Category Archives: PA.

May31

Scored two geocaches!

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I had to get Brian away from the sink for one day. He needed some other pipework, but he is having trouble with the plumbing part. I wanted to go to a park where Brian use to take Sean fishing many moons ago. It’s so pretty there! We walked around a pond, went down to a lower level and through the woods, past runners and a couple smooching. : )  The ‘key’ to finding these seems to be reading over past logs. When the clue said look for a ‘beech’, well I knew I’d have to go to the one identified by the marker about 10 feet or so off the trail. There were old tree limbs leaning against the tree-very unnatural! I moved them and lo and behold, I found cache #3!

I think I’m getting the hang of finding the larger caches, though the second one was in a sandwich sized box, so the micros have to be easier to find soon…I hope!  This one hardly had anything in it and the log book was soggy! I had won some geocaching buttons from eBay and left one. It was suppose to be a music CD share, but there were none in there. This ones been around for 10.5 yrs!

We were very close to another cache in a cemetery. We pulled in and didn’t I get out to a fairly new grave next to me-dirt piled high and just a paper name tagged at the end. Luckily, you aren’t allowed to put caches right in the graved area, so we walked to the back of the cemetery where the hint said to go. There was a pile of old gravemarkers in one area and vault covers in another. We were thinking the spouse passed and they got a larger marker-maybe, right? So the clue was it was under a tree and a white stone. I sent Bri in to look….and he looked. I decided to come in the weeds and right in between some old markers was the next cache! Yay!

I was glad to get out of there. I saw later there was a micro in there-some other time, but I don’t think in the same area where we were.

We walked at least 2 miles at a the park There’s another one in there and we’ll go another day-it’s only 3 miles away. I still need to find the one in my other walking park. So glad we went as I like ponds, etc. and this is a nice place to walk. BTW, I used both my phone’s GPS and the Magellan-still getting the hang of the later one.

We later went out to dinner with Sean to Friendly’s. A lady next to use gave use a $5 off coupon! We went to Kirkland’s, like a Pier One kind of store, and I got a pretty ‘collage’ picture for the bathroom ($10-marked down from $25) and some jeweled shower curtain holders for $5. I got a shower curtain yesterday. I have a striped plastic one and got a solid Wedgewood blue. The jewels are green like the sink. I figure my accent colors will be sea glass green, blue and white.

We stopped off at Whole Food Market that just opened in April. It was nice, though pricey. I prefer Trader Joe’s and Fresh Market more. There was a ‘micro’ cache right near the store, but though we were in the right spot, it was dusky and the security guy decided to park near there. I should have read the log better as a guy said exactly what it was and where. At least we know now. ; )

 

May26

Photo Hunt-Creative

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Close-up of wavy videos, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

I think what I love almost as much as seeing the flowers and plants in early March at the Philadelphia Flower Show (especially if it’s been a cold winter) is the ‘creative’ aspect of the show. You’ve got to make me go ‘oh’ and ‘ah’ when I see it to be spectacular. The theme of the show this year was Hawaii (and I was thrilled my brother invited my son and I to go, but alas we aren’t speaking again…). This was an exhibit near the entrance called ‘The Orchid Wave’. There were flowers of course, but the blue part was a video of sea turtles and fish swimming over your head. I will see if someone made a video of this.

Pretty darn spectacular to me.

May18

Photo Hunt-Magical

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Long shot of rose garden, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

Brian, Sean and me took my mom back to the Scott Arboretum on the campus of Swarthmore College (Penna). to see their spectacular and magical Bond rose garden.
From a website-
Yet by far the crowning jewel in this already impressive collection is the shockingly gorgeous Dean Bond Rose Garden. Housing 650 roses of more than 200 types, it was established in memorial of Elizabeth Powell Bond, the Dean of Women at Swarthmore. It’s now tradition for graduating seniors of the college to pin a rose on their gown for commencement.
We’re going back in a few weeks to see them in further bloom!

Here’s an Artist Trading card I made and had to keep, but I did make a similar one to send my swap partner. My Grandmom Ruth use to call babies ‘baby birds’ so this reminds me of her.

The one I sent my partner:

May17

Mom and Me at the arboretum

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Mom and Me at the arboretum, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

The fellas and I took my mom back to the Scott Arboretum on the beautiful campus of Swarthmore College. It was really a sight to seen as it was breathtakingly beautiful. The roses smelled delightful too. I have some of my own roses, but I find them difficult to take care of and grow. I tend not to trim them at the right time. Then they get black spot, etc.
As you can see it was a sunny day in the middle 70s, though not humid at all. I will add more photos soon.
The students all get a rose pinned to them when they graduate.

~By the way, I had a sore elbow, so I had a band on it and forgot to take it off at the arboretum.

May14

May Blooms and Victorian Flower Swap

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This is the front little walking path under my very tall, messy, shedding and kind of half ugly evergreen tree.  I am wishing it wasn’t there anymore to tell you the truth as it was allowed to get too big. I guess I’ll have to live with  it for a while.

I still get some lovely irises coming up, but I think many aren’t blooming as they need to be separated. I’ve done it before and it’s not an easy task. I know there’s about 15 varieties hiding in that garden.

Brian dug up another round garden, which I may have mentioned and recycled some old plastic fencing. He’s not sure how sturdy it will be, but hopefully it will do it’s job of keeping critters at bay.

I really like the Victorian cards I sent off. The hostess was inspired by old seed packs, and I found some cute images on a Flickr group. I hope the people I sent these to aren’t expecting seed packets, because that wouldn’t be original.

Back to gardening… I have lots of seeds to put in soon. Of course we are expecting rain and I may be delayed. That will give me time to figure out what goes where. I want to try pumpkins and watermelon this year. I have plenty of room for them.

May10

Waiting on the weather…again

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It’s been a rather slow week here. We’ve been getting April showers in May. The most exciting thing I did was go food shopping…and go to the dentist….and go to TJ Maxx where I got a little retail therapy in. We finally got some health insurance which eases my mind somewhat. Of course that’s an added expensive.

When I went out to get in the car to get the chip in my front tooth fixed I found this fella sunning himself:

We’ve been seeing a few of these garter snakes in the yard this year. I’ve also seen a bunny, which I prefer to see. Brian took this for me.

Our snowball bush is mighty bushy this year:

This is way too big as are most of our trees and shrubs. Here’s a Mt. St. Helen’s azalea we planted in place of the hedge:

It’s quite striking, isn’t it?

We have so much to do inside and out. We haven’t had a chance to go to The Home Depot for the new vanity and toilet I’d like to get too. We tend to drag our heels on things like that. I think if I had new things I’d revamp the bathroom decor! I sure know how to add glass tiles from doing them in the kitchen.

I think we’ll get busy with the gardens again tomorrow and Saturday. There’s always switching clothes from winter to summer too. That’s an involved job too!

May5

Photo Hunt-Zap

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Almost two years ago, the three of us went to a Phillies game. It was about 92 degrees and we had to sit in the sun. Not a pleasant experience, but I had water and also my mist fan. So about an hour or so into the game, it started to get breezy and then the sky got dark. There was lightning and we are glad we didn’t get ‘ZAP’ped. It started to pour and we got drenched and had to run to the car and drive home that way. We came home to find water pouring in where the pump is-never happened before. We had to scramble to get rid of it and clogged up the sink in the bathroom down there-still that way.
Anyway…thought you’d like to see the video board at Citizen’s Bank Park.

May4

First flower buying trip of the year

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That maybe the only flower buying trip of the year! We had a few extra bucks from a winning scratch off ticket that Bri’s dad gave us ($40!), but spent lots more. I decided I’d better propagate the huge petunia plant I got with a mixture of pink lemonade and Picasso something petunias. I had Brian with me and he was loading up on green peppers and tomatoes plus the ones I got.
Anyway, we were there 1.5 hours and I am ready to get digging, though my left elbow is giving me a hard time (I have a stretchy thing on it in the photo).

That’s an example of the Pink Lemonade petunias near my head there! We filled up the Mariner.

We then went to a family restaurant close by near where Brian worked a few years back. I got at least 3 helpings of mashed potatoes and turkey in one! I brought half of it home.  Then we went to a little 5 and 10 style store and I got some fat quarters of fabric, a little flag and seeds.

The landscape is gorgeous in Lancaster as I have told you before. I didn’t bring my camera with me, but wish I did. We really saw a lot of Amish people and buggies yesterday!

It was a nice outing with my hubby.

Apr30

Some more flowery ATCs and things

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If you catch my blog and voted for me for my contest piece, thank you! I haven’t checked, but I think I’m in 4-5th place out of 18. I showed this piece in about 4 different places and I got about 21 votes. I said to Sean 20 would be nice and since one was my own-I got 20!

Anyway, Brian and I took a walk in the park. We tried to find the cache there that we couldn’t find about 2-3 weeks ago and now there are 2 feet weeds and poison ivy coming up. We couldn’t find it. I then saw there was a good size one near our township building and in under 10 minutes, we found it!

Right under the azalea bush there-lol

We drove near here and just couldn’t find where three were-we didn’t get out of the car for two. I am getting a little nervous about ticks now, so I’ll have to really start pinning my hair up and wearing lighter colors of clothing. I did take all that outfit off when I got home and brushed my hair well.

Here are some art pieces I made recently

My Groovy ATC

That’s me and I’m pretty sure I was hula hooping.

This was to have a Vintage theme. I made a copy of an inside cover of an old book of mine that’s about 100 years old for the background there. The oval is from an old book. The  ‘creating charm’ is from a store bag that had old advertising stuff on it.

I originally made this for the trade. Can you see the Viewfinder slide and the 8 ball? Then I added a sticky flower stencil I added glitter too. Too cool.