Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto
This is an absolutely gorgeous day lily when it blooms. I tend to get at least one repeat late in the season. The first blooms were near the middle to end of July. More should be coming soon.
Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.
I’m in the van driving to Chicago now. I’m with my husband Chris and two of our friends, and we’re on our way to go see Bruce Cockburn play in a small venue in downtown Chicago on Saturday night.
Actually, it’s early Friday morning (12:43 a.m.) and I’m still at home sitting at my computer pre-writing this post. But, if all goes well, by the time you are reading this I will be on my way to Chicago.
There was supposed to be six of us going, but two pulled out at the last minute on Thursday morning. Our two friends that are going might find two of their friends to come … so really I might be sitting in the van with 5 other people right now … I just don’t know it yet. LOL
The two friends that are driving with us are musicians, and the van is likely full of musical instruments. Well, I know it will have Chris guitar and our keyboard. I’m the only non-musician. Finally, Mr. Fab – we’ve found something I can’t do! Well, not yet. If my husband would only give me a guitar lesson I’m sure I’d master it. Maybe, or maybe not. Either way I’m sure I wouldn’t be as good as my husband as he’s an amazing guitar player.
Now I’ve said that I’m probably in a van. We don’t have a van. We have a car.
We will be leaving the house early in the morning and convoying to Brantford to Chris’ family home where we will leave our cars and then get into his parents van and drive off.
The only problem is that as Chris’ dad was driving the van on Thursday it made a funny noise. Not only that, when they were visiting Toronto during the double wedding two weekends ago the van chugged it’s way through a busy downtown intersection much to our dismay. It turned out that someone had forgotten that the emergency brake was on. Probably because it was covered with a bunch of stuff – tissue box, sweater etc and they had probably driven from Brantford with the emergency brake on, and then proceeded to drive through Toronto for two days with it on too. So, back to the grinding noise. Chris’ dad finally decided to call a garage and the Van is going in for a check-up at 7:30 Friday morning.
If the van is ok or ends up getting fixed well be off to Chicago as soon as it’s ready. If it can’t be fixed quickly we might end up not going, as we don’t think our car is up to a 9 or so hour drive each way.
Keep your fingers crossed for us!
So, now, as you sit there reading this we might be part way through our drive, stuck in construction between Indiana and Illinois, or we might even have arrived at Chris’ brothers house. Heck, I might be sitting in his hot tub right now.
Oh, oh! If you are a regular reader of this site you probably already know that me and hot tubs don’t seem to get along. The second last hot tub event that I attended ended up with me falling outside on a weird curb and hurting my knee really bad. That was July 8th and my knee is still recovering. When I fall, I fall down hard, I don’t do anything half way it seems. The first hot tub event occured the day after our boarder from hell moved in … and well, if you’ve read the page this post is on then you’ll know how that’s turned out.
We don’t have a huge itinerary planned for our trip.
We’ll arrive in Chicago sometime Friday evening and Chris’ brother has already planned to invite some friends over, so I’m assuming we’ll be having a little party.
The next day we’ll visit downtown Chicago and walk around and see the sights. I hope to get some fantastic photos while I’m there. Then that evening, perhaps after a BBQ, we’ll head back downtown and go and see Bruce Cockburns concert. Depending upon when that ends we might go to some blues bars or find something interesting to do in the city.
On Sunday we’ll spend some time recovering and then we’ll get back into the van and start the drive home. I’m assuming we’ll leave sometime on Sunday afternoon so I don’t expect to get back to Toronto until sometime in the wee hours on Monday. We’ve got to go back to Brantford first and get our car too.
Our neighbors are going to watch the house while we’re away. Their good about that, and well their nosy too, so if they see anything that doesn’t look right, and they will be looking, I’m sure they’ll take care of it.
Hopefully I’ll have an internet connection when I’m there. If I have time, perhaps I’ll write another post and tell ya what we’ve been up to, otherwise that will have to wait until we get back. Either way the posts will keep coming as I’ve written a few to keep you guys happy over the weekend while I’m busy.
Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.
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This weeks theme is Pets/Animals
Warning: If you really don’t like turtles or lizards go away now and come back another day.
The Box Turtles:
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The box turtle on the left is Spaz. He’s an Eastern box turtle and he thinks he’s a lizard.
He likes to climb. Only problem is that he doesn’t do it all that well. Hence the name Spaz. The turtle on the right is Spaz’ love interest Myrtle. She’s an Ornate box turtle. She’s not a very good climber either but she tries. Spaz is about 11 years old and Myrtle was 35 or so when we got her so I guess she’s 46 now. She’s getting up there. They were out for a garden walk when I snapped these pics.
Now for the Water Dragons!
This is a photo of two of my water dragons. Night is on the left and Rogue is on the right. Don’t they look cute, it’s almost as if they posed that way. I had a total of 7 water dragons at one time, but sadly all are long gone.
My main website started as a way to help people care for their water dragon lizards, but over the 11 years that it’s been in existence it’s grown into a monster of a site with information on the care of over 100 popular pet reptiles. The site has also had over 10 million visitors in that time. I have an article coming out in Reptiles USA magazine August 1st about the care of Water Dragons. Yep, these babies have made me famous in select circles.
Finally, my beloved Napoleon. I really care/cared about all of my pets but Napoleon was so very special. He was a rescue and we never thought we’d end up keeping him but he grew on us and we ended up having him 9 years. We think he was about 13 when he passed away in 2003.
He never liked the camera so it was hard to take a picture of him looking relaxed. He was such a sweetie. I think rescued animals know when they’ve found a good home and I think he was such a good boy because he’d had such a terrible life before we brought him home. If you like iguanas and want to know more about Napoleons story go to my main site and read about his rescue.
He was tame, very tame, but that came with a lot of work and training. He also had a TON of personality and was smart. He was trained to poop in a particular area too. Now would you think you could potty train a lizard? Well ya can.
I’d say his personality was a cross between a cat and a dog to use familiar examples. He was like a cat in that he would do the things he wanted to do when he wanted to whether that be come over for a visit and a rub or get curious and get into trouble. He was like a dog in that he really enjoyed attention and seemed to know when we were talking to him and he’d usually respond by “talking” back to us by bobbing his head.
Anyway, to end this and give you and idea of just how big he was here’s a picture of him with my husband Chris. Napoleon was 7 feet long and weighed approx 15 pounds near the time of his passing. May he rest in peace. I felt like I lost a son when he died. Actually, I think I’m still grieving.
Leave a link Only if you are a participant of Saturday Photo Scavenger hunt. Don’t link and run, it’s very rude.
(Thursday Thirteen post below this one)
Why are some of you leaving your link on the convenient Mr. Linky yet not leaving a comment?
Just because you are participating in Thursday Thirteen, Wordless Wednesday, the Saturday Photo Scavenger Hunt or even my own tiny Green Thumb Sunday it doesn’t mean that you can link and run.
It’s RUDE.
I don’t go to your sites and leave only a link. I take the time to read your posts or view your photos and I leave a comment. On the very rare occasion when I can’t think of something to say about the post or photo – I don’t leave a link. Get it – No comment, No link.
I paid for a subscription to Mr. Linky. Yes there is a free version, but I like the convenience that the subscription affords me. However, I find that every time I use Mr. Linky on any of three of my blogs it gets abused. Either by link and run Meme participants or even worse, by people who’s websites were created with the purpose of selling items ie ad sites.
I just removed 5 links from Thursday Thirteen participants that didn’t bother to leave a comment. In the past I’ve usually left the links on if the person is a participant of whatever the current Meme in use is, but not anymore. Some of you never leave comments, only a link.
So here’s MY rules:
2. If you are participating in the current Meme please only link if you’ve left a comment. Otherwise I might delete your link. Whether it stays or goes is at my digression.
3. If you are trying to promote your site, and you don’t regularly leave comments and you are not participating in the Meme. Don’t bother linking. I will remove your link. Anyway, leaving a link doesn’t really promote your site, one of the best ways to get people to visit your site is to leave comments on the sites that you actually like and that you feel that you can contribute to by posting comments. I tend to visit sites that leave comments and sometimes I make return visits, heck, sometimes I like the site so much that it earns a spot on my blogroll.
4. If you are an Ad site, sales site and you are going around leaving links on all the peoples sites that have Mr. Linky you will end up getting yourself banned by Mr. Linky himself. I delete all the ad site links, and if the owner is abusive enough I report them to Mr. Linky, and he will or won’t ban them at his own digression depending upon how many other complaints he’s received (I think that’s how it works).
So there you have it. Leave Mr. Linky alone. He’s tired of the abuse.