Author Archives: Dianne

About Dianne

Domestic goddess, wife, mom, gardener, paper and collage artist, geocacher, local traveler, cross stitcher, baker, crafter, Facebooker, blogger, decorator and photographer.

Mar25

Orchids were the only thing ushering in Spring around here

Posted on Monday, March 25, 2013 by Dianne

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On the 23rd, Brian and I met my mom and brother over at Longwood Gardens. I bite the bullet and renewed my yearly pass. I say this as I was wondering if I could do the walking there after the past few months. Actually this is bazaar thinking on my part. I ‘need’ to go there for my gardening, flowers and photo fixes. My brother just bought a pass too! He will be bringing my mom out here now. That’s pretty neat.

Brian went along too. As we were walking in, a lady ‘waved’ a ticket in front of his face and said ‘do you want a ‘free’ ticket? Before I could say anything, he said ‘no’! He said he figured I will get a free pass for him via my membership, but still, you have to pay attention to what someone is offering. 😉

It was a nice display and mom said she liked it better than the flower show.

(Brian took a lot of photos too, I can’t remember which he did and I did, so we both will take credit for these).

This was so pretty to walk in to see from the blustery, but sunshiny day:

Yellow is one of my favorite flower colors.

I mean ‘wow’!

I’m a big fan of true blue flowers too! Who doesn’t love these Blue Poppies?

I think these are African Daisies or mums?

Did I mention I like Chartreuse too? Maybe this is a bit more lime color.

Warm colors are nice too.

I like this one for the demo effect-look at the gardeners’ hands. LOL

And what they were making:

Oh I could show you 80 more photos or more! I will be uploading them to Flickr. You will see them in my sidebar there.

A nice man took this on Brian, my mom and me.

Mom has been a bit worn out from her long walk and standing a lot, so I hope brother will push her around in a wheel chair sometimes. Can’t wait for them to see the rest of the gardens!

In the next few days, I’ll share with you our daytrip to Crystal Cave and Roadside America!

Mar18

Trying to hide, better not seek

Posted on Monday, March 18, 2013 by Dianne

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Since the last time I posted, I met a goal by finding my 250th geocache with Brian! We went after church and unfortunately started driving around in the area from the weekend before which is way out in the boonies too much. The first place we went to would have meant ‘maybe’ walking by a stream. It was about 6:20, so we didn’t want to do that one. The next one was also more like a little hike which we got out for thinking it was in a guardrail. The third one was in a little park that I has seen better in the daylight, but not at night. Finally we headed to one and when we approached a guardrail, the compass counted down and I knew we had one! Yay! Someone had put a rock in front of the cache and it hadn’t been found since December. Whew! That took over an hour. We then went on and enjoyed lovely salads for dinner.

I had a meeting at the church where I work (once a week) this past Sunday. The coordinator also had a delicious lunch for us from mini pulled pork sandwiches to fruit, veggies, soup and chili. We practiced gathering the children (there were none there) to get out for a fire. Then we went in the bathroom-in case we were threatened by an intruder. We were to pull a piece of paper off the wall with ‘red’ on one side and ‘green’ on the other. If someone we knew came in, we were to pass the paper under the door before opening it with the appropriate color up. And with both incidences we need to bring the clipboard in with the signed in kids listed on it. I think we all need an emergency plan like this.

Other than that, I haven’t been able to get that special Silver Linings Playbook cache published as they said that it was too close to a house and I need permission. I appealed a few times to the mother company and the volunteer said she looked at the satellite and it was too close to the house. I decided to look at the satellite photo again and my coords are off for the area where the cache is. It shows it being in the middle of the road, near the incorrect house. I feel a bit stupid as I didn’t see this, but I think once the cache is archived, it’s really hard to get it up again. And the reviewer is a volunteer like the appeal people. I didn’t know that the cache reviewers could also still geocache! I saw where the person who reviews mine goes ahead and looks for the ones he reviews and I saw where he was the ‘first to find’ on one cache. This doesn’t seem fair to me at all like they have an unfair advantage. I told him and the appeal’s person this too. Makes the ‘game’ seem a bit lop-sided especially when the reviewer’s geocache name has over 11k!

So here is where the cache is and where I put down the incorrect coords-marked by the ‘B’. The yellow is correct.

And from that corner there and down about 10 houses is the real SLP house

It’s the house in the middle (pretty sure) as I compared it to the screen shot from the movie.

I have one more day of work and then I have a break for Easter.

Mar15

Tracing some the steps of SLP

Posted on Friday, March 15, 2013 by Dianne

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After seeing ‘Silver Linings Playbook’, I was itchy to go down to that area to eat in the Llanerch Diner where the characters Pat and Tiffany kinda had a date and then to see the house where the movie was filmed. And then if I was really lucky to hide a geocache along that particular street there.

I went to my hometown which is about 5-6 miles from where I was headed. I got my mom and we stopped off at the cemetery where a geocache was. It’s also where my maternal family is resting. The cache was around the bend from that area and I got out of the geomobile and left my mom there. It was an area with a few evergreens and bushes. I got to 17 feet away and I swung around to see a tree that probably had broken off. I looked in and low and behold, I saw a film canister! Yay, less than 5 minutes of looking. I hustled back to the car and told my mom since we were here, I was going to walk over to the family plot. It took me a few minutes to find it, but I did and was sad to see it faded a lot from the sun-it was a pink marble.

Got back in the car and headed for the diner. I was taking some shots with the phone camera of the sign:

and when we were being seated, the lady lead us right to the booth where Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence sat! I didn’t even ask her where it was. But this told the tale:

My mom looked cute when she poised:

She had a little trouble taking a photo of me-this was the best of 4

I liked the asparagus/Swiss Cheese Omelet I had, but mom said her pork chop was a little tough (I think overcooked-I never order pork chops out as I have trouble enough cooking them myself).

The next stop was the avenue where the house used in the movie was located. At first I went the wrong way, but it was right down from the diner. Then I wasn’t sure which house it was. I remembered them all walking up to the front door and it had pillars made of stone with the thick cement in between. Mom thought a lot of the homes were built in the 1930s. I think I saw the house when we drove by after looking at a newspaper article online and the opening credits of the trailer.

So it was fun to see all this and I also hide a ‘premium’ geocache as I didn’t want too many people coming here at once and it was just a little nano with a tiny log. I’m waiting for approval.

Update-The reviewer won’t grant me permission to place the cache as he says I need approval from the people living near it. What? It’s not on private property and not near the SLP house.

Mar13

Exploring Philadelphia

Posted on Wednesday, March 13, 2013 by Dianne

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This gallery contains 14 photos.

When Brian, my brother and I went to the Flower Show, Brian and I decided to look for a geocache nearby. Now remember, it was busy and wow, was the GPS bouncy. We walked down the block and there was a beautiful Methodist church shrouded my modern buildings.: Who is that lady with the pigtail? […]

Mar12

Happy 65th to James-favorite of 40 years

Posted on Tuesday, March 12, 2013 by Dianne

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Mar11

Brilliant! A look at the 2013 Philly Flower Show

Posted on Monday, March 11, 2013 by Dianne

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This gallery contains 22 photos.

My brother asked if I wanted to go to the Flower Show down in Philly this year and I said fine, but I wanted Brian to come along too. We were going to take the train down from my hometown, but we would have a half hour wait and it would be 2 pm by […]

Mar9

Finally saw Silver Linings Playbook

Posted on Saturday, March 9, 2013 by Dianne

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With all the local hype associated with this movie, it was about time that Brian and I went to see it.

Sean had seen it in the fall with a date and then they went to the diner where a scene was filmed. Also, we lived under 3 miles from where it was filmed (for 2.5 years in an apartment complex as newlyweds) and wanted to see the different neighborhoods and they did look familiar too! Tina Fey and Todd Rundgren are from close by this area. There was a scene when Bradley Cooper’s character was talking to the principal of the high school. I know several people, including one of my bridesmaids who went to ‘Prendy’.

This is a neat shot from the movie. I’m not sure if I ever ate here, but we have been by the Llanerch Diner many times.

Bradley and Jennifer Lawrence were really good in this movie (this was suppose to be Halloween, hence the waitress in the funny outfit-lots of locals here).

We’ll have to go explore down here, just outside of Philadelphia, one of these days. I think there is a tour that correlates with the scenes in the movie.

Today, Brian and I went on what I thought would be easy caches finds, but alas they weren’t! We saw places that we have never been to, so that’s really one of the main reasons to cache! The phone navigator wasn’t working great though. Got some more exercise!

Yay, my new glasses got really dark today!

Brian look perplexed at a bridge cache. I saw a picture of what we should have found, and we surely didn’t see it.

We did find a pretty awesome one that looked like an electrical box on a sign for a restaurant complex.

You find some you don’t!

Mar7

Colonial cache hunting

Posted on Thursday, March 7, 2013 by Dianne

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On Tuesday I went to the rheumatologist, a young lady doctor. I brought all the past papers I had from blood work to a CD with x-rays. She asked a lot of questions, looked at my hands and knee and said that I had osteoarthritis. This was causing me to be so fatigued after doing tasks that were just part of my everyday routine only a short time ago. She prescribed a medicine which I tried for the first time last night. I slept 4 straight hours which is a record for me lately. But I have been very foggy today and my eyes are bothering me. I am to try it 4 nights in a row to see if I can tolerate it for the daytime. I love doctors that give you $90 medicine ‘to try’. We are lucky to have the keyring app on my phone and we only paid $17, but still that isn’t cheap. I did do 3 miles on the bike today! That helped perk me up a bit.

Brian had gone with me to the doctor and we went and grabbed a sandwich to split before going on a bit of a cache hunt out near where Brian grew up.

I’m not crazy about caching in high traffic areas. People wonder what you are doing, especially the security guards driving around the shopping centers!

The first cache was in a little park near where a railroad use to go through. We had a little climbing to do and we saw a few old wooden rails. Brian finally saw the little box under a fake rail!

The next cache was an area where an old tavern once stood. We were to park near one of those big electrical towers. Now in the summer time this will be all overgrown. We went to where the cache was suppose to be and saw some trash ‘and’ a discarded VHS tape. I thought Brian had checked it, but alas he hadn’t. If we can’t find a cache, I come home and look on the site at the location via satellite where the cache was and we were right there. Maybe it was the tape!

The next one had us driving in circles around a shopping center. The Colonial buildings were sitting right near the road and we were driving past them-we had seen them many, many times before and never stopped to look at them. We saw the Whitford Lodge when we got out of the car:

I believe there is a printing firm on 1st floor now.

The cache was a walk through the parking lot to a gully, up the gully and under a tree-pretty easy compared to the last one!

We then went to the next shopping center where another cache was. This is the Zook house as you can see. I read up on it (couldn’t find info on the place above) and the Zook family lived there for a number of decades. It had to be moved so they could build the mall! I really like this photo with the sign and shadow of the tree showing on the house.

The cache here was near a stream, but down the hill. But we didn’t see it. Actually Brian didn’t see it as I didn’t go down the hill. With the mall traffic, I think this one probably goes missing a lot.

We use to go to the next place when we were kids. I use to live out this way until we moved to Delaware County when I was 4. Brian grew up out this way, but down the road from me. We never met until we grew up!

Right near the Zook house was the building that use to be The Guernsey Cow. We use to stop here and get the creamiest ice cream ever! Now it’s a DNB Bank

This is the back

This is the front-appears to be about 1959 or so from the cars…

We then went to another shopping center and found a few caches and had tacos at ‘On the Border’.

I wanted to look for ‘just one more’ near a bus stop at the shopping center for a magnetic cache, but I couldn’t find it in the dark.

There are a few more Colonial caches to find, but we ran out of light…some other time.

I’m pretty sure I’ll be going to the Phila. Flower show after all! I just can’t take one of those pills or I won’t appreciate it.

Mar4

The best time for a long time

Posted on Monday, March 4, 2013 by Dianne

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As previously mentioned, my classmate from high school had a new movie that came out a few days ago called ‘Phantom’. So my other friend John suggested a bunch of us go see the movie last night (Sunday) and we did, many with our spouses. There were close to 20 of us there and we of course got all excited when we saw Wayne in shots (another class mate who is an actor) and I recognized Todd’s daughter who played Ed Harris’ daughter in the movie. Todd really had to do his research on Russian submarines! The year was 1968. Lots of action and a twist at the end. The guys will love this one!

At the end of the movie, Scott, our reunion coordinator had Todd on the phone and we were all cheering him on. That was very cool.

Afterwards, about 11 of us went to a sports bar a bit down the road for a late dinner. We gave my other pal Tom a ride in the Cruiser. It wasn’t too noisy and we got to catch up with my ‘back yard’ neighbor Bethann who came to her first reunion/mini reunion get-together!