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.

Brian’s birthday

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Today Brian turned 48. He dislikes birthday celebrations, so he’ll get his gifts and we’ll go out to dinner and eat cake when we get home. I guess we are just quiet people. I think it’s nice to be surprised once in a while. Sean had his share of birthday parties, but after he turned 10, that was the last ‘group’ party for him. He has everything he needs. That’s one way of looking at it.
Sean is going to the movies with some friends soon. This is good. I am so glad they are getting together at least once this week. We still have a lot to do before August, one of which is purchasing a third vehicle for him to use for school. They really need to get busy with that. Paying college bills and waiting for aid is another thing. He got a letter that said he was getting some but we thought he’d qualify for more. Brian wants to talk to the financial aid lady at PSU.
My mom is really depressed over the tire episode yesterday. My brother can get her a tire! I know she is thinking she is getting too old to drive or she is still scared over what happened. We didn’t let my grandmom drive at mom’s age. I don’t want something worse to happen to her.

Two Stitching Blog questions…

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The first question dealt with how many hours a week do I stitch. I usually stitch 1-4 hours in the evening, but it depends on what I am stitching or if I am in a hurry to finish something. So multiply that by 7 and that’s 7-28 hours a week. I’d say the average is exactly what it figures out here-14 hours a week. Sometimes I just can’t sit more than 2 hours at a time and need to get up and move around and change my position.

What are your thoughts on craft and/or needlework shows? Have you been to one or are you planning on going to one this year?
I’ve been to a couple of them-The Heart of Cross Stitch. It was held in Valley Forge and Lancaster, two areas accessible to me. This is a defunct show now. The other show (CATS) is in Hershey and that’s more of a drive for me. I did enjoy going and meeting the different designers like Teresa Wentzler, Dale Burnett, Terrence Nolan and a few others. Loved seeing them actually working on their projects. Shows are definitely stimulation overload-so much to look at, so much you want! If you love cross stitching, you have to go to at least a few shows.

Not a good day…

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Well really the only good thing about it was my nephew turned 9 yrs old, but I didn’t get to see him on his birthday.
It was a terribly rainy day. Not a good day to do last minute Easter shopping like my mom did. She came out here yesterday and we went up to Lancaster as planned. Sean did the driving and it was a nice sunny day. We hit a few stores we never usually go in plus some of our favorites. We had a nice dinner in a restaurant we hadn’t eaten in (Texas Roadhouse). We were really tired, so mom stayed all night. It may have been better if she had gone home last night. On her way out of town today, she swerved and hit a ‘security pole’ (like they have outside of fast food places) and her right back tire took it hard and she practically had a blow out. She said her neck hurt a bit, but she is okay, thank God. Luckily there was a gas station a mile or so away and they put on her spare-the ‘donut tire’. I am really worried about her driving now. She had someone hit her in a drugstore parking lot a few months ago and that destroyed her back bumper. Today she was blaming the weather which was of course a big factor, but where she had the problem isn’t that curvy of a road, the road goes in a half curve. She should have come back here and stayed over again.
I am really tired. I slept about 3 hours last night. I was having tennis elbow like pain in my right arm everytime I tried to lay on it. Brian snored all night. It was a nightmare. I had so much to do today. I needed to wrap Kenny and Brian’s gifts and do wash, which I did. Thank goodness Brian volunteered to get hoagies for dinner.
Sean is making a big deal out of where I want to have brunch on Easter. It’s a place we’ve never tried and it’s been around for years. I don’t get him.

I just wanted to put in my two cents about Terri Schiavo-I look at the way she was 15 yrs ago and look at her now with her hands all curled up, laying in bed and the only thing she can do for herself is to breath. What is the quality of this poor soul’s life? In her old photos, she looks like the kind of person to say, don’t let me be a burden on you, let me go. I think her parents just can’t realize that she will never be her former self. This is so sad all the way around. I think about them all and prayers go out to each family member and Terri.

Springtime Bliss

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Spring has sprung! It’s been chilly here. I was surveying my flowerbeds and they need tidying up badly. I see lots of daffodils under the evergreen in my front yard.
I will probably get out there in the next week or so. Sean is home for spring break and we want to take a drive up to Lancaster. My mom may come too. They have some nice outlet stores there. We don’t go to the actual city of Lancaster. There’s a hugh mall nearby which I’ve been to one or two times. With the two malls in Delaware we go to (tax free shopping) we stick closer to home. I haven’t seen any robins yet, but we’ve seen 11 deer the other evening in my neighbor’s yard. Ahh, you may think, but I think Lyme Disease too and I’ve had it already.

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So the city of Philly is being a royal pain in the tuckus. Last month they sent Brian a 6 yr old ticket for a vehicle that we once owned that was left at a meter. He sent the PPA a copy of the transaction that showed we traded in the LTD the month before the violaton occurred. He didn’t send it by registered mail and it went in the bin with 100s of other incoming envelopes. They opened it, saw it didn’t have a check and tossed it in the non-payers bin. We got another notice on Saturday to pay $53 or legal action will be taken. Tonight Brian called a state rep and his assistant said to come down with the papers. He made copies and said he’ll see what they can do and who they can contact. I loved the assistant’s name-Sterling. : ) Crossing fingers.
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Sean rented ‘The Incredibles’ and ‘Grudge’ and another movie. We watched the first two. The animation was cool in ‘The Incredibles’. I can’t say it was a really fun movie. I liked ‘Toy Story’ and even ‘The Brave Little Toaster’ much more. ‘Grudge’ was just stupid. Nothing flowed well and the two dead people (and dead cat) with the black around their eyes was just weird. Sarah Michelle Gellar said how much ‘she loved the movie’ as it wasn’t predictable. Sean was stopping the film asking me questions like I knew what was going on. If I want to see Tokyo, I’ll rent Bill Murray’s movie again.
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My little pal Kassandra (see below) was on the ‘Ellen’ show today. Here she’s only a few days older than my nephew Kenny. She didn’t seem up to par today and Ellen even wrapped her jacket around Kass as she was cold. Ellen presented Kass with a kitten as that’s what she really wanted for her birthday. The kitty was really scared but Kass said ‘I can calm her down’. Ellen was afraid the cat was going to claw Kass, but she seemed blissful holding the kitty.

City of Brotherly Love?

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Philly made the national news because of all the recent murders here. There’s been about 84 since the beginning of the new year. One of the latest was a little boy named Wander. He was sitting in a van waiting for his dad and a bullet hit him in the back. It was the day before his birthday.
From NBC10.com:DeJesus was shot Saturday night…According to authorities, Maurice Stevens, 18, shot a gun from the top floor of an apartment building. The bullet ended up in the back of DeJesus, killing him.

Even my hometown of Media had a strange murder, a few streets away from where my brother and his family live. A 20 yr old guy killed his mom (by stabbing her) and burned her remains and left them in a garbage can outside the house.
What’s this world coming too? Killing your mom for what? I worry about the future. I always wanted to be a mom, but having a child grow up in this mad society was scary. I guess we can’t live in a glass bubble.

Penn State here he comes….

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day. The corned beef and cabbage head for the stove in a few hours. : )
So we went down to Penn State Delaware County ‘offer reception’ last night. We were presented with a nice power point presentation by a young woman from admissions who went to the college. There are 400,000 graduates from PSU, the most in the world! 1-in-10 graduates in the world graduated from PSU. We went on a tour and it’s a nice compact campus. I think it backs up to Ridley Creek State Park, so it’s a nice setting. A bonus is that it’s not too far from my mom or brother in case Sean had car problems or came out of class in a blizzard. Sean was most impressed by the huge gym and workout room. He said he will probably go here for two years and head up to the main campus at University Park. He’ll be older and wiser then. : )
It’s a good thing that we are going to Orlando in May as Sean’s senior trip was cancelled yesterday due to lack of interest. Too bad we paid for the entire trip and we’ll be losing some of the deposit money. That doesn’t seem fair to me. We made the effort to get the money in when other people didn’t. Maybe Sean can suggest to a few pals about renting a place in Ocean City or something. That would make up for their lost time in Williamsburg. It’s an idea.
So August 30th is coming up fast and off to college my baby goes. Time really does fly!

Blind Justice

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Blind Justice is a new show on ABC with ‘ER’ alumni Ron Eldard who use to or is still dating or living with Julianna Margulies. So this is an interesting concept and Ron handles it really well as being a blind detective in NYC. Now Ron’s best features are his baby blues and he has to squint and look dazed as he is sightless. He still looks cute. He has a funky new spikey highlighted do and I love his gray suits with the dark blue shirts. I kinda stopped watching ‘CSI’ and all the annex shows because I wasn’t getting anything out of seeing corpses except for being grossed out. They’ve had a few stiffs on these first two shows (he is a homicide detective) but not too graphic. Not sure if I like the way that they have to have the supporting players be in shock that he is a blind guy. It probably would happen in real life. Last week ‘Jim’ was being taunted by a guy behind bars because of his blindness. The guy wanted to know if he peed on his shoes all the time. Nice. I can’t forget ‘Hank’ the seeing eye dog who’s a big German Shepherd. Cool doggie dude.
The twist in the plot last night had Jim’s wife Christy (I think) leaving him after an incidence at a dinner party where her boss was sweet on Christy. (I’d love to go to Spain with you Christy, says the boss). Well Jim knocked his wine on Christy’s lap and the boss tried to dab it for her and Jim said to ‘get your hand out of my wife’s crotch’ or something like that.
The closing scene had Jim sitting in the middle of the night-he doesn’t really know or care (still dressed immaculately) with the rain pouring down on his face with his faithful Hank beside him. Who comes and joins him on the bench, the scorned wife! Now I like character development and the unexpected. Christy had been through so much with him already (he was blinded in a shooting) and had stuck with him so far. He had the courage to fight for his job.
This looks like a show worth tuning in to. And by the way, Happy 40th Birthday Ron (this year). Ron facts:It’s rare that you find an actor as independent and stubborn as Eldard. But, then, he grew up tough. One of seven kids, his mother died when he was 3. The siblings were scattered among relatives.
He lived both in Utah and on the mean streets of New York City. He worked from the time he was 12.
Can’t wait for ‘Eyes’ with Timmy D. : )