Category Archives: Mom

Jan27

The old meat grinder

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I just got back from my mom’s a little bit ago. It is starting to look a lot different in there. My brother was working in my mom’s room (along with his son), Colleen in the kitchen (God bless her for doing that room) and I took down the Christmas tree (with the help of my sweet niece) and was going through things in the living room. I had to have allergy problems today of all days, but I persevered-look what they all had tackled before I even got there! I went out in the kitchen and saw the old meat grinder that my grandmom used to make those last few pieces of turkey, ham or roast beef stretch into croquettes or ‘deviled’ sandwiches. I asked what was going to happen to it and Colleen said Ken wanted it. Of course he did as he remembers being a little tyke and turning the handle to help our grandmom. He loved her so much.

I told my brother not to throw out books as I would take them to the Goodwill. I have to make a trip there sometime this week. I don’t believe in throwing out literature unless it is musty or soiled.

I’m having some tea and trying to ease my achy back a bit. I had to console my mom a few times, but I think she is now seeing the big picture. It couldn’t stay like that.

Jan26

Photo Hunt Old-fashioned

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My mom is 77 and still loves paperdolls. That certainly is an old-fashioned thing to like, but it stems back to her girlhood in the 1930s during The Great Depression. She said she would sit for hours and hours on the step playing with her movie star paperdolls. Nowadays, she has collected the Tom Tierney paperdolls for years. I was down in a book warehouse and called her to see if she had the Tierney ones I had found there and she actually needed a few!
So this is my homage to the activity that made my mom happy as a child. The image is from a children’s book from the 70s, so they were still being fashioned then. Personally, I loved my Barbies! But as you can see, I love cutting out paper now myself.

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Paper Dolls ATC
Jan17

Sprucing one’s self up

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Can do a lady some good! My sister-in-law fixed my hair- I hadn’t had a touch-up since before Thanksgiving and she said my hair was too long. I like it a little on the long side, hairstylists don’t. I got to help my mom by taking her to the bank (her car is running fast) and then we hit the Goodwill as I had a few things to drop off. I bought a few things to revamp-a slate sign (I have tons of experience stenciling these, I did about 300 for a local business about 11 yrs ago). Also got a stretched canvas that I plan to repaint. I have to watch my mom in even that store. She had clothing that she didn’t need and I talked her into putting at least a few items back on the rack. There’s a dollar store next to the Goodwill and they had back issues (a month or so old) of Bon Appetit and a few other nice cooking magazines that I grabbed up.

After I dropped my mom off home, I went to Trader Joe’s and did most of this week’s shopping. I love that place! I bought some green tea extract in capsule form that is suppose to be good for your metabolism and general health.

When I got home, I looked at a magazine and then played with some digital art for a group I’m in:

Mysterious snowman decorators
The photo doesn’t want to show up tonight. There’s always tomorrow.
Have a good one!

Jan14

Ho hum

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Just got on to take a quick look at a few blogs. Am not up to par, but I think it’s an allergy problem. We ate at a few restaurants over the weekend, the one last night we had a gift card for and it starts with ‘A’. Now we don’t eat there that often and I heard a lot of their food arrives to them frozen, I’m sure that’s the case in lots of restaurants these days. But I ate their boneless ‘mild’ chicken wings-they were a bright reddish orange and were spicy (not a good combo for me). Brian just shook his head. He was suppose to eat most of them. They have a deal-appetizer, main course and dessert for one price. The guy who waited on me gave me the incorrect dessert and I couldn’t eat it all and had to pay for it separate from the dinner (I told him and he ignored me)!  Brian wouldn’t eat it (he was a fun dinner companion, but he’s still not well). So I paid the price today as my tummy is off. I am better, but I have postnasal drip still, but usually do all winter and summer….you know me, I live with it. I am doing laundry and still packing away decorations. I had my chicken soup and ginger ale too.

We didn’t get any snow, just a bit of rain. I forgot to ask Sean if he had gotten any up in the middle of the state. Sean had his first day of classes today and he said they are ok. He’s just thrilled to be in classes again. The reason for the sofa photo down below, that’s where he was parked for 3 weeks, most of the time watching tv and on his laptop. He’s lucky (knock wood) he didn’t get that sinus cold.

My friend Karin received her collage book and really liked it a bunch. : )

Have a great rest of the day.

Jan8

Getting things done

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This is getting ridiculous.  I don’t want my pals to think I’m slowing down in my advanced years! Ok, I’m not ‘that’ old, but this isn’t like me to send gifts so late. It’s all the stuff that happened between Oct.31-Dec. 7, and then the mad Christmas scramble-the sinus cold and something else now that has me moving slower. But, I did get two things wrapped up and ready to send to England and Ireland.  I have something almost ready to go to Canada. Another item, a grad gift, was assembled over the weekend and that’s wrapped. There are still things on the little love seat that need to get in boxes and mailed too! Some aren’t expected, but my one friend needs something to make her smile as she just got diagnosed with pneumonia and may have an autoimmune disease.

My mom’s range top and oven went out. She had someone there to look at the situation and he said she needed new appliances! The oven is fairly new, but I bet it’s the wiring and he didn’t want to get into that. She is waiting on someone else to come now.

Sean took advantage of the warm weather and ran in the park today. I wanted to go, but wasn’t up to it. I did have the cat out on his harness yesterday and we had a nice walk, though he was in a hissy fit mood.  Sean’s off for his 6th semester at PSU on Saturday.

Dec27

Awesome Longwood Gardens

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Boy oh boy was it crowded at Longwood Gardens today! We lasted almost 2 hours in the mob, but we mainly went to see the lights, the new children’s garden and the main Christmas display-which we did. My mom is out for a visit and joined us and both Sean and her tried out their new cameras. Here are a few of the 79 shots (wow, I know). I’ll do a slideshow probably tomorrow.

Mom and Sean in the new children’s garden:

Mom and Sean
Dianne outside children’s garden

Just me!
The Conservatory decorated for Christmas
Conservatory
A fountain in the children’s garden
Fountain
Sunshine stained glass window in children’s garden
Stained glass
Gorgeous tablescape with a wintery theme (for Zoey!)
Winter tablescape
Some of the magnificent lights outside
Lights outside

Dec15

Photo Hunt-Small

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I just bought this adorable teenie tiny gingerbread boy at World Market on Tuesday. I think he’s about 2″ tall if that.

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Very small ornament

Long shot of the little guy

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I got down to my mom’s on Friday after over 3 weeks of not seeing her. She cringed at my boo-boo, but was anxious for me to assemble her Christmas tree-the kind with a million branches where you have to match up the letters on the tree pole to the one on the branches. We ended up with two that had different letters then the spaces left, so we shuffled a few around and that worked. Mom bought amber lights with white cording-opps-but we worked them in the middle well and they look okay. She has this pretty angel with fiber optics and really long ribbons that hang nicely down the tree. I was accordion pleating them and I think it’s going to be a gorgeous tree. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her dishwasher, but she may have dislodged or kinked a hose while forcing the dishwasher door shut when the bracket on the top that holds it to the underside of the counter was bent funny. I hear water gurgling though.

We went out for Chinese and then went to a few stores. I got a few more things for the guys, almost finished! Then we went to Home Goods and I saw a ‘must have’ peacock ornament-silver with Swarovski crystals on it’s body and a real peacock feather! I also bought a carved cookie press decoration modeled on an old one of an angel with laurel around it.

Needless to say, I am exhausted! I just wanted to get my photos up to share and rest and maybe trim my front hedges in the afternoon before the snow hits.

Nov18

Weary traveler and lost mother

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Sean slept in and wasn’t use to ‘the quiet’. He’s been eating up a storm and enjoyed relaxing on the big red sofa in front of both his laptop and the tv. It was a football day Saturday for him while Bri went out shopping for yours truly. I was tidying up the dining room area so we have some place to eat dinner on Thursday. I use that as my work area for my paper crafts. I had a lot of stuff spread all over the place and am not finished yet. I had the table almost all cleaned off when something in my ‘idea’ box caught my eye and I made a few more cards, a few for surprise gifts. I’ll show you when they are finished.

My mom and her friend and boarder Jim decided to go to the dog show in Philly. My mistake was not calling her like I usually do, around 10:45 as I thought she wasn’t home. She could have called me too. So around 4, I started ringing her house, nothing. At 8 I called my brother’s house and Colleen tried mom’s cell-nothing. She said she’d send my brother around at 9 if no one had heard anything. Mom did call me around 8:45 and I was short with her and made her call my brother’s house. When I called back, I asked why she didn’t call me once during the day. She had some waiting time (like an hour) in the parking lot of the train station as she had missed the 11:25 train into the city. They stayed downtown until 7 pm! That was a total surprise to me, her being out after dark in a crowded city. They went to the Reading Terminal Market and it was jammed packed. A lot of things were going through my head and my evening wasn’t that great. I’m glad she got her ‘doggie fix’ and all, but geez, call someone to let them know you are out after 5. She never did that before. She’s getting too old to go on excursions like that. She was with Jim, and today he turns 61!

I am almost ready to share at least one finish-that would be for the cross stitch lottery due 12/31. I am working on a very late gift too. Stitching has slowed down just to the evenings. I hope my mojo peps up soon! I have ornaments to stitch!

Update-Sometime soon, I have to go to the dentist as a filling close to the gum line on the bottom left of my mouth chipped off leaving a highly discolored (amber) tooth! I think some of it started last night while I was still awake at 3 am. I have ‘herbal gumdrops’ that are suppose to help you relax and left a crunchy thing in my mouth. It then all came out when I was trying to enjoy a lemon drop, having forgotten about the adventure at 3. Geez.

Mom feels bad that I was so upset. She said she has a down feeling about me, which doesn’t make me feel good. Sean says he has good vibes about me. We are both Scorpios and can read each other fairly well. He just doesn’t know what to get me for my birthday. I believe he just utilized my Amazon wishlist tonight! He had gone to Walmart and I heard Brian say, ‘that’s all’? HA.

Here’s a little gift for my friend who likes to belly dance.

Shimmy pup ATC

That is her dog Haylee. I don’t think she reads my blog. I made her about 3 dog ATCs- they are in Flickr too. I just feel like doing that more lately than stitching. I have three boxes of my paper stuff nicely pushed under the little sofa in there now. It looks neater too.

Nov16

This thing about chicken and then hoarding

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Make note to self-do not buy the big package of thick chicken breasts anymore. Although you pounded the last two pieces, and must I say with great vigor, they were too thick and had that funny chicken taste-almost like an uncooked taste. Buy some regular olive oil as suggested by Giada DeL. and use the EVOO for salad dressing. Throw a hunk of butter in there too. OR buy the skinny cutlets, yeah that’s the ticket.

Here’s dinner last night with the hunky chicken. Martha’s Stewart’s Everyday Food magazine, Dec. ’07 issue Chicken with olives, rice, spinach and raisins. I didn’t have the golden raisins as suggested in the recipe. I think another kind of white wine would be tastier too:

Chicken with olives

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Let’s talk about the Oprah show that will air the second part later on today. It’s about Hoarders. I am one to a degree, but I keep most of my hoarded stuff in the basement and most of my boxes are see-through plastic ones-and there is a lot of those. It’s spilling over a little in the bedrooms and family room. Mostly books. But the lady on the show had 15 dumpsters full of stuff in her house! Every room and the basement was jam-packed with stuff from her daily shopping sprees. Now if you know me, I talk about my mom having a similar, but not as drastic problem with too much stuff in her house. Like the lady on the show, her younger grandkids haven’t been inside her house for months, maybe a year or more. I try to help her, but it just gets bad again. She is always sorting, but never tossing. Her favorite phrase now is ‘I need to buy more Rubbermaid containers’!! She buys the big monster ones in green or whatever and you can’t see what’s inside. She has them taking up room in two bedrooms that she can’t even get in. I said tonight, and this really applies to all of us who are holding on to stuff, that she is 77 and better get real. Everything will be tossed in the long run. And I know deep down she really wants to use watercolors or sketch or embroider and live a less stressful life. I see how she will sit here and do those things when she visits. I bet she has dozens of started embroidery kits. Stuff is a replacement for an empty nest. Shopping is definitely a problem too. She was so proud that she was staying out of the department stores, but now she goes to the Goodwill to shop! This is hard to deal with as Brian’s dad hasn’t really gotten rid of too many things of Bri’s mom’s and she’s been gone over 11 yrs now.