Category Archives: Me stuff

Jun28

Chadds Ford in 5 minutes

Posted on Friday, June 28, 2013 by Dianne

Sun setting over Chadds Ford, PA, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

On the way back from my mom’s house, I asked Brian to turn down Creek road to where the Chadds Ford Historical society is located so I could get my Instagram shots for the day. I was really pleased with these shots of the beautiful landscape and building.

The side of the Chadds Ford Historical Society

There’s something about the sun raising and setting that adds a special ambiance to a photo.

We did a little caching on the 23rd near the state line in DE. First we went to Mill Creek Meeting house. What a quaint place. The GPS pointed to a group of trees, but the hint was ‘metal on metal’ and we found the bison tube near an old chain link fence.

This is the side facing the road.

The Quakers are a very peace loving group. Brian is a peace loving person too!

We then went down a side road where this place use to be.

There were quaint old homes back here that had been renovated. I’ll have to go down this road some other time to take more photos.

We found a cache in a guard rail- but near the end of it-a pink pencil box and another cache in a guard rail in a magnetic key box. Brian took this photo and I used an Instagram filter.

We get to see such pretty sites on these little excursions!

We’ve had heavy rain late in the afternoon for days. A few days ago we saw this:

Awesome!

Sean went for an interview up in the city of Lancaster yesterday the 27th. We tagged along hoping the big farmer’s market would be open, but it wasn’t. So we looked for a geocache around the corner. It was opposite a convenience store. We started to look for it and the shop guy poked his head out of the door and said ‘you’re cold’…as we were near a phone pole. He said he could see it from up where he was standing and I backed up a bit-there it was under a smelly trash can (the kind with wheels) ugh.

Sean was in with the guy at the LanCo Conservancy for over an hour. It’s only part time work through September. It’s also 45 miles one way from our house. Some things to consider. But maybe the guy knows somebody. It seems it is who you know these days.

I went to see an Orthopedist doctor today. I guess the young lady I was seeing before was an assistant. Seems she got the issue with my back wrong. I have lower left ligament issues. The doctor thinks that my fall last year even shifted my pelvis a bit. And the physical therapy that caused me pain was all wrong for my issue! Now don’t you think they would have figured that out the first time I went there? I am to get an MRI, but in the process of seeing if the insurance will pay for it.

We lost an old apple tree yesterday. Down it went in the direction of the yard, not the bank. We don’t get the previous owner’s reason for planting trees on a bank. You can’t pick the apples without a long tool. They weren’t so great and the deer and wildlife were enjoying them today.

The tree was behind her.

I thought I’d get a break from doctors and have two things to do the week of the 8th, 45 minutes in opposite directions, Monday and Friday. When it rains it pours-literally.

Jun15

Exploring in MD and DE

Posted on Saturday, June 15, 2013 by Dianne

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We got up on the 9th and headed to a crowded Dunkin Donuts for a quick breakfast which was anything but that! Seems everyone wants their beach munchies at the same time. When we passed just a few hours later the place was void of vehicles.

We headed to one of my favorite spots on earth-the inlet of Ocean City, MD. There is so much water around you! There’s the jetty, the view of the boardwalk and amusements and Assateague from across the bay.

We were here a few hours and ventured to around O.C. for a few more geocaches and back to North Park again.

I found a clever birdfeeder cache at OC city hall (looking for photo)

and one in a neat ‘tropical’ garden Dewey Beach, DE too.

We found a cache in the Isle of Wight park across the bridge from Ocean City

We stopped for salad and pizza and then headed to the Old Navy store-can’t go there without buying something. We got on the road and I asked Sean if we could stop in Milford, DE to see a cache that is suppose to be a haunted house. He said why not!

When we drove up, I thought it looked like a movie set! Eek.

That little window must be for decoration only!

So we go around to the back and GZ seems to be an herb garden. I am looking under this silvery herb which I think was Santolina and Sean is starting to get attacked by mosquitoes. I say to him, ‘Can’t you lift one piece of this herb to save my back?’ He comes over like he is ‘guided’ and lifts the section where the cache is! Now that is spooky! I read that paranormal investigators were in this house all night and asked the ‘occupant’ what games did they like to play? (they try and keep to the period of the people who resided there) and they picked up ‘slipper’ as a reply. The investigators researched ‘slipper’ and it was indeed a childhood game of the Civil War era! They learned how to play the game and the electro magnetic fields (I think this is what they are called) were more active when they were doing so!

When we left, we were approaching a red light and I said, ‘Sean, you are going to go through a red light!!’ and he didn’t stop! Hope it was because he was just tired or should have taken off his sunglasses. There was a car to the left of the intersection too.

Anyway, we got home in good time and reflecting on the trip, we were glad we headed south.

Jun13

Spur of the minute over night trip to the beach

Posted on Thursday, June 13, 2013 by Dianne

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Sean doesn’t have too many Sundays off working retail. All last week he was saying he wanted to go to the beach and Brian just couldn’t get off (he’s retail also). So Saturday we are looking on the internet and couldn’t find a cheap enough place until Sean called a hotel he’s been to before. They had a room, so the two of us got our act together and were on the road by 1:45, just a little over an hour later. We stopped to cash in a bag of coins and got $67 for them (paid for gas and our dinner). If we had known a grocery store was across the street from the hotel and that we had a microwave, we could have utilized them.

My stipulation was that we could stop if needed and we did a few times for a bathroom break and to geocache! We stopped at a few beach towns in Delaware as we decided to skip Rt. 1 for Rt. 113. First we went to a park in Millsboro. DE near a canal.

The geocache was in crevices of that big tree. There’s Sean in the red shirt.

That’s the Indian River Canal. We really like seeing new areas like this.

The next little town was Selbyville, DE. The cache was at the museum that use to be the train station. Sean posed with the 70s(?) Plymouth police cruiser out front.

Despite stopping a few times, we got to Ocean City, MD in just over 3 hours.

The Carousel is a nice, beachfront hotel with an ice skating rink inside. The whole town was hopping with mostly high school seniors and a girl’s lacrosse tournament! We saw them everywhere!

We ate at a place across the street from the hotel called ‘The Green Turtle’. We had to wait a while. Once seated, a group of young ladies came in for dinner. Sean recognized a few from his Penn State days, but it was a bridal party dinner and he didn’t want to say hi. It really is a small world!

I saw that a geocache was called ‘OC Sunset’ and we decided to get there before the actual event happen. It was a park we have never been and there again, many lacrosse matches were going on.

I got some pretty awesome shots. We worked our way down the pier at North Park-it was 0.16 of a mile to where the cache was stuck under the only bench there. Sean found it!

The pier we walked down to the cache.

And there it goes!

We went for ice cream and a smoothie and a little shopping afterwards. I called it a night and Sean was just getting started. He likes a club there called Seacrets and he was headed in that direction. I was about to fall asleep when my ‘neighbors’ came back and decided to jump on the beds like monkeys (male teens) at 1:30 am. One time the picture moved over head and I jumped a foot. Sean was back by then and at 2:15 I called the front desk and security came up and knocked on their door. Shame on them for acting that way in a family hotel! There are motels just for groups like theirs.

I’m stopping here and will talk about Day 2 soon. We saw a few more nice places and grabbed a total of 10 geocaches! Sean is liking caching much more now. He sees it’s the adventure and the cache/log is just the prize at the end.

May30

Trying to get everything planted before 6/1

Posted on Thursday, May 30, 2013 by Dianne

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Well, that isn’t going to happen with one day left in May. I am rather slow this year with getting my gardens cleaned up because of my arthritis issues. Plus the weather has gone from cold to hot and back again and windy thrown in! I only have two gardens that look fairly good. I’m really proud of the Asian themed one I have under the Japanese maple that came from my mom’s house as a wee sprout. I think all of her kids have one or more of them in their yard as do a few friends.

I love Sweet William or Dianthus and only a few plants came back from last year. I added about 18 new ones in white, burgundy and pink. The bushy one in the front is the only good one from another growing season. I added a few hostas (Brian did the digging for me) and the wild begonias come up by themselves. I also added a few orange impatiens and red begonias. The wild ones are pink. It the pots are Stargazer lilies and a Passion plant.

Next is the red mulch which is really cinnamon color.

I did some planting around the pond where I have the ‘Mod Squad’ of frogs. I always call one Elvis (as in Elvis as left the building, meaning they usually jump in when we approach). The little one I call ‘Squeaky’ as he sounds like a dog toy when he jumps in with a quick squeak and a splash. The other one, well let’s just call him Froggy-lol.

Anyway, I like to plant salvia around there for the hummingbirds. I added a chocolate Cosmo next to the burgundy Coral Bell plant. I’d like a few more ground covers. My Japanese iris gave me one flower.

What is looking good this year are geraniums. I just re-potted mine last night (I always re-pot them and always keep them in pots). I have some bare spots around the house, think I’ll get a few more geraniums.

I used a filter on Instagram and it made my steps look really dirty. But I have to admit, the steps and wall there need a good power washing. That’s the last thing I do.

It got really warm today, about 90. I decided to plant some things in shady areas under my front bushes. I did impatiens and begonias. I then went around and started my fairy and gnome patch and got some little ‘globe’ flowers and snap dragons in before I got tuckered out.

My yellow rose bush is gorgeous! I didn’t prune it back and I am glad I didn’t!

So I had to go to the dentist (filling repair) and doctor to see about my recent blood work. My glucose is was 115 and the doctor felt that it was ‘pre-diabetes’ since I have two siblings with it. I’ve been told that was kind of in the normal range. I really didn’t like my triglycerides being 50 points above what they should be. I’ve been making more vegetable based dinners. Last night we had Black Bean and Sweet Potato chili which I liked better than the kind I’ve been making with meat my entire life! I have some work to do, and I slip up as we have the tempting food in the house and I try to eat fruit or drink water first before I give in.

So I guess it’s better to take my time with gardening anyway. I just want to avoid the mosquitoes and other bugs.

Sean and I went up to Lancaster on Memorial Day as Brian was working. We only did a little shopping, but we also did geocaching! We found 6 out of 8! We saw a couple of covered bridges too.

We were all set to apply for our passports, even got our photos taken at CVS (they look like mug shots as you can’t smile). We then were looking for our birth certificates and Brian has misplaced his! He had to order a copy. We were hoping to go to Canada and Niagara Falls this year….sometime!

May6

Tick tock, tick tock

Posted on Monday, May 6, 2013 by Dianne

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We hadn’t been caching for a week and I was itchy to go look for a few over this past weekend. I hadn’t been feeling good, so was ready for some fresh air too! Saturday I had missed a big Geocaching event and was a bit bummed by that.

We drove over to the Landenberg, PA area to find the ‘Ticking Tomb’. Here is the write up about it on the geocaching page:

Back in 1764 when Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon were surveying this area in order to figure out the border of Pennsylvania with that of Delaware and Maryland, the English King held a contest to see who could develop the best device to measure longitude. Charles Mason developed this device, a chronometer, but legend has it that it was swallowed before it could be submitted for review by Fithian Minuet, who was an infant at the time. He grew up to be a successful clock maker and he and his wife Martha lead a happy life and had many friends. It is said that you could hear the chronometer ticking in him his whole life and that it STILL ticks in him to this day. Many people have put their ears to his tombstone and heard the ticking. Edgar Allen Poe heard the ticking and was supposedly inspired to write “The Tell Tale Heart.” George Alfred Townsend told the story in “Tales of the Chesapeake.” And most recently, Ed Okonowicz included the tale in his book “Up the Back Stairway (Spirits Between the Bays).”

Interesting right? But alas, the ticking sound people thought they were hearing was probably from underground springs and something like rocks and dripping water has shifted as no one is hearing that sound anymore. Anyway, I enjoy visiting the old meeting houses and seeing interesting markers like this:

This was the heart shaped stone that we were suppose to look for-the tomb was to the left of this.

What’s really neat is that we had to figure out the coords for the cache by looking at surrounding markers and to plug in the numbers we got to get the new numbers for the final location. At first we were walking all around the cemetery, in the tall grass too. I looked at the description again and the ending coords were very close to the ‘suggested’ parking. We had parked down the road a bit. So we walked passed the parking lot and the numbers went down. I saw an old stump and looked closer and saw a tell tale pile of sticks and there was the cache! Not that close to the cemetery!

I never found of cache before! I was pretty proud of myself!

This is a neat old place and is used for a nature center. Lots of taxidermy showing thorough the windows.

We then went a little bit down the road to a nice trail with two nicely made bridges and found the cache in a handmade wooden container under the second bridge.

We did go get some pizza after our excursion which wasn’t as good as it usually is. Someone over salted the ingredients in it. Then we looked for one more cache and approached it from the incorrect direction. It was on the other side of a stream we were near. When I got home and read the logs, we were the only ones who didn’t find it! It shows that you have to read the logs carefully. A new geo pal said she’d show me where it is since she found it ‘first’ several years ago. She’s got many thousands of finds.

On a personal note, had a few days bad last week from overdoing it. Climbing in and out of the SUV is rough. I have noticed the bottom of my legs are red, almost like razor burn! And I can’ hardly button my jeans. I decided to ask pharmacist and when I mentioned my legs, he said to call the doctor. She called within a few hours and said I am retaining water and to stop the medicine I have been taking about 5 weeks. I have to wait a week to see if my legs get better and then I will call her back.

Feb15

Back in the geo-saddle again

Posted on Friday, February 15, 2013 by Dianne

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Today I felt good enough that I asked Brian if we could go to a number of ‘researched’ geocaches along a busy section in nearby Delaware (okay, I used the satellite feature on geocaching.com, but I don’t do that all the time-it’s such a busy area, it was wise of me to do this). He agreed and off we went right before 1! He cashed his check and we went to the first few caches. We also brought the Canon and I didn’t take any of the following shots, they were all by Brian!

This particular shopping area is what I call ‘cement city’. A nice bonus though is two ‘lakes’ with walking paths. Behind me is Red Robin. The fountains are lit up at night, very pretty.

We found a few pill bottles along the way. One cache was a pill bottle attached to a piece of wood floating in an open post.

One we looked for on Monday we did find in a matter of minutes. It was placed my a new geocaching buddy at the British Pub. We still need to get back there to eat again.

I liked one that was on the back of a blue light reflector. I think I had an audience when I retrieved it as a guy was sitting in his truck a bit away watching.

Hello Kitty! I replaced the other very full log!

It’s one in a water bottle for a marble trade. Clever log attachment!

We had a great salad at SaladWorks-the tuna nicoise and did a little shopping. When the sun was setting, I suggested we look for one called ‘Red Wing Pond’. It was the perfect time of the day to take a walk on another trail in the above mentioned shopping area! We looked and looked, but we think it was missing. But do enjoy the photos Brian took.

‘Cloud Wings’

Had all my gear…no cache to add to. To my left was the pond.

I felt really good today. My aches were not that bad and I don’t know what I did! I am not drinking soda of any kind for Lent for 3 days now or a tummy medicine may have calmed down more that my stomach. I have no idea. I have a feeling tomorrow may be different but crossing fingers.

Want to go to the movies? You take a few escalators to get to the 16 different theaters.

Fairly new homes have a nice place to walk and plenty of shopping in cement city.

We are expecting one of our little ‘snow events’ overnight that will probably melt away by the afternoon.

I forgot to update my readers to let you know my brother’s dog Baxter made it! He was given more medication and he’s much better getting up and going outside. : )

Feb12

Just plugging along

Posted on Tuesday, February 12, 2013 by Dianne

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Since last I updated, we have all had colds, Sean getting the worse of it. I missed work as I was just too achy to even try go. A week makes a big difference!

The three of us went out last night (Monday) which doesn’t happen often. Sean drove in the rental car. His car is ‘still’ in the shop as there is a suspension issue they are trying to get the insurance to check out. Sean is pretty sure he hit a curb as the jeep took out the entire left side of his car. We drove by the restoration place last night and Sean’s car was sitting outside. It’s been 3 weeks. The guy who did this had hardly anything happen to his vehicle-someone who made an illegal u-turn didn’t have to go through all this!

Anyway, we had a gift card for Bertucci’s and went to one near Wilmington, DE. Earlier in the day, here had just been a shooting just miles away at the courthouse-the gunman shot his estranged wife and another woman to death and the police got him. It was a custody issue and two lovely ladies were killed. Crazy!

We also went through a 5 Below store which has cuter and cuter things each time I go there.

I mentioned that a geocaching friend had a hide near a British pub, so we went like 1/2 mile down the road. The cache was said to be decorated for the local Philly ice hockey team the Flyers-in orange and black. We looked at benches, near pipes, behind signs, etc. with no luck. This was all in a dimly lit area. I think we didn’t look low enough! We may go back on Thursday for dinner as it’s a nice place to eat and we had eaten there before. We headed down to a big ‘cement city’ shopping area and after sinking in mud, found a little camouflaged box (fake leaves glued to the top). We looked for one more and again we didn’t see the travel mug holder. We shopped in Trader Joe’s for healthy goodies and came home.

Remembering President Lincoln on his birthday

When I got home I decided to look at the satellite for a number of geocaches along the route where we just were and wrote down info for 10 of them, one being south bound and the rest north.

I had some insurance issues with blood work I had done in November. Brian and I went over to the doctor yesterday to pick up blood work and ask why they haven’t submitted info to the insurance. Boy did they hustle! The office manager was very nice. Asked me if I was stressed out, yes I am! My blood pressure has been a little high lately. I know stress can make you feel a lot worse than you are! My blood work wasn’t too bad. I do have a bit of a Vitamin D deficiency so I will be taking mega doses of it once a week for 3 months to get my numbers up. People are usually deficient in the winter, but I may have trouble absorbing it. I sure hope it helps. Maybe my joints will feel better too!

Feb7

Well isn’t that smashing?

Posted on Thursday, February 7, 2013 by Dianne

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Sean and I have had colds this week. He is sicker than me, but still is plugging away. I thought I’d be blowing my nose like crazy, well I have done that enough, but it’s the achiness that is getting to me. I wanted to do something distracting, so I pulled out my ‘Smash’ book. This is a book I bought over a year ago. A smash book is like a scrapbook, but you ‘jam’ more stuff into it. I tend to be a little more organized than that. Here is what I started out with:

That’s one of those fold up organizers I am using. The stuff in the top wants to fall out all the time.

This is my ‘Abbey Road on the River’ spread from when we went to the Beatles tribute event in Aug./Sept. 2011 and 2012. We saw the guitar that George Harrison is posing with in this photo. I got a catalog in the mail and lo and behold, George was on the cover. I really liked the shot, so I used it in my Smash book.

I have a paper I hand wrote near George that tells about the Beatles tribute event. The pocket has the programs from the two years that we attended plus a postcard and bookmark The little ‘Peeps’ picture is because they are a sponsor. We probably won’t go again for a while as we weren’t happy with the way it was run last year.

It’s hard to believe our New York trip was almost a year ago! I wish I felt like I did back then. The left side has a bumper sticker from the 9-11 Memorial store-seeing that was a big thing. There’s a receipt from the store and the little envelope holds a card describing the purchase of a metal cast leaf I bought (the tree will grow at the sight). The next page is a happier one-Sean holding an umbrella next to Radio City Music Hall (we had a bit of gloomy visit the first night and day and then it got chilly and windy); a card from Tinsel Trading Company-a store I wanted to see that sold millinery and crafty things; and the description of the caramels I bought from Dylan’s candy bar. Oh…the mustache is from the Lorax movie! He was visiting at Dylan’s.

Brian took me to see the Van Gogh exhibit at the Philadelphia Art Museum around April 1st. We weren’t allowed to take photos of the exhibit, but I took plenty of shots around the museum. The one on the right is from the mailer and that’s the the pamphlet of from show. When you open the pamphet, A Rembrandt card (shaped like him) is there-see his foot? We saw a few of his works of art, plus I bought this in the gift shop.

In June, we had our Delmarva trip. I met up with a internet pal Rachael and we headed over to the art museum to see the Andy Warhol exhibit. It was great to meet her. I bought the Andy card in the gift shop (the Rembrandt one looks like this) and some postcards of his most famous works.

The last page I worked on yesterday was about the November election we went to see both the First Lady Michelle Obama (in August) and then President Bill Clinton a few days before the 2012 election. I have the email about picking up the tickets, the tickets in the holder, stickers and some ballot ends.

So on the health front, I’m still fighting these body aches and fatigue. I seem worse since I have had the cold. I missed work, but heard a bunch of others called out sick on Wednesday too. My cold wasn’t what made me feel blah-it was the body aches! I got an appointment at a rheumatologist office at the beginning of March. I googled about menopause and arthritis and didn’t something come up! Seems there is a parallel. I am looking into going to another doctor specializing in hormonal issues. At this point, I can’t hardly do anything without having to sit down in half an hour. I’ll probably call the doctor near my hometown later. I want to be able to add more pages to my smash book!

Keep my mom and brother in your thoughts and prayers as my brother’s Dalmation Baxter appears to be at the end of his life. Mom thinks he’s at least 13 or 14 (maybe older). He is in a lot of pain, it takes him 5 minutes to lay down and he has hardly any bowel control at this point. He is on medicine, but yesterday he was just so miserable. Such a sad time.

Feb1

Goodbye January!

Posted on Friday, February 1, 2013 by Dianne

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Glad to see such a blah month zip by. We had so many days of gloom and fog as you saw in my previous posts. We did try and take little drives, etc. to help with cabin fever. And of course we helped Sean deal with his accident and the breakup of his girlfriend. Sean’s car is still in the shop and won’t be ready for another week. He is driving a nice rental which helps us a great deal.

I like February a little better because it’s a short month and Valentine’s Day breaks it up in the middle. I already got a couple of gifts from the hubby…a pretty storage box and ‘Downton Abbey Chronicles book’! I happen to be fascinated with that time period because my grandmom Ruth was a teen in the 1918s-1920s.

I’m still suffering with aches and pains when I overexert or stand too long. I have an appointment with one rheumatologist in March, but I was trying to get an appt with another. They haven’t returned my call yet. My right knee bothers me the most as does the original hurt from a year ago on the left hip side.

I’ve been trying to clean out the picture files on my laptop. I just did the geocaching adventures one and there were over 400 photos over the last 9 months! This was one Brian took at the Brandywine Battlefield (incidently the day my back ‘really’ complained) and I added a verse for a Kenny Loggins song to it.

We may be going with Sean to Los Angeles in a few months. One reason I want to get to a doctor. I’d love to have something to ease the aches so I could sit all that time on the plane and walk around and sight see!

When Brian is off, he is nice enough to drive me down to my mom’s house for a visit. We usually take her shopping and the last few times have been Home Goods. She had a gift card and used it. Sean had given me a cute tea cup and strainer, so I got some ‘Tiesta’ tea and had some when we got home. It was delicious! There is nothing that compares to loose tea. I went on the website and ordered a few more small bags of it!

We also took mom to a little Chinese restaurant where she enjoy shrimp in a mustard coconut sauce which sounds weird, but is good. I had beef and broccoli and Brian had something similar to me but with chicken and shrimp too.

We looked for a cache with mom in the car. Of course it was dark, and I thought we were going to a parking lot by the cache description. I figured it was probably a sign as we saw no parking lot in the area. Mom thought we are crazy, yet we drove through a neighborhood she had never been to before. That’s one of the fun parts about caching-going to new places! We made a note of the cache to check again sometime, dropped her off and tried another and it would have been looking around a wooded area-nope. I am up to 221 caches now!

Jan27

Lil’ Diads

Posted on Sunday, January 27, 2013 by Dianne

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I scanned an old photo of my older and younger brother and me today. Mom’s nickname for me is Diadsie (dyed-see) and Brian calls me little Diads sometimes. So this is from 1961 and in bad shape. I was trying to photo shop it using my laptop. I’m not saying I’m finished with it, but I think I resemble my own son at about 1.5 here. He also had straight hair in the front and curls in the back. We both had those chubby cheeks.

I like how I’m holding my brother’s ear-lol.

It’s also not too exciting around here because of the blasted cold. We had a bit of cabin fever and went down to the local stores. Big Lots had a customer appreciation day Saturday (if you have their Buzz card), and Brian and I went and save over $20!

I decided to clean up my African violets. I had 16 of them and lost 2. Many are special varieties from a seller at the Philadelphia Flower show. I do have to clean up the rest of the plants and the windows they are in.

I went through dozens of cross stitch books as a friend in the Philippines is a beautiful stitcher and has trouble finding patterns. I’ve stitched at night more lately and I did find some for her (she wants landscapes) and me (I like ornaments especially). I found a pattern to make as a 1st birthday gift for a sweet girl.

I hope the weather holds out so I can see my mom soon!