Category Archives: family

Nov29

Trying to get in the spirit

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I’m not going to be a ‘Debbie Downer’. I just need my family to settle down and go with the flow. I talk to one person for over an hour. I talk to the other person for over an hour. I’m caught in the middle. Things seem better and then the one person pi#@es off the other person and vice versa. It all messed with my 50th birthday and now my Christmas is getting jeopardized. I do have my own issues and I sure would like some emotional support from them, but it’s all about them right now. I understand lives are changing, but please consider my feelings too. I usually go all out for Christmas. I’m hoping when I can purchase a few gifts I’ll feel better. I have Sean to help me this year.
I haven’t cross stitched in weeks. I find doing the paper crafts and making them for swaps is good for me right now. The stitching will come back. I do want to make a Christmas card like I did last year. We’ll see.
I do enjoy going around to different blogs and seeing how you are decorating and stitching. In a few days, I’ll add a cookie recipe too! Things just have to get better.
I’ll share a ‘domestic goddess’ angel I made for a swap shortly. I have to hop on the other computer to do so.

Nov3

Autumn Splendor

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Sean said there was a lovely sunset on Monday, so I went out to capture it to share:
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I wasn’t feeling 100%, so I decided to stay off my feet and scan some old photos. My brother always gives me a bunch of them and it takes a while. I just love this one of my maternal grandmom Ruth at age 2 with her sister Ethel about 3 or so. It is dated April 1, 1906! Little Ethel passed away when she was 6 from pneumonia. My grandmom was the second of 6 and she had 2 children and her younger sister Edna had only 1. She had two brother pass on in their 20s. So sad to think that we could have had a larger family if they had lived and married. By the way, my father was an only child with a few step siblings, and Brian is an only child. Our immediate family is about 13.
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and after I photoshopped it a bit adding a reddish tint. The tints seem to bring out more detail in these old photos:
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And here’s a cute one of Sean on his 1st birthday (1987) on a motorized car he had and loved to pieces:
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The Phillies are giving the Yankees a run for their money, but they can’t just play well every 5 games. They have to win the next two game to hold on to their championship title. They had a huge lead and the gap narrowed in the 8th inning. We were on the edge of our seats. I only see 3 Phillies really giving it their best. At least we won the National League Championship to get this far two years in a row-the Yankees can’t say that.
Hoping for a good game on Wednesday!

Nov1

Snaps from cellphones

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I don’t think these are too bad for cellphones. I did lighten or enhance the color in PSP7 just to make them more visually appealing:
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Enhanced with Abode.
This is right near Longwood Gardens. I wanted to capture the burnt umber of the corn/wheat fields against the dark orange fall leaves:
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And our dinner at Chili’s last week for Sean’s birthday:
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Those salsa and chips are so good! And they are a bottomless bowl!
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The first few were my camera. This is Sean’s camera (more $) and I had to tweak it a lot more!
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Halloween didn’t feel much like Halloween until we saw some trick or treaters in my mom’s hometown on the way home. It’s the first year I didn’t see my niece and nephew as they were with their friends.
Working at my mom’s was very draining. It was a rainy day, but in the low 70s, so humid. She says she does things, like go through slacks she stuffed in a big black bag. I had to take every pair out and hold them up and read the size and most of them she discarded! I think we loaded up three of those bags. She loves jackets and says she has about 70! She said she would pick the 20 or so she likes best. It’s so hard to do this. My brother was running across tons of old family photos and sent them home with me to scan. Brian came along and we set up our old dining room table and we all could sit together for a change and share pizza. Brian and Don need to hang a mirror in mom’s room and hang a ceiling fan in the dining room. I have to go and work in mom’s room next.
I’ll be scanning the photos over the next few weeks. Need to make some chili for dinner soon for Sean’s arrival from Penn State.

Oct28

Family Ties-part 2

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I’ve had this project put aside for a few months with the papers selected, many of which were given to me. The ‘canvas’ was a piece of wall art I found at Big*Lots for $2.00. It use to have sketchy looking toiletries on it. This was taken in the summer of 1967 as my younger brother was an infant. It was one of those Polaroids that was deteriorating and my face had a lot of damage. I used a photo effect to soften it and it doesn’t look bad. I am #2 in the line-up and only girl.

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I made this one a few days ago. I was looking through a gardening catalog and ran across the peas.
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Now the waiting game begins. I use to think after a few days I was fine, but I learned differently a few years ago. I give myself a week now. The ultrasound took a while. I had drank too much water and was asked to go to the bathroom in the middle of it too. If the doctor thinks I can have the embolization, I will probably go for it and hopefully feel better, do more and lose weight. Crossing fingers.

Oct26

Family ties

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I’m not going to go into things too much, but my mom is such a big part of my life-my constant worry about her is a daily issue . My middle brother is suppose to move in with her and now that he has a deadline (needs to move out of his apt which is going to get redone) he is pushing mom to get only two rooms cleaned out so he has some place to put his things. Now you all know mom is 79 and has health and eye issues. I feel for her in that respect. What bothers me is that she can’t seem to part with things. She says he has no right to tell her what to do in her own home. But if he was there, she’d be better off financially, probably have new floors and rugs and a updated kitchen among many other things-even maid service. He spent the summer and much money fixing up her yard-it has never looked nicer. My brother has a very vocal and often brash way of getting his point across, but I am glad that he is interested in taking over the family homestead. I talked to him over 2 hours yesterday. In fact I talked to 4 family members and we all want some kind of resolution-but the older folks, mom and uncle are clashing with the ‘younger’ folks. It’s not like mom’s house is picture perfect, she had vermin issues at one point and that was bad enough. She has all that stuff! I feel if most of it went away she wouldn’t miss it. So this has been on my mind.
I’m still doing my collage projects and getting together ideas for the book I hope to write. My friend said if I did larger canvases similar to the small art trading cards, I may be able to do a show in a Philly suburb gallery she is affiliated with! It would be nice to actually sell something I make. It’s really nice to have someone take an interest in something I do creatively.
Lots going on!
Who likes it when someone asks you what you want for your birthday? When I was 10 I knew, but at this age? I would still like to go to NYC, but maybe in early December.
Going for my mamm and ultrasound tomorrow. Please send me good vibes!
***Go Phillies***

Oct11

Playing with Photos

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My brother loves to make scrapbooks and has made some awesome ones involving old family photos that mom had stuffed in boxes. No, she isn’t good at preserving the past it seems. I love photos myself and vowed I’d have a camera within reach all through Sean’s growing up years. I have quite a few photo albums. So Don asked me to scan a bunch of very old photos, many at least 100-120 years old. I recognized my maternal great grandparents, but no one else. Some were labeled, still have no idea who these people were. My great grandparents photos were badly faded. I was able to bring them back and I am still photoshopping them. I am really happy with William’s photo-so dashing. Little Caroline’s was in worst shape. It looks like she stuck her head up in a 3 foot collar-guess that was the style. I am pretty sure they both lived in New York until they were grown up and met each other. They then settled near Philadelphia where their extended family still lives. The thing that breaks my heart is that they are in unmarked graves. I hope someday to at least save enough money for a plaque. When my grandmom passed away in 2000, I saved a little of the money for a marker for her, my grandfather, his parents and my mom’s final resting place. It too had gone unmarked for 40+ yrs. My grandmom and mom didn’t think that something like that was important when they had 6 mouths to feed (Mom-mom was very practical).
Anyway-here are the photos:

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You can see where I am working on these. They may not get too much better. I printed them out and they look better on paper. I changed their color and the teal really made the detail pop.
I always thought my grandmom was the splitting image of her mom, but upon further evaluation, she definitely had her ‘Papa’s’ eyes. My twin great uncles looked just like their mama.

Sep23

Happy Birthday Mom!

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Happy Birthday Mom! 9-23, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

Next year will be my mom’s BIG birthday, but I wanted to take a walk down memory lane. The newest is the second photo where we are toasting each other with Blue*Moon beer. (I sent that to the website, I should see if they uploaded it yet). The first shot, mom is about 16 (I always thought she looked like actress Penelope Cruz); the 3rd shot is when she went to the Smithsonian Institute with a friend and the last shot is us in my childhood room. We are going down in a few hours to bring her gifts, flowers and a red velvet cake (bought). One of my brother wants to take mom out to dinner and said we could come along.

Update-
Mom and me at Barnaby’s. We had Blue*Moon again and we both got strip steak. My brother treated us all to dinner. : ) Taken with Sean’s cellphone.
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With 3 of her 5 grandchildren.
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Blowing out the candles on her red velvet cake (bakery bought and really yummy!)
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Sep8

Long weekend

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Not much to post about-had Brian home for the holiday weekend. He dug up the part of the veggie patch where I want to add some salad stuff for the fall. Sean had his interview for the internship (it pays) on Friday and had to drive down to Delaware*City. He’ll hopefully get thumbs up today. He will be treating invasive species (plants) like poison ivy at the park in another area of Delaware.
I’ve been doing a little shopping here and there finding some good buys on Martha*Stewart things at Big*Lots. I actually went to two different stores as we went down to Dover, DE on Monday just to do something different. My favorite bookstore- Atlantic warehouse was having a buy 2 get 1 free-must have saved $30 or more! I bought about 3-4 things for my mom’s birthday coming up in a few weeks. We ate at Olive*Garden and I went in a few craft stores. You need a few days to go in all the stores down there. Also went into the town of Dover to find Wesley College, a small, but nice school amongst Dutch Colonels and other lovely homes. The public flowerbeds are kept so nice. There was a bed of burgundy dinner plate hibiscus-gorgeous, with red, white and purple petunias.
A few nights ago, I was doing one of those Facebook ‘5 things’ and they asked my nationalities. I put down Swedish, but my family always thought we were Danish (and may be). My cousin was going to open a furniture store (and may have already) and went over to Denmark. She looked in the phone book in Denmark and there were only a few Hasselbergs. She went to Sweden and that’s where they all were. She started a business which is still going strong and run by many of her children. I found the fan page for Dane*Decor on FB and scrolled down and found my cousin Drew there! He had contacted me about a blog entry a few years ago and so had his brother Jesse. I scrolled down to find a memorial group for Jesse. He had passed away from a heart attack last year to the day-he must have been only in his 50s. I was so upset to read this. So now Drew and I are friends on FB. Cool, huh?
Please keep my mom in your thoughts as she is getting her eyes photographed and checked to see if the injections she had over the last few months has slowed down the macular degeneration. She’s really scared. I’ll let you know.

Sep4

Show & Tell-Meant to be

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I just changed my avatar, though it’s not showing up right away. I think it’s funny that WP asks you if it’s rated ‘G’, ‘PG’….to ‘X’. Don’t worry, I’m definitely ‘G’.
A few days ago, I was looking through some old jewelry that I had found at my mom’s. It was mostly broken, many missing stones. The main thing, most of it was my Mom mom Ruth’s jewelry. I’ve been told my grandfather gave her lots of jewelry, mostly costume, but very pretty. I always see her in my mind’s eye accepting a gift from her beloved Alan in her shy, ‘shouldn’t have’ manner. I ran across a gold and green necklace in the case. It looked like it had been ripped off Mom-mom’s neck as the latch and ring were missing and what metal was left was pulled. I was going to ask someone to fix it for me-jewelry repair scares me. Now if you asked me 10+ years ago if I would be wearing this necklace, I’d say it’s too old-fashioned looking. Anyway, I laid the necklace on the table and forgot about it for a few days. Yesterday, I was again sorting through things (I got this from my mom) and didn’t I find a package with the ring and fastener-3 of them! What were the odds? I decided to see if I could fix it-without using my needle-nose pliers-can’t find my jewelry stuff. After a few minutes-or more- I managed to twist the remaining metal securely around the new fastener and ring and it feels secure enough to wear! So here is a fairly nice photo that Sean took of me, though a little weary looking-
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A little touch of my grandmom.

Sep2

One good deed deserves another

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Yesterday Sean helped trim his Great Uncle Don’s bushes and worked around the yard, so something good came about today-he got a call from the Delaware*State Park Dept! On Friday he has an ‘interview’ in Delaware City for one of two positions in researching invasive species in the the area. The man that called said some funding came in, so positions were opened up. The research area would be the White*Clay Creek State Park in nearby Newark, DE. Crossing fingers for Sean as he’s been looking for 3.5 months and found this on his own. One thing could lead to another. Of course he said he’d love to do research in the beach areas. ; )
I also worked my pants off at my uncle’s yesterday. The first thing I did was get my trusty rake and pull a 40 foot vine (at least) growing up and around his bedroom window. My next big job was a wild grape vine attacking a bush near the end of his driveway. I was praying it wasn’t poison ivy or anything-so far, so good. Many of the properties in his area are on steep hills and Sean had to do the dragging up to the back yard. I did that a few years ago and it was too much for my knees. The only bad thing that happened was Sean cut through the cord with the hedge trimmer! So we are glad to have helped Uncle. I saw the garage door open and out he came with his walker and watched us and ‘ordered’ us around a bit-lol-he wanted Sean to throw the debris over a fence. He made a big pile. We are hoping we’ll be allowed to go and burn it sometime in the fall. He has oodles of tree branches around too.
Trying to muster the strength to go food shopping and mail off Sherry’s package. : )