This gallery contains 12 photos.
Last weekend was the 29th Annual Mushroom Festival a few miles away from here. We had wanted to go on Saturday night, but we got heavy rain and decided to try a restaurant around the corner from where we live. I lately haven’t been pleased eating out. I got lobster mac and cheese which was […]
Sorry I have been MIA. I have had knee issues since I posted about the 80s flashback band last month. That night, back in the middle of July, we stood watching for over 2 hours. Afterwards, we located a geocache in a lamp skirt which I knelt to retrieve and must have twisted the ligament to the right of my left knee. I started to wrap it in an Ace bandage and even went to Urgent care about it as I thought it had to be worse than a strained ligament.
On August 2nd, we went to the Billy Joel concert at Citizen’s Bank Park, usually home of the Phillies. I had my knee wrapped and as we (Brian) crossed the street to the venue, I felt my knee pop! And the pain was awful! I debated what to do, but there was Gavin DeGraw, Billy’s opening opening act singing his heart out. We were at the 1st base area and needed to get to the 3rd base. I believe it took me a good 45 minutes to hobble there. Then I had to face steps and step over a few people. I look back at all that and do not know how I did it.
This was our view for the Billy Joel concert. I thought our tickets would have been a bit better since I ordered them in March and the price we paid. That is a yellow pole we looked around.
So if was even rougher getting back to the car. We should have gotten a wheelchair. We walked right past the medic room. It was so crowded, I didn’t want to make a scene. I was in tears and had to stop many, many times.
When we got home I was crying out in pain when I tried to get out of the car. I decided I could wait until the morning for it to get looked at. I learned to slide along when I had to go to the bathroom.
Sean took me to the ER about 1:00 pm. After x-rays, they agreed with the Urgent care, that it was a strain. I got ‘stabilized’ in a long leg brace and given a walker! I decided to go to the orthopedic doctor and he thought where it was hurting me was maybe a torn meniscus. They need to be operated on. Oh great. He ordered an MRI., The day before the MRI, we took a drive up to Hershey Gardens with my mom. I had gotten tickets that were going to expire. I had visions of both of us being pushed in a wheelchair. We did get one wheelchair, but I had to switch out with mom half way through! I was stopping in pain every 10 minutes. We had a nice lunch right at the gardens, so that was nice. I feel like I put a damper on the trip, especially when we stopped at the museum and both mom and I said no to the 45 minute walking tour. I will show some photos in my next blog post. It is a lovely place and next time I will be stronger when I go.
So I had the MRI, just my lower half was in it and my head could be outside of it. I went back to the ortho doc and it should no tear, but a twisted or pulled ligament. I was really surprised hearing this as it’s so painful. I hope he didn’t miss anything. He gave me a shot and it felt better maybe one day, but it gets stiff and achy. The doc recommended physical therapy and I guess I will have to go for it.
I decided not to go back to work with the kids at the church until maybe the end of September to the beginning of October. I am not strong enough to help out yet.
I also have to go to a GI specialist on Sept. 9th. I had blood work in June and some tests were high. I have Lyme disease and the tick bit me right near my liver. I have been having elevated readings since 1998. The GP wants me to get checked out, so I asked for the best liver doctor in the practice. I certainly watch myself for symptoms of a disease. I have gained, not lost weight because of menopause.My arthritis is worse and my teeth have been mostly capped. I will be glad when that visit is over, but I won’t be surprised if he wants more blood work and a test.
Rest in peace Robin Williams. My heart is still sad. Thanks for the laughs and sharing your incredible talent all these years.
Next-gorgeous Hershey Gardens!
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This gallery contains 17 photos.
We didn’t have a lot of time to see big attractions in Tampa, Florida when we were there in April. We decided to skip Busch Gardens and the Big Cat Rescue and check out mostly free attractions. (The first day is always a travel day and we were delayed an hour leaving as it was). […]
I see it’s been a month since my last post about our Florida trip and I wasn’t finished posting about it.
I haven’t been on my laptop because it’s getting old and one of the buttons broke off. I made a replacement, but it’s easier for me to pop on my iPad to check email and Facebook.
But on the other hand, the virus software has been updating for 45 minutes and I had 1,300 emails. I just put them in order as who sent them and get rid of most of them as I’ve seen them on the iPad.
I need to upload several folders of photos to Flickr. I have my sidebar with my newest photos to keep a little updated.
That being said, I have had dental woes and an illness. I’ve had 3 root canals and one extraction in the course of a few months. I’m on my 3rd round of antibiotics as the latest root canal was just a week ago, and an emergency one at that. One of those toothaches that wasn’t relieved right away either. And it ruined my crown as she had to drill through it. I am getting a dental implant in July.
I had a cold or allergies a few weeks ago which set me back a bit. Then my son came down with a flu like virus. He was feverish and achy. It is taking him a bit to get over the coughing part. My son took me up to a green house on Monday and I was pretty good. By the next day I was coughing and then by Wednesday night I had a 102.4 fever. I was pretty miserable. I’m not coughing that much, but not as feverish today. The aches and pains were horrible.
I was glad I opened the laptop to leave a post. I do want to keep blogging!
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!
We chose to be on the top deck!
Here we are all ready in our rain ponchos (which we kept)
I wore a little hooded raincoat too!
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!
Many Presidents of the US plus Princess Diana and her sons took this ride.
It was just exhilarating!
Check it off the list!
When you come here you are led through security and then it’s a bit of a walk to the memorials (we were here in Feb. 2012, but I am thinking it’s still the same). It is quite overwhelming. You of course remember that day in 2001 and look up to the sky, then at the two ‘holes’ in the ground that are now the memorials. Then you look at the other people and wonder are they just tourists or relatives? There are too many names to read. I don’t even think we went over to the other one. After 20 minutes, it was enough…you feel like it’s suppose to be here as a memorial, but you don’t really want to be there anymore-it’s too damn sad.
After this, we went to the museum/gift shop a bit away which was equally heartbreaking.
Hundreds of trees will be planted at the World Trade Center, bringing new life to the rebuilt site. Among the species of trees will be Sweet Gums, with leaves that change to colors of brilliant red & gold in autumn. These ornaments are molded from the leaf of a Sweet Gum tree, specifically selected from within a 500-mile radius of the World Trade Center site. The trees will serve as graceful and hopeful symbols of life and longevity.
At a little restaurant near ground zero, we saw this:
The new building 1 World Trade Center is almost completed. A new awakening. Other buildings will follow.
This gallery contains 16 photos.
Sean and I went up to the Kennett Square Mushroom Festival on 9/7. It was very crowded and also hard to look at the booths and to try to get food. I went up to one place to get my ‘must have’ acquisition of homemade mushroom soup and they were all out at 3 pm! […]
Last week when Brian was cutting the grass, he said a Monarch butterfly came out of nowhere and he wasn’t sure if he swatted at it or it was just hurt. It was laying in the grass and not really moving a lot. It let me pick it up and it’s one wing looked a little ‘out of joint’. I put it up on a zinnia in a pot and would check it the next day.
The next day it was on the ground, so I scooped him up and put him on the white butterfly bush. Almost immediately, it started to drink through its tube-like tongue, the proboscis, as it went dipping it into each little flower middle.
It still wasn’t moving it’s wings as much as it could, but it looked happier.
The same thing would happen day in and day out for a few days. I moved it around back to the purple butterfly bush too.
You can see the damage on the wing.
Then it started getting braver and wouldn’t let me pick it up. I watched it fly over the roof one day and then land on the branch of the chestnut tree near very prickly burrs. It could surely impale itself on one of them. It then took off again, flying a little zig-zaggingly around the yard.
I haven’t seen it for a few days, but it was neat to be the guardian to such a fragile creature.
All life is fragile.
After looking at photos, I’m pretty sure this is a ‘she’ as she has lots of spots around the border on her wings.
My Moon flower vine and Passion flowers are gracing me with their blooms. I plant the moon flowers by seed and bought the Passion flower plant back in May. What unique treats. The moon flowers smell like talcum powder.
On a personal note, I had been working once a week at a church preschool and they asked me to come in twice a week now and 3 times a week once a month! I’m really flattered by this.
A few days ago, I had injection therapy on my back in three spots. I took one Valium and did fine. The worst one was the shot near my tailbone as the doctor really jammed it in there (fanny area). I can see a difference already! I know I can handle something that some people get put under anesthesia to get. It was only 10-15 minutes. I sure did not like laying on my tummy the most. Sure hope it lasts a while.
I hope you are catching this series (Who Do You Think You Are?) as it is now on the TLC cable channel. Last night featured singer/actress Zooey Deschanel who has local roots near where I live now! First she went to the Philadelphia public library, then Swarthmore, PA and finally Christiana, PA where she found out her great grandmom (times 4) was an abolitionist for the underground railroad around the time of the Civil War! Christiana is about 16 or so miles from here.
And get this, we have been to the Sadsbury Friends Meetinghouse cemetery where Zooey’s relative (or relatives) are buried.
We went there as a geocache was there (back in February)! I have one placed myself around the corner near a supermarket. I thought that was pretty neat. Zooey was far right to where this photo was taken. I think they had her walk from the back there to the front. That one part of the building wasn’t too attractive.
So I decided to look up some family stuff, but my paternal side, the Knowles family. My gr-grandfather was one of the first forest rangers in Oregon. His wife, Margie wrote a book called ‘Honeymoon on Horseback’ about their early marriage and his work as a forest ranger and how they lived in a primitive way out of a tent, etc. I have a copy of the book. Sean, my son has read it too.
So I found on my search where the campground named after Archie was closed down. Then I ran across a youtube video and the man took us on a tour of the area.
This man is into geocaching too! My mouth fell open when I started to watch this video as he nabbed a geocache there.
But this is a bittersweet video for me also. I never met most of the Knowles family as I grew up in Pennsylvania and my 3 brothers and me didn’t go out to Oregon. I correspond with my cousin Ann and I’ve met her sister Shirley and her husband Dwayne when I was a little girl. Ann and Shirley’s mom, Dessa was very nice to me and wrote to me when she was alive. She is the daughter of Archie and Margie. My parents were separated and then divorced and my father lived his days out in his home state. His ashes were scattered in the Knowles creek in 2008.
If you watched the video, you can see where this campground was probably closed down for good this year. I appreciate Kenny (I have a brother and nephew Ken/Kenny also!) for showing me this place. I hope to see it someday, but we’ll see if I am able to get to the west coast.
The back cover of ‘Honeymoon on Horseback’, great grandfather Archie and
Margie, his wife and author.
Again, the internet truly amazes me!
This gallery contains 16 photos.
Back on July 24th (I know, I am behind all the time lately), Brian and I took drive up to Lititz, PA. It’s closer than the other chocolate town of Hershey, PA., but to me it smells very delicious right outside of the Wilbur Chocolate Factory. It smells like mom’s kitchen, or my kitchen or […]
Collages & Creative Goodness 