As the Garden Grows

What's blooming today?


Working towards getting fit

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When I was a teenager, and in my early twenties I used to be very athletic. I was a runner, did weight training to keep in shape when I had competitions, and after I was out of the running game I still kept fit by going to fitness clubs, jogging and doing aerobics.

I’ve stopped doing all of that since I became sick. No, not just since my current illness took hold, but since it first started in 1992. Or maybe I should correct myself and say it’s been a slow decline up until this current illness and now it’s at a dead stop? Yeah that’s more accurate.

I know that I’m a bit of a different case because the main reason that I’m becoming out of shape is that I’m in pain so I’m not moving about as much as I used to, but even for someone like me fitness is important. In fact it might be even more important for a person with chronic pain because exercise helps stimulate endorphin production and endorphins can help you in at least two ways- one they make you feel better, happier, and two they can also help reduce pain levels.

I have a very nice mountain bike that I bought a year and a half ago. I used it the first summer I had it, but I didn’t use it this past year at all. I think this coming spring I’m going to get on that bike and start riding. There are a number of wonderful bike and hiking trails in the neighborhood. One of the great things about living in a city like Toronto is that there are huge parks and areas of green within the city, and also the beaches and boardwalk for activities too.

Ok so I have a plan for a few months from now but I think I should start sooner than that. If I don’t I’m just going to be a blob that doesn’t want to move by spring. The weathers actually been pretty nice lately, so if I can’t ride my bike maybe I can start walking around the neighborhood. It’d be nice to get my husband to come with me. We could walk around the neighborhood in the evenings and see all the houses decorated for Christmas. I’d enjoy that – even if I didn’t feel so good during or after the walk, at least I’d be out doing something.

If you’ve been trying to come up with ideas to raise your activity levels so that you can either get in shape or lose a bit of weight I hope that a few of my ideas have helped you too. For more ideas on how to start getting into shape you can visit No Excuses Gym, a blog that’s full of great ideas for weight lose and muscle shaping activities.






My Parade of roses

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parade

This is a photo of one small section of my garden. I took it a few years ago. The roses are called Parade – specifically Parade Climbing rose, and then there’s the brilliant blue delphinium beside the roses. Doesn’t that blue almost look fake in this photo? Just to the right of the delphinium is a plant called Maltese Cross with orangish Red tiny blooms on top of tall stalks.

Fellow Green Thumbers? I’ve been thinking about it, and I was thinking that perhaps we should skip the next two Sundays? Next Sunday is Christmas Eve, and the following Sunday is New Years Eve. Yes I do realize that it’s also Hanukkah between December 15th and December 23rd as well, so perhaps some of you aren’t even playing today.

I think that many of us might be busy during this time period, and that it might be best to begin our regular Green Thumb Sunday postings again on the first Sunday of this coming January?

I’ve also noticed that many of the Green Thumb Sunday members haven’t been participating as much in the last month or so. Perhaps it’s just the holidays and life being busy, but if you are dropping out please let me know. I also realize that I haven’t been the best at getting around to all of the sites lately either and I’m sorry about that. I haven’t been well and I’ve had a lot on my plate lately too.

So, my message right now is that if you don’t want to participate because of the holidays over the next two Sundays – that’s fine. If you do, then by all means make a Green Thumb Sunday post. I’ll try to keep an eye out to see if anyone posted and I’ll try to come visit.

Otherwise I hope to visit all of you after this Sunday, in the New Year.

Happy Holidays – Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa and New Years!

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

Great site to search for hotel reservations

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I’m really happy that I found this great site, Hotelreservations.com where you can choose from hotel, motel, resort and vacation rental properties from all over the world. I think that anyone planning a trip should stop by this site while they are still in the planning stages so that they can see what types of rooms or accommodations are available to them and then make their Hotel Reservations online.

The prices are reasonable. I live in Toronto, so just to see what kind of pricing the site was able to come up with for me I did a search for rooms available in Toronto January 6th to 8th. I sorted the results by price and it gave me a list of available hotel rooms available during those dates sorted from lowest to highest prices. I didn’t go through all of the results- but it gave me more than 25 results with at least two pages of results. All of the results on the first page were below $100 per night which is actually a very good price for Toronto. I know during the summer when I was trying to book some hotel rooms for my in-laws and other relatives that were coming into town for a wedding all the hotel room prices I was quoted were over $150. So you can see from the results that I got that with rooms being listed- in hotels that I recognize as being nice hotels – all below $100 per night. Those are great prices.

Only one search result troubled me. It listed a hotel in Brampton which is a town about 40 or more minutes outside of Toronto. I think that result is too far out for someone looking for a hotel room within the very large city of Toronto.

Now that I’ve proven to myself that Hotelreservations.com lists well known quality accommodation, and that the prices are quite good I’d be more than happy to search the site for accommodations in another city if I were traveling, and I’d recommend it to others as well.

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