Home and Lifestyle — Page 108 — You are in My World Now

Dutchman’s Breeches

February 10, 2008 by Tricia

Enough with the winter pictures of snow and worrying about where we’ll put it if we get another big snow storm anytime soon. Time for dreams of spring and early summer I say!

These lovely flowers are formally known as Dicentra spectabilis and more commonly as Bleeding Hearts. With Valentines coming up I hope that no one has a bleeding heart. Sorry … bad joke.

Another name that some might know this late spring / early summer blooming flower by is Dutchman’s Breeches. Perhaps they do look like old fashioned breeches but to me they kind of look like a little girl with pig tails. What do you think?

I know I’ve got several months to go before I’ll see these lovely flowers so I’ll have to be satisfied with looking at photos of them for now.

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post!

When can I stop shoveling?

February 9, 2008 by Tricia

Grab the Photo Hunt code.
Photo Theme. Visit participants.

This weeks theme is Heavy

We’ve had a few snow storms here in Toronto in the last week or two and I’ve been out shoveling the heavy snow! I guess it’s good exercise but it’s awful hard work when the snow is packed and heavy. My back ached each time.

Look how high the snow is on my tiny front lawn:

It’s almost as high as our car!

We’re supposed to get more snow over the weekend and next week. I don’t know where we’ll put it! The snow was blowing so hard the other night that you could barely see the led tail lights of the few cars trying to drive on the streets!

Please visit two of my other blogs that are participating in the Photo Hunt – We’ve had a lot of snow this week here in Toronto and if you want to see some snow damage in my garden take a look at As the Garden grows, then if you want to see what my puppy finds heavy over at Tricia’s Musings.

Snow, ice and even a thunder storm

February 6, 2008 by Tricia

We’re experiencing yet another winter storm here in Toronto. It started last night with freezing rain and since then it’s been snow, snow and more snow! Oh yeah … thunder and lightening too. Pretty weird if you ask me!

Last week we had a really big snow storm. I think it was Friday because I remember cleaning off our car while I was outside in preparation for going to our Puppy training graduation that evening. Of course it was still snowing that night and only three other people showed up with their puppies so we had a trick class – a bonus extra – and our trainer said we’d have an extra class this Friday for our puppies graduation.

Well … that day it snowed a lot! When I went outside in the afternoon I shoveled the snow. There must have been close to a foot of snow on our walkway, the sidewalk and maybe two feet of snow in a big ridge blocking our driveway.

It wasn’t too bad shoveling the walkway and sidewalk. I even did our elderly neighbors sidewalk too, but by the time I started trying to clear out the snow that was blocking the end of our driveway I was getting tired. My back was starting to hurt too.

Of course the snow blocking the drive way was a little melty due to the salt or melter that had been spread on the street so it was really heavy! I think I almost quit shoveling three times.

It’s amazing how hard snow shoveling is on the body! I’m a nurse and on snowy days there’d always be a larger number of people, usually men, coming in to the ER with heart attacks. It’s very hard on the heart and most people over do it. Even I over did it. If I felt like quitting shoveling three times I should have stopped and taken a break, but I didn’t.

Makes me wonder whether I’ll even be able to shovel snow at all when I get older. A senior living residence might be looking good by that time! LOL

Anyway, today we were lucky. The sidewalk snow plows came around in the night and at least once in the morning so all the sidewalks in the area were free of snow. I wish they’d done that last week since there was a heck of a lot more snow last Friday!

Have you had to shovel a lot of snow recently?

Life insurance offers from the bank?

February 6, 2008 by Tricia

Twice in the last month our bank has sent us a letter offering us a deal on life insurance. It’s life insurance that’s tied in with our mortgage.

I don’t know why, but it seems strange to get a life insurance quote from your bank. Especially one that will end up raising our mortgage payments!

What do you think? Does this just seem like a bank gimmick? Yes, I’m sure all the banks are doing it. Have you purchased extra life insurance through your bank as part of your mortgage package?

It just seems wrong to me to buy insurance from my bank. Perhaps I’m just being traditional in thinking that we should get our insurance from companies that specialize in life insurance.

Pretty pink Octavia Hill

February 3, 2008 by Tricia

Join

This rose has the lovely name of Octavia Hill. It was developed in the UK by Harkness and introduced in 1995.

I’ve had this rose growing in my garden since 2002 – the first full year we had our house and landscaped our back and front yards to include raised garden beds! So it’s one of my older roses.

I don’t photograph this rose very often because I mistakenly planted it at the back of one of my garden beds and now that my garden has matured this rose has plants of equal height around it and frankly it gets lost in the crowd!

I’m always delighted though when I discover that it’s blooming as it’s flowers are so pretty.

As you can see Octavia Hill has light pink flowers, glossy green foliage and grows to a height of about 3 feet. It’s a repeat flowering rose and I’d say mine blooms three or four times each growing season.

The flowers give off a mild scent. I find you have to get close to the rose to really smell it, but it’s a lovely scent.

I must remember to seek out this rose this coming summer and take more photographs of it’s lovely blooms.