Category Archives: local interest

Mar22

Longwood Gardens 2009 Orchid show

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This past Friday, I decided I needed to do something different. I hadn’t had my van for 3 days and it was nice to have wheels again. I headed to Longwood Gardens to see their orchid display and to get a walk in. I want to try for a mile or so a week and build up. Here are some of my 85 photos, the rest are on Flickr. I love the blue poppy too!
I came home to a message that Brian’s father that he had fallen down on an errand to get a watch battery-the town he went to wasn’t around the corner. He tripped on the curb and hit his nose enough that it had a wound that bled a lot. They called an ambulance too. He was at the hospital and no one knew it. We tell him to carry his cellphone on him. To make a long story short, he’s doing good-Bri checked him out on Saturday. We want him to get his eyes and ears checked (he hasn’t been to an eye doctor in at least 15 yrs). He seems to be getting more frequent falling or tripping episodes. I even called Bri’s aunt to talk his dad into going to the eye doctor as she use to run the optical dept of a nice store in Philadelphia before she retired. Crossing fingers.
Also on Saturday, Bri’s car’s brake lights decided to stay on and we had to drop that at the shop and disconnect the new battery. When it rains it pours! I was outside raking out some garden beds too.
We are all anxious for Sean’s trip to Las Vegas-bon voyage to him!

Mar4

Waiting for something good to happen

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We went to pick up Brian’s car last night. Today he took it to work and when he went to go somewhere at around 2 pm it wouldn’t start again. So he needs to have it towed back to the shop. I guess it wasn’t the battery! I think they just put that in as they couldn’t figure out the problem which we are thinking is electrical. Please send us some good vibes.
I’m still getting having aches and pains, tonight it was my upper back. Tylenol seems to help, but I’m not crazy about taking it too often. I’m thinking tension and stress are playing mean tricks on me. I’ll keep you posted.
Oh, I was suppose to go to the Philly Flower Show tomorrow…no car…I’m hoping maybe Sunday. We’ll see. There’s always the orchid show at Longwood Gardens which is a stones’ throw from here and I can go when I want to go. : )

Mar1

A little excursion before the storm

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On Friday night, right after I ordered our pizza dinner, Bri called to say his car wouldn’t start and he was still at work. He can come home for lunch and it was fine then. We are lucky he works in the next town, so I ran up there with the van and we tried to jump it-nothing. We later went to a book sale at a local high school, which was junky (they let book buyers come in first and they had box after box of ‘the good stuff’). I just had a few books and one I thought was 85 cents was in fact $5!-the dollar sign looked like an 8! I bought it anyway. We dropped by the parking lot again and the car still wouldn’t start. Bri left a note and we came home. Saturday morning he went up again to wait for the tow truck and didn’t his car turn over! He still had it towed as he didn’t want it to break down on him along our country back road. So now it sits at a service station about 5 miles from here. He just had it serviced a few months ago. I think it’s turning into a ‘nickel and dimer’, and he has the newest car-2000 and mine is a 1996!
A local church had a book sale too and we went to that. It was just before noon and people were just browsing because after the noon hour-it was $1 for a bag! It wasn’t really crowded, but man did the people there grab the bags and go to town. I bought mostly books I could cut up. I grabbed a few novels for my mom and ‘The Secret Garden’ for my niece. I was pleased when Bri found a book on the Vikings as Sean is doing a research paper on them and needs a little more info-what luck was that? So we gave them a little extra money as they were raising money for fire victims. I’m sure the high school book sale made 90% more than them and it’s a wealthy area.
After we hit Burger King, Bri wanted to get his license renewed, so we had to drive 18 miles to the license place in the town where he use to work. There was no wait and the man said Bri hadn’t changed in 4 years, a nice compliment. We drove through the town (some of which was used in the opening credits of the movie ‘Signs’) and ended up near the Herr’s Potato Chip Factory in Nottingham. I believe there is a little zoo there too. We were looking for a Goodwill drop off place. What we found was a big old horse barn-now a Flea Market. We decided to go in, but it wasn’t heated and about 35 degrees in there like it was outside. If it was warmer, I would have dug around more. I did get some pink glass cordials:
Flea market find pink glass cordials
an aqua colored small glass rooster (Bri almost insisted I get it-ah)
Flea market find Aqua rooster
and some old photos-all for $10. That was fun and I think I’ll go out again. It’s a straight trip on Route one, so hardly any stopping.
We did go to a Goodwill ‘shed’ in Hockessin, DE to drop of several bags of stuff-yeah! I then ran in Tuesday Morning to look around again and didn’t get that much-some papers and a little resin bird. I think I spent about $21 in the places I visited. I feel so frugal!
We are expecting 4-6″ of snow tonight and blizzard conditions. Bri is worried about driving around in our only good car. I said maybe he should wait an hour or so until they clean the roads off good. The road to town is curvy and downhill.
He is still having sleeping issues and tried to get the doctor to give him something and we aren’t sure if he did or not, we missed a private caller call one morning.
I hope all of you are keeping warm this weekend!
By the way, for my stitcher friends, I’m trying to finish up another UFO-will hopefully share it soon.

Feb7

Photo Hunt-Bridge

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Longwood Gardens to the rescue again! This is their awesome train display they’ve been putting up every autumn for the kiddos (and adults too). How cute is the twig bridge? The entire layout is so nicely constructed-they even a have ‘naturally’ made conservatory and other landmarks of the gardens.
Natural rendition of Conservatory
Natural rendition of fountain display
Here’s a ‘bridge’ at the entrance of the 2007 Philly Flower show:
Bridge of flowers at the entrance
And the St. George’s bridge that leads into Delaware (taken out of the van’s window):
St Georges Bridge

Jan31

Brandywine River Museum Tribute day to Andrew Wyeth

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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.


Jan30

Show and Tell

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This past Monday I went to my Mom’s house and we went over to the Goodwill so I could drop off a few things. We always look around inside, and I found a few ‘treasures’. Why would anyone give this charming plate away?
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Perfect for a birthday celebration!
Then I saw this little hobnail salt holder stuck on a shelf for $1:
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Mom located a couple of thumbprint cobalt blue drinking glasses to go with some of the other glasses I have.
I have to make another run to my mom’s as she woke up Thursday with a terrible sore throat. I had to go to the dentist, so she had to wait until today. I feel bad, but her 100 foot long stone driveway wasn’t plowed and now the snow has a crusty ice topping. My brother’s friend will be doing that this morning. Please say a few prayers that she doesn’t have strep throat. I’m also thinking tonsillitis.
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I’m wondering how crowded this event would be as I’d love to go! When people hear ‘free’ they go bonkers!
The Brandywine River Museum will host a public celebration of Andrew Wyeth’s life and work on January 31 with complimentary admission and a display of his most famous work, “Christina’s World” on loan from The Museum of Modern Art in New York. More details at: http://www.brandywinemuseum.org/

Jan24

Photo Hunt-Chipped

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Child’s porcelain plate, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

The Shipwreck museum, in Fenwick Island, DE is a stop for us almost every time we are at the beach in that surrounding area. It’s on the 2nd floor of Seashell City. What’s neat is that if I went there tomorrow, the displays may be different than they were when I took this photo a little over a year ago. Here are some children’s dishes found on a wreck. The one in the front is broken and chipped, but most in this display case were in good condition after being discovered almost 100 yrs after the ship went down in the Delaware Bay area from a fire. The name of the ship was unknown, so this was known as ‘The China Wreck’.
China display
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Hit a humongous book sale yesterday-twice! I went by myself the first time. I mainly look for books that I can cut up for my art collages. They had 55,000 books, yet this lady was trying to charge me 50¢ each for cross stitch leaflets. I did get a pile of leaflets that were tied up for $1.00. I took my chance and inside were about 10 of The Prairie Schooler leaflets and I didn’t have a couple of them! The rest will go on eBay. I did get other leaflets like P Buckley Moss designs. Bri found a goodie I will offer as a giveaway-a thread sample fold out book of all the DMC colors! Heck, if you’d like it, leave a comment here and I’ll pick a name on Sunday night. Please state you’d like a chance of winning the DMC board book.
dmcolors