Author Archives: Dianne

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About Dianne

Domestic goddess, wife, mom, gardener, paper and collage artist, geocacher, local traveler, cross stitcher, baker, crafter, Facebooker, blogger, decorator and photographer.
Feb27

Pedaling to turn over a new leaf

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We went to pick up my recumbent exercise bike (it’s a semi-recumbent-alright already) the other day at a Delaware Wally World. Sean had it delivered there to save shipping. I got this awesome shot in the parking lot with the ‘heart’ cloud.

DEsky

So my new acquisition is all assembled and I gave it a spin already! I think if I take it slow, I will benefit from it.

Brian took me to the supermarket up near Lancaster this afternoon where we’ve been getting wonderful sales after deciding to check it out there a few months back. We stopped first for a cache grab in an old cemetery. It was about 20 feet off telling us it was near a tree instead of the shrubs it was in. Among all the old, old stones was a beautiful one from a few years ago. It was a heart shape with a couple walking in the woods etched into it along with a photo of the couple. The man had passed away.

This is looking from the front  to the back.

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the cache

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I am enjoying my time at the preschool when I am there the one day a week.  The children are getting comfortable enough with me to give me little hugs or bumps. You know how 3-4 yrs olds act.  I try to bring them a little something each time I go. They got personalized paper bookmarks today thanks to a link I found on Pinterest.

Next week is the Philadelphia Flower Show. I ‘may’ go down with Brian on the train, but it all depends on how much I can walk. They provide plenty of chairs around the perimeter. It’s a British themed show too. I sure hope to go.

Feb22

I’d rather look at scenery

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Made a blunder today-but I ‘really’ think the receptionist did as I wrote down the 22nd on my laptop post-it note. I was seeing a doctor for a consultation who is past my hometown, so a good 45-50 minute drive. We got there a bit early and I was suppose to be there yesterday. Why on earth they don’t have an reminder service like the dentists do, I don’t get it. Anyway, after my red, embarrassed cheeks toned down, I let the woman copy all 14 pages of my blood work and a few things from the web. I made another appointment, but her remark about probably needing another 2 grand of tests (she’s got to be wrong as I had some specialized tests done already), I decided to hold off until May when my insurance won’t call everything a pre-existing condition.

We stopped at a local mall for lunch. First I told my hurried hubby to stop near a cache we tried at night. He looked first. I can’t even imagine what people are thinking as they whizzed by when people are looking around a pine tree. He didn’t see it-again! No way! I got out of the car then and the hint said it was on the left of a tree and I picked up some pine cones as a decoy maneuver-lol. I spotted the purple bison tube right away-yay!

We had salad and pizza at Carrabba’s-I saved half for my mom as we were going to drop by briefly to see her.

I asked Brian to stop by a neighboring park, just for a quick look, and the GPS was bouncy. We didn’t find the cache, but I did take this neat photo:

Smedley

We dropped by my mom’s and I shared my lunch with her.

Home just in time for the hubby to make his shift! Whew!

My pal Carole introduced me to a new GPS scavenger hunt called Munzee. I have one right here if you want to join and scan it. There aren’t too many around here yet, but I bet there will be soon!

Feb18

Walking into the past

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My son Sean was nice enough to drive me to my hair appointment today. Afterwards my mom wasn’t up for company, so Sean and I headed for SaladWorks. I got the same salad I had a few days ago, not as good as the way the first place made it. Funny how that happens. This one was heavy on the lettuce. The tuna nicoise is a good one though.

So lo and behold, there was a geocache around the back of the shopping center. Brian and I had stopped there last month and it was to dark to look. Within a few minutes we had it as it was hanging in a bare Weeping Willow.

weepingwcache

Someone else commented that there were praying mantis nests and we saw a few.

There was a cache in a historic area at the sight of the Frazer farm. All that is standing is the big fireplace, some foundation and an oven.

To begin with, we had to find the entrance in a nice neighborhood. It was a 1/8 mile hike down somewhat of a hill. This is one of the first hikes I have done for a while. It’s about 5 miles from the Brandywine Battlefield.

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I can’t believe this has been standing going on 300 years!

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I believe this is the oven area. It was used until 1920!

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Funny to see detailed signs in the middle of the woods

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MaryTFrazer

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The hint was to look behind the big rock with the split in it. There’s the tell tale wood stuck there and a peek of the ammo box! It’s been here since 2001!

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I took that big mug there in the background as it had a travel bug on it! It’s traveled 1,400 miles so far!

DiRuinsTBmug

Nice to see this amazing place and picturing Mrs. Frazer giving the soldiers a hard time! She must have been feisty! There is a Frazer, PA near where Brian grew up!

Feb15

Back in the geo-saddle again

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Today I felt good enough that I asked Brian if we could go to a number of ‘researched’ geocaches along a busy section in nearby Delaware (okay, I used the satellite feature on geocaching.com, but I don’t do that all the time-it’s such a busy area, it was wise of me to do this). He agreed and off we went right before 1! He cashed his check and we went to the first few caches. We also brought the Canon and I didn’t take any of the following shots, they were all by Brian!

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This particular shopping area is what I call ‘cement city’. A nice bonus though is two ‘lakes’ with walking paths. Behind me is Red Robin. The fountains are lit up at night, very pretty.

We found a few pill bottles along the way. One cache was a pill bottle attached to a piece of wood floating in an open post.

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One we looked for on Monday we did find in a matter of minutes. It was placed my a new geocaching buddy at the British Pub. We still need to get back there to eat again.

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I liked one that was on the back of a blue light reflector. I think I had an audience when I retrieved it as a guy was sitting in his truck a bit away watching.

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Hello Kitty! I replaced the other very full log!

It’s one in a water bottle for a marble trade. Clever log attachment!

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We had a great salad at SaladWorks-the tuna nicoise and did a little shopping. When the sun was setting, I suggested we look for one called ‘Red Wing Pond’. It was the perfect time of the day to take a walk on another trail in the above mentioned shopping area! We looked and looked, but we think it was missing. But do enjoy the photos Brian took.

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‘Cloud Wings’

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Had all my gear…no cache to add to. To my left was the pond.

I felt really good today. My aches were not that bad and I don’t know what I did! I am not drinking soda of any kind for Lent for 3 days now or a tummy medicine may have calmed down more that my stomach. I have no idea. I have a feeling tomorrow may be different but crossing fingers.

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Want to go to the movies? You take a few escalators to get to the 16 different theaters.

Geocaching2-13 012Fairly new homes have a nice place to walk and plenty of shopping in cement city.

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We are expecting one of our little ‘snow events’ overnight that will probably melt away by the afternoon.

I forgot to update my readers to let you know my brother’s dog  Baxter made it! He was given more medication and he’s much better getting up and going outside.  : )

Feb14

Show a little Love today

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I heard that Valentine’s Day was an invented holiday, but so were Mother and Father’s Days. It is a nice distraction during the gloomy winter months. I love hearts, cupids and chocolate!

I made the kids at the preschool a little collage card too.

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I  need to thank my Flickr pal-here’s her page

There’s a new movie called ‘Safe Haven’ and the funny thing is, I was writing a little story back in 2011 about my Grandmom and growing up that I called ‘Sheltering Haven’. Here’s a portion of the little I did write.

     My grandmother Ruth was a sheltering haven to me for most of my life and I didn’t even realize it until she passed away. When she died, something in my subconscious was brought up to the surface from my memory bank and what was old became quite new and fresh in my mind again. Perhaps these memories were meant to be buried all that time as when I remembered them, I felt new love and appreciation for my ‘mom-mom’. A few things; not everyone gets to live with their grandmother or will get a much older person’s point of view about things. But more than that, she was there not only to fill a void where a father should have been, but to be someone we could count on when we needed advice, a hot meal or maybe a ‘talking to’. 

So:

“Shower the people you love with love, show them the way that you feel….. (JT)

Have a lovely day of love! ❤

Feb12

Just plugging along

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Since last I updated, we have all had colds, Sean getting the worse of it. I missed work as I was just too achy to even try go. A week makes a big difference!

The three of us went out last night (Monday) which doesn’t happen often. Sean drove in the rental car. His car is ‘still’ in the shop as there is a suspension issue they are trying to get the insurance to check out. Sean is pretty sure he hit a curb as the jeep took out the entire left side of his car. We drove by the restoration place last night and Sean’s car was sitting outside. It’s been 3 weeks. The guy who did this had hardly anything happen to his vehicle-someone who made an illegal u-turn didn’t have to go through all this!

Anyway, we had a gift card for Bertucci’s and went to one near Wilmington, DE. Earlier in the day, here had just been a shooting just miles away at the courthouse-the gunman shot his estranged wife and another woman to death and the police got him. It was a custody issue and two lovely ladies were killed. Crazy!

We  also went through a 5 Below store which has cuter and cuter things each time I go there.

I mentioned that a geocaching friend had a hide near a British pub, so we went like 1/2 mile down the road. The cache was said to be decorated for the local Philly ice hockey team the Flyers-in orange and black. We looked at benches, near pipes, behind signs, etc. with no luck.  This was all in a dimly lit area. I think we didn’t look low enough! We may go back on Thursday for dinner as it’s a nice place to eat and we had eaten there before.  We headed down to a big ‘cement city’ shopping area and after sinking in mud, found a little camouflaged box (fake leaves glued to the top). We looked for one more and again we didn’t see the travel  mug holder. We shopped in Trader Joe’s for healthy goodies and came home.

A&TLincoln

Remembering President Lincoln on his birthday

When I got home I decided to look at the satellite for a number of geocaches along the route where we just were and wrote down info for 10 of them, one being south bound and the rest north.

I had some insurance issues with blood work I had done in November. Brian and I went over to the doctor yesterday to pick up blood work and ask why they haven’t submitted info to the insurance. Boy did they hustle! The office manager was very nice. Asked me if I was stressed out, yes I am! My blood pressure has been a little high lately. I know stress can make you feel a lot worse than you are!  My blood work wasn’t too bad. I do have a bit of a Vitamin D deficiency so I will be taking mega doses of it once a week for 3 months to get my numbers up. People are usually deficient in the winter, but I may have trouble  absorbing it. I sure hope it helps. Maybe my joints will feel better too!

Feb7

Well isn’t that smashing?

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Sean and I have had colds this week. He is sicker than me, but still is plugging away. I thought I’d be blowing my nose like crazy, well I have done that enough, but it’s the achiness that is getting to me. I wanted to do something distracting, so I pulled out my ‘Smash’ book. This is a book I bought over a year ago. A smash book is like a scrapbook, but you ‘jam’ more stuff into it. I tend to be a little more organized than that. Here is what I started out with:

SmashBook

That’s one of those fold up organizers I am using. The stuff in the top wants to fall out all the time.

This is my ‘Abbey Road on the River’ spread from when we went to the Beatles tribute event in Aug./Sept. 2011 and 2012.  We saw the guitar that George Harrison is posing with in this photo. I got a catalog in the mail and lo and behold, George was on the cover. I really liked the shot, so I used it in my Smash book.

SmashAR

I have a paper I hand wrote near George that tells about the Beatles tribute event. The pocket has the programs from the two years that we attended plus a postcard and bookmark The little ‘Peeps’  picture is because they are a sponsor. We probably won’t go again for a while as we weren’t happy with the way it was run last year.

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It’s hard to believe our New York trip was almost a year ago! I wish I felt like I did back then. The left side has a bumper sticker from the 9-11 Memorial store-seeing that was a big thing.  There’s a receipt from the store and the little envelope holds a card describing the purchase of a metal cast leaf I bought (the tree will grow at the sight). The next page is a happier one-Sean holding an umbrella next to Radio City Music Hall (we had a  bit of gloomy visit the first night and day and then it got chilly and windy); a card from Tinsel Trading Company-a store I wanted to see that sold millinery and crafty things; and the  description of the caramels I bought from Dylan’s candy bar. Oh…the mustache is from the Lorax movie! He was visiting at Dylan’s.

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Brian took me to see the Van Gogh exhibit at the Philadelphia Art Museum around April 1st. We weren’t allowed to take photos of the exhibit, but I took plenty of shots around the museum. The one on the right is from the mailer and that’s the the pamphlet of from show. When you open the pamphet, A Rembrandt card (shaped like him) is there-see his foot? We saw a few of his works of art, plus I bought this in the gift shop.

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In June, we had our Delmarva trip. I met up with a internet pal Rachael and we headed over to the art museum to see the Andy Warhol exhibit. It was great to meet her. I bought the Andy card in the gift shop (the Rembrandt one looks like this) and some postcards of his most famous works.

The last page I worked on yesterday was about the November election we went to see both the First Lady Michelle Obama (in August) and then President Bill Clinton a few days before the 2012 election. I have the email about picking up the tickets, the tickets in the holder, stickers and some ballot ends.

SmashElection

So on the health front, I’m still fighting these body aches and fatigue. I seem worse since I have had the cold. I missed work, but heard a bunch of others called out sick on Wednesday too. My cold wasn’t what made me feel blah-it was the body aches! I got an appointment at a rheumatologist office  at the beginning of March. I googled about menopause and arthritis and didn’t something come up! Seems there is a parallel. I am looking into going to another doctor  specializing in hormonal issues. At this point, I can’t hardly do anything without having to sit down in half an hour. I’ll probably call the doctor near my hometown later. I want to be able to add more pages to my smash book!

Keep my mom and brother in your thoughts and prayers as my brother’s Dalmation Baxter appears to be at the end of his life. Mom thinks he’s at least 13 or 14 (maybe older). He is in a lot of pain, it takes him 5 minutes to lay down and he has hardly any bowel control at this point. He is on medicine, but yesterday he was just so miserable. Such a sad time.

Feb1

Goodbye January!

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Glad to see such a blah month zip by. We had so many days of gloom and fog as you saw in my previous posts. We did try and take little drives, etc. to help with cabin fever. And of course we helped Sean deal with his accident and the breakup of his girlfriend. Sean’s car is still in the shop and won’t be ready for another week. He is driving a nice rental which helps us a great deal.

I like February a little better because it’s a short month and Valentine’s Day breaks it up in the middle. I already got a couple of gifts from the hubby…a pretty storage box and ‘Downton Abbey Chronicles book’! I happen to be fascinated with that time period because my grandmom Ruth was a teen in the 1918s-1920s.

I’m still suffering with aches and pains when I overexert  or stand too long. I have an appointment with one rheumatologist in March, but I was trying to get an appt with another. They haven’t returned my call yet. My right knee bothers me the most as does the original hurt from a year ago on the left hip side.

I’ve been trying to clean out the picture files on my laptop. I just did the geocaching adventures one and there were over 400 photos over the last 9 months! This was one Brian took at the Brandywine Battlefield (incidently the day my back ‘really’ complained) and I added a verse for a Kenny Loggins song to it.

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We may be going with Sean to Los Angeles in a few months. One reason I want to get to a doctor. I’d love to have something to ease the aches so I could sit all that time on the plane and walk around and sight see!

When Brian is off, he is nice enough to drive me down to my mom’s house for a visit. We usually take her shopping and the last few times have been Home Goods. She had a gift card and used it. Sean had given me a cute tea cup and strainer, so I got some ‘Tiesta’ tea and had some when we got home. It was delicious! There is nothing that compares to loose tea. I went on the website and ordered a few more small bags of it!

We also took mom to a little Chinese restaurant where she enjoy shrimp in a mustard coconut sauce which sounds weird, but is good. I had beef and broccoli and Brian had something similar to me but with chicken and shrimp too.

We looked for a cache with mom in the car. Of course it was dark, and I thought we were going to a parking lot by the cache description. I figured it was probably a sign as we saw no parking lot in the area. Mom thought we are crazy, yet we drove through a neighborhood she had never been to before. That’s one of the fun parts about caching-going to new places! We made a note of the cache to check again sometime, dropped her off and tried another and it would have been looking around a wooded area-nope. I am up to 221 caches now!

Jan27

Lil’ Diads

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I scanned an old photo of my older and younger brother and me today. Mom’s nickname for me is Diadsie (dyed-see) and Brian calls me little Diads sometimes. So this is from 1961 and in bad shape. I was trying to photo shop it using my laptop. I’m not saying I’m finished with it, but I think I resemble my own son at about 1.5 here. He also had straight hair in the front and curls in the back. We both had those chubby cheeks.

trio

I like how I’m holding my brother’s ear-lol.

Sean and Boo Bear

It’s also not too exciting around here because of the blasted cold.  We had a bit of cabin fever and went down to the local stores. Big Lots had a customer appreciation day Saturday (if you have their Buzz card), and Brian and I went and save over $20!

I decided to clean up my African violets. I had 16 of them and lost 2. Many are special varieties from  a seller at the Philadelphia Flower show.  I do have to clean up the rest of the plants and the windows they are in.

I went through dozens of cross stitch books as a friend in the Philippines is a beautiful stitcher and has trouble finding patterns. I’ve stitched at night more lately and I did find some for her (she wants landscapes) and me (I like ornaments especially). I found a pattern to make as a 1st birthday gift for a sweet girl.

I hope the weather holds out so I can see my mom soon!