Tricia's Musings

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



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How do you handle unwanted door to door sales people?

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I was just saying on my other blog how much I hate door to door sales people … well at least the ones that are trying to sells services or items that are an obvious scam!

We just had a guy at the door trying to sell us a service to repair our brickwork … but believe me he looked like he should be buying a ton of acne medicine rather than wasting his time trying to scam us on work we don’t need done to our home.

Our dog just freaks when someone comes to the door too. She barks her head off. Of course she just wants to make friends with whoevers at the door, but they don’t know that because she looks like she means business.

Maybe next time a solicitor comes to the door we’ll just let the dog bark and bark and scare them away?

How do you handle door to door salesmen? Do you talk to them or just leave them standing outside?





How can I get my dog to let me cut her nails?

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I think it’s time to bring our dog to the groomers again. Midnight is a Lab, short haired and seems to be fairly clean, but man does she need her nails done.

She won’t let me trim her nails at all. It’s a huge fight from a dog that normally lets us do just about anything to her. She used to let me cut her nails when she was a puppy and in her first year, but all of a sudden last summer she didn’t want any part of it. Maybe something happened at the groomers that scared her off?

Anyway .. her nails are so long that I’m afraid just about every time I ask her to shake hands or when she gets excited and tries jumping up at me. Why? Well it’s because her claws dig into me and scrape my skin. Most days I get at least one fresh scrape on my arms, hands or legs.

I don’t heal well either. The scratches she leaves on me take a week or more to heal even though it’s really just a light scrape of the skin. By summer when I get a bit of color I’ll have scars all over me from our dogs claws scratching me. Hmmm I wonder if I could use some fade stretch marks cream to fade fine scars? Might work.

Anyone have any ideas as to how I can get my dog to let me cut her nails again? I have special nail clippers and one of those nail grinder thingies and she doesn’t want anything to do with either of them.

The awful renter neighbors have moved out! Yeah!

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I’m very happy to say that our neighbors from hell moved out yesterday! Yeah!!!!!

They were going to be formally evicted by the Sherrif on Tuesday if they didn’t move out on their own and luckily they took the initiative and moved on their own.

Of course, even though they apparently haven’t payed rent to the homeowner for five months or more (as well as bills like gas and electricity apparently) they still legally have possession of the house until noon on Monday … and they are taking full advantage of that by putting a note on the front door that says “we still have possessions inside and you can’t legally enter until March 22”.

So as far as I can tell the home owners are going to stay away until Monday and unfortunately … those awful soon to be ex renter neighbors are back outside right now. I guess they are moving a few last things out of the house with the big van they jammed into our tiny driveway.

I peaked out a few times yesterday while they were moving their things into the big moving van they’d rented. Man … just like the last renters they didn’t put much thought into their move. Things were coming out in garbage bags … you’d think that most familys would have few luggage sets or at least pack their things in boxes … but oddly enough both of our renter neighbors moving item of choice is the large dark green garbage bag … maybe it’s suiting since they were “garbage” neighbors.

Chris and I are very happy that the criminal element is going to be gone from our neighborhood. Over the last week there have been so many cars, jeeps, SUV’s, and pick up trucks parking outside the house or in our driveway at all times of the day and night that we feared that when it came time for them to be officially kicked out that there would be trouble.

We talked to the home owners yesterday to let them know that we finally saw the awful renters moving out and they said that they’ll probably sell the house after this. That’s a relief because just last week the woman was talking about renting again! Ah .. they’ve had two very bad renters so far … I couldn’t believe they were thinking of renting again! With their and our luck they’d probably make another awful choice and we’d have to live with the neighbors from hell all over again for another 6 months or so … instead, if we’re lucky we’ll get new “real” neighbors in a few months! I can’t wait!

GMAT prep courses for my niece

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Wow, time sure flies! I was just thinking about my husband and I’s nephews and nieces and I can’t believe that almost all of them are in their teens or in their young 20’s! It certainly doesn’t like that much time has gone by since they were babies!

As I said time flies!

We got a call from our niece in Chicago last night. She said she’s looking into gmat prep courses as she’d like to take a graduate business administration course. She said she’s looking into the Gmat prep courses at Knewton because they have the practice items, practice Gmat Cats, 36 live teaching hours, live office hours and a membership time of 12 months.

I don’t know much about Gmat prep courses, but I like that it’s online. I’ve become quite a fan of online courses in the last several years. You can still work and pay the bills while you’re learning!

I’ve you’ve taken a Gmat prep course I’d love to hear where you took it so I can pass that information on to my niece. It might help her decide where to study!

I’m so stressed out!

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I haven’t been feeling like my normally cheery self the last few days. Not even close …

I’ve had two colds or perhaps one loooong cold almost all year! Out of the 10 weeks that we’ve had so far in 2010 I’ve only had two that were cold free. That sucks! I do think I’m finally starting to recover from this latest cold though so maybe in a few days I’ll be done with this virus once and for all.

We’ve also continued to have trouble with our awful renter neighbors. They were supposed to be kicked out by the Sheriff on March 2nd … but as I suspected the home owners daughter in law didn’t do all the paperwork correctly so now they’re going to be evicted by the sheriff on the 23rd. Hopefully they pack up and move on their own this weekend or the next as I think if it comes down to a formal eviction things are going to get nasty. These people are just bad evil nasty people.

I’ve been more stressed the last few days because the renter neighbors – who’s turn it is this month to use the tiny shared driveway we have – have been having a lot of cars going in and out at all hours of the night.

I haven’t had much sleep in the last few days because our dog barks every time she hears our neighbors “visitors” slamming their car doors or talking just outside our house … you know at 2, 3 and 4 a.m! Grrrr

Plus my brother was visiting from Vancouver over the last week so I was staying up to try to keep the dog quite while our neighbors were doing whatever stuff they were doing in the middle of the night.

Now thanks to the cold and all the stress I’ve been under my Crohn’s is really acting up and my abdomen feels like I just had bariatric surgery or something. I mean … it hurts. I don’t want to do anything but lie on the couch and not move, because every time I move or drink or eat anything my abdomen hurts really bad. Damn Crohn’s. What a terrible disease this is.

Hopefully if I take it easy over the next few days my Crohn’s will settle down, my cold will go away and I’ll start to feel better. With any luck our awful renter neighbors will move out on their own as well … I know that will help me de-stress!

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