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Our neighborhood is going through a lot of changes

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Our neighborhood is quite a mix! It used to be pretty much all Greek – since it is of course part of Greek Town here in Toronto, but now that many of the residents are getting older they are moving out (or passing away) and their homes are being filled by young couples from all backgrounds … like my husband and myself I suppose since we bought our house from people who had lived in the neighborhood for over forty years!

Sadly, I’ve noticed that over the last few years a number of our older neighbors have been passing away. We just lost one a month ago and now I hear that a dear lady that lives only two houses away is starting to become extremely forgetful. I have a feeling her daughter will be trying to persuade her to move in with her or perhaps go to a nursing home sometime in the near future.

I also heard from her son that she’s been appealing a decision for social security disability in the last few months. She certainly shouldn’t have to fight for coverage, but it seems that’s the way it is these days.

It’s funny how neighborhoods change over time isn’t it? We’ve only been in our house for about 9.5 years and it’s changed a lot in the last few years.

Have you been in your neighborhood for a long time? Have you noticed that some of the people that have lived there for 30 or 40 years are selling their homes making way for a younger group of neighbors?





Renter neighbors and their noisy car

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I can’t wait until our renter neighbors either move out or get kicked out. I can’t say that enough.

They’re a bad bunch. They got the house next door because they lied about their jobs (they don’t work) and because they have three young children … but it seems like there are more than just the five of them living in the house .. maybe three extra guys.

They always look like they’re high and as I’ve mentioned in the past they seems to be scamming the cable company and Bell Canada … they’ve broken into their cable box (it still sits open all the wires exposed). I can only imagine what they’ve done to the inside of the house.

They’re car is the biggest issue that we face with them these days though. The woman has been working lately and every night she comes out and starts up the car at about 10:15 or so and then goes back inside while letting it run. She doesn’t come out again until about 10:45. So yeah .. she lets their car warm up in the driveway for about half an hour.

We have a new car idling law here in Toronto and I believe you’re not supposed to let your car idle for more than 3 minutes, so her warming up her car for 30 minutes is insane. Just think how much gas she’s wasting?

On top of that they’re car has a major muffler problem and an engine problem so it’s crazy noisy. With my ears blocked because of this head cold the noise just goes right to my head. Actually their car is so noisy that I can feel the engine vibrations as I sit on the couch!

To top that off I saw the husband walking into the house today with a bunch of car parts … maybe Mopar parts or something. I hope it’s to fix up the car and not to sup it up so it’s even noisier!

Our driveway is really tiny … barely enough room to park one car. By this I mean that drivers and passengers must walk on the neighbors lawn once the car is parked in the tiny driveway. So we’re sharing the driveway. We have it for a month and then they use it fr a month. On Monday we take over the driveway again and I’m dying for that day to come.

Did I say that I can’t wait for these rotten neighbors to leave?

A quiet New Year’s eve and start to the year

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Happy New Year!

I just realized that I didn’t write a New Years post to thank my regular readers and visitors for visiting this blog in 2009! Thank you for sticking around and leaving comments and being faithful visitors. I hope that my posts continue to entertain you in 2010.

So how did you celebrate New Years?

My husband and I had a quite evening. We’d had three rounds of guests in our house from the 20th of December through to the 31st and a family wedding, so once the last of our guests were safely on an airplane home we went into relaxation mode.

We had a nice dinner on New Years eve, followed much later by a glass of wine and a piece of Chocolate Fudge cheesecake at Midnight on New Years. During the evening we watched two movies that I’d taped earlier and then caught the tail end of Toronto’s New Years eve televised celebration just in time for the count down to midnight.

We spent Saturday and most of Sunday relaxing. I think we’re finally rested up and recovered from the holidays or at least I hope we are!

We hadn’t been planning to do anything over the weekend at all, but late yesterday afternoon we ran into one of our neighbors and they invited us in to have a drink for New Years and to see their latest renovations. They’d just finished redoing their kitchen and man, am I jealous! It’s beautiful and oh, they put in double copper sinks! I love the look of them! It seems like our neighbors are starting off the new year just right.

So … what did you do for New Years? Did you get together with friends and family or did you just have a quiet evening at home?

My neighborhood smells like cookie dough

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Every night when I take our dog outside for her final outing of the evening, usually around 11:30 pm, the air has a sweet scent. Almost sickeningly sweet.

I think I figured out what the smell is. We have a Peek Freans factory not too far away … maybe a few miles, and they must be cooking up batches of cookies or other PK products at that time of night.

I guess it could be worse … I could be smelling industrial products or something! Luckily it’s just a nice, if somewhat overpowering, sweet cookie dough smell. LOL

Do you live near a factory? If so, do you ever smell whatever they are making?

One good thing about living near a cookie factory is that they have an outlet store. We haven’t gone there for a few years, but when we last went there we bought BAGS of stuff … like enough cookies and chips and other items to last for months! It has amazing prices … 50% or more off cookies and other items. Hmmm maybe we should make another trip to the factory?

When we have gone on a shopping spree at the Peek Freans outlet store we don’t just get stuff for us … we give some of what we’ve bought to friends or family or I used to take some of the cookies to work for the other nurses and doctors to enjoy.

So much for going out on long walks!

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Now that the weather is getting cooler I was thinking of taking the dog out for long walks more often.

I have Crohn’s and my health isn’t all that good and walking in warm weather only seems to make me feel worse. However, we just found out some scary news about our new renter neighbors so I don’t feel good about leaving the house empty on a regular basis.

I’ve gained a little bit of weight while I’ve been off work due to my illness. Mainly because I feel so crappy most of the time that I’m just not active enough … but it’s only a little extra weight … I’m certain that if I could just get more active I’d be back in shape in no time. Certainly I don’t need a weight loss product just more exercise.

The trouble is that we learned the new neighbor has a history of breaking into houses! So uhm … it’s a good thing that I’m home almost all the time!

I guess if I do start going out for walks more often I’ll alter the times I go out so there’s no regularity to what I’m doing – just in case their keeping track. Doesn’t that suck that we have neighbors we can’t trust?

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