had hail all summer. Not that I know of anyway! Since we just got a new car all I could think was please don’t let the hail stones turn into big golf ball sized hail. LOL They were small and plentiful though … covering the ground and grass like hundreds of loose diamonds. I guess it was warmer than I thought because they sure melted fast!

Are you having strange weather this summer? Super hot and humid days, weeks or months and then rain, rain, rain?

BTW it’s my dogs birthday to day! She’s three. I’m making her homemade doggy biscuits (peanut butter dog biscuits). Think she’ll like her birthday gift?





The new car needs a repair already

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My husband’s home again this week. He’s on another mandatory temporary layoff from work. He had a layoff week in July and then followed it up with two weeks holiday so all in all he’ll be off for four weeks this summer.

If they were all paid weeks off that’d be great, but he’s really only being paid for two, thanks to vacation pay … and receiving that vacation pay messed up his unemployment application as they count vacation pay as “money received” so he won’t be getting any unemployment money for his two layoff weeks. If you count the two layoff weeks in December that makes four weeks that he’s been laid off work in less than a year (thanks to the hospital going over budget) and he should qualify for a little unemployment pay … but thanks to that vacation pay it’s not going to happen.

I’m just trying to survive with Chris off work and at home all the time. I have a hard time getting my work done when he’s around because he asks me questions while he’s working on the other computer.

I do have a little reprieve. Chris just took our car to Brantford to see if the garage / dealer where we bought the car with repair the back window that won’t go up or down free of charge. We just bought the car and the window was working when we test drove the car so in our minds they should repair it for free.

We spoke with the man that sold us the car earlier today and he said it probably wouldn’t cost anything. I sure hope he’s right because we don’t have any extra money for car repairs right now … and as I said above I don’t think we should have to pay for the repair anyway. Also, if they are going to charge us we’d rather hold off on fixing the window. We can live with one window that won’t move for a while. At least it’s in the closed position! It would be a different story if it were stuck in the open position.

Man, the garage we bought our car at is a mess. When we drove down there a week ago to see our unrepairable Contour and test drive a car on the lot I had to use the washroom. Normally I don’t use public or even private washrooms if I can help it. I just don’t like to – but in this case, after looking at all 10 cars on the lot and test driving two of them I just had to go!

The whole garage was a mess. I think they saved everything that the business has ever owned (they opened about 80 years ago!) and of course everything in the place was covered in grease and I think metal dust. All except their new epson receipt printer and cash register.

The washroom was the dirtiest washroom I’ve ever been in. It was bad. Everything was covered in black dust or grease – even the inside of the toilet! If I hadn’t had to go so badly I would have turned around and walked out of the washroom. As it was I just tried my best not to touch anything and got out of there as quickly as I could.

Anyway … if Chris didn’t hit any traffic he should be in Brantford by now and with any luck the guys at the garage can look at our car today. If no parts need to be ordered and if it’s an easy fix he might be home tonight, otherwise I guess he’ll stay over at his parents place and get the car fixed tomorrow (for free I hope!) and drive back sometime tomorrow.

I’m hoping he’ll be home tonight -even though he drives me nuts when he’s home all day LOL, but I have a feeling I’ll be on my own tonight for a solo dinner.

Have you ever bought a used car and then discovered a problem almost immediately after buying it? Was the repair covered by the business that sold you the car?

Looking for ways to cut expenses

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If you read my last post you know that we had to bite the bullet and buy a new car. Well a new used car.

I guess we could have waited and gone carless for a while, but with family out of town and my husbands parents getting older (his dad is 82) we feel better having a car at our disposal.

Now thanks to our big, unexpected, purchase we’re not going to have any money to spare for months or perhaps even the next year.

We’re already pretty good about watching how we spend our money, but I’m going to have take another hard look at our bills and spending and see where we can cut. I’m pretty sure we can get a better long distance plan with our phone company, and I can cut out a few things on our cable bill too. I’m also pretty sure I can cut down our grocery bill a little bit as well. I’m sure our savings between all of those things won’t be all that much since we’re pretty careful already, but with any luck I might be able to cut an extra $100 or so. Even that will help.

When it comes time to buy new clothes we can always try an online wholesale apparel store for deals. Oh and we shop at Costco – mainly to fill my many prescriptions, but if we buy more things in bulk we might save a bit there too.

Oh well … I guess we’ll just have to be really careful with our money for a while. I hope nothing else breaks down! We’ve already replaced our washer, drier and a TV this year … The furnace is probably next on our list.

Our old car broke down – now we have a new one

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Another busy day .. or rather another busy week!

Last week, Chris was on his last week of holidays and I spent part of the week at home on my own because Chris was off camping with his brother, and the rest of the week was spent traveling out of the city to Brantford twice and going to some friends of ours for a BBQ.

The main reason we went out of town twice was because our car broke down in Brantford. GRRRR … I wish our in-laws had told us that it had broken down, but they didn’t tell us until five days after it had happened. again – Grrrr! Once we tried to get the car fixed we found out that the transmission was shot. It’s apparently pitted and therefore it leaks.

So … rather than putting $3000 into a 14 year old car (it had worked well until this happened) we decided to buy a newer used car. That accounted for our second trip to Brantford as there was a good deal at the used car dealership that’s attached the garage where our old car was being “not” fixed.

Last Friday night we took a few cars for a test drive and decided that a 2006 Pontiac Pursuit would be fine for us. Unfortunately we couldn’t finalize the deal until Monday so Chris had to go back on Sunday night so he could get the ball rolling on Monday morning … then he drove home with the new car on Monday afternoon.

While he was in and out of the house over the last week – or week and a half I noticed how much cleaner the house was without him around … especially the bathroom! I think I finally figured out why we have this odd white spot on the front of the Hansgrohe faucet … it seems he leans over to take a sip of water when he’s brushing his teeth and of course this leaves some toothpaste foam on the edge of the tap. Guys!?!

Anyway … we’ve got our new car now. It was a little more than we can afford … especially since we weren’t expecting to have our other car breakdown like that. Although, given that our old car was 14 years old we had been thinking that we’d need a new car sometime soon. Just not this soon.

Unfortunately we’ve found something wrong with the new car. When Chris came home from work this evening we decided to get the dog and take a drive along the lake. It’s a hot day but we didn’t turn the cars air conditioning on (yes it works). We opened the windows and the back drivers side window wouldn’t open. It had been working when we test drove the car – but now it’s not .. so I guess it must have a loose wire or something.

I guess we’ll have to call the used car dealership tomorrow and see if they’ll fix the back drivers side window. The sales bill says all sales final so I don’t know if they will fix it free of charge or not – but I hope they will as we really can’t afford another expense … plus it’s only right – we find something wrong just 24 hours after buying the car? Yeah they’d better fix it. Hopefully we can get it fixed here rather than driving back to Brantford yet again.

A day at the in-laws

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Just got back from visiting the in-laws and extended family in Brantford. I’m soooo tired!

My husband came back last night from his sisters cottage … a trailer up north and he was as red as a lobster! He’d been partying with his brother and sister for four days. The trailer is in a little town on a lake. Very nice place. Chris says that her sister and her husband almost have their rv loans paid off too. That was fast – they only bought the trailer four or five years ago!

I’m glad he’s home, but we have to scramble to do a bunch of stuff before we get hit with weekend visitors! Chris brother and nephew will be coming to Toronto on Friday. Then we’re going to a baseball game Friday evening and to a barbecue at some friends. I don’t know what’s in store for the rest of the weekend.

Actually we have a visitor right now. Our nephew came back with us from Brantford. He has some Extra work in a series that being filmed downtown tomorrow so he’s staying with us overnight.

Oh and our car broke down! Some plug or module apparently fell out of our transmission on Saturday. My husband had borrowed his parents car to drive up North and his parents had our car. Only problem was they didn’t tell us that our car was sitting in a garage until today! So now that we’ve said yes to the repair a special part has to be ordered and I guess our car won’t be fixed until Friday or Saturday. Nice eh … I wish my mother in law had called me seeing as I was at home. Grrrr!

Well I’d better get to bed soon … tomorrow and probably the next few days are going to be busy!

BTW I heard back from my family doctors office on my head MRI … I’m going to need follow up with my neurologist. My MRI showed Non-Specific changes – whatever that means. See I knew something was wrong with my head.

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