Category Archives: Me stuff

Dec3

Tablescaping for Christmas-a post for Zoey

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Last night I was invited to the Ladies’ tea at the church where I work. I was expecting tea sandwiches but we got delicious gourmet finger foods. And get this,  there were about 35 tables which were all decorated differently-so lovely for the holidays! One had Christmas cacti and crackers. Another had cranberries in pretty glass containers while another had angel wings on the back of the chairs and the ladies wore halos (kind of glad I didn’t sit at that one-lol) I picked these as my favorites.

I’ve never had duck confit before. It tasted like sausage.

Everything was tasty and rich.

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This is where I sat-with the pastor’s wife and right next to the stage. I felt honored!

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Deane decorated the table. I like the touch of holly between the trees. We all loved the glass mugs and they were from Walmart!

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On the stage, next to one of the trees that looked like this:

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We saw a skit about a man who was at the inn when Jesus was born, complaining about his room.

Then the chorus sang three songs.

Finally a young woman was a speaker who also teaches Bible study. She was saying that Christmas should really be a sad holiday as we know what happens to Jesus. And she mentioned how commercialized it is. But of course it’s a celebration of who was born to save us. : )

So I had a lovely time.

When I came home. Bri can’t seem to use my camera phone-it’s the same one that took the lovely photos above.

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By the way, I had to go and do ‘maintenance’ on my garden cache. It was wet and rusty from jingle bells someone had added. I had to replace the container, log book and everything inside. I also hide it in a different spot, under a patch of catnip! The bush it was under had lost all it’s leaves.

Then we went along a busy road and found 6 caches! One was hanging in a tree-a flashlight! You unscrewed it and a happy face popped out and the log was in the back of the top. Clever! Brian finds the nanos for me (tiny ones). We finally found the one down the road here (1/2 mile away) as we figured out it was in the guardrail. It was getting dark and Brian took the flashlight and retrieved the container!

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The entry before me is dated June 3rd!

I had a full late afternoon and evening!

Nov30

Hello there Christmas!

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It sure is funny what you find on outings! I went with Brian when he deposited his check and we found a cute little store up in Kennett. They had healing kinds of things, and a mixture of art, jewelry and even a lending library of wellness books. I told Brian to go back up sometime and pick me out something. We then went looking for a new geocaches. The hardest part with these were finding places to park. The one we didn’t really try to find had cars zooming by-I just didn’t feel like having people watch me poke around, so we went to one I tried to find in June and I could see it under this big electrical box from the car!

I needed something at the Dollar General, but before we went in there, I hit the Habitat for Humanity resale store. The first thing I see is a sign that all Christmas items were 50% off! That included trees. So one really stood out-prelit with at least 400 lights and it had tinsel woven on the green branches. It was under $40 and I know this had to be over a $200 tree. We got the box and it looked new. I will have to load it up  with ornaments to cut back on the brightness. Right now I have both autumn stuff and the tree up. I’ve never had a tree up in November before! It took only a few minutes to get up too.

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I have to mess with the branches a bit. I was trying out some holly up near the top there.

I’m really excited to decorate it. I have a lot of work to do to get it tidied up in the living room. I also received a big gift order and that box is in there too.

Finally some Christmas spirit! Not feeling great as my hip and back had dampened my enthusiasm. I did go to the physical therapist and she thinks my issue is the ‘gel’ between my back ligaments  that is all shifted to one side. I have to do a form of a push up several times a day, 10 times a session. That is killing my arms. I think it is helping a bit. My insurance won’t pay for the PT (it sure doesn’t pay for much, and has a rule about pre-existing conditions, which is crazy for people over 50).

I went back to the church on Wednesday and the kids were mostly good. I’ve worked here 2 months now! We had my middle brother and our mom here on his birthday that night and I made yummy vegetable lasagna for dinner.

The next day, Brian and I took Mr. Cosmo kitty to the vet for a check-up. He is a good weight for his age and is pretty healthy. But, she did take a peek at his teeth and said that a few looked like they needed to be extracted at $20-200 a tooth! He’s had a tartar issue all his life. I can’t see subjecting an old cat to anesthesia either. Signs he is having issues is eating really slow or chattering when he eats-he does neither, but I will watch him. I am still working on paying off my own dental bill. Geesh.

Sunday evening I was invited to a ladies’ tea at the church. Sounds nice!

Nov18

Consumer power

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Never be afraid to write or talk to someone about anything  that doesn’t seem right to you. I have abbreviated names for privacy.

From: D. C. (me of course)
Sent: Friday, November 16, 2012 9:33 PM
To: B. L.
Subject: Cleaning at your restaurant

Hello,
I think you have a beautiful, inviting place and we have enjoyed our visits here for dinner.
Tonight I happen to be sitting with my husband in the middle section near the fireplace, but at the end near where the food is made. I saw a cloth that was used for cleaning off tables fall to the floor and the worker picked it up and used it to wipe off tables anyway. I don’t know if he folded it again, but to me he should have gotten a new cloth. You can never be too careful that way.
Thought you’d like to know,
Mrs. C from Avondale, PA
Reply:
I DEFINITELY want to know! Thank you so much for bringing that to my attention. I will make sure that never happens again.
I appreciate you taking your time to give us feedback.
B. L.
Also, when we got home from our furniture shopping trip, Brian saw that the store had a $50 off coupon. He filled out a form and got a coupon code. Whether it’s just for online shopping, I’m not sure, but we sent the code to the guy at the store. He had said earlier since we were buying a chair too he would cut us a deal, didn’t see that. Crossing fingers.
Nov16

It’s been a long week

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I just want to get this kind of post out of the way as I sure don’t want people to think I actually ‘want’ to post about this kind of stuff. I decided to get some testing out of the way this week. Tuesday I went for blood work ordered by the doctor in September for last month. Then I went to the school and will have off until the 28th. I am still trying to get the place in shape for Thanksgiving. I then had my yearly mammogram yesterday. It was an hour wait for that which was crazy. I also called my regular doctor and said I’d really like to get checked out for this hip and back pain. The receptionist said she thought I should just got to a orthopedist and suggested a place across from that office. I was able to go there today. They took an x-ray of my hips, but I had told them I had lumbar (spine) x-rays at the beginning of October. So I have arthritis in my back and hips and they suggest I try physical therapy for a month. I can’t take Advil and anti-inflammatories or a prescription medicine, so I’m stuck with taking Tylenol. If the physical therapy doesn’t work, maybe they will give me something stronger. I really tried to up the exercise this summer and I think it helped me in a lot of ways. But since I have Lyme Disease, it had sped up my other problems. When the PA checked off sciatica on my chart, I wanted to cry. That’s what my mom has been suffering with for about 9 years.  I don’t plan to give up my geocaching, but I sure need help with stuff around that house that requires a lot of leaning over. Getting up from a sitting position or from lying down is like a knife in my back. Not fun in the middle of the night.

I’m not going to talk that much about it, but that’s what’s going on with me. I will give you updates on my physical therapy to let you know if it is helping.

Brian and I took a little drive to try to be ‘first to find’ at a cache near a cave on the PA/DE border. We saw the cave and then had to walk through rocks and leaves to get to the cache location. I did pretty darn good! We get up there and I open the log and two other people had been there (as a couple) before us! They have thousands of caches too. Darn them! I had to use the navigator and my  camera battery ran down, so I couldn’t take many photos except of the caches. Bummer. Streams, waterfalls, a covered bridge-I’ll be back.

We went to a gourmet pizza place next. We were served lukewarm pizza as I think the waitress let it sit there a bit. She took it back and it wasn’t that much warmer when we got it back. We found a few shopping center caches, one we had looked for before and I had gotten a hint on. The next one was a bit trickier as it looked like an abandoned beer cap-but the little container was underneath it. Fun stuff.

Nov11

Cleaning or geocaching?

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Yesterday was a nice day for being outside, but not raking leaves! I can’t do that anyway as my hip is so bad, so I took Brian away from his yard work.  When I go out in the car, it’s hard for me to get in and out all the time and I really hurt by the end of the day. There was a book sale at a nearby school to raise money for the Kindergarten. Oh how I’d love to work there in that centuries old building, but I bet it’s a bit on the chilly side. Just like last year, there weren’t too many people there. I was able to pick up a few books for the school where I work for a few dollars.  They seem to read the same ones all the time, so I found a few cute ones about sharing and Jamie Lee Curtis’s book ‘Tell me again about the night I was born’.  I found a few novels for me and the lady working there helped me find a few for my mom via mom on my phone’s speaker.

I decided to see if the William Penn tree near the parking lot there was a waymark and filled out the form on the website. People need to find the London Grove Friends Meetinghouse and take a photo of themselves in front of the 9 story, 330 yr old white oak!

So then we drove around the immediate area for a few caches. The scenery was so gorgeous-rolling hills, horses, cattle, trees….I’m so glad there is still land like this close by. Where I live, housing developments have popped up all around us.

The first cache was on Tapeworm Road-what a name-it was indeed a wiggly road! It wasn’t too hard to find-Brian used his geosenses and saw a pile of wood near one end of  the fence-bingo! After this find, my phone went wonky. There was one down the same road that we missed! We found one near another horse field but inside a tree. Then there was a covered bridge one. The navigation took us in a big circle when we only needed to go to the end of Tapeworm Road and make a left. Hate to waste gas like that.

We get to the covered bridge and it’s closed-a truck obviously ran into one side as there is crumbled cement and a support beam there. We could tell there had been some flooding in that area as dirt was pushed around near the stream with heavy equipment. We mainly looked inside the bridge and didn’t see anything. I PAF (phoned a friend-actually wrote an email) and he said we should have been underneath. Opps-it was a muck factory under there. Maybe some other time.

I  mentioned about a nearby ‘gastro-pub’ (refers to a bar and restaurant that serves high-end beer and food) where we went last year called ‘The Whip’, so we went. I got sausage and red pepper quiche and salad. I’m not a big fan of sausage, but this was heavy on the nutmeg and very moist. Brian got a chicken salad wrap. There was a cache around back in a guard rail that took minutes to snag.

Brian near where the cache was with The Whip behind him.

The last cache was in a cemetery way out in the boonies. It was fairly easy to find, so we walked around the cemetery. I wondered what the stones were at the end of the newer part of the cemetery and they were for babies. : (

Near the church were stones for a Collins family and the names were facing the church instead of out. That was a bit strange.

Here’s a  satellite look at the church and cemetery… I was checking out that feature on Geocaching.com last night. It will show you where the cache is! See the smile face!

We even went to church after all this. Today I’m tired, but I have a lot to do. I couldn’t find some of my pants and they were still up in the attic. So now I am sorting through clothes again. I also put away most of my Halloween decorations except for my owls.

Sean’s girlfriend and daughter are coming out for Thanksgiving. I am hoping to get something for my hip pain by then so I can pull that off. It will be nice to meet her 6.5 yr old.

I have some testing this week, so please send me some good vibes.

Nov9

Daylight savings is getting in the way

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I was looking forward to grabbing a few caches late this afternoon as it has been a long time since we’ve gone searching. I’m still feeling pain in my left hip and lower back. I thought a little walking may do me some good. Well by the time we rolled out of the driveway, it way after 4 with a little daylight left. Rats! First I had to wait on Brian as he was leaving work, grabbing a few groceries and hitting the bank. When he got home, his dad called complaining about his car not running. This has been going on for a week. He got a new battery, but it was dead today. The vehicle is almost 24 yrs old now too.  He talked to him a bit and went to hang up the phone and it fell behind the computer desk. He tried to retrieve it, but couldn’t. He’d get back to that.

So we headed near a campground cache. It was suppose to be a fast grab and dash, cache and dash or whatever. We parked across the street near the train track and headed over. The GPS found it right away near an evergreen-had it in no time. But we happen to catch the engine coming in and since they had to cross a street-they pulled the whistle. We were right there and it almost blasted our socks off! Two guys got out of the engine, climbed into a car and took off.

The cache was neat! It was a pet food container with the swag beginning in either bowl. There was a separate log.

The next cache was near an abandoned building and the Brandywine creek area. We scared a few deer, but I believe we were about 200 feet too far away and it was getting dark, so we gave it up.

So we will not go out cache hunting so late this time of year. It’s just scary. I’d love to find a night cache where people use reflectors, etc.. I have yet to find one listed.

Tomorrow is a book sale-we got excellent buys and had almost the entire place to ourselves last year. Wonder if that will change? I got Christmas gifts then too. And I know there are a few caches in that area too!

Nov6

Check one off the bucket list

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Just a photo…words will follow later as I have a very busy day ahead.

On Monday, I asked Brian if we could go out to Montgomery County Community College to see former President Bill Clinton. It was always my wish to see a President someday. I missed a chance many years ago to see my favorite President, Jimmy Carter when he had a lecture at the college where I attended. This was about 15 yrs.  I really admire what he did after he left office from writing books to helping to build homes for people through Habitat for Humanity.

He may have been too nice to be President. He’s a very intelligent man with what they call an encyclopedia type memory. Ask him something, he can tell you about it.

So we got stuck in traffic very close to the college. The doors had opened at 2:30 and we got there about an hour later. When we were in traffic, we heard sirens and a mini motorcade went on our left-police and a few SUVs from Maryland. I bet that was Prez Bill!

So many people wanted to come to the event, they moved it from the gym to outside. We were a little cold, but okay. We heard from about 4 local politicians first, heard a 14 yr old girl sing the national anthem beautifully and then Bill came out! We were in the back. People were holding up signs and cellphones. It was really an honor for me. When he was President, I got a Christmas card from him and Hillary and the Gores for 8 years. That was a treat! I should take photos of them sometime.

So it was a good 15-20 minute talk and he had the crowd in the palm of his hand!

My viewpoint at one place in the crowd.

Oct26

Chadds Ford Great Pumpkin Carve event

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Since we’ve lived near Chadds Ford and enjoy it’s beautiful countryside, we decided it was about time we went to see the annual pumpkin carve as sponsored by the Chadds Ford Historic Society. I mean, 26 yrs is a long time not to see this artistry event. What piqued my interest was knowing an artist pal was going to carving a pumpkin. She’s been doing it a few years as has Bam Margera’s mom (the guy who does stunts, etc on his own show). It’s been an event since 1970 and it’s almost right across from the Brandywine River Museum and the banks of this river too.

This was down our road a bit. We left close to five as that’s when it started. I know after the rain we are expecting in a few days, we won’t be seeing the leaves anymore.

We got there early, we enjoyed walking around several times, but it did get more crowded.

Follow the pumpkins to the event

They had until 7 pm to carve before judging began. I asked if they got to chose their pumpkins and the artist said they got what was there waiting for them.

Jennifer lives near Lancaster. A great artist and photographer. She won ‘Best Halloween Theme’ this year and last  year.

Clever designs!

Ran into three classmates from high school also! Two from my class and one from my younger brother’s class. The three of them were meeting up here.

It got really crowded too. I drove by tonight (Friday) and got stuck in a traffic back up.

This was outside the carving area where a band was playing. They had picnic tables, picnic type food, t-shirts to buy and raffle items. Brian put a ticket in for Eagles football tickets as he and Sean have never been to a game. I sure hope they win!

I’ll be putting all these up on Flickr.  And thanks to Brian for taking most of them.

I went down today and took my mom to a  shopping center. We enjoy The Dollar Tree and a little thrift shop next to it. She then took me for some Chinese that I was able to share with Sean as I only ate half of it.

We are waiting on Hurricane Sandy to come up the coast and she will probably dump a lot of rain from Sunday to Monday. As I type this, she may be tracking in a somewhat different direction, but it doesn’t look good. I will be making some egg salad, etc to have something to eat. We will fill up something with water outside as our toilets won’t flush if the power is out. Keep us in your thoughts.

Oct23

New Hope evening

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After we walked around the woods and found the Doylestown cache, we headed over to quaint Peddler’s Village. It was a bit late and many of the stores were closing. I noticed that the scrapbook store I really liked is gone. They had really nice things. : ( There were some cute scarecrows… See the […]