Culture — Page 39 — You are in My World Now

I have a feeling that we’re going to need a new car soon

March 25, 2009 by Tricia

the other day, as Chris pulled out of the driveway to go to a store for me I noticed that our car was making spluttering sounds as he drove away. I gave him a call on the cellphone and asked him if he heard the car making funny noises but he didn’t think that it did … still … our car is getting kind of old. It’s a 1996 Ford Contour. So it’s 13 or 14 years old.

I’m actually amazed at how good it looks. It has a few tiny rust spots but other than that you’d never know the car was as old as it is.

I have a feeling, given it’s age and the spluttering sounds I heard the other day (no matter that my husband didn’t) that we’ll be looking for another car in a year or so. Hopefully not sooner! I mean it’s bound to start having some kind of serious problem – right?

Hmm maybe I’ll check online to find out which cars have the best safety ratings, best mileage etc. That’s what I did last time when we were getting our current car. I also spent some time looking for insurance online where I could compare or get quotes for car insurance prices for the cars we were interested in.

I’d love to get a Hybrid, maybe a Smart car … but I think they are too pricey for us right now unless we get a “mildly” used one. As it stands, unless Chris or I start making a ton of money our next car will probably be a used one, no matter what kind we get.

Are you driving an older car? Have you been thinking about getting a new or used car soon to replace your current one?

Time to do some yard work

March 22, 2009 by Tricia

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If you live in a northern climate you’re probably fairly excited that Spring has finally arrived. I know I am! We’ve actually had fairly nice weather most of the month, but I just got my first confirmation that Spring is truly here… I discovered my first crocus’ blooming in my backyard just a little while ago.

Crocus’ are usually the first flower to bloom in my garden each year so it’s a sign that my personal gardening season has begun.

Now I can’t wait to get out in the yard and start clearing the dead leaves and dead foliage out of the garden beds! I need to rake the lawn as well. I guess we didn’t rake it much in the fall and it has a matt of dead grass that I’m sure once we rake it off we’ll see some signs of life in the lawn below.

I’ll probably have to wait a few weeks for the Hyacinths to start to make an appearance, but I can’t wait to see them and smell their heavily scented blooms. Don’t you just love the heady scent of Hyacinth?

Do you garden? If you do, what’s waking up in your garden beds right now?

Poked and prodded

March 10, 2009 by Tricia

Today turned out to be busy!

My husband usually has Mondays off and works the rest of the week, but he did someone a favor and traded shifts so he worked on Monday and had today off instead. Good timing on the switch as I had a doctors appointment in the afternoon and if I had taken the subway as I’d planned to do it would have taken me well over an hour to get there. Instead it only took about 15 minutes by car!

I’ve been seeing my family doctor and other doctors fairly regularly because my Crohn’s just won’t settle down … plus I had to go in today to get another shot of Depro Provera. No I’m not using it as birth control – even though that is how it’s working on my system … we’re trying it out to see if takes care of my endometriosis. I’ve been on it for almost a year now and since I don’t get my period while I’m on it I’ll have to say it helped because now I don’t have those horrible horrible period pains that were almost making me pass out in pain prior to my starting Depro Provera.

The only bad side-effect is that it’s caused me to gain at least 10 additional pounds … since I have Crohns that’s not too bad (Crohn’s tends to make you lose weight!), but still … I don’t like the extra weight – not at all. Hmmm maybe I should try some Solo Slim ?

I’ve also been having a lot of trouble with my back lately. I’d say it’s been hurting more and more for over a year – especially if I walk a few blocks or do house cleaning like sweeping or vacuuming. I think it’s because I tend to lean forward a little bit when I do those things. Anyway, my back goes into spasms that get worse and worse until i lie down and let my back muscles rest.

At the beginning of February – when my husband was in the hospital with a heart problem – I did a lot of walking back and forth to the hospital. I was carrying things back and forth as well. I think that did my back in … because sometime during those first few days of the month my left thigh went numb and now my whole left leg is pretty numb. I have Vitamin D deficiency too so that might be affecting the bones in my back.

So in addition to seeing the doctor today we also made a trip to the hospitals x-ray department and had my lower back x-rayed.

Then it was off to a drug store to pick up some digestive enzymes. Since my bowels are inflamed due to the Crohn’s disease it’s causing me not to digest some of the foods I eat very well. I also don’t digest some of the pills I have to take each day either … so I’m going to try taking digestive enzymes for a while and see if helps at all.

Finally after being out for about four hours we arrived back home. I didn’t get to rest my sore back though … my husband wanted me to edit one of his posts and he always seems to have trouble resizing photos and then adding them to his blog. I’ve even written out directions but he seems to always need my help. Arghhhh! It’s not that hard – right?

I think I”m just going to relax for the rest of the evening. God knows I need to recover from being poked and prodded all day! LOL But first – dinner! I made a roast yesterday so we’re going to have leftovers … easy!

The Crocus’ are coming

March 8, 2009 by Tricia

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I’m getting excited – one of my favorite seasons will soon be here – SPRING!

Ok truth be told I enjoy Spring, Summer and Autumn almost equally, well Autumn might be a little less on the fav scale but it’s up there compared to Winter! Oh and Winter will soon be over! Yeah!

I think plants celebrate when Spring arrives … maybe that’s why there are so many beautiful Spring flowers.

The Crocus is always the first flower to appear on my property each spring … aren’t they pretty?

Lovely little flowers of purple and yellow that bloom during the day and then close their blooms as night falls.

Another spring flower that I enjoy is the Columbine or Aquilegia. Such pretty ornate flowers.

When I was a kid we’d go up to our cottage almost every weekend from Spring through fall and often in the forest I’d find red flowers that my mother told me were called Honeysuckles. I think they were some form of wild Columbine. I guess that was my first introduction to Aquilegia.

Do you have a favorite Spring flower? Oh and what’s your favorite season .. if you have seasons, that is?

Our bedroom is freezing!

March 7, 2009 by Tricia

I’m so glad that winter is almost over! Yesterday it reached 18 Celsius (64 F) in the afternoon … but in a few days we’ll be back to the usual cold March weather. Hopefully this March won’t be as bad as last year! I remember a few snow storms and one of the worst of the year happened in March of last year.

Other than going outside in the cold I dislike the cold winter months because our main bedroom, upstairs, is the coldest room in the house. I wrote a post about it recently on my main blog – talking about how I hate getting ready for bed in the room because it’s so chilly that I end up covered in goosebumps! Some of my readers on the other blog suggested a variety of things but the main suggestion was to use a heated blanket. While that’s a great suggestion for once we get into bed, it does nothing to help with the too cool room.

When we first moved into our house in June of 2001 we noticed that the main bedroom – at the end of a long hallway far away from the stairs, didn’t have any cold air return. So we had some duct work done and had a cold air return added to the room. I’m sure that helped, but we still had drafts in the room once winter came.

A couple of years after we moved in we decided to tear down two of the bedroom walls … well the plaster anyway, to find the source of the drafts. We plugged up a few cracks that we found in the triple brick in the top of the wall near the ceiling and some near the base of the wall and then used drywall to close up the wall again. That fix made the room quite a bit warmer than it had been, but it’s still cooler than the rest of the house.

Since the room is cool in the winter we’ve always used some kind of electric heater to warm the room for an hour or so once we got to bed. We turn it on for a while prior to going to bed and since it has a timer on it we set it to run for about an hour after we’ve gone to bed. That helps quite a bit, but unfortunately our heater stopped working so we now need a new one. Believe me … that heated blanket is becoming more and more appealing!

We obviously still have some air leaks in the room because the room is too warm in the summer as well. Maybe we’ll have to tear down all the walls to find any other cracks that we missed.

Do any of you have the same problem? Is your bedroom a lot cooler than the rest of your house?