Tricia's Musings

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



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Archives for 2011

Holiday decorations for sale already in the stores?

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I don’t know why it does, but it amazes me time and again every year how early the stores start selling items for the holidays. Don’t you find it a little startling at times too?

The other day my husband and I were shopping in Costco and everything looked pretty normal, but then we turned a corner and at the end of an aisle I noticed that they were actually selling boxes of holiday cards.

I couldn’t believe how many Christmas cards I saw as well as Christmas decorations, lights and even fake trees.

Crazy!

I really shouldn’t be surprised at all – not at this store. I mean, they sell shorts and swimsuits in March for summer, and by the time the warm weather hits they only have sweaters and fall coats on their shelves. Plenty of other stores are like that too. I don’t mind shopping for my clothes a little a head of the season but not 6 months ahead of the season. That’s ridiculous!

What do you think – are stores too far ahead?





I want to refinish our basement

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I keep threatening to get the basement cleaned up and refinished and I think that we might be able to finally do that in the next few months. Yes – I’m determined. Again.

I think this has something to do with all that cleaning I did on the weekend.

Now, I’m not talking a complete refinish. I wouldn’t want to do that at this time of year in this climate. However, we already have a bathroom and laundry area in the basement and I’d love to replace the shower, sink and and utility sink as we’ll as redefine that section of the basement.

As for the rest of the basement I’d be happy if we got it cleared out and set it up like a recreation room or den for the winter. We already have a spare pull out sectional couch and a large HDTV down there so that’s a start.

Then come spring or next summer we could truly refinish the basement. I’d love to make it nice and cozy, perhaps put in a gas fireplace so that it would be nice and warm, heated floor and so on. Hmmmm that reminds me I saw some lovely mantel designs the other day, perhaps I’ll spend some time over the winter planning the full renovation and picking out things like a fireplace mantel.

Have you refinished your own basement?

Glad this busy Saturday is over!

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I’m coming to the end of yet another thoroughly busy day. I started out this morning by doing a little bit of house cleaning. Actually, it was more than a little bit of house cleaning as I was tackling the basement which I like to call our storage area.

I think it’s just about time for us to have a yard sale. Unfortunately I don’t think our yard is big enough! We have a lot of stuff we could get rid of, and believe me, I wouldn’t miss any of it.

I have a few boxes in the basement that I really haven’t unpacked from when we moved from our apartment ten years ago! I even found items that I used to use when I was a jeweler, I hung on to some of the tools because some of them could be used in the house, but items like my jewelery scale that I used for weighing gold that only weighed up to 300 grams or my old micrometers for measuring pieces of gold or metal, and of course my old ring sizing mandrel – what would I need any of those things for now? My sister is still in the jewelery trade I suppose I can give her some of my tools if she wants them and then sell the rest. Who can’t use extra money?

We also store extra or spare furniture in the basement. I was going to refinish a few of the pieces, but I don’t think I’m going to use them now so I’d be perfectly happy to let them go in a yard sale.

The basement is a big job so I only put the morning into it for now, then in the afternoon I went out shopping with my husband. We were about to go to the Toronto Humane Society to look at dogs that are up for adoption when we were done shopping but it was too late in the day. We’ll got tomorrow or Monday. Like I said in my last post I’ve been thinking of getting a second dog for quite a while now and because of recent events I want a true guard dog. Ha!

Then, an old friend came over for dinner. An old Russian friend from back in the days when I worked in the jewelery trade. It seems like everyone was corrupt in the business in those days except my sister, myself and a few other people and by corrupt I mean doing other things other than jewelery. Anyway these friends of mine have always had my back so they’re going to keep an eye on this situation too.

Now I’m ready to just relax!

How ’bout you? Did you have a busy Saturday too?

My new guard dog

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My Glowing eyed dog - makes a good guard dog! Funny!

I was taking some pictures the other day in my garden and it was getting towards dusk. My dog was vying for my attention so I tried snapping a few pictures of her and the above photo is what I got! Glowing eyed dog! LOL

Now if only she looked this fierce all the time. She’s actually a very nice, friendly Labrador Retriever, but as you can see in this picture she looks like a dog from Hell.

Perhaps it was the whole tomato that she ate a half hour before I took the “glowing eye” pictures that made her eyes turn into lasers? Nah I know it’s because of the flash …

My dog eating a tomato!

Here she is wiping her face and just enjoying rolling in the grass after eating the tomato:

My Lab rolling around in the grass

I can’t resist showing you one last picture of Midnight and her glowing eyes. She doesn’t look quite as dangerous in this picture as she did in the first. In fact, I think she looks kind of cute despite the glowing eyes.

Midnight the lab with what looks like flares for eyes! whoa!

I’ve been thinking of getting a companion for Midnight lately. I was considering a smaller dog, in part because we have a small house and one dog takes up enough space. However due to some recent occurrences I’m now leaning towards a true guard dog. I know Midnight would protect me with her life, but I’d like a dog that’s got “guard” turned on more often than she does.

The new dog would need to get along well with Midnight. I thinking about a German Shepard, but if anyone has any other suggestions I’d love to hear them. In the mean time … I might call up some of my old dear Russian friends from the jewellery trade and have them come check the security situation out too.

Figuring out plans for the long weekend

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In a couple of hours my husbands niece and her new husband will be arriving from Chicago. They’re coming to Toronto for a visit for the long weekend.

While they’re here we’re going to drive them out of the city to my husbands parents (nieces grandparents) for a family get together party. I guess the party is partially a mini family reunion as well as a belated wedding reception for those of us that weren’t able to make it to the couples wedding in Mexico this past June.

The only problem is that all the planning for this visit has taken place between my mother in law and our niece and our niece only got in touch with us by email this past Wednesday to ask us for a ride to “nana’s” house. I wrote back (she only has a cellphone and doesn’t answer international calls I’m told) and haven’t received a reply … so we haven’t been able to make any direct plans with her ourselves. Sigh.

I hate “Third Party” arrangements!

So we’re expected to drive our niece and her husband to the in-laws and presumable back to Toronto – maybe the next day (Monday) … but we have no idea if that’s what they want or if their plans even work with our plans .. and my husbands mother is totally freaking out because she expected her grand-daughter to show up at her house on Saturday instead of Sunday!

As I said if our niece would have either answered the email or if we could call her on a land line (cheaper than cellphone!) we could have probably ironed out some plans that would work for all of us .. but no …

Anyway … I’m sure it will all work out. My husbands niece is very nice. I can’t remember exactly what she does now … It’s something medical … I think she’s either looking for pharmaceutical or Dentist Jobs but I can’t remember which field she went into. I think that’s partly because she started one field of study and then started another. LOL I think her new husband is either an accountant or does some kind of business finance work.

Once this weekend is over it’s time to celebrate my birthday. I’m certain my birthday won’t be celebrated this weekend as no one ever seems to remember it … but that’s ok, I do my own celebrating.

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