Category Archives: history

Jul20

A little trip to New Castle, DE

Posted on Friday, July 20, 2012 by Dianne

This was the perfect day for a little trip down to Delaware. After learning about the Colorado theater shooting, for some reason I needed to get out of the house instead of keeping myself cooped up. I had read about the Goodwill outlet store through a blog where the lady is into thrifting locally. She scores big on kids’ clothes and toys all the time. I look for old books, novels, name brand things and craft stuff. It’s an interesting place-rows and rows of big blue bins. I try to avoid clothing-you just don’t know how clean it is. If something catches my eye, then I will investigate more. I scored an American Urban Outfitters sweater, some Disney stuff, Wuthering Heights book from 1940 something, a galvonized bucket with a pumpkin face cut out, 2 plush Rudolph the Red-nosed reindeer, a ‘singing’ Hallmark bear couple, a John Denver songbook and lots of novels. They change out the bins every so often and they did that while we were there. After they put the new bins out, people went nuts! A few people were scooping the books in their baskets like crazy. I think they did that so they could price them later with their cellphones?

After we left there, we went a few miles down to historic New Castle. It’s a smaller version of Old Philadelphia and Williamsburg and not at busy! I didn’t bring my bigger camera as it was rainy today. These are all phone captures.

The first place we stopped at was the George Read house. He was a signer of the Declaration of Independence

Below is the front of the George Reed House dating from the 1700s

Cobblestone stones are still here on this strength of road called ‘The Strand’

A cute pooch was barking at us along the Strand.

So were down this road looking for a ‘virtual’ cache-a hole in the wall. The GPS lead us to this,

…but the Cache owner said it was a bigger hole and closer to the water. He let us post as a find anyway. We are going back to this area because of the following photo.

This is the ‘first’ part of the cache (that was the hint-to look in the window). We were looking in the rose bushes and around the mailbox. And the courthouse was closed too.

I poised with William ‘Billy’ Penn who founded this area first.

There were a few quaint shops and restaurants. We went into a New Orleans style one and both had Jambalaya-Brian with chicken and me with crayfish-really spicy! I brought half of mine home. We went into a gift shop and the lady said that they use to be in Ridley Park, nearer my mom. I happen to have eaten in that one many years ago with my mom and the ladies she worked with. Small world.

The lady in the gift shop told us how to get to the New Castle Farmer’s Market, just down the road. We found a produce place with a dozen lemons for $3 and 99 cent bundles of asparagus.

This area is under 20 miles away and we’ve never been to the historic area.

And we found 4 other caches on the way home. Brian starts to sigh, I knew he was tired. Found three lamp skirt ones and a rain gutter guard one-lol.

We stopped at Rita’s Water Ice and got swirl cones to cool the fire of the Cajun food. Yum.

Mar18

Hitting the road

Posted on Sunday, March 18, 2012 by Dianne

Standard

It’s fun to get in the car and drive about 40 or so miles for a day trip. Sometimes we stop off at places on a whim. Like just last week, Sean and I headed up to Lancaster and turned down a road that lead through the towns of Intercourse and Bird-In-Hand PA. The first place we saw was ‘The Old Candle Barn’ in Intercourse, so we stopped. I had fun looking around and bought a few little things. I saw a button bunny design and would like to replicate it.

They wanted $35 for this. I just won 100 buttons from an eBay action for $5, so I think I can make my own.

We went to the Old Candle Barn’s sister store called ‘The Gathering’ where I got my mom a couple of red granite ware metal plates that have 3 divided sections. She has a red kitchen (my brother painted it this color). The lady there couldn’t believe Sean was my son which was flattering. : )

We took a walk up the road and I took a few photos.

This is a neat grocery store with it’s neon ‘meat’ sign and phone booth you sure don’t see much of anymore.

This gorgeous Magnolia was blooming. Pretty sure it’s a month early.

We didn’t go in here, seems many stores weren’t open

Hmmm…the ‘Edged Weaponry Museum’-must have been lots of swords. Built in 1918.

We got in the car and just a few blocks away were many more people and more shopping. I saw the general store and remembered the scene from ‘Witness’ where Harrison Ford slugged the ‘English’ guy for making fun of the Amish. Someone said he was a ‘cousin from Ohio’. Sean was driving and whizzed on by.
There seems to be more restaurants in Bird-in-Hand. Sean said we can drive down that way again some other time.
Today, Brian and I went up to Oaks, PA to the Pennsylvania Expo center. It’s about 38 miles away. We stopped for a bite at McDonald’s and went on up to the Sugarloaf Craft Festival. We had gone up in November and I thought it would be a nice change of scenery and something not too expensive to do. I had coupons to save us a few bucks off the admission price. There were many of the same vendors and it was fun to check out what people make and sell. I saw lots of photos for sale-gorgeous, but since they were framed, very pricey.
I got this as it’s very rare to find my name spelled correctly. I may borrow this idea for my etsy shop, but with my own twist. The people loved this seller as these mounted piece were only $10. I will make a pretty frame for it.

We spent the most $ in a candy booth! They had like 3 for $10 bags of stuff. I got my mom some Black Jack gum she likes there. Then I bought some small tubes of hand lotion-coconut and lime I think.

We were here about an hour. On the way home we were about to drive past the Valley Forge National Park. Brian turned in and we went to the visitor center and saw some neat things like long swords (hmmm…more edged weaponry-lol) and fossils they found in the park from prehistoric animals. The daffodils out front were all in bloom-pretty!

I guess George Washington slept here?? LOL Administration building

We then headed to a Big Lots and bought some food items and then headed to a grocery store to get meat for dinner. All in all a good distracting day for Brian. Tomorrow he will call the main office to find out about insurance and a 401k he had with the company.

Mar1

Solemn Sunday in NYC

Posted on Thursday, March 1, 2012 by Dianne

Standard

The last day we were in NYC, Sean left to go to his meeting before us. We then all met up at St. Patrick’s Cathedral where we went to mass like we did almost 5 years ago when we attended Karin’s wedding.

This was taken the night before:

It was a nice service and not as long as our church services here! We then decided to head over to Central Park and Strawberry Fields to see the Imagine plaque in memory of John Lennon, the Beatle who was killed across the street outside of his home, the Dakota building.

Brian on the left there, our biggest Beatles fan:

The Dakota:

What pretty sights here! I can just ‘imagine’ how pretty it is in the summertime. We’d like to see it all green and lush too. I believe Sean said it had over 800 acres here.

For it being a brisk day, there were still a lot of people milling around.
Our next ‘must see’ place was the new WTC Memorial which was in lower Manhattan. We had timed tickets for it. Sean paid for the almost $20 taxi ride as Central Park was on his ‘wish list’ of places to see, so that’s why we went. I am really glad we did though.
When we got to the memorial area, we were a bit confused as to where to go as they had fences with blue signs all around the area (lots of construction here). We went down one way, though the signs had arrows pointing the other. I saw other people walking the wrong way. We got in the line, which moved quickly, but they have a security check point where we had to put our coat and belongings through the x-ray machine! I believe our tickets were checked 3 times. With all the walking, etc. and no lunch, I has a bit light-headed going in the memorial area-so I was keeping my head up, believe me as it was hard to go in there. It was quite a place to see-such large flowing squares of waterfalls where the twin towers use to go. You start to read the names, but then you start seeing names like ‘Sean’ and you can’t read them anymore.

This is the museum under construction

I read that the remains of about half the victims will be placed somewhere in the museum as they couldn’t be identified.

I happen to look up Vanessa’s name and read a little bit about her. Her mom is a writer who said 3 days before Bin Laden was killed, an angel fell off her table and the wings ‘perfectly’ broke off the back of the piece. She feels her daughter earned her wings then.
We only stayed about 20 minutes or so. We stopped to hear an excellent guide say how the letters are chiseled out to make the names, so something is missing, like the people here. The falling water is like ocean tears. He stood near a tree that survived the attacks, it was being nursed back to health and had wires, etc. to train the branches. It may have been a sweet gum tree. I had no desire to have my picture taken here, though Sean did and his face told it all. We nodded to the police officers standing near the exit to pay our respects to their deceased brothers and sisters in uniform.
We found a little place to eat a block down from here, after we had gone through the gift shop. We bought pens, a wristband and a ‘gold’ sweet gumball tree leaf to symbolize the trees they will be planting in this area. Most of the money goes to the memorial. They had moving videos playing and items like a wallet from a victim with his lucky $2 in it as he asked his fiance to marry him, it being the second time for both.
The restaurant was near the Freedom Tower

I believe they said a floor a week goes up. I heard there is also a Subway Sandwich shop a floor or two below that follows the workers up so they have a place to grab lunch or a drink.
The restaurant was nice with Picasso like painting and the shine from the Freedom tower coming in through the window

I ‘check in’ at the different places we go to with the phone app ‘FourSquare’ and this restaurant had a link to another NY app and we got $20 off. Too bad they didn’t take any off the price of beverages. I tell the guys to get water, but they don’t listen. They made me peppermint tea as I was chilled to the bone.
So we walked up a few blocks-it was about 4:30 and not one taxi was stopping. When we thought we had one, the guy asked where we were going and we said 42nd and he shook his head. The young woman said we should have just climbed in as they aren’t allowed to refuse passengers. After 20 minutes or so, a taxi did stop as he was headed in the direction we needed to go. A few times the 3 of us were squeezed in a Ford Escape taxi. We gave him a good tip for helping. He said that time of day the shifts change so they won’t stop that much.
We had a busy 3 days and saw a lot of neat things and we’d go back again! The more you go, the more you can find your way around. Not driving was a good idea. The bus was convenient as were the taxis.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I got a Connect My DNA kit from a LivingSocial.com offer as I thought it would be fun to see the distribution of my DNA. I knew I was English, Danish, Swedish, German, French and Irish. They send you the cotton swabs on sticks to collect DNA off the inside of your cheeks and you send it back in an envelope with a barcode on it. I remembered to look last night and low and behold, they must have messed up or mixed me up with someone else as I am not, Russian, or mostly Irish or Syrian! I wrote to them this morning and let them know I know my heritage from genealogies from both sides of my family. I’d like a re-test for the money I spent. We don’t have one Russian that I know of in my family.
I guess I’m off to go shopping with my mom soon. The above info made my mind wonder a lot last night until I told myself it just couldn’t be true for goodness sake. : )
Last but my least:
Our view going home Sunday night:

Feb29

Leap year and hump day!

Posted on Wednesday, February 29, 2012 by Dianne

Standard

It’s funny as we actually knew someone who had a birthday on Feb. 29th-Brian’s late auntie Rosemarie. I think she celebrated on the 28th the other years.
So to continue our NYC trip…..
Saturday we ate at the hotel’s free breakfast, one of the worst I’ve ever had. The eggs tasted like fish, so I’m thinking the container they were in had fish in them the night before? The hot water tasted like coffee and I had made tea. The next day I made a waffle as they had an iron which was much better. I mean, how hard is it to mess up scrambled eggs? Probably those dried ones they add water too. Ugh.
Sean went to the city an hour before we did for his conference. Through a few crafty ladies’ blogs, I saw where when they went to NYC, they went to a quaint shop with mostly vintage flowers and ribbons with paper items and cute items tossed it. We walked all the way to the store-at least 8 blocks so I could see it. Here I am in front of the Tinsel Trading Company on 37th St. :

And some goodies I bought. I could have bought many more things and I’m mad I didn’t at least get a yard of ribbon!

pretty glitter
The young woman in the shop was very helpful when we asked the best way to get to the next ‘must see’ location-Dylan’s Candy Bar. She told us to walk down (more walking!) to 3rd and catch the bus that will take us to 60th. Along the way we saw gorgeous architecture and brownstones.

What’s funny is we thought we could just pay the bus driver (public bus) as it said $2.25 a person, but when we got to the street, he wouldn’t take the money. Wow! I guess that happens a lot.
When we got to Dylan’s (this is the flagship store) we saw this guy-the Lorax from the new movie. I had to pose with him just for the fun of it!

We saw some neat things here and bought a big (expensive) bag of stuff. I figured I don’t go to places like this often.

This was the landing to the bottom floor.

These were some of the many celebs and what kind of candy they liked. John Travolta likes Reese’s Peanut Butter cups and Bill Clinton likes Payday!

The lady from Tinsel told us that chef David Burke had a nice little restaurant in Bloomingdale’s which was across from Dylan’s, so we headed in that humongous store. Every few feet, someone tried to spray perfume on you and this one lady got me to try some $50 lipstick (which she applied)she said looked nice with my complexion. I didn’t buy it of course. Here’s what it looked like (photoshopped to show off the lipstick):

Before this photo was taking and we were waiting outside of ‘Burke in the Box’ and we heard a distant German accent. A young man moved and there was Dr. Ruth Westheimer! I think most people my age know her. And I happen to see that she is quite the Tweeter!

I did say ‘hi’ and that I recognized her accent and petite size. She said, ” I guess I should keep my mouth shut!” (I took the photo without her knowing). When I went to use the restroom,she was having a grand time as she was near it in a booth.
Our lunch was nice, grilled chicken for Brian and sliders for me:

We decided to head to Grand Central Station as I read there were some shops there. It’s a neat place and had a few shops we looked in, but we were getting tired.

We met up with Sean in Times Square again, but by that time it had gotten cold and windy again. Brian and I decided to go back to the hotel and at the last minute, Sean stayed in Times Square where he went to see ‘Ripley’s Believe it or not’ museum.
Later we went to Houlihan’s (bitter cold) and had a late dinner.

(Brian took many of these photos besides the ones of me). : )

May10

Snooping around the Brandywine Valley

Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2011 by Dianne

Standard

Dianne and Miss Gratz the Cow, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

Sean and I were going to Winterthur in Delaware to see the azaleas in full bloom yesterday (actually he was just going to take me, he is kind that way). We get to the gate and the gardens are closed for maintenance on Mondays! We were disappointed and headed down Route 1. I asked him to stop at the Brandywine River museum so I could take some photos as I had toted along the camera. We had a nice time looking at the statues, wildflowers and river! Here are a few shots. This is me with Miss Gratz the cow. There is also Helen the pig and a 9 foot statue out front called ‘Boy with Hawk’.

From Wikipedia:
The Brandywine River Museum is a museum of regional and American art located on U.S. Route 1 in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania on the banks of the Brandywine River. The museum showcases the art of Andrew Wyeth a major American realist painter, and his family: his father, N.C. Wyeth illustrator of many children’s classics, and his son, Jamie Wyeth a contemporary American realist painter.
Housed in a converted nineteenth century gristmill, the museum’s permanent collection features American illustration, still life works, and landscape painting by Jasper Francis Cropsey, Harvey Dunn, Peter Hurd, Maxfield Parrish, Howard Pyle, William Trost Richards, and Jessie Willcox Smith. The glass-wall lobby overlooks Brandywine Creek and rolling countryside that inspired the Brandywine School earlier in the early 20th century.
The museum also owns and operates tours of the nearlby N. C. Wyeth House and Studio, as well as the Kuerner Farm, inspiration for nearly 1,000 works of art by Andrew Wyeth from the 1930s until his death in 2009. Outside the museum are beautifully maintained Wildflower and Native Plant Gardens.
The museum was founded in 1971 as part of the Brandywine Conservancy thru the efforts of “Frolic” Weymouth. He has been on the board since its founding.
(I see a few places here I haven’t been to!)

Nov27

Photo Hunt-Written

Posted on Saturday, November 27, 2010 by Dianne

Standard

3rd grade writing practice & Sandy Bank, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

I have shown this before, but it is fun to see how I use to write back in 1967. That’s the school in the photo. We went to one of two elementary schoolse and attended here for Kindergarten, 2nd and 3rd grade. It’s an administration building now. I remember the seesaws were popular and I remember singing Mockingbird (before James Taylor and Carly Simon did). I’m still in touch with a few members of my Kindergarten class.

History from Wikipedia about the Upper Providence school district:

Formal education began when local Quaker, James Turner, left money in his 1787 will to establish Blue Hill School near Chapel and Providence Roads. The Union Library on Sycamore Mill Road opened in 1813 and had over eight hundred volumes by 1843. Sandy Bank School opened in 1836, and was rebuilt 1905 and enlarged in 1926. Lower Banks School opened in 1872. The Rose Tree Union School District was established in 1947.

Aug1

Photo Hunt-Entertainment

Posted on Saturday, August 1, 2009 by Dianne

Standard

James Taylor sings during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade 2008, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

Besides my favorite singer James Taylor entertaining me 4 times over the last 30 yrs, I find it entertaining to take photos off our fairly new HD-tv. I then make collages, etc. if I have enough like I had here. My next tv photo session may be to look at old videos and freeze frame them to take photos. I had tried that on the old tv-like looked awful.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Happy Lammas Day! It’s the first day of harvest! It was traditional to bake a loaf of bread and have it consecrated at church, thus ‘loaf mass’-Lammas! Thanks Farmer’s Almanac!

Jan31

Brandywine River Museum Tribute day to Andrew Wyeth

Posted on Saturday, January 31, 2009 by Dianne

Standard

Brandywine River Museum Tribute day to Andrew Wyeth, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

Brian and I ventured over to this and it was jammed packed with people (it was free) on this 25 degree day (wind chill 11). I mainly wanted to see Christina’s World, which isn’t usually on display here-it’s up in the art museum in NYC. I love to look at detail and amongst all the grass, there were a few well placed weeds-like thistles. Neat.

Andrew got a few dozen honorary fine art degrees from many local colleges, one being the one Brian and I attended (he graduated, I almost did)-West Chester University-he may have been the speaker the year I was suppose to graduate, I have to ask a few old classmates.
I managed to get some outside shots, but had to wait until the lens warmed up! I like my outside shot of the museum with the evergreens reflected in the glass. There were black drapes right near the entrance in honor of Andrew. The restaurant across the street-Hank’s Place was a ‘hang-out’ for ‘Andy’ over the past 16 yrs. He use to come in the back door, but then switched to the front. Their sign said something to this affect-the beauty of your art was it’s simplicity…we will remember you always.

I got to sign the guest book and said what a pleasure it was to live in the Brandywine River Valley and enjoy looking at the things he enjoyed.

His last painting from 2008 was called ‘Good bye’-how ironic-but maybe that’s something he wanted to paint. It depicts a white shaker style house on a hill with a beach and sail boat in the foreground. I noticed in his later years, he went to more of a white background with the browns on top. I hope to take the tour with Victoria Wyeth sometime to hear what she has to say about her famous grandfather.

Jan5

About 200 photos later

Posted on Monday, January 5, 2009 by Dianne

Standard

Sean and I tried again at Longwood Gardens and practically had the entire place to ourselves! Yeah. I think I took at least 200 photos and narrowed it down to 175, which I will upload to Flickr. The gardens are using LED lights, so all the wrapped trees and hand fashioned trees look brighter. I really need to see how people are getting tri-pods in there, that would make a difference. I’ll share a few shots, first of the face I’ll be missing in a few days:

Taken through a window in the orchid room. Sean treated me to dinner in the ‘fancy’ restaurant at Longwood. He had pasta with olive, mushrooms and capers and I had Citrus grilled chicken with white beans and spinach. I treated him to dessert in the cafe section. I had chocolate chip cake and he had a creme brulee type of cheese cake.

The water in this area was decorated with cranberries!

A natural themed tree with white and gold lights. I’d like a tree like this next year.

A sampler from 1802 found in the DuPont House.
Thanks Mr. DuPont for Longwood Gardens!

Here is the slideshow from today. I only got up to 60 uploads. The above photos are the unedited versions of what will be on there. Enjoy!

Dec31

2008 in a nutshell by Dianne

Posted on Wednesday, December 31, 2008 by Dianne

Standard

Want to play along? Kelli over at ‘There is no place like home’ is hosting a meme. You take your first blog sentence for each month of 2008 and add a favorite photo from that month too. Be aware that most of my ‘first’ sentences have nothing to do with the photos. :O)
January-

That’s my life for the last few days.(I had been sick and so had Brian)

February-

Let’s start off February with a fun event thanks to Lisa/Oceandreamer’s 2nd time around hosting it.(One World, One Heart blog giveaways)

March-
This is my mom’s birthday last year and my youngest brother is giving her the cupcakes that I made to blow out the candles.(for a Photo Hunt)

April-
It’s 70 degrees outside!!! I’m inside and wearing a sweater though.

May-
Thanks to Scrappy Jessi for hosting this fun event.(showing our childhood toys)

June-
Like I did last night!

July-
I really did see a camel! (a place on our road had several exotic pets or boarders)

Strasberg, PA 7-30-08, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

August-
Today I’m sharing my baby book.

September-
I can’t believe it’s September already!

October-
….the cataracts are gone! Well, that may be so for my mom in a few hours.(My mom had both her eyes done, and one got an infection, so she had to have a third operation!)