As you know I am sorting out my endless collection of books of all kinds. I ran across a few little paperbacks purchased in Bird-in-Hand, PA and published under the name ‘Popular Home Remedies and Superstitions of the Pennsylvania Germans’-The Aurand Press of Lancaster, PA. I’ll share some with you now.
Bad luck-you should never sew anything while a person is wearing it.
Don’t kill a spider (opps, I’ve done that a few times lately).
Always put your right foot down first when you first get up.
Ear-when your left ear burns, you know that someone is speaking evil of you; if right they speak good-you know it.
Nose-if your nose itches, you will be kissed; or you may get a letter.
And my favorite of these few pages-
Wedding-they say it is a sign of a wedding when a dog slides on his rump-but the sign might come from another cause, too.
And this leads up to the finale of ‘The Amish in the City’. I kinda had a feeling that since the 5 Amish kids were on a tv show and had experiences even us non-Amish never will have, that the majority of them would say they weren’t going back to the Amish right away, but were staying in smaller towns. Jonah passed his GED test with flying colors. I love that Mose made them all remembrances of their time together in the form of wooden toys. He is really clever with wood. He made a mini basketball net and flipper and other cool things.
I was switching back and forth to ‘The Amazing Race’s finale. It looked like Colin and Christie were going to nab it and then Chip and Kim got on a different flight than the other two teams and won. Chip was a really cool guy and his wife was so laid back. She reminded me of a lady who lived around the corner from us growing up.I was surprised to see the ‘bowling moms’ come in 4th place. This show just won an Emmy the other night.
I just finished up a Love Quilt square. It was a monster of a square, and I really didn’t finish the bushy ‘ruff’ of the collie. It looks fine though. No more doggie portraits. Alas, I have another doggie I am doing for next March. It’s for a friend’s granddaughter who has CF. Love Vicki, so I had to do this for Ashley Ann.

Yep, John Travolta was crying his eyes out on Oprah yesterday. He is coming out with a movie on firefighters and was plugging his movie- Ladder 49. Then Oprah had him fly these two firefighters in (John is a pilot too) to her show as they saved a fellow firefighter’s life. The firefighter who was saved came out to give his buddies medals of honor and thanked them for ‘giving him a second chance at life so he could watch his kids grow up’. That turned on the waterworks in the studio. Then Oprah had Mattie Stepanek’s mom on. Mattie passed away in June at the age of 14. He was this mom’s 4th child with a rare form of muscular dystrophy. Oprah and Prez Jimmy Carter were crazy about Mattie and took him under their wings. He definitely had an old soul and wrote wonderful little books filled with his thoughts and poetry. By that time not only was John crying, but Joaquin Phoenix and the woman in the movie were moved. Mattie’s mom is in a wheelchair herself. Mattie loved the whole firefighting business and had about 1K firefighters at his funeral and his little casket was carried on the back of a firetruck. Crap, I’m gonna start crying again.

The My Hero Project-Mattie Stepanek
Thanks to Jim Hawkins for this photo.

Facing the Future

Every journey begins
With but a small step.
And every day is a chance
For a new, small step
In the right direction.
Just follow your Heartsong.

by Mattie Stepanek
© Hyperion. All Rights Reserved.

My mom was out yesterday in her newer car-it’s a ’91 Sable not a ’92. It doesn’t look its age and is so different than the ’87 Escort. I was really tired yesterday from cleaning up and shelving books, so Sean took mom to the car wash for a wax, to the hairdresser, to ‘lots of junk’ Big Lots and to the food store. That’s why I could see Oprah. They brought home a rotisserie chicken and salads for dinner. The potato salad was gross-the mayo looked like it was separating and the potatoes were grainy. Sean ate a lot of it and I spit it out. He was ok-must have a stomach of steel.
My friend called from Montana to see if we had gotten flooded out. I said it was the Pittsburgh area and up north where the Delaware River is that got hit the hardest. We live near the Brandywine, but aren’t effected that often. There was a flood in Kennett last year because someone up north opened the flood gate all the way instead of 20%. That flooded out many places. I talked to Pam for about 1.5 hours. This always happens when I call a friend, we talk forever. Thank goodness for MCI’s, The Neighborhood.
Mom said my sofa isn’t as red as it looks in the photo I sent through email. Mom bought me this gorgeous silky throw with different Asias fabrics in squares-like a quilt. Very exotic.
I may go to the food store, but I definitely need to get more paint. I have a few walls to finish. I am pleased with the way it looks in here.
I have to finish up my Love Quilts collie square and mail it by Friday. I downsized the dog’s ruff. It looks alright though. I used an entire skein of white floss!

I found a neat book of prints that I have and loved the apple one. The mushroom print pays homage to the mushroomland I live in. 

A ribbon board I got up at my hometown’s Super Sunday.The Polaroid is of Brian and Me on a date in Wildwood, NJ-one of those photo booths. Upper left is a postcard from my friend Charlotte when she was home in Austria (she lives in Ireland now). The black and white is of my son Sean fooling for the camera for a photography assignment for school. The group of children is of my niece Tori (pink dress) and her brother Kenny (on the end) waiting for the bus on the first day of school a few weeks ago. 

Dianne’s library in the corner of our family room. I thought the globe looked nice there. 

1. My computer chair is the most used piece of furniture in my house.
2. The one electronic ‘gadget’ that I use most often is my TV remote control .
3. My favorite appliance, and the one I absolutely cannot live without is the microwave oven.
4. One thing that I thought I just HAD to have at one time, and I now barely ever use, is my smoothie maker.
5. I find it easiest to keep in touch with family and friends via email or the phone.
6. I own more cd’s (or other music media) than I do family photos.
7. All my important addresses are stored in/on my file box.
8. If I had to live without TWO keys on my keyboard, I would choose x and z.
9. I probably own about 15 pieces of software that I haven’t used in years.
10. There are a few food items that I try NEVER to run out of, and those would be bananas and bread.

Hey…added a few interesting blogs to my list. Will keep checking them to see if ‘they are worthy’ to read. Mindy is my pal and got me into blogging, so she stays for good. I snagged some of the others from her that are interesting and comical-Fully Caffienated and Annette’s Acre among the others who like to cross stitch. Don’t strike me down because I don’t have ALL cross stitch blogs. I’ll cheer you on with your stitching, but I don’t want to see every step of it either. I’ll get jealous as I am such a slow stitcher.
Heck, I even added cutie Zack Braff’s blog too (He’s Dr. Dorian on the tv show Scrubs). Hey Zach, can’t wait to hear your Emmy chatter. He’s pretty funny.

My organizational type personality is breathing a bit of a sigh of relief. With the sofa in place and now the bookcase, I can get ‘down to brass tacks’ and get things in order again. I already loaded up the second bookcase-can we say ‘real library’! Geez-well, if you collected books for 30 yrs like I have (and the majority being added in the last 10 yrs I believe), you’d have your own library too. I do need to go through them and downsize. The first being the books on dried flowers-I have four of them and I don’t even like dried flowers in general. I do like to dry some rosebuds when I get them as gifts or whatever, but I don’t need 4 books to tell me how to do it. I’ll have to say my largest ‘subcategories’ are garden books and Christmas books. These are the ones in this room. I own about 30 or more cross stitch hardbacks. They need a good going through too.

I went down to ‘Big Lots’. Sometimes it’s just ‘lots of junk’ but I got this big old square basket to hold my paperbacks and hardbacks-another collection I have to downsize. They had it reduced and the jerks who work there were probably rubbing their hands together when I left because they knew they sold me a defective item. I didn’t find out until I got home that the bottom was broken on one side. I ingeniously wired it back together (thank my grandmom for teaching me these skills) and it looks fine and is doing its job. Other than that I got some junk food for my son, birthday cards for him and my mom and some birthday stuff for my mom. I can’t top locating her a newer car, but I think she’ll like what I have for her.

And how much do I love this red sofa! I was telling my friends that I lived with a red sofa for 2 years. I had a Surefit slipcover for my old sofa. It’s so comfy and really has too many pillows. I love to cuddle up and do my cross stitch and watch tv on it.

I do the ‘next blog’ thing at the top of the page a lot these days. I found this on the blog of a 19 yr gal named Surabhi from Ill. I really thought it was a nice thing to publish. I am sure she won’t mind if I share it too as she snagged it from a friend…
The majority of us lead quiet, unheralded lives as we pass through this world. There will most likely be no ticker-tape paradise for us, no monuments created in our honor. But that does not lessen our possible impact, for there are scores of people waiting for someone just like us to come along; people who will appreciate our compassion, our unique talents. Someone who will live a happier life merely because we took the time to share what we had to give. Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have a potential to turn a life around. It’s overwhelming to consider the continuous opportunities there are to make our love felt.” -Leo Buscaglia
Think about it.

Do you love my ruby red microfiber sofa? It was 3 hours late getting here as the weather was so bad earlier in the day. I have some cleaning (messy in photo) and decorating to do. Please admire the new paint behind me. And yes, my eyes are closed.