Culture — Page 37 — You are in My World Now

Do you get a lot of flyers in your mail?

June 2, 2009 by Tricia

I know I’ve complained about this before, but it seems that we’re getting more and more flyers delivered in our mail, dropped off at the door or even stuck to the outside of our door. Maybe it’s because summers almost here and businesses have more to advertise?

The flyers that are stuck on the outside of the door bother me the most. Almost every day, even on weekends, someone comes by and sticks a “sticky” flyer to our door. I just throw them out, but after having so many things stuck to the outside glass I also end up having to clean the window more often as dirt and dust seem to stick to those areas. Grrrr

We used to mostly just get flyers for sales, restaurants, real estate and movers but now we’re even getting advertisements for Mesothelioma lawyers fitness clubs and items for babies. Well, now that I think of it I guess we get flyers for just about everything.

I think it’s a waste as I’m yet to be interested in any of the things the flyers are promoting so they just go straight to the recycling box. Putting up a sign on the door saying we don’t want flyers hasn’t helped either, the mailman and private companies still deliver them.

Do you get a lot of useless flyers delivered to your door or mailbox? Have you tried to stop it? If so what have you done?

I need to find better magazines to read

May 13, 2009 by Tricia

It seems that every magazine that I read lately is doing their annual top 50 or top 100 most beautiful people. I hate those types of issues. I just sit and turn the pages … totally un-fascinated by the very short stories and photos.

Do you like those types of issues or do you hate them like I do?

Even worse is when they talk about celebrity diets! Fasting, cleansing and of course ones that discuss the best diet pills etc.

Maybe I need to read other types of magazines. LOL Ok well I do read other types of mags – gardening ones, Canadian ones like MaClean’s and Chatalaine and others, but I do like ones like People and Hello too and those are the ones that have some issues that I just totally hate and might as well not bother reading.

What kinds of magazines do you like to read.

Daffodils in the garden

May 10, 2009 by Tricia

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I’m really enjoying my garden this year.

We had a very warm March – for Toronto, and that seemed to put all my plants ahead by about two weeks or more.

It’s amazing how fast everything’s grown, two weeks ago there were a few green leaves and some flowers, but now, most of the garden beds have filled in and there are literally flowers everywhere! Tulips, Hyacinth, Muscari (Grape Hyacinth), glories of the snow and of course, Daffodils!

Here are some photos of the two most prominent types of Daffodils in my garden.

Aren’t they lovely?

The Daffodils have been blooming for about two weeks and some are still coming out, so I expect I’ll have daffodils around for another two weeks or so.

What flowers are blooming in your yard?

From bare patches to green – I love Spring

April 26, 2009 by Tricia

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It’s hard to believe how much a garden can change in just two or three weeks.

At the beginning of April my raised garden beds had plenty of bare patches … oh sure, you could see the bare roses, the Rose of Sharon tree, boxwoods and a few other plants that had withstood the winter cold and snow … but the perennials and bulbs planted deep in the soil had yet to show signs of life.

Now, near the end of April those bare patches are full of green leaves and or flowers like these lovely Glories of the snow …

Here’s another photo of White Glories of the Snow that came up in a very sunny patch of my garden .. as you can see they are just about finished blooming or well, they’re a little scraggly, maybe because the ground seems to be very dry this year despite the occasional rain:

How is your garden or yard doing this Spring … any nice changes?

A beautiful day turns scary with sudden wind storm!

April 25, 2009 by Tricia

I’m still recovering from a scary experience that I had at about 5:30 this evening here in Toronto.

It was supposed to be a beautiful day and for the most part it was, at least up until 4:30 or so when the skies started darkening. The weather forecast had said that we were expecting a thunderstorm this evening, so naturally I just thought the storm was approaching. Little did I know that by 5:15 pm or so I’d be outside (pruning roses in backyard) in what felt like a mini-tornado!

As I was outside puttering in the garden I noticed that it was getting darker and darker. I swear that if I didn’t know what time it was I might have thought the sun was about to set. So I was just about to start gathering the items I’d been using in the garden when strong winds came out of nowhere … no warning at all.

Suddenly I was in the worst wind storm I’ve ever experienced. Small branches were flying off my neighbors maple tree and I was worried that the broken down roof that they had over their garage overhang was about to blow into my yard. As it turned out a few pieces of the wood holding the roof down did land in my yard.

Our other neighbor rushed outside just as part of his back fence came loose and went flying towards him and his house. Then I noticed that the neighbor behind us was about to loose a large piece of their evestroughing from the front of their house!

That was enough for me and my new MBT shoes! I rushed into our enclosed back porch with my gardening tools. I stayed there for a bit to keep an eye on my neighbor who was covering up his BBQ and kids bikes just in case our other neighbors garage overhang roof did fly off and headed towards him. At least a little warning might have helped!

Chris was out at Home Depot while this was going on. When he came home just after 5:30 I learned that a TREE fell down right in front of the car as he was driving! It brought down power lines too! He carefully drove to the other side of the road and made it past the fallen tree and dangerous downed power lines.

Needless to say once he came home he was a little shaken up. I was glad that he hadn’t been hurt and told him about my backyard adventures as well.

Oddly enough, watching the news and the Weather Network at 6 pm they didn’t mention any damage from the powerful winds although they said there were gusts up to 85 kilometers an hour … I’m sure it was stronger in our area during the 10 to 15 minute windstorm. The news didn’t even mention downed trees … maybe this severe windstorm was just in our immediate area?

Pretty scary though .. I mean I literally saw two of my neighbors houses being damaged and another neighbors fence fly off! Not to mention Chris’ experience with a tree falling down right in front of him as he was driving … oh and after that the car lifted up off the ground while he was driving across the bridge at Millwood.

It’s scary how fast weather can change isn’t it? One minute it’s our warmest Spring day so far – 26 C (79 F) but felt like 30 C (86 F) with humidity and the next it’s the worst windstorm that I’ve experienced! Shortly after the winds the rain started falling. We had a little thunder, but nothing compared to that wind storm that I won’t soon forget!

I hope the weather in your area is better than ours was about two hours ago!