Free Entertainment for Summer 2012

I, like many of you, budget very carefully, count what pennies are left, and then realize there's not much money left to spend on entertainment like I used to do.  Last year, I searched for free entertainment in Toronto and the GTA areas and was surprised (in a good way) at what was free: movies, concerts and museums.  This year, again there are free gospel concerts, free jazz concerts, free outdoor movies (indoors as well), and even some museums have a free day every week within certain hours.

 FREE MOVIES:

Toronto, ON 

Toronto Reference Library  (416)395-5577

789 Yonge St.

Hart House  (416)978-2452

7 Hart House Circle

There are quite a few indoor and outdoor free movies to be shown in Toronto this summer.
Here is a link for more information on different locations in Toronto showing free outdoor movies.   http://festivalstoronto.com/?/toronto/summer

Mississauga, ON

Mississauga Central Library

Noel Ryan Auditorium

301 Burnhamthorpe Rd. W.

(905)615-3500   xt.3660 

Brampton, ON

Garden Square (by the Rose Theatre)

www.rosetheatre.ca

Movies every Tuesday and Saturday at 9pm.

July 2 - August 30

FREE CONCERTS:
There are free gospel concerts on Tuesdays from 7pm - 9pm, and free jazz concerts on Thursdays from 7pm - 9pm at Gage Park in Brampton from June until August. 
www.inspirationalmusic.org    www.bramptondowntown.com


On Wednesdays, the Royal Ontario Museum A and Art Gallery of Ontario are free.  
ROM - free from 4:30 - 5:30pm  (416)586-8000
AGO - free from 6 - 8:30pm  (416)979-6648

Enjoy your summer!

     Wonderful Multi-Purpose Olive Oil

Olive oil is a fantastic oil that is used to cook food, as salad dressing, and is drizzled as is on many foods because it's helpful instead of harmful.  Italian cuisine is well known for using a lot of olive oil.  Well, watching Youtube videos, and experimenting has taught me that olive oil can be used for other things besides consumption.

Cooking olive oil, especially extra virgin olive oil, can be used for the following purposes that olive oil sold at pharmacies, beauty supplies stores and health stores are used for (I found this information on Youtube and health and beauty websites). It does work just as well, hey, it's all the same olive oil.  You get a greater amount of olive oil from the grocery store equal to or lower than the price of the brown bottles of oils.  Olive oil can be used to give hair a hot oil treatment.  Rub a nice amount into hair, cover it with a shower cap, leave it on for at least 20 - 30 minutes (you can leave it in longer if you wish, I've left it in for 1 hour), then shampoo and condition and style.  It can be used to moisturize very dry hair (African American/Canadian hair in particular), and I've used it to moisturize my skin either after bathing or when dry (I mix a bit of water with it for the latter).  It makes the skin feel very soft.  I like to mix the olive oil with some body cream as well to moisturize. 

I've also used olive oil to oil squeaking door joints and that's because I didn't have the proper oil for the purpose.  Yes, it works!  And this next purpose may be more surprising.  Last summer, I had a serious heat rash that occurred due to the serious heat waves we were going through.  I rubbed cornstarch on my rash to try to heal it, and it didn't relieve the irritation at all.  The next day, I decided to moisturize with olive oil and I was so sure that the rash would get worse.  Guess what?  The rash went away within two days!  Using this precious oil is a wise thing to do.

These Dishes Are Delicious

I ran into an old neighbor of mine last week.  She asked me how things going, getting by?  I said, yeah,  getting by.  We discussed how hard things are now.  Then she talked about making chilli for her family, particularly her son who loves it, and that it's an inexpensive meal. One ingredient she mentioned was mustard which I've never used for chilli.  Adding mustard sounded very interesting and tasty, so I made some last week. My family and I enjoyed it, except my son doesn't like kidney beans, or beans for that matter, so I removed his beans from his chilli. I used to make chilli regularly years ago, but haven't since. Now that times call for budgeting wisely in every area, I'll be making it more often.

 

 Chilli and tomato soup (stew)

I'm not fond of canned soups unless more food is added to it.  I grew up on  soups, the base being canned soups, with plenty of fresh vegetables, dumplings and meat added to it.  North American's  call this stew.  A couple of weeks ago, not knowing what to make, I took out a can of tomato soup from the cupboard.  I decided to add lots of garlic, onion and carrots cut thin to it, plus gravy from pieces of turkey cooked the night before (if you can find it, turkey legs and thighs sold alone are inexpensive).   Despite carrots being in the dish (carrots are my least favorite vegetable), it was delicious! Today, I replaced the turkey gravy with liquid from chicken liver (yes...I eat chicken livers, it contains high amounts of the mineral iron, and it's also inexpensive).  I added two more vegetables, sliced cabbage and cubed eggplant (which I bought on sale).  And it's still good!

Inexpensive and healthy.  Can't go wrong there...

A Healthy Way to Clean House

I've used baking soda for a long, long time.  I use it for making cookies, I know it's used for deodorizing the refridgerator, and I've used it to clean the bathtub and sink.  One weekend, my bathroom sink drain was blocked, and, after calling the superintendent for help and finding I couldn't get any until Monday, I got the baking soda and vinegar, poured the baking soda down the drain, followed it with vinegar, waited a couple minutes (I love watching the bubbling when baking soda and vinegar meet), and used a small plunger to pump the drain.  It worked, and the drain was clear.  I know that I must have seen this method on a do-it-yourself program years ago and it was retained in the back of my mind for such a time as this.

Vinegar can also be used to give shine to windows, mirrors, and appliances.  Baking soda, with or without vinegar, is very good for scrubbing grease spots off of the stove as well as from walls around the stove.  It doesn't leave scratch marks.  Both baking soda and vinegar are inexpensive, healthy and wonderful products to use for cleaning the home.  I'm going to have to find other ways to use these two.

You've Heard It Many Times: 
Exercise and Eat Right!

After watching television, reading and talking to people, it seems to me, and it's not rocket science, that many illnesses are born from unhealthy eating, being overweight, and not exercising regularly.  Illnesses are a great expense on the medical industry and to the people with the illness, especially if they don't have medical insurance.

Wouldn't it be nice to be the correct weight by exercising (some of you must be shuddering; I do everytime I think of starting to exercise) and eating correctly (this is a very hard task for many in this day and age of life with hardly any time to do everything on your daily list)?  It's not so much the medication that's gets a person 100% healthy and fit, although it's a start to healing; it's doing what we don't want to do, and which takes a bit more time, making healthy choices.

One book that I've read during the early part of winter is called Diabesity by Francine R. Kaufman, M.D.  This book was a complete eye opener!  In this day and age, even young children are getting diabetes, one of the illnesses blamed on poor eating and lack of exercise.  I miss the old days when you'd see the neighborhood children outside riding bikes and playing sports religiously.  Why don't we adults decide to change things this year and be examples to our children by eating more fruit and vegetables and taking the kids to the park weekly for a family soccer game?  The healthier we are, the less money spent to fix what's broke.