The neighbors — You are in My World Now

It’s getting cold again

April 22, 2012 by Tricia

I can’t believe it’s going to be so cold tomorrow. I thought it was Spring – not winter. We might even get some snow! Isn’t that terrible. We’re near the end of April – after a beautiful warm winter and decent spring and we might get snow after two seasons that barely had any snow? Odd! LOL

No no … it’s time for us to be outside wearing light jackets or not coats at all .. perhaps even shorts and tank tops! Sandals!

One great thing about my neighborhood is that once the weather is nice and even when it isn’t – people are outside visiting each other, working on their houses and their yards, walking or biking everywhere. Parents are walking their kids to the school just down the street, pregnant women are walking around in hip maternity clothes and almost everyone is friendly. Perhaps not friendly enough to stop and talk but at least to wave hello or to smile or nod your head at – make eye contact and so on.

I’ve been in this neighborhood now for 11 years and I know pretty much everyone nearby. I know people in part because it’s a friendly neighborhood and in part because until I became ill and had to take some time off work I was a nurse in the Emergency ward at the hospital down the street from my house and eventually a lot of neighbors end up coming through the emerg either as patients themselves or with friends and relatives so it’s not hard to get to know them a little bit that way.

The only time I’ve ever found this neighborhood quite or “dead” was this past Christmas. I was alone myself and there just seemed to be no one around. Everyone was away.

Hopefully the weather warms up soon and it doesn’t snow tomorrow. I’d really hate to have to pull out the shovel again! Just when my garden is really starting to do fanatically!

I love how my neighborhood changes from season to season

December 20, 2011 by Tricia

I’ve been taking a close look at several of the houses in my neighborhood when I take my dog out for a walk each day. It’s interesting to see the changes the houses go through each season. Many houses are decorated for the houses right now and the neighborhood is quite pretty at night.

One thing that I’ve noticed that several houses who have done some landscaping have done is to get a really nice address plaque. Some of my neighbors have built their address plaques into their stone edging surrounding their property. I’m sure I’m describing it properly but lets say the stone surrounds the property like a short fence and the number plaque is embedded in the stone. It’s very nice when it’s done well. I like the look of some of the address plaques so much that I went looking for some and I found a address plaques from addressplaques.net that I really like, I just have to decide if I want to buy it for our house now and where I might put it.

Do you have a nice address plaque on your house or just plain numbers? Oh and do you change the look of the outside of your home depending on the seasons? By this I mean do you decorate for the holidays or plant flowers outdoors in the spring and summer?

The Huge Branch that Fell on Our House and Car

September 17, 2011 by Tricia

Back in August – August 21st to be exact, there was a sudden violent summer storm in our area of Toronto and while it only lasted about ten minutes it sure caused a lot of damage to not only our house and property, but to many other peoples homes in our area as well.

As I said the storm came on suddenly – it had been looking like rain for a while, but all of a sudden the sky had that dark almost greenish look that to me means impending tornado and there was in fact a storm and tornado watch at that time. Then, just as I stepped out on to our enclosed front porch to see if my husband was home yet from getting the groceries the storm started with a violent rush of rain.

I was trying to close the windows on the enclosed porch when I saw our car pull into the driveway. I moved towards the door, thinking that maybe I’d run outside to help my husband bring the groceries inside but then the rain really started shooting in the window that I hadn’t managed to close yet … and then there was a huge bang on the roof and all of a sudden there were branches all over our lawn and the car that my husband was still inside of … or at least I was hoping my husband was still inside … because if he’d started to get out of the car he could have been hit by the huge branch!

As it turned out … my husband was still in the car being tossed and turned like he was in a car wash. He was trying to call the house but of course I was on the porch and wouldn’t have heard the phone … plus little did we know but the power went out and would be out for the better part of 7 hours!

When the rain finally slowed my husband crawled out of the car and we both counted our blessings that neither of us had been hit by the huge tree branch. It had fallen off the big maple tree on the other side of our neighbors house. It’s a city tree … but of course as it turns out because of it was storm conditions we can’t make a claim for the damaged that the huge maybe 500 pound branch did to our house evestroughs and car … we tried and were turned down. Nice eh?

Here’s a couple of pictures of what the tree branch looked like covering our small lawn and car. I figure the branch was over 20 feet in length and weighed more than 500 pounds. Most of our neighbors were stunned by what happened – one seemed to care less but that seems to be typical behavior for them. Sigh.

Now that the city has turned down our claim for damage we’re going to have to either get a quote from our insurance companies or just pay out of pocket for the damage that the big branch caused … either way we have to get the evestroughs fixed as a couple of them have dents in them that look like the lip of a measuring cup and rain water pours out of that area just like it does out of a measuring cup … so yes we have to fix it.

Neighbor of the year award – not!

August 31, 2011 by Tricia

I’m hoping that our next door neighbors, the ones that have been renovating their house for a year and a half since they bought it and still haven’t moved in will just sell their house when they’re finally done renovating. I really don’t want them to be our neighbors.

Why … well … lets just say if they were giving out awards for personality our neighbor wouldn’t even come close to winning one of those trophies or a trophy of any kind. In fact I’m starting to think he’s a sociopath!

On August 21st we had a huge whirlwind storm come through our area of Toronto (East York) … it only lasted about 10 minutes but 44 mm of rain fell in that time period and several trees fell into houses and blocked streets.

We actually had a huge tree branch fall on our house and onto our front yard and car .. the car that my husband had just driven into our driveway with during the storm! I was in the front porch hoping my husband wouldn’t arrive during the storm and wouldn’t you know it … there he was turning into the driveway just as the storm really started to rage with water spraying everywhere. My husband said he felt like he was inside a carwash.

Then, just as I was about to run out and help him bring in the groceries I heard a loud bang on the roof of our enclosed porch and then branches all over the yard and our car. My husband was luckily still inside the car.

The big branch could have hit either me as I ran out of the house or my husband if he’d stepped out of the car. It’s all in the timing!

We later estimated that the branch weighed more than 500 pounds! I have lots of pictures – I should post some.

Anyway back to our neighbor who shares our driveway and could have parked his own car there when our car wasn’t in the drive … he came out of his house about five times but he never once said a word to us as we assessed the damage to our car, evestroughs and talked to many other neighbors. Odd huh … I mean it could just have easily have been his car!

God I hope they don’t move in!

The Taste of the Danforth

August 7, 2011 by Tricia

My husband and I just got back from The Taste of The Danforth. It’s and Annual festival in my neighborhood celebrating all things Greek. Of course, that section of the Danforth is fairly multicultural now, so when visiting the “Taste of the Danforth” you can sample foods from India, Mexico, Greece, Thailand and pretty much anywhere as there are all kinds of restaurants along that 3 km stretch.

So .. my husband and I live in the Toronto Danforth area so we walked from our house to The Danforth and then walked up and down the whole Taste of the Danforth area. It was loud and crowded and it rained on us a few times. It was also quite hot and humid! After a while of walking I was almost looking forward to the rain to help me cool off!

In addition to sampling food at the Taste of the Danforth, my husband and went in to a few stores. The stores that normally close by 6 pm or so on Saturdays stay open until midnight during the Taste of the Danforth so you get to shop in stores that you normally wouldn’t. I actually went in a few stores that I normally wouldn’t have shopped in – my husband and I went in a record store that had vintage vinyl records, and we went into a few clothing stores.

We also went into one of the jewelery stores just to browse around. We were both jewelers when we met and we know the jeweler who owns the store we went in to so it was sort of a visit. we got into a discussion about jewelry fashion trends for moms while we were there because I’ve seen a few news stories lately about “push jewelery” as in a jewelery gift for a new mom. We certainly didn’t call it that when I was a jeweler!

We bought enough food that we were able to bring some home for tomorrow. Yum – Gyros and Spanokopita for dinner tomorrow too. Can’t wait. Do you like Greek food too? Do you go to local festivals in your area or home town?