Category Archives: Me stuff

Apr13

Feeling unlucky?

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Are you superstitious?

Exactly 23 yrs ago it was also Friday the 13th and I was getting ready to ‘take the plunge’ into matrimony. I guess it’s the way you look at things don’t you think? Sean’s car is at the inspection center and we hope everything will be fine with that. I’m feeling the chilly weather to my bones. I remember last year I had a nicer looking yard than this one and the lilacs were budded and about to bloom. This year I don’t see the buds at all. The pond needs cleaning and I just can’t do it until the aches ease up. I don’t want to end up like my mom who is dependent on pain meds to get through her day. I am happy to report that a Tylenol usually helps me and some nice, warm weather.

The heater guy adjusted the furnace yesterday and fixed the leaky filter. The banging we are hearing is from the duct work and he can’t do anything about that. He said our last heater was way too big for the house. He made a big fuss over the cat as he has 3 of this own. Cos was not use to a big hand rubbing his head so brisking, but he didn’t nip at the guy.

John Corzine, the governor of New Jersey, was in a serious car accident around 6 last night. He broke his leg (upper) and about 12 ribs. He’s in critical, but stable condition. He was said not to be wearing a seat belt. The police are looking the the vehicle that appears to have forced them off the road.

Next Thursday we are planning on getting together with Brian’s old college pal Kathy. She lives in Tennessee now and comes back up to PA every few years to visit mostly friends. She is divorced with no children. And we share the same birthday. We are thinking of Carrabbas, the yummy Italian restaurant to meet at.

I have the Neighborhood Round Robin #6 cross stitch project finished up for Su except for my name. I am done a month early! I figure since the next person to stitch on it is Su’s mum, she can get it early (she is finished with her lady’s design anyway) and then send it to her other daughter to finish up the 8th square (we had planned on eight people, but one dropped out) if that is what they are going to do. I’ll show you a photo soon.

Have a great weekend!

Apr10

Ancestors and things

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I went down and met my mom at the hospital thrift shop. I was there browsing when she called and said she was finally finished up with her doctor’s appointment. She needs to get quite a few tests, one of which is a mammogram. I don’t know why she needs to be put through some of the others like a nuclear stress test and an MRI-I can almost guarantee she won’t be able to hack the treadmill at almost 77. She had a MRI several years ago and was in the machine for 1.5 hours without moving. They’d have to drug me for that one. She said there is an ‘open model’ in a place about 20 minutes from her house. She worries the heck out of me-so thin, hardly eats (I took her for an early dinner and she only ate the hamburger and not the bun at Ruby Tuesday), her house has so much in it, things that could be discarded. My brother and his pals did a ton more in her yard then I thought. I’ll have to take photos next time. She has old pine trees (that my grandfather Alan planted in the 50s) and they took out 6 dead ones and trimmed many from the bottom up-no privacy now. Ken happen to stop over and I suggested bushes along the neighbor’s fences. He was not thrilled by this. I came home and found a tick crawling up my pant leg. Mom’s yard was disturbed, so I’m thinking it came from there. Talk about taking one’s clothes off quickly! When you’ve been deathly ill from a tick, you don’t play with fire!

What I got at the thrift shop-a real old flour sifter (ok I’ll take photos!) and an old musical sewing box.

Below is a photo (taken with my camera!) of my great grandfather William Hasselberg and his siblings that mom gave me a copy of today. The third man over is the great grandfather (Charlie) of my cousins with the store Dane Decor I mentioned a few posts back. My mom thinks this is from the 1930s-40s and was taken in Bohemia, Maryland. When I see Bette Midler, I think of her husband, Martin Van Hasselberg. Also, Elizabeth Hasselbeck’s husband must be a distant relative.

Great grandfather William

My great grandfather is the first one!

Going on to other things and a weird coincidence-aren’t you glad you know who Dannielynn belongs to? I mean she looks just like her real father. I was looking up Larry Birkhead to see how old he was (34) and then clicked on the link to Anna Nicole Smith who was born November 28th, the same as my brother Don. Here’s the weird thing-her father’s name is Donald Eugene Hogan and my brother’s name is Donald Gene!

Apr6

Driving through historic country

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Sean and I took a late lunch at Red Lobster to celebrate the final day of Lent. We decided to drive the entire distance of our road which runs through an area where the Brandywine Battlefield was. I saw the fancy road marker even. At the end of our road that is near Chadds Ford and the Brandywine River Museum, the land is more open with lots of fields of grazing horses with a few sheep in the mix. There is such a mix of houses too! From the colonials of the 1960s (like my mom’s house) to the dark sided one with the unusual vertical lines and rectangular windows of the late 70-early 80s. This is about the area where the movie ‘The Village’ was filmed.
We had a nice lunch-great waitress who filled us up on the famous cheddar garlic biscuits and kinda spoiled our appetites. Sean had shrimp and lobster fettuccine and I had lobster pizza. We both ate more of our lunch for dinner later.

Run, don’t walk to your nearest Kohl’s! What a fabulous sale they are having Friday and Saturday. Unfortunately I grabbed a size 6 skirt and have to take it back in a few days. It’s too cold to wear it for Easter anyway. I got some earrings for my niece Tori’s upcoming 8th birthday and a few pieces off the 80% off rack. Plus they have a coupon for another 15% off, so I made out well.

We also went to Target and Michaels. I now have a nice mix for my art cards now. I bought some neat papers, rubber stamps, stickers and embossing powders today.

Better post my photo hunt photo for ‘clean’. Mr. Cosmo posed for that one.

Apr5

Easter like 1970

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The local weatherman is predicting a chilly Easter (in the 40s) like we had in 1970-the last time it was this cold. Sean thought he’d be smart and say-bet you can’t remember that Easter. I do have a pretty good memory-I was in 5th grade, had a gem of a teacher-Miss Brown-who gave us interesting postage stamps from all over the world for perfect spelling tests. I did get mostly 100s if I remember. That was the year mom gave me a cute little stamp album (about 5-10 pages with the places to tuck the stamps in a row-like 5 to a page). I have it around here someplace.

I went to the doctor and saw a new, young lady doctor. We discussed me and I am trying something for three months. I hope it agrees with me. Have to mention the Amish couple in the gyn office-what a surprise! I guess some are coming around more to western medicine.

Here are some gifties that I received in the mail this week and my little pal Bunny Woodstock:

From Gret and Pea
Love them gals! These are the best kinds of gifts to me.
Ode to the Flower Show
My Ode to the Philadelphia Flower Show 2007

Apr4

And then a hero comes along…

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…John Wood.

John Wood-book crusader

I almost didn’t watch Oprah today. I turned it on while our girlfriend was interviewing Mr. Wood about his program to end worldwide illiteracy called Room to Read (second is linked to Oprah).

Room to Read

 A former big wig at Microsoft, Mr. Wood went to Nepal on a trip and found poor conditions in a school there-overcrowded and most of the pupils couldn’t read. He vowed to go back in a year with books and he kept his promise-I was in awe with him-got the warm fuzzies big time!  Now his org is building libraries and schools all over the world. Many people in the small communities are learning to make bricks and to build themselves! Check out the link and maybe make a $5 donation (I plan to donate something).

For two days and for a few hours,  I did garden clean up. Brian cleaned up the piles after dinner each night. I think I am wearing him out! Last night we moved the big hollyhock that was across from the front door. It broke into 3 pieces so hopefully I have three new plants. I know a tree near where we just planted it gets rust or whatever fungus it is and hollyhocks are prone to get it. We planted the hollyhocks in my iris bed. The iris have spread a little. I am hoping to give some to my mom as I have some gorgeous ones. This is reminding me to go order from the same company as I won their photo contest last year (Aug. 06) and I better use the coupon soon!

Getting my hair done late in the afternoon. I think my mom is staying over to go to the gyn with me. I could go by myself, but she wants to lend support. I have some issues, but just doing all this yardwork has made me stronger (and a bit achy) over the last few days.

Apr2

Something for me?

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I love yellow flowers and Bri saw these in the Home Depot on Friday and brought them home. I appreciate his thoughtfulness, but I need a a rake too and there he was in the Home Depot. I have these in the kitchen and I had an ant on me Friday night-wonder where that came from? ; )
Bri took this photo. I have taken lots more and he’s the one who was buying all the camera magazines like he was dying to get into photography again. He’s always on the computer googling stuff it seems.
Anyway, I’ll plant these bulbs out front probably. Maybe they’ll come up again. Our anniversary is coming up-23 yrs!!!

(BTW, I have a collection of mostly Mary’s Moo Moos that  have something to do with food on my windowsill there. Good eye there, Zoey! One is holding a pie, one has a lemonade stand, etc.) From Brian
BTW, stopped the medicine after 4 days-I couldn’t function and we had the concert last night. I feel better though, just achy in spots. Still deciding what I’m going to do about myself-same problems for years and years and they just tell you to live with it.

This is nice news-my brother Ken really did a thorough clean up job at my mom’s for the past few days! He and a couple of pals were cutting down a tree, trimming branches, getting rid of debris-looks a whole lot better.

Apr1

Feeling cultured

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Woo-hoo! I’m the blog of the minute on wordpress as I type this. : ) **bows** Hey is that April Fool’s maybe?

SO, last night the three of us headed to Wilmington, DE to hear The Delaware Symphony Orchestra at the Grand Opera house. The ride there is very scenic, and I don’t know why we don’t go to Wilmington more often. All the years we lived here and we never took Sean to the Brandywine Zoo! They say three is the charm (how many times Bri and I have been to the GOH) and we didn’t get lost, we actually got there 40 minutes early. A requirement for Sean’s History of Western Music course was for him to hear a professional concert of classical music. We were thinking of Philly, and then the instructor mentioned the DSO. I also have an Entertainment coupon book and we have one for the DSO and got $13 knocked off of one of the tickets-Sean was only $10.

I can’t really remember hearing a symphony orchestra. I have heard orchestras with stage plays though. We sat in the balcony and it was awesome up there. Many of the other patrons were elderly folks. A few kids were mixed in.

The guest pianist was a man named Christopher O’Riley. He was wonderful. First he played a awarding winning composer’s ode to Liberace. After that he played Strauss which was what Sean came to hear. He reminded me of a shorter and brown haired Conan O’ Brien.

Christopher O’Riley

I would recommend anyone going to hear a concert like this. It’s interesting to watch the musicians play and to distinguish the different sounds of the instruments.

We amazingly didn’t get lost going home. It’s always good to have directions printed out, but we just had to back track.

Mar30

Venturing out

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I drove for the first time since I’ve been taking my medicine. I felt ok, not 100%, but I had to mail off 6 packages for my spring exchange. I then wanted to get some Easter cards for family. I didn’t get them all, but the creative side of my noggin is telling me to make some instead of spending $2-4 dollars on one alone. I got one for my mom that needs embellishing. I didn’t take my medicine until I got home. I don’t think it’s really helping as I don’t think I have an infection, I think it’s a lady thing. I may be hitting the road to the gyn next week.

I had the cat out today and even though we had the bagger on the mower, leaves need to be raked out of my flowerbeds. My metal expanding rake broke, so I need to go to the store near mom’s and get another. The daffodils are almost all blooming.

White daffodils almost opened

I’ve been doing stitching and making art cards to keep my mind occupied. I really want to take a nap all the time.

Sean is going to bring home pizza for dinner. It’s still Lent and I’m not in the mood for tuna or eggs. Afterwards, there is that biannual book sale in the big barn down the road that I’d love to go to as I resold a few things I bought in October for a big profit.

Have a great weekend!

Mar29

The decorating Danes are back!

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Congrats to my cousins for the rebuilding on their flagship store, Dane Decor in less than a year. Lightning hit this 19th century building that originally was a church last June and gutted it-I believe I mentioned it happening in this blog. A fireman happen to see the lightning and knew it had struck something and got to Dane Decor before the siren went off. The 4 guys’ grandmom Kate and my grandmom Ruth were Hasselberg first cousins. (for those of you good at geneology-what does that make my relationship to these guys-3rd, twice removed?)Their mom Gloria (passed away in 2000) taught my mom when she was a student teacher and she also came to my wedding. I still use the teak tea cart we received as a gift almost 23 years ago, from Dane Decor! The last time I was at Gloria’s house, Sean was a little baby and I had a severe gallbladder attack the next day. Weird.

Here’s the story about the reopening-(the link may or may not work, but wasn’t at the time I wrote this).

And I’ll have to go visit sometime to say hello as my one cousin Drew would like to chat with me (he said so on my blog last year). Also at the link from last year, another cousin I don’t know left me a message-his name is Sean!

I love that the guys are ‘tree huggers’ and saved an old maple that was part of the store when they enclosed a courtyard for space.

Mar29

Stuff from Nov. 19th

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Saw this on Pea’s blog and thought I’d give it a try. I know a lot of weird stuff happened on my birthday.

1) Go to Wikipedia
2) In the search box, type your birth month and day but not the year
3) List three events that happened on your birthday
4) List two important birthdays and one death
5) One holiday or observance (if any)

1863 – American Civil War: Union President Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address at the military cemetery dedication ceremony in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

1997 – In Des Moines, Iowa, Bobbi McCaughey gives birth to septuplets in the second known case where all seven babies were born alive. (this could be under birthdays too-these kiddos will be 10 this year!!!!)

2006 – Launch of the Nintendo Wii.

Birthdays

1917 – Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India (d. 1984)

1959 – Allison Janney, American actress-the exact year too!

Death

1988 – Christina Onassis, daughter of billionaire Aristotle Onassis (b. 1950)

And holy ‘crap’

Holiday or Observance:

World Toilet Day, see World Toilet Organization.