Category Archives: goodies

Jul21

Having fun paper collaging

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Crowabout #88 Fairy Challenge, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

During these definite ‘dog days of summer’, I stay where the air is cool, since we are paying heaps of $$$ for it lately. Best thing we ever did to this house. I am in a few Flickr and Swap-bot groups and I trade with people every week. This little wooden plaque was a challenge I don’t have to trade at all! Every week on Flickr, the group coordinator offers up a sheet of photos/designs. We are to use at least 3 from the sheet. On this one I used the pink blossomed tree and stream, the moth fairy, Hummingbird, fairy sign and red leaves. I added a row of butterflies and a skeleton leaf I added glitter to. I think this turned out cute.
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Our garden is giving us mostly Cucumbers! The Zucchini are all flowers and the Green Beans are just giving us a few beans. The tomatoes are good but a bit on the small side. I swear something is tunneling under the garden as a Green Pepper and Tomato are wilting-they are near each other. All that dry and now all this wet! Mother Nature is playing a game with us. I shouldn’t complain as I have had some nice Roses and Daylilies, but you can’t eat them!

May1

Welcoming May

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Today it almost hit 80 degrees, so I took my ‘flower’ money and headed to one of my favorite nurseries. Big 6 packs (sometimes more included) are only $2.99 which I think is great. I cashed in coins we save in a can and got over $70, but used some, so had about $55 which I had no problem spending. Beautiful flowers. Here’s my annual photo of me with the annuals! (I thought that was pretty funny).

I just got the bandana t-shirt at Tar*get Thursday night. Sean was off, so we went to visit my mom and went to BJs* Wholesale Club for a few goodies. We had shrimp pizza at Ber*tucci’s afterwards. I had some Cha*Cha money on my debit card (remember I answer questions as a  human search engine), so I got some things at Home*Goods-a pretty box for my paper stuff, a small seashell mirror that sits on the table and a neat hat. It’s basically pocket money and it’s a treat to have it to buy goodies once in a while.

I started to plant the pink polka plants and snapdragons last night, but it was a bit muggy and I gave up after planting a few. I didn’t buy any white flowers, so I need a few. They look neat at night.

Hoping to go to a  community yard sale later, another warm day expected.

Have a great weekend!

Mar11

Sweetness

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Some new Easter finds

Bunny egg cup and Sparkle house from Cmas Tree shop. Love house by me.

Sean and I went out yesterday to see ‘Avatar’. When we got to the movies, a fire engine was out front. The place had been evacuated! There was a faulty hand dryer that set off the alarm. We decided to go to ‘The Christmas*Tree Shop’. Ever been to one? It’s like a Big*Lots and Dollar*General rolled into one-the prices are great! This isn’t a photo of what I bought, but I will share. This is a Snowbaby but as a Bunny baby with a tutu and a photo of my Grandmom Ruth when she was about 6, so about 1909. Miss her-it’s been almost 10 yrs since she passed away at age 96 1/2!
Dreary, wet weather is coming here. I can surely find plenty to do! Tomorrow I go to sign the papers for a gyn procedure that will hopefully make me feel so much better. I’m nervous, but the procedure is only 90 seconds!
We are going to Washington, DC next month around our 26th anniversary. Sean has a Geologist conference there. We still haven’t made hotel arrangements, but have to soon. We will miss the Cherry Blossom festival by a few days. Doesn’t mean they won’t be blooming when we are there. Photo opts!
Have a great Thursday and TGIF!

Feb7

Candy and Cookies

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Something about being stuck inside makes you want to bake. It may be to pass the time or to even use up ingredients that are in the kitchen. My Facebook friend Angela said yesterday that she was baking chocolate chip cookies. I had bought bulk at BJs Wholesale so that was a perfect thing for me to do today:

This is a no fail chocolate chip cookie recipe that I just found! For years I used the butter Crisco recipe and they were good, but got hard after a week or so. If you want this recipe, let me know as it has only about 8 basic ingredients.
I was reading a December or January magazine and they said to crush up your candy canes and put them on top of melted white chocolate. So Big Lots had a bag of the chocolate for about $2.00 and that’s what I did last night. Very sweet, so a small piece will do once in a while:


I melted the chocolate in the microwave and spread it on lightly greased wax paper. Then I sprinkled the broken candy canes on it and popped the tray in the fridge. I broke it up with a knife when it firmed up again.The hardest part was taking the cellophane off the candy canes.
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Sean went to work today at noon, so that spared him the early morning icy spots. He has to be in there tomorrow at 8:30-ugh! Then it seems his hours will be more part time-4 hours a day.
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I still look out the windows and think of the deer. I am glad he didn’t have to trudge in this deep snow-well he wouldn’t have been able to. I haven’t seen a deer in days!
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Off to eat some spaghetti-that should hit the spot. : )

Dec3

Cookie Swap time

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Thanks to Scrappy Jessi for hosting her 3rd annual cookie swap. My pal Jen over at Sweet Pea Stitches shared lots of cookie recipes with me last year and I tried a few. We really loved these, melt-in-the-mouth goodies. Jen said I could share, so here goes:
Sour Cream Drops

½ cup shortening (margarine)
1 ½ cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla
2 ¾ cup flour
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt

Mix together shortening, sugar and eggs. Stir in sour cream and vanilla. Sift together and stir in flour, baking soda, powder and salt. Chill at least one hour. Drop onto greased cookies sheets 2 inches apart. Bake at 425 for 8-10 minutes Makes: 5 dozen

Burnt Butter Icing

Melt 4 tbsp butter until golden brown. Blend in 1 cup sifted powdered sugar and ½ tsp vanilla. Stir in 1-2 tbsp hot water until icing spreads smoothly. Icing for 30 cookies.
Sour Cream Drops

Sep14

Great find by mom

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My mom likes to wonder around the local thrift shops. Sometimes she ‘hits’ on a great find for me-like this:
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An entire packet of DMC embroidery floss! (it’s missing some colors, but I’m not complaining). She wasn’t sure if it was DMC or not-she was going by the name of the holder thingie. I looked at it and thought how was I going to match this all up with DMC? Tonight I took a closer look and the previous owner had them all separated and I know the numbers well enough to know they ALL were indeed DMC. I even took out 738-saved me a trip to the store.
Thanks mom!
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It was so nice today that I planted 5-7′ rows of fall crops. I’ve never done that before, so hoping I didn’t wait too long. I planted beets, arugula, spinach, radishes and lettuce. I’m waiting on the garlic bulbs to be shipped soon-they will go in a raised bed.
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RIP Patrick Swayze. What a journey he was on these last few years. I feel especially bad as my step cousin was just diagnosed with the same kind of cancer. I adored Patrick in ‘Ghost’ and ‘Dirty Dancing’. I even like his one hit song-from ‘Dirty Dancing’-‘She’s Like The Wind’. His skit on ‘Saturday Night Live’ with Chris Farley was a classic-when they both were trying out to be Chippendale dancers. He will be missed.
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Off to get my hair done tomorrow. I’m pushing for a lighter shade as my roots are horrible against the brown now. On Sunday we were down in my hometown to a town event (where I am going again tomorrow-vendors and food on State Street and yard sales around the town. I got some cute things I’ll share at the end of the week.
And Zoey-the mushroom cookie was delicious-it was a thick butter cookie that I had to split 3 ways! s like

Aug8

Post 2,500!!!

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5thanblog
This is almost my 5th blog anniversary. I started at the end of 2004 when Sean was a high school senior, now he is a college graduate. My post back in 2004 was about Atlantic City as it was around this same time last year. Guess what?-we are headed down there and Cape May (hoping) for a few jam-filled days next week. My first vacation of the year! I don’t count going to State College a vacation, but I did see some awesome scenery and of course the college campus.
I was in Pier*One and bought a few things for my ‘5th Anniversary Giveaway’. I plan to add a few things from the New Jersey shore to the booty. And I’m not telling you what the goodies are, you’ll have to trust me they are cute, yummy or fun-lol
Please comment on just this post if you want to try and win my goodie bag-the goodie bag is a lovely real bag from Pier*One-I’ll tell you that!
Thanks to all my faithful followers who I have met over the years. I hope we continue to keep in touch and perhaps even met each other someday! And I enjoy making new friends too, so welcome if you are just peeking. ; )
My other milestones-almost 7 thousand uploads to Flickr! and now over 500 uploads of my art cards and collages-about 2.5 yrs of creating!

Oh and the drawing will be randomly generated and the winner picked on August 31st to give many people a chance to enter.

Aug3

Need a baseball bat?

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All the rain kept us out of the garden for a number of days and lookie what Brian found over the weekend:
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Yep, a biggie! We also harvested about 4 cucumbers so far. Next week we’ll be digging to see if I got any fingerling potatoes! I see some green beans that need picking too.
Unfortunately, many of the tomatoes in my container garden and a few in the big garden are getting blossom rot from the rain. We need some hot, dry days to hopefully remedy that! Tomorrow and the next should help.
For the second Sunday in a row, we had a terrible storm that knocked out the power for 5 hours each day it happened. I tidied up some art supplies and made this as one of the four I made that day. It’s my friend’s grandmom-I don’t think she reads my blog and she’s away right now:
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Don’t put an old photo of yourself or a relative on your blog or in Facebook or I may use it! I’ll gift her with this. I’d say it’s about 1908 or so.
Sean and I went down to my mom’s and did a few things around the place. She bought yet another bagless vacuum which I scolded her for. I hope this one doesn’t ‘blow up’ like her previous clunker did! We went down to the liquidator store and JoAnn’s and I bought a few things namely paper crafting things at JoAnn’s (40% off) and 70% off windchimes and a few little gnome figurines. We went to The O*live Garden and the portions were very slimmed down. I always had some left to bring home, not tonight.
So that’s my last few days. Plan to stay in and cool tomorrow!

May13

A new gadget

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We asked Sean if he’d like a new cellphone-one with all the bells and whistles- like the internet and he said sure! Today we went to the T*Mobile store and he picked out a G1 with Google and lots of apps. He’s already downloaded the weather (of course) and star finder-showing the constellation right over our house-I believe Sirius is up there. : )
MyTMO_login
So that was a neat gift for someone who has worked so hard. Wish it could have been a car, but maybe someday he can afford to get a new one himself-got to land that perfect job!
We’re getting stuff together for our little trip up to State College. We hope to see a few sights around the area (like the town!) on Saturday. We feel bad we never went up there, but with aging parents with several health issues, it’s rough to be 3.5 hours away.
We did have a lovely day today! We didn’t go phone shopping until 4:30 as I was a little blah for a bit. I’m making Sean a card, but misplaced some graduation stickers and can’t find them! I’ll have to finish it and wrap a few little gifts tomorrow.
My brother had a fence installed in my mom’s yard for her dog (and later his dog too) so mom doesn’t have to walk him anymore. Kelsey was so happy and ran like the wind. That will save mom a lot,though he doesn’t like getting in his cage when mom needs to go out.
I’ve got a lot to do tomorrow, so if I don’t write anything, see you late Saturday or Sunday!