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.
Jan24

Churches in my travels

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Today before Brian and I hit the Dutch-way Grocery store, we looked for a few caches. It was in the 20s, but felt colder. Luckily, we found them in 5 minutes or less. The first place was off a parking lot of this lovely church in Cochranville, Pa. Some man was sitting in a delivery van almost parallel to the cache-wonder if he was a cacher too? When we got out, he left! Anyway, I narrowed my search to a tree trunk and there was the cache.

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So we had a little time to kill, so we went down another country road and looked for a cache we tried to find at night a few months back. But then we were in the right area, but you just can’t find a fence ‘nano’ in the dark. Again, Brian spotted it with his eagle eyes.

Across the street was this lovely church in Parkesburg, PA. Love the bell!

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I have a small set of other churches on Flickr.

So we went food shopping and were happy to get some good ‘buy 1 get 1 free’ items. I had run out of canned or frozen veggies. Last night I looked and all I could find were a few sweet potatoes which we had with our dinner.

I’ve been doing a little cross stitching at night. I finally finished a Christmas ornament and started one for another holiday coming up soon!

Cmasredwork12I have gotten a little rusty. I do have a nice floor lamp I bought to shine on the project (thanks Habitat for Humanity). Next I want to get to my paper crafts again!

We may be getting some snow tomorrow, up to 2 inches! Wow! ; )

Update-Sean’s car has been at a local restoration place for a few days now. The appraiser said it can be repaired and gave us a check. He didn’t count the steering issue. Sean got a loaner car in the meantime. So we are hoping the restoration place doesn’t want more than what’s on the check.

Jan20

When people don’t follow the rules of the road

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SMCaccident1-19-13 002First of all, this is my son’s car and he seems alright.

What happened…he was driving south on Rt. 1 and at a intersection. A man decided to exit a convenience store on the other side of the road and make an illegal ‘u’ turn at one of the busiest intersections in Middletown Township to also go south. It was a clear night, about 9:30. Everything happened in a flash. This is a 2005 Taurus and he keeps it in good shape. He was very shook up when he came home. His friend was nice enough to follow him most of the way home as the alignment is now off. I hate that it’s the left side as he was inches away from that dented side and door handle. Broken glass from his window was everywhere and he has cuts on his hand. He feels that his guardian angel, his late gr grandmom Ruth had to be with him. She surely drove around those roads a lot and it was near where my younger brother started his career as a master mechanic too. I hope it can be repaired as he’s only had it 1.5 yrs and is still paying on it.

Follow the rules of the road! Stuff like this is awful and it could have been worse.

Jan19

Winter sunshine

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This Friday and again today, I headed down to the neighboring town’s yearly huge book sale. They advertise that there is over 70K books and I do believe them! Being the book lover I am, I can’t pass up a sale. There was even a geocache in the parking lot to look for. Too bad it was so cold yesterday. I had looked at it via the satellite shot a month or so ago and didn’t I sit down ‘across’ from where it really was at the end of a bridge. The problem is I couldn’t reach right for it. I actually wondered up and down the bridge for about 15 minutes. I went back on the website and emailed a guy who had found it after 3 tries. He sent me back a detailed explanation. Today I had Brian. I swore it was the ‘right’ on my side, but it was on the other side! Then I couldn’t find my pen, so had to use a pencil in the SUV.

We didn’t go hog wild book wise. In fact Sean didn’t buy anything.

We decided to go to the New Castle (Delaware) Farmer’s market, but took a detour so Sean could see the old area of the town. Brian and I had been there a few times. I got out and took a few photos, this being my favorite:

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See the trio of tree and fence tops?

We then headed to the farmer’s market. I was having major hurt issues with my knee down to the back of my calf.  Think I did something Friday night getting out to retrieve a cache.  (That’s an entirely different story!)

At the market, we found young Amish people selling donuts. They were much more in cost than the ‘DD’, but they are larger and fluffier. Best I ever had! Have to be careful eating those!

We also went to ‘The Hut’ and when we pulled in the parking lot, we saw Sean’s old Taurus that he traded in 1.5 yrs ago! Someone who works there owned it. I think Sean was super surprised. He took good care of that car (his 1st car) and when he saw it, he said ‘that car took me back and forth to Penn State many times’. Where he traded it in for his newer Taurus is about a 1/4 mile away.  But the chances of us seeing it again, just wow.

We went to get gas, found another guardrail cache at the station next to it (drove in circles a bit, guess the attendant wondered what we were doing) and then hit the Goodwill where I found a few bird tchotchkes, one of which is a Marjolein Bastin for Hallmark.

I mainly bought crafting books at the sale earlier, ribbon embroidery and drawing for my mom and a few historic fictions along with crafts for me.

It was nice to have Sean along. He was a little depressed at first, some job issues going on in the family and I guess he feels that his time in the sun isn’t coming along fast enough in the job field. The economy is still not great and I think Sean will have to move away from here when he is done with his schooling.

Jan16

Six days of gloom

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Post #3,500!!!!

Here’s some irony for you…Friday I get lens darkening eyeglasses in the mail. I can’t wait to try them out. On the way to Lancaster it starts raining…6 days later I’m still waiting to see them darken!

The kids at the church aren’t even running around, but laying their little heads on the table. We got them interested in an ABC train puzzle where they all had about 5 letters and had to add the one called out to the line in the train. For three, they did great!

We’ve had fog like we haven’t had for ages. A Facebook photography/artist pal went out and took photos, so I followed suit, but lasted about 10 minutes as it was so chilly and damp.

Spring couldn’t be more anticipated this year .I do look forward to the winter months to do indoor stuff. As my back has improved, so has my cleaning up-lol. I have to be careful though as unfortunately my right knee is still bad. If Brian and I can do 1/2 hour-hour a month in the basement every few weeks we’d see an improvement down in that mess.

Yesterday, we all went to see my mom, but first I got my hair done my sister-in-law. They have a 10 month old black Lab pup and she gets so excited to see people. We took my mom to a Dollar Tree for canned goods and about 15 bags later, she obviously bought more than what she went in there for! I had to drag it up to her house with a wagon as Brian and Sean went to see my father-in-law to make sure his rotor was good so he now has WiFi.

Not too much happening, but as with the season, it’s time to slow down a bit anyway.

Here’s another ‘fog’ photo for you.

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Jan12

Day tripping again to Lancaster Co.

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I’m not going to let the wintertime stop me(us) from taking daytrips up to the Lancaster area. There are many unclaimed geocaches in the rolling hills of this county! Plus I am loving the little market about 16 miles or so away. Brian is usually off on Fridays now. He got a flu shot Thursday and decided to get the oil changed the next day. He would be in for a rude awakening! We usually go to the same place and I located a coupon for a repair shop offering the deal for much cheaper. Well the man came out and told Brian he had 1 quart of oil left in the SUV that usually holds 6. The previous place put in the incorrect filter…it’s been slowly leaking for almost 8 months.  Brian hasn’t checked it lately. I don’t understand why the previous place would risk hurting our vehicle.

Anyway, we headed out a little too late…2:45 pm. It then started to rain, when I thought it was going to be an evening rain. We need to get moving sooner! We were going to Intercourse, the town where part of the movie Witness was filmed. I had wanted to find about 4-5 geocaches. We ended up walking a little in the rain for the first one. It was a big ammo box right next to a fabric store! I dropped off the little gingerbread man tb and took a couple to pass on. This guy was watching us:

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The cache was to the left of him a few feet away under another bush.

I was tickled to see that a few stores over was The Old Candle Barn. Sean and I had been in this area back in March of last year. They have the cutest things. I got a little wrought iron fairy holding a bird, a nest and a little ceramic bird. Oh I could have done  retail damage!

Cute display!

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If you recall last year I took a photo of the bunny made out of the pearl buttons and made my own. It’s hanging in the family room.

By 4:15, it didn’t look like many places were still open for business! On a Friday? We went to one cache that was easy to locate quickly. We then headed down the road to Leacock Presbyterian church about 4:45 pm. We had to park across the street. I got smart and put a hat on, but Brian was getting drenched. We were ‘this close’, but we didn’t want to go inside the stone wall. I will bring my camera next time when we get the geocache.

We headed to the farmer’s market for their buffet dinner. There aren’t many places you get dinner for $13.99 (and all you can eat)! We enjoyed prime rib, ham, sides and dessert. I mainly tasted a lot of things like the pineapple bread, butter beans, etc. All starchy!

Afterwards, we went in the grocery store and got some great deals. We had a terrible drive home. Today it was warmer and sunnier. I have to watch the weather better. I did do a few things around the house and in the basement, but I do have to downsize. I did find some things for Valentine’s Day!

I’m really having issues with using the bigger vehicle-it’s hard for me to climb in and out of it. I have been terribly achy today, especially my knee. I can hardly go up and down the basement steps.

Jan9

Back on schedule

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I went back to the preschool this morning. It was rough getting up that early, but I was pretty much ready to go by 8:15, so  I have a little time to myself.

The kids arrived mostly late, and a few of the little boys were misbehaving today. I brought some rewards stickers with me. I asked them to answer me ‘fine, thanks’, to the question, how are you? A few wouldn’t answer me. The one little stinker ‘A’ tore his sticker in half and threw it away! He did everything he could think of to misbehave (he had time out), but when I rewarded a few of the boys extra stickers, the little stinker ‘A’ thought he better tell his mom he was really good today! The other teacher said he was! I don’t believe in not telling the truth. I mean think of one good thing ‘A’ did, but tell his mom he wasn’t listening well at all. The other little boy ‘L’, wow, what a change in him! I gave his mom a thumbs up. I think ‘A’ was taking all that in. There is a little guy who reminds me of Brian at that age from the photos I’ve seen. Because I was doling out stickers, he may have kept giving me big smiles. Gotta love that.

I took down all the trees, but left a few decorations in my bay window for a few more weeks. I haven’t used my dolls that much, and I enjoy seeing them. If you go to the Brandywine River Museum at Christmas, you will get the pleasure of seeing Anne Wyeth McCoy’s vast antique collection.

Definitely because I am a little stronger, but still achy, I do want to do spring cleaning a bit earlier this year. The first thing I want to do is clear off my ‘eBay’ table. Actually the first thing I have to do is tidy up the Christmas storage boxes.

I have to share a funny geocaching experience. Brian and I had been down to my hometown to take my mom on a few shopping errands. When we were on our way home, I noticed a geocache in my hometown was up again! We were heading in the right direction, so turned down State Street. The GPS zoned in on a black bench and two chairs. Remember it’s night time and it’s a nano. It was mostly deserted…and then I saw Mr. Policeman heading down the middle of town. I quickly sat down and put the phone to my ear! Brian was going to give up, but I said, hold on, I want to look where people’s hand won’t normally hit, the back and on the bottom . Yay!

Unfortunately, earlier that evening, my mom got knocked off balance by a step up display’s corner at Old Navy. She was grabbing the coats she was looking at while I was grabbing her to save her from hitting the step too hard. For some reason she ended up laying flat on the display! The manager of the store was in a department close by and he didn’t even come over to see what was going on and if mom was okay!  She was alright, but very sore. She did shop for a few items for my brother’s birthday yesterday. I wrote customer service about the above. I got a phone call yesterday from HQ and they are sending mom a $50 gift card! It sure pays to speak up!

The orchid show is coming up at Longwood soon! Here’s a few from their orchid room.

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Jan5

Christmas Revisited!

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I happen to see that it was my pal’s 25th wedding anniversary on Facebook (I gave her a thumb’s up) and clicked through to her sister’s wall. Her sister was up from the south visiting and went to the National Christmas Center and a photo she showed piqued my interested in going to a place we have passed dozens of time going to the Lancaster, PA area. It’s right in Paradise, about 20 miles from here. We had until this Sunday to go as they would have weird hours until this Christmas.

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Ma, you going bye byes again?

Brian was off (unfortunately, his hours have been cut at the store), so I had even mapped out a few geocaches in the area-most were those ‘lifting the skirt’ kind, but we just couldn’t find one in a tree on a short road. We stopped at a thrift store where I had consigned things in 2011. They were having a sale, but we didn’t linger. I got an adorable  gingerbread man wreath for $2.50.

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The center was a lot bigger than we thought. We read that the owner started out with 3 displays and grew to 10 or so.

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This guy greeted us, though he looks a bit frumpy.

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This is perfectly decorated.

We took over 100 photos!

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The Norwegians use to wrap their trees with cotton batting to make it look like snow!

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The Woolworth store display! This is the photo Olivia’s sister showed on her page.

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This was the German Santa, the ultimate ‘toy maker’ The room had a number of wax Santas-they looked so real! I didn’t care for the children or the elves-creepy!

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This was part of Tudor Towne, an animated story with different animals/creatures telling the story about how they almost didn’t have Christmas. We took Sean to his display, but in Delaware when he was a little boy!

There was a display about the time Jesus was born, down to cobblestones…most of it was very dark, but this was very beautifully done

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NatlCmasCenter 082Here’s Virginia, the little girl who wrote a letter about the existence of Santa (I think her face looks old). Be glad you can’t see the father’s face. But it was interesting to see how the turn of the last century looked (when my grandmom Ruth was born) and they had a loop on the monitor of the real Virginia reading her letter and reply from the newspaper editor.

The workshop where Santa greets the children was special too. Not sure if the owner of the center does that job, but he sure looks like him as we saw him go to the phone and talk to someone about a music box for the center. He turned them down.

workshopCreepy elves

Brian loved the trains. We heard they will be redoing this, it looked pretty nice to us!

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I will be unloading all the photos to Flickr sooner or later, so I will add the link here when I do.

Makes me want to not take down the tree, but it’s been up a month now, so I’m thinking dust factory.

I hope you enjoyed these.

Found 4 out of 5 geocaches! Ate at Pizza Hut-it’s been a long time and it was just as greasy good as I remember it. ; )   Got some 60% off goodies at The Christmas Tree Shoppe (store) and because I signed up for email, I got $10 off my total .

We also stopped at a Dutch market. The prices of their meat and lunch meat cant’ be beat!

Good day!

In closing-the neatest ‘cache’ of the day!

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Oh I wish I was an Oscar Meyer weiner-lol! Those Lancaster caches had over 200 logs!

Jan3

Longwood Christmas 2012

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I was a bit apprehensive about going to display this year with my arthritis issues being so bothersome. I had missed the autumn display because of it. What I think is saving me more than anything, and go figure is the cream version of ‘Icy Hot’! I’m going to smell really good (got to figure out what perfume will mask it), but if I am getting this relief-hallelujah!

We headed over around 4:15 as you want to go and see the light displays the most. It was a frigid 29! That’s cold for these parts. I was bundled up, but I was still cold!

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My mom had given me a new coat, had to return it and chose this one with the giraffe print. My pal Sherry made my hat (that I bought from her).

003 Up the first walk way to the conservatory. Boy was I freezing!

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The sun was setting nicely. Not sure what those streaks in the sky are.

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As we entered the conservatory. They’ve had other Moravian stars for years.

Then we saw this all white tree! I was going to do that, but we used the ‘tinsel’ tree which called out for red (to me).

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The star of the show to me was the table! Wow, it was probably modeled after one Mr. Dupont had back in the 1920s,

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I really loved the library/music room also!

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This was a living wreath-it’s a common houseplant.

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We went to the little cafe and had their mushroom soup (not as good as it usually is, kind of on the thin side).  We went to see the train display which was a bit of a walk. Sean took photos there.

Then we went to the DuPont house. Imagine having a green house in the middle of your house!

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I was so happy to do all this walking after the month I had. : )