Category Archives: Brian

May24

Happy Birthday Patrick!

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Patrick, there on the right with his older brother Dave and my brother Dave (and Mickey) turned 19 today! Hard to believe the curly-haired tyke is now a sophomore at PSU now. We don’t see the family that often and are always glad when we do! Pat drives about a ’65 Galaxy that his dad and his uncle fixed up for him.
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Did some gardening with Bri today. I planted some tomatoes and he planted green peppers and a rose bush (named Dolly Parton, so I’m expecting some spectacular blooms!)
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~SHOES~

These are tiny brass slippers, about 4″ long. I believe they were meant to be used as ash trays because of the indentation in the back. I guess i found these on a white elephant table-boy, they are green inside!
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This is part of the fairy/gnome garden that I just mulched a few days ago. I call it ‘gnomeland’. I dug up a hydrangea and moved it, so I had more room for plants and gnomes! When the plants fill in, it really looks cute seeing those little people ‘hiding’ amongst them. Some of the paint on these to be touched up a bit. Another thing for me to do. : )

My pretty pinkish-orange (not quite salmon) nemesia. I think it’s going to need repotting soon.

May19

Magical Flowers

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Thanks to Gary over at tribe.net for animating this for me! He’s a wonderful photographer in California and good at animation too. It’s not working unless you click on the picture-grrrr!


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Today it reached 60 and was so chilly. I went outside and ‘high tailed’ it back in again! I do have things to do inside, no problem. My allergies were in a tailspin and I saw Bri looking for Claritin. Sean cut the grass around the house for the first time in a while and Bri finished off the long part. We’re still trying to get the yard work under control. If you could see the pile of debris you would wonder where it all came from!
Tomorrow seems like it’s going to be a repeat of today. Oh, more clutter control will be under way!
Reached my ‘half’ birthday today-oh joy!

May12

Nor’easter blew out power for 5 hours

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We just got technology back at 4 pm-it was gone from us since a little before 11! What a pain! It’s too rainy and chilly to do anything outside, and a bit dark to do anything inside! I did go through some bags in my bedroom and condensed them. I had been in my bedroom all day Saturday doing the winter to summer clothes switch-a-roo. So proud to be on my 3rd bag for Goodwill donations. Sean did add stuff though.  I never have enough room for my clothes in the armoire. I take pretty good care of them (line dry many things) so I have them for years!

We did take mom out to a Chinese dinner which is usually a ‘no-no’ for me, but I got out voted 3 to 1! The restaurant smelled funny, like they had had a water leak-wet rugs. I think we should have left and gone to the Jewish deli place across the shopping center, but mom reminded me we didn’t like what we had there one time. Mom goes to this restaurant a bunch, so we stayed and shared ‘Seven Stars around the Moon’ for two. It was nicely presented (Sean has a photo on his camera phone) and was pretty good, not too much of an MSG taste. They had the shrimp butterflied and cooked with bacon-quite yummy. We also stopped briefly in a Dollar Tree and AC Moore and I got a magazine and few little gift items and things. Mom wasn’t feeling well, so we dropped her off and came home, but hit a new Target where Sean and I looked around for a bit and shopped. Oh, the entire day my left knee was so sore! When I came home (after Baskin Robbins) I used the heating pad and it went away! Amazing.

Today I did a few ATCs by the light of a little lantern. I wound up some music boxes! It was too quiet! When Sean came home from a Longwood Gardens job interview (which he says sounds good), we played Trivial Pursuit, but just answered questions without using the board part. I called my mom as she had gone to the hearing dept at the hospital and she had water in her ears’ tubes which may be causing her hearing loss to be moderate to low. She needs to go to a specialist now.

We are waiting on Bri for dinner (McDs). He brought us pizza home for lunch as I wouldn’t dare open the frig. I only ate one slice as I was feeling the affects from out dinner last night.

Here’s hoping for a gorgeous day tomorrow!

May8

Nice to have my pal back

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Sean asked what I wanted for Mother’s Day and I said we could go over to Walmart and look around their garden center. They do have a ton of nice plants, even perennials at a good price. I happen to spot yellow flowers, my favorite color in blooms, and it was a Hibiscus! He said he’d get it for me. I looked around a little more and only bought a few other plants. I think I have enough. Now I will wait for some clearances! So I got a few more things in the store and when we checked out, the hibiscus was only like $5.44, so I got two! Not sure what the other color is, but it will be a surprise when the flowers start to open.

He headed over to Blockbuster and one of his choices is ‘Juno’, which I thought was interesting. I asked if we could run down to Lowes to see if they had any more decent hanging baskets and he agreed. They didn’t have any that I liked, but I bought another pond plant and a few other plants that I didn’t have. (what did I just say above about buying more plants?) We stopped at Wawa to gas up the van-$35 only brought it a bit over half full. We went in and got hoagies and ate them as soon as we got home as we were starving! And to think I was happy I had lost 3 pounds. ; )

Bird Alert!!!! Brian has spotted (and I have seen for a second) a hummingbird twice now! I’m so jealous! The first time was on one of the new hanging baskets that has the big flowered Dianthus in it.

They just showed a story on the news about a place in Vineland, NJ that was getting renovated. When the guy went to tear down the tin ceiling, 100s of vintage photos came tumbling down, all in relatively good shape, but unmarked-so they don’t know who the brides and grooms, etc. are. It use to be a photography studio (of course). What I could tell, they looked like they were from the 30s to 50s.

Here’s a Mother’s Day Quiz. I got 6 out of 10, so see how you do!

May4

Seed lady

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Not to say I wasn’t zonked from all the flower planting the day before, but I still went out Saturday and did more strenuous yard work while Bri mowed the lawn.

I raked the weeds out of two areas where Bri had rototilled for me. I planted wildflowers in one bed and mostly zinnias in another bed. All that raking really hurts my arms and tummy, but I am hoping to tone up too! : )

I need to stay away from places that sell plants. I go crazy! There is a new Loew’s right outside our town that we checked out last night. I wasn’t too impressed until I saw water plants and some fairly nice hanging baskets for under $7. I bought two, so that saved me planting two. I did buy a water plant for my second water garden. : ) I think I’ll go back and get a few others for the in ground pond.

I also moved (Bri helped with one) two hydrangeas that weren’t doing a thing except taking up space where they were. Mom has a lovely one. It is in a shady area and the soil is fairly wet, so I moved mine to a shady area. I also saved two ‘sucker’ Spirea bushes and may give one to mom is it amounts to anything.

I’m getting somewhere, but am not finished hanging baskets, planting flowers in the ground, weeding and mulching. I have a June 1st deadline-wish me well!

I’ll take some photos later if it’s not raining.

Apr27

Chasing my tail!

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Yep, what to do, what to do? Do I continue outside because that’s what I really want to do or clean my house? There’s so much to do in both locations. I did sort through a huge pile of junk mail, but I should have done that Thursday as Friday is recycling day. Now it will be sitting around all week.

My gardens are getting there. We had a cooler day and a little rain last night, so I was able to get to the lilies. There are so many weeds in there, I chopped off a few lilies by mistake. I do that every year!

I got my first iris today! It’s a pretty all white one! A few dianthus are blooming too. We went to Walmart and I must say their flowers and veggies are pretty decent this year and I bought a bunch last night. I planted more dianthus (Sweet William) that are named ‘Diana’ something. The ones from last year are coming along nicely.

Heard brother #2 has been planting a bunch of things at mom’s. This is good, but I use to help her with that. He also found her a nice used bed set (with a double bed) on Craig’s List and they went and looked at it and bought it! She has been sleeping on a twin bed and couldn’t stretch out right. I hope she is sleeping now as she was exhausted getting the room tidied up for the new additions. She is suppose to have a cat scan tomorrow and wants me to go along (I went with her when she had an MRI a few years back and waiting freaked me out a bit as I knew she was in that closed machine all that time). The weather is suppose to be rainy too.

That’s about all the news. I did sit after dinner and make one ATC! I haven’t made one for weeks. Speaking of dinner, I made the Rachael Ray turkey burgers which are so good! All you do is grate a small white onion in the ground turkey and toss in some seasoning like parsley and poultry seasonings. Next you make the patties and roll them around in pecan pieces and instant potato flakes and fry them up!

I am doing a little cross stitch at night. I am trying to finish off a Christmas ornament that I started back in ’05. I have to do birds over one stitch and it’s hard! Plus the design isn’t right at the top, and I can’t figure out why. It’s pretty though.

Apr21

Busy Monday

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I usually keep Mondays for myself, but decided to go see what I could do for my mom. As you may have guessed, not sure if I sprang it on you, my #2 brother has moved back up from Florida. I won’t use his name here, but he’s come into my mom’s house and turned it upside down, thinking he’s ‘helping’ her. Mom has a lot of things in her house-she’s a buyer and hoarder. We all are to some degree-look at people who don’t move for many years and you know we are keeping too much. But mom has enough of everything to give everyone in our hometown a gift of something in her house. #2 is being rash, and to clean up a big house takes more than a few weeks. Mom never invited him to come into her home and start all this (brother #1 hasn’t become involved). Older folks aren’t use to a big upheaval and my mom looked so bad today, I decided to take her out to dinner, which I did. She really enjoyed it. And I wanted to run into Macy’s (next door to the restaurant in the mall) to look around as I don’t have one near me. Well, mom goes and tells brother #3 that I took her to dinner and Macy’s and almost as soon as I walked in the door tonight, #2 calls to lecture me about taking mom shopping! She happen to be with me, she didn’t act like she wanted to buy anything, so what’s the problem? What do you think? I don’t think she’ll be shopping that much anytime soon. I was with her (she usually went on her sprees solo). Most of our family is being effected. My sickly uncle, me and now Bri was yelling to get off the phone. He can’t take hearing about this everyday.

I’ve been trying to watch my eating better. I had tapalia fish on salad at the restaurant-skipped pasta! If I had been home I would have tried a new recipe-arugula, cannelini beans and pasta for dinner from Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food magazine (I’ll have it Tuesday). My goal is to try one or two new recipes a week that are lower in fat. Mom and I also ran in Trader Joe’s grocery store and I was getting some low fat snacks. I got some chocolate meringue drops-no fat, low sugar-very yummy.

Please keep my little mama in your thoughts and prayers. I hope we can all treat her with the love and respect she deserves (and live in the present, as the past is being brought up so much) to help her get her place in shape.

BTW, almost broke my left big toe last night because Cosmo the kitty had kicked up a throw rug and my toe got caught right in the big bend of the rug and got bent back. It’s a bit sore, but I really want to do some serious walking this week.

Apr20

Yard clean up

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We had that extremely summer-like day on Saturday (over 80), so Brian mowed the entire lawn (we have over an acre). It looks so much better-all nice and neat and velvety green! I know I’ll have to get out there with my trusty weed whacker sometime in the coming week. Not to say I don’t have some hand weeding to do and to place out my 4 crates of lawn decorations! The little gnomes and fairies take up a couple, so don’t think I’m one of these woman you see who has decorations you can’t poke a stick in between! And I know some have seen better days, so they will get tossed. Also if I buy something new, something old and worn out goes in the trash can. I wasn’t good for much yesterday, I was fatigued and it so isn’t like me to not do stuff outside when Bri is doing stuff. But I did a lot of yard work on my own a few days ago too. I will report that my irises and lilies look good. The iris bed will be getting mulch in it (making mental note) as it just gets too overrun with onion grass and weeds in general. And when I was admiring the pretty double red tulips, I see that the allium did indeed come up again! Around the base of my big evergreen, on the other side (not pictured below), I noticed some mums have really naturalized and spread at least 5 feet! Love my birth month’s flower!

So as we get the yard tidied up, we need to work on tidying up our own diets. Brian is really stubborn. He was raised with the option of eating all that was on his plate and getting seconds, which he still does. Only 3 people in his house growing up. I grew up getting what I was offered and making sure there was enough for all 6 of us. I rarely take seconds here. I have to work on simple sugar consumption. I am pleased to say I can eat the yogurt cheerios again with rice milk for breakfast (lucky me). Cereal had been bothering me when the vitamins were upsetting my digestion. I’ve only taken a few of the new vitamins, and every other day, so I hope I can handle them. If not, I’ll have to get more in touch with bunny foods. Luckily, one of my favorite restaurants makes awesome salads, a few award winning ones. : )

Apr14

Trying to calm

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My mom is out here for a few days so I could try and help her calm her nerves. B#2 is now living in the area again and decided he was going to clean out a lot of my mom’s things. I don’t want to go on about Sunday, which was suppose to be my first ‘fun’ flea marketing day, but I told her to pack her bag and head home with me. Tonight we had mom come along for our anniversary dinner. She’s been drooling (sounded like it anyway) every time she saw the blasted Red Lobster commercial. I ordered a Pina Colada (Bri took a silly photo of me, but the camera is in the van) and mom and I ordered ‘Lobster in Paradise’ meal. We got a lobster tail, 5 coconut shrimp and a baked potato (along with salad and their famous biscuits). Bri ordered New Orleans style Mahi-mahi and had to bring some home. Mom’s fork was really flying, so that was the best present I could have gotten, to see her enjoying her food. She came home and said she was going to lay on Sean’s bed and read. Last time I looked, she was out like a light. Someone her age deserves the best treatment and she wasn’t getting that.

As gifts, I got a few pieces of jewelry that I picked out, both silver. One is a ring with a few random faux pearls and rhinestones. The earrings are etched glass ball danglers. Bri also surprised me with a bouquet featuring red roses. I’m really zonked tonight. I won’t be up too much longer.

And I thought this was cool: Senator Clinton was stomping in Drexel Hill, PA on Sunday where Bri and I first lived as a married couple! There are some really close-ups of her in this set! Here’s some more info on the day.

Speaking of the election, Sean got his absentee ballot and deliberated for 15 minutes and told me who he voted for. I was happy.