Taken last either last year or earlier this year. I can’t take credit for the photo, though wish I could. Thank you photographer! That’s my favorite singer James Taylor with his wife Kim behind him. Teresa is holding Kim’s hand. 
Oct1
Author Archives: Dianne
Oct1
It’s not a bull in a China shop-it’s a deer in a chicken joint!
True! Down in West Philadelphia a few nights ago, a buck (deer with antlers) somehow got into a chicken joint! Now this area is all row houses with no open spaces except for Cobbs Creek park that is miles away. I am just picturing this buck walking through the streets of Philly. He must have been walking down alleys as no one saw him before he got himself stuck in the restaurant. He head butted a few teens, but they were okay. The authorities finally tranquilized him and got him out to return to him to ‘the wild’ somewhere. It was weird seeing his deer hooves hanging over the side of the stretcher. The reporter said about the experience, “Now I’ve seen everything.” Check out the photos of ‘Bucky’ at the following link:
WPVI.com: Deer Trapped in Restaurant
Oct1
Four for Friday
FOUR FOR FRIDAY
Q1: Did you watch last night’s televised debate between President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry? If so, despite which candidate you support, who do you feel did a better job? If you didn’t watch, are you planning on watching either of the two remaining televised Presidential debates or next Tuesday’s Vice Presidential debate?
It was so obvious-John Kerry sounded and looked very Presidential while GW Bush paused a lot, said ‘you know’ and ‘ummm’ and drank a lot of water. He is better speaker all around and Bush knew it. Bush also repeated himself and couldn’t even fill some of the allotted time he was given.
I do plan to watch the remaining two debates. I can’t wait to see Edwards against Cheney!
Q2: Have you ever given something up–either for religious reasons or just because you wanted to–for a specified period of time? If so, how did that work out for you… were you able to stick with it for the duration of time you had originally planned or did you cave earlier than planned? If you can remember, what was it that you gave up and why?
Oh the Lent question. I am pretty good at giving up meat on Fridays, though I get tired of it during the duration of Lent. Another time I tried to give up food is during diets. I tried not to eat hamburgers once during a Liver cleansing diet and I think that lasted one month. I am not a big hamburger eater, I substitute ground turkey now. But I like a Junior Whopper once in a while. My willpower stinks because I am by myself so much and could be busier. The busier I am, the more weight I lose anyway.
Q3: If you could change jobs tomorrow in order to start working directly for anyone in the world–either dead or alive–whom would you choose to work for and what would you do?
I’d love to work at Martha Stewart Living magazine and help design craft items for her magazine. I think that is one of the classiest magazines out there.
Q4: Halloween is just 30-days away. What’s your best Halloween-related memory and/or costume?
Once I dressed my brother up as the grim reaper when I was into Monty Python. He wore my grandmom’s hooded, bulky bathrobe. I made him a sickle and did his makeup. I really loved dragging my costumes to elementary school. Once I wore my mom’s wedding dress that she had cut off (it didn’t hold any meaning to her anymore). I also loved trick or treating with my brothers. I made most of my son’s costumes. The last time he dressed up, five yrs ago, he was a crewsman from the Titanic. He had a whistle and a life preserver. He has been the Phantom of the Opera and a Wizard to name a few of the costumes I assembled for him.
Sep30
Surprise phone call
I was sitting here going through my endless piles of paper when the phone rang. I knew who it was right away and was both surprised and anxious to talk to the caller. It was one of my newer pals Kathy who is a mutual pal to my friend Karin. Now Karin’s been in the hospital for almost a week due to complications from surgery. I was scared Kath was going to give me bad news. Karin isn’t doing good post surgery and was getting sick enough that she had to have a tube down her throat. This is the third operation Karin has had in 5 yrs and she isn’t even out of her 30s yet. I appreciated my ‘New Yorker’ pal Kath calling and we hit it off good and chatted a while until my blasted insurance company called and interrupted us. It’s so nice to talk to someone you’ve only written emails to.
I don’t know what the heck is wrong with me. I feel like I have something but the weird feeling comes and goes. My bod is probably fighting a bug. My throat is a bit scratchy though. Brian said he was all achy today. Something gets in your system and settles in good.
The presidential debates are on and I hope ‘the smart’ candidate shines. I don’t want to get into squabbles with anyone, but we need a change in DC so badly. I want to shake people and make them think. Oprah was good yesterday. She had Drew Barrymore and other celebs who were recruiting people to vote, esp young women who rarely vote. I have never skipped voting in a major election. My first official election was 1980 and I voted for Jimmy Carter who I still think is a wonderful man. My son Sean is voting this year and he is using his brain. Good for him. He is weighing his options.
Sep30
One big ache
Darn I hurt when I woke up today (the 29th). Felt like I was run over by an out of control VW bug or something. Every joint hurt that was being overused lately-elbows and knees the worst. I had stuff to do, but put off food shopping until the evening. Sean said there’s some bug going around school and a few teachers are sick. He had a stuffed up head for a few days. I usually get something in Sept. or Oct. like clockwork. Betcha I will get it from being rundown. Brian went to the store with me and I felt so weird I didn’t really ‘get into’ it and basically threw stuff in the cart and we were home in 1/2 hour,$117 poorer. The cost of meat is making me want to switch to be a vegetarian! No way and I blowing most of my budget on two little pieces of steak & a pork tenderloin. I could go on.
I got home and out came the deep heat rub, took a Tylenol and settled in to watch tv (Lost, The Bachelor and Wife Swap) and stitch on an emergency cross stitch project. I am taking a chart and switching it around. The young lady loves flying pigs (when pigs fly) and I am taking a 3 Little Pig chart and making one of the houses a ‘wing shack’ and the pigs are lined up to get their wings. Try to picture this please. I will make a sign for the shack or whatever I call it.
Speaking of pigs, Brian ‘hogged’ the computer updating windows-it took 4 hours and at first it wouldn’t work, but now it seems to be of course when I am on here.
I still haven’t gotten my beloved plastic boxes. Maybe tomorrow. The ‘leftovers’ in the family room need to be out of sight so I can enjoy the changes in the room.
Sep29
‘If’ Meme of the day
IF you were to describe your life right now as a hallway with six closed doors, what signs would you put on the three doors that you want to open, and on the three doors that you want to keep locked?
The three doors I want to open and keep opened are-‘Love’, ‘Family’ and ‘Creativity’. The doors I want to keep locked are ‘Past Hurts’, ‘Ignorance’ and ‘Prejudice’.
There are lots of other doors that I would like to open and keep locked, believe me! I thought these were really important. So many people live their lives based on things that happened to them in the past. They didn’t use them as learning tools for the future. For myself, I have kept past hurts locked for a long time and when my grandmom died four years ago, that darn door got opened a bit. But the ‘past hurt’ had lots of ‘love’ from my grandmom in there. What happened was when I was little (about 2-3), I slept on a cot in the hallway instead of in a bedroom. My brother had come along a year after me and took my crib. Instead of putting me in with my grandmom, they stuck me in the hallway at the top of the stairs! I could have fallen down the stairs. Was my father such a brute, my mom and grandmom had no say? Anyway, I would wait until my father turned off the light over my head and sneak into the bed with my grandmom who made me feel safe. Lots of time my father would come in and pull me out of the bed and throw me on the cot again. No wonder I am a light sleeper to this day.
Sep28
Golden blooms
Lovely golden mums for Autumn before the drenching rains.
Sep28
Surprise blooms
Somehow these little purple petunias grew from the crack in the step.
Sep28
Throw us a line…there’s a river out there!
Jeanne strikes havoc in the tri-state area! What a night! It’s been raining pretty steadily since around 2 pm or so. And it’s after 11 in the evening and it’s still raining. We had a little water in the basement. Less than expected, but in different spots. One is near the heater-not good. We have a call to the Amish roofer who put up the roof last year. I sure hope he doesn’t have to go down the basement. It’s still a disaster down there, especially where he needs to look. I doubt he will come in. He’ll probably just seal the flashing again. And the other water was outside our finished room when it was usually in it. We added dirt along that side of the house so maybe that helped a bit. We just swept the water into a hole cut out of the corner of the basement. There’s lots of flooded out roads and a few ‘small’ tornadoes touched down in New Jersey and Delaware. We think the end of our road is flooded out as there is a creek there. There’s 6 inches of rain in Wilmington, about 15 or so miles away.
I made an early dinner of beef stew just in case we lost power. It only flickered a bit. Brian was a little spazzed and was up and down checking things all night. I tried to work on a quilt square and I had one color done in the middle design of a beehive and it wasn’t centered. So that got ripped out along with some lettering. One step forward, two steps back.
My brother and his family made it home safe from Disney World this morning around 2:30 am. They spent the few days they were stuck there in their hotel room eating and watching tv. Both my brother and his wife had to go to work today, but in the afternoon.
Hope all is well in the morning. Sean is waiting for his first delay. As a senior he doesn’t have to make up the missed days.
Sep28
Plastic Boxes
Ok, where would we be in this world without plastic boxes? I really need them, esp now with this ‘stuff’ sort going on in the family room. I am at a standstill because I need my plastic boxes! Cardboard won’t do! They get wet and smelly and break down to a bent up pile of nothing after a while. I want my lidded boxes that I can stack to the ceiling, see what’s inside (I try to buy the transparent ones now). I can also label them! I have two huge plastic boxes that take turns holding my summer and winter clothes. It’s a major feat for Brian to get them in and out of the attic. We have terrible closet space here. Each room has the basic closets with the two sliding doors. I actually use 1.5 closets plus an armoire and hope chest and still can’t fit all my things in them all. I do have too many clothes, but I take good care of them, so they last a while. Last year I did a major sort and got rid of about 6 bags of clothes and hung my nice tops and jackets by color-all the blacks together, etc. Back to the boxes-I remember when we were looking at houses and this one place had about 30-50 plastic boxes stacked in their basement. I was mortified-but look who is into boxes now? I can’t seem to get rid of these extra video tapes, cross stitch magazines and miscellaneous things that accumulated in this room for the last 12 yrs. Even Sean’s guitar is still sitting in front of the closet. I stuck a plastic bag over it today. Sean has had it for 6 yrs and never learned to play it and I want its former space for my magazine basket.
Guess I’ll go get some boxes in a while, even if it’s going to be raining cats and dogs.
Collages & Creative Goodness 