Category Archives: I recommend

I never promised you a rose garden

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I few weeks back, maybe a month ago, Sean and I took my mom to Scott Arboretum  Swarthmore College’s campus to see their renowned rose garden. We had been there a few years ago and the roses were perfect. We also went in May. By June and after a rainstorm, the roses were starting to fade. It was a bit warm also, so we didn’t stay long.

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Mom isn’t fond of this photo, but I like it because Sean is in it too. He worries about her so much as she had two mini stroke incidents that required hospital stays. When we we can, we go down and take her to a store or place like this. Right after this stop, we ate in a restaurant in Media called Picasso and shared plated of shrimp kebabs, battered dipped asparagus and a few other things which she loved.

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These are geraniums!

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A bench with Dean Bond’s name on it. This is his rose garden. The graduates get a rose from the garden pinned to their gown.

Swarthmore14 002Beautiful Clematis with one of the college buildings behind it.

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Sean liked the Seafoam roses

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The gate to the rose garden

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Really love this one.

The summer is flying by! 

So we traveled up to Allentown

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Starry, starry night

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Thursday night I took a painting class up in the next town. I saw a deal for it come up for half price and decided to just do it. I’ve seen people on the Kennett Design’s Facebook page doing the different themed paintings and they looked like they were having fun. I had to sign up for a specific class, so I chose one of my favorite artists, Vincent Van Gogh. The painting was an interpretation of ‘Starry Night’ by Jarred Fisher, who I later learned graduated a year before Sean. So Jarred is studying under renown artist Nelson Shanks who painted Princess Diana and Pope John Paul I. Not many people get to do this. That was a cool thing to me when he told us.
Our inspiration
Van Gogh's Starry Night
We saw the original last year in New York at the Museum of Modern Art

This is what the studio looks like:

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This is actually after the other table had finished their paintings!

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Other examples of classes you can take.

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The price includes the canvas and paints. We wet down the canvas first and then added the blue. We had a choice of two blues-I mixed them.

Then we added the swirls and stars

Starrynight5They we added the dashes in yellow with a dash of white. I think it’s coming together here!

StarrynightMy finished piece! That’s a Cypress tree in the front. Jarred and I had a discussion about why it’s there. In the original, there is a village down to the right. He says the tree is for dimension.

There are a few things I would change-maybe make it a little neater. I think it’s not too bad for a few hours work.

This young lady did a great job:

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The studio owner took this awesome shots and posted them on Facebook. The other people were mostly all drinking their wine. I had water. No one offered me any wine or snacks, oh well.

Brian and Sean thought I did a great job.

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But the main thing is I had fun!

I have a blue kitchen, so think it may go in there. We’ll see.

Watch for a post on Longwood Gardens Mum Festival! They totally outdid themselves this year. I was going for 1/2 hour and stayed for 2 hours!

Cooperstown-a big museum in a small town

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Bucket list material-Maid of the Mist excursion!

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We had asked the maitre de at the Skylon restaurant what else we needed to see or do while at Niagara Falls (besides eating at his fine establishment and seeing the falls). He said we really needed to take the 20 minute boat ride to the Maid of the Mist. I was debating if I should say ‘to the Maid of the Mist’ or ‘in the Maid of the Mist’. Guess it’s a combo!

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We chose to be on the top deck!

Here we are all ready in our rain ponchos (which we kept)

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I wore a little hooded raincoat too!

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We didn’t use our phones at this point for obvious reasons! It was so powerful, almost like a hurricane. The mist really got you wet!

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Many Presidents of the US plus Princess Diana and her sons took this ride.

It was just exhilarating!

Check it off the list!

Oh Canada! At last we meet, eh!

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Take me out to the ball game…

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On the 12th, Sean was nice enough to treat his dad and me to a Phillies baseball night game. It’s been about 3 years since I went to a game and the temperature was about 92 that day and a bad storm blew in. The game was cut short at the 5th inning and we got home to water pouring in our basement near the well and no power. Not fun.

So….this time around rain was again in the forecast.  We left around 4:15 and Sean headed toward 95 through Wilmington to hopefully avoid traffic. Turns out there was an multi-car accident near where we where headed. We thought to go back down Rt. 1 and that helped us get there before the game started. We wound through parts of Philly that we hadn’t been to in years! As we walked into the concourse area, we saw it was raining and the workers were laying down the tarp on the field. We thought we might as well get some dinner and went to a sit down restaurant adjacent to the stadium. The guys had burgers and me a cheesesteak.

After we ate, we saw that they were ready to start the game around 8 pm. Our timing was good then.

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We had good seats behind 1st base about 16 rows back.

PhilliesB&SThis was taken when we first got there.

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Sean took this cute photo of  us. I just had to use my Phillies bag that night!

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Love watching these guys watch baseball as they share a special father/son snicker-actually for football too!

We also had our Phillies umbrella with us which went up a few times.

The first inning was awesome, the Phils scored 6 runs! Roy Halladay, the pitcher had been sick and he looked pale and clammy. By the 5th inning he threw wildly to 1st and then 4 runs came in. He was really mad at himself too as he threw down a ball or something.

At one point, a foul ball hit by Jimmy Rollins bounced off a bar and hit a young lady in the back of the head (she was in the first row to the left of us). She immediately put her hands behind her head and the EMT and a bunch of people went to check her out. She got up by her own accord and I guess went to rest in the office there. Jimmy kept looking at her as he had made it to first base. I bet he went to check on her after the game if she was still there.

We stayed until the 7th inning stretch as it was getting late.

We stopped and grabbed a few shots leaving the park.

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Legendary pitcher Robin Roberts statue

We got home a little after midnight as Sean wanted to stop for a hoagie for lunch later that day.

It was a hassle and a half to get there, but I think everyone should go to a game to see the action in real time. The Citizen Bank park is really a great park and they think of everything from a play area for the kids to a nice restaurant.

I just realized I have been blogging over 9 years now!

Chanticleer Gardens-Part 1

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Go see Phantom

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This new movie (out today) was written and directed by Todd Robinson, a fellow classmate from Penncrest Class of 1977. Todd’s had a great, award winning career! Hopefully some of us from our class will go and see the movie together over the weekend.

Here’s an interview with Todd and two of the stars of the movie Ed Harris and David Duchovny.

Todd rode my bus to school. I remember he was also reading or writing on the way to school. Seems it paid off!

Also, another classmate, Wayne Scott Miller has a role in this movie. Wayne has done some stand in work too, a few years back it was for George Clooney!

Synopsis:

Demi is a journeyman Soviet Navy captain finishing up a career that failed to live up to the legacy of his legendary father, and Alex is his up-and-coming XO headed for great success. However, as Demi leaves his home to lead Alex and the crew of a Soviet sub given a shadowy mission, the presence of KGB agent Bruni and ominous portents turn this mission into a terrifying ordeal that will lead Demi to stand up and avert a catastrophe.

Word clouds

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I was browsing around Pinterest and ran across this site. So I started playing with the program and made these:

So those are words from this blog!

And for Christmas:

Can you figure out the song? First verse-though words are missing.

And stuff from my Tweets on Twitter.

Not any decorating today…food shopping and bill paying. We are good for a while. Not sure what tomorrow brings, but I work 5-9. I should get the guys to string the outdoor lights as it looks so blah out there. The forsythia tried to bloom a bit to brighten it up.

Have a great weekend!