Category Archives: Rambling stuff

Jul31

Strasberg, PA 7-30-08

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Strasberg, PA 7-30-08, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

Sean and I went on a daytrip up to Lancaster yesterday and did some power shopping at the outlets and got many good buys. On the way home, we got off the beaten path of Route 30 and went down Rt. 741 which runs through the quaint town of Strasberg. It was getting dark, but we parked in this gravel lot of a Lutheran Church and walked around a bit. Sean got some ice cream too. It’s known for the railroad station there, and we’ve done that, many years ago. I like doing some things on a whim.

The haul: A pretty tank with green background and blue flowers that look like a photograph; a sleeveless navy blue dress with white butterflies (like a potato print kind) and cute teardrop cubic zirconia earrings-Liz Claiborne outlet. Did I mention we had 20% off coupons for this one outlet center? I bought the dress to wear in our portrait for the church directory, so you’ll see it when I show the photo-probably Sept-Oct.

I finally got a microplane grater-used the 20% off at Le Gourmet Chef.

The Gap-really cute t-shirts-red with a flock of birds and green with flowers, plus a peach t. Used a coupon! Sean got some nice shorts there-coupon.

A place called Steve & Barry’s opened up-it is partly owned by actress Sarah Jessica Parker. Everything in the store is $8.98-even blue jeans! They must have a 100 or more t-shirt styles. I got Brian a Ford one and navy blue shorts plus some brown dress pants for me (I need to lose a few for these to feel comfy). The quality of the clothes was on the most part good-reminded me of The Gap.

Borders books-two paper crafts books and a gift for mom.

Tuesday Morning-they expanded their craft area-yeah-so I got this set of rubber stamps-little crowns, wings, flourishes for $2.50. The neat thing is they are magnetic and stick to their container. I need to see if I can get any more of them at the local TM for resale and gifts. Also got this big box of decoupage stuff-you are suppose to decorate the box-but bought it for all the papers included.

We ate at a new Olive Garden. Some older lady pushed by me to get ahead of me to get on the waiting list. She probably didn’t ask for first available, so we got seated before her and her husband, near the bar, but that was fine. Before we got called, she had the nerve to pull out her nail clippers and start clipping her nails (we were outside, thank goodness, but I saw the pieces flying). Ugh!

I am by no means skinny, never was, but there were so many heavy people, mostly women going into the restaurant. We sat where we could watch and I swear, every third one was big-like over 225! I mention this as it was a wake up call for me too. I am scared for how big so many Americans are getting. I try to serve more turkey over red meat, but we love our pizza too (only once a week). I do pasta, but I guess I should do more whole wheat pasta. Since Sean’s been home, he actually lost weight and gained muscle (he works out), so that goes to show what he is eating isn’t all that bad. I tend to snack at night. I’m not super hungry during the day and about 9:30-10 pm I have to eat something or I won’t be able to sleep. I had rice cakes the other night. It think I’m one of those people that needs to eat every 3-4 hours. My metabolism is terrible. You’ve got to try as hard as you can-but I think to get moving is a big thing. I have a few books that didn’t sell for me on eBay-Curves and the Biggest Loser-so I guess they are mine and I’ll be reading them. : )

Oh! Wish me luck-Sean took my van for my brother to look at today. Since Sean works in my hometown and my brother lives there, it worked out better for me. I hope the air doesn’t have a leak in it.

Jul12

Photo Hunt-Support

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PSHunt
Grab the Scavenger Hunt code.Photo Theme. Join the blogroll. Visit participants.

Teeny toad, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

There are a few obvious things that ladies wear, but I won’t get into that for the ‘support‘ theme.

We support wildlife-lots of critters! We see them everyday, from the chunky groundhog munching our sour apples to the delicate butterfly landing on the same named bush.

Barbara is right, this little toad was so cute and I enjoyed taking this photo. I hope he found a nice leaf to sleep under after Bri dropped him in the grass.

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By the way, got eye drops to put in 4 times a day called Zylet-some kind of antibiotic. The assistant gave me a sample bottle and I have a prescription. My eye is much clearer today.

Something made me immune to mosquito bites last night. I count 7 of them on one leg and I wasn’t even outside that long to water things! Better use Off next time.

The guys went to Atlantic City with Bri’s dad. They have to go all the over to his house (45 min) and then all the way to get the bus-(about 20 min). Sit on the bus for 2.5 hours or so and leave about 5-6 hours later. Too much traveling for me. Sean seems to like to do this at least once a year. Bri appears not to have left me his car keys and his car has air! My mom said she’s coming out here-no sign of her yet and it’s almost 1 pm. It’s too hot to do anything outside today.

Jul7

Grass between the cracks

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The above is a joke to me. I was indeed leaning over pulling grass out of our brick sidewalk out front. We had just had a torrential downpour which loosened it a bit, so I got quite a bit pulled. Bri had to comment about using weedkiller instead of doing it the old-fashioned way. I do it both ways, bud. Anyway, I was thinking while I was doing this, ‘are you going to blog about it’? ; )

I had to go to the grocery store later in the day. It was so humid, you could cut the air with a knife, plus we had a few downpours. I hate humidity, the plants outside love it. They all look like they spent a week in a greenhouse, they were so perky.

I decided to place my two water plants in the deep part of my little pond. I think that them being in the waterfall part was really making the water green. They had some major roots and were meshing together.

Sean is doing well with his internship. He’s been working on a map of the Delco river systems (I think this is what he told me). It’s neat he’s working out of my hometown too.

My kitty has been a rascal-you’ll have to check his blog over in my blogroll called Cosmo Capers.

Speaking of blogs, I decided to switch the blogroll up a bit-deleted some, added some. I have such a long list of bookmarks that I need to do this. Also deleted about 1,600 emails (I kid you not) from three email accounts, two I rarely look at. It was all junk mail!

Jul1

I saw a camel today…

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I really did see a camel! I was coming home from CVS and turned on the east end of my road. This lovely farm always has a few donkeys, horses and even alpacas grazing in their fenced area, but I never, ever thought I’d see a two humped camel amongst them! There was no one behind me, so I did a slow cruise to check him out. Someday I’ll take my camera and get some shots if he’s still around. I’m not too crazy about being by myself on our road and getting out of the car since it’s a bit in the sticks.
I had felt rather silly just about 20 minutes before when I parked the wrong way in 15 minute parking in the next town. The meter guy was standing there, just a young fellow and was looking at me with a bit of a smirk on his face. I had parked ‘that way’ every time I parked there since the wintertime. Here I had to turn around and ‘face the flow’, it’s a small side street, but you have to follow the rules.
My van was making a loud chirping noise off and on when I was out and it appeared to be coming from the right side-like it’s done in the past. Brian sprayed the belt that seems to be troublesome and he took it for a spin tonight and said he didn’t hear anything. We want to take it to Penn State in August, so I hope we can finally get it ‘squeakless’. : )
I decided to order Sean’s favorite pizza from the new place-the taco one. It’s really good! It actually tastes more like an appetizer than a pizza.
My brothers wanted to talk to mom tonight and she was up at #3’s house for 3 hours. They want to continue to clean out her house and fix it up. That’s what it was all about. Interesting. And thanks for including me and our older brother. I’m my mom’s main shoulder and I try to make her happy.
I’m not that crazy about July and August. My gardens tend to start to bug me in more than one way-the real bugs and the weeds. We’ve been getting ‘yelled at’ by a catbird (and it’s mate) for the last 4 or so days. They must have babies nearby. It’s really annoying and makes going out very unpleasant, even for Cosmo the cat. I’ve been staying holed up more in the house and making some paper crafts, that I will share here.

Jun19

Summer blues

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I use to be a perfectionist. Well, some characteristics of that pop up every now and then, but I feel that I’m the only one who does things around the house to make it look nice. Once in a while in a blue moon, Bri or Sean will vacuum or empty out the dishwasher. I started to clean the family room this morning and here I am on the computer-lost interest. I try to do what I tell my mom, clean something for 15-30 minutes a day. I need to do the weedwhacking outside again. Sean missed some spots a few weeks ago. My back was complaining about lifting heavy grocery bags around 5 am this morning. I’d like to know what you all do to balance out your day? Don’t tell me you have a housekeeper. : ) I should do a schedule, but my day by day activities depend on how I feel.

I called the doctor’s office to see if they think Brian needs to have his cholesterol rechecked-it was 252 in February and he’s ignoring that, plus all his blood work was elevated. Mine was 150, but my triglycerides were elevated. I’m sure they will say yes. What happened to Tim Russert scared me about us. I know he was being treated for coronary artery disease and diabetes. I feel Bri should probably take medication for his cholesterol. He complains about a pain in the side of his head next to his eye (either side). Waiting on the office to call is stressing me out a bit.

Well, I hope Sean makes the right decision. He got his procrastination skills from us, but mainly from his dad.

Better hit the showers, maybe that will soothe my back and get me in the mood to conquer sometime!

~UPDATE~

Sean accepted the internship, but isn’t quitting the school job until all is settled. The lady who did the interview isn’t the friendliest type around. He said he’d have to see if PSU would accept them for credit and she said she couldn’t wait to see what they said. Well why would he even do it in the first place? I don’t think he’ll be working with her.

I compromised and got the hoe and rake out instead of the weed whacker. After dinner, Bri and I did a little more raking. We had to drop Bri’s car off at the station for inspection before dinner and grabbed a pizza from across the street from the place.

As for cleaning-mainly dusted a few things that were really dusty that were bothering me. Still moving stuff from one place to another-it was too nice out plus I have a red corner of my eye (going on 2 weeks) and I don’t want to rub it. I think I rubbed the heck out of it and did something.

Jun16

A reason to clean

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Oh grrrrrrr…. something told me to check inside the dust covered camera case to see if my older camera, the Powershot was there, it wasn’t. And I’ve been looking to no avail-it’s missing! Dang it. I remember wanting to use the video feature it has, that’s it, the last time I saw it! I was trying to make a video of how the solar lights around the pond act funny when they have a few cloudy days-they flash on and off at night like fairies are playing tag. Now, what did I do with it?

Time to clean anyway. I don’t remember seeing so much dust in the house for a long time-but I remembered that Bri had knocked down a wall in the basement’s bathroom so I could get to the shelves behind it months ago-dry wall dust is the pits! Never let people build walls or closets without your approval. He had our neighbor helping him and instead of just putting a spring rod for a curtain, they built a wall in front of roughly 12 feet of shelves (two-6 feet areas). I put up with that for at least 18 years maybe and I was sick of moving boxes to get to boxes. That’s another job I have to finish, cleaning and moving boxes around. Also, when we were converting the garage into our most used room, they added a closet on one of the long walls. I wanted it in a corner. I have really no options for moving the sofa and chair around. It was the same neighbor who came up with that bright idea.

So I’ll say a prayer to St. Anthony and hope my little camera reappears!

Sean is going for an interview with the school district for landscaping/maintenance in about an hour.

Thoughts and prayers to the people of Iowa and the Midwest who are trying to survive flood damage.

~Update~

Found my camera laying on the backseat of the van under a neck pillow. It was in there in all that heat, so hope it’s ok. I remember I took it to my Mom’s for Mother’s Day and never took any photos, so it’s been in the van for over a month.  I had started to clean and then my usual beginning of the week wonky tummy starts acting up! I guess I’ll do a bit more.

Sean is going to do maintenance at his old elementary school! He has to start pretty early, but it will help toward his rent next year.

May2

Friday!

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I can’t believe this week has gone by somewhat quickly. I had fun with the childhood toy post yesterday! My mom didn’t take a ton of photos of us as there were four of us. There’s more of my older brother because my maternal grandfather was still alive and he enjoyed photography. He had a ‘Brownie’ (or other make) camera and I remember getting to use it as a kid. It was the kind you lined up the shot through looking at a piece of glass in the top, similar to how some digital cameras work now.

Similar to the above and it looked like this (thanks to this blog):

The digital I mainly use, the Canon Rebel doesn’t work that way. I have to look through the viewfinder like an ‘old fashioned’ hand held camera.

Not much new. I put down some mulch in a few gardens on Wednesday, didn’t have enough. I figure I will need 8 bags for where I want to put it. I weeded out the herb garden, whew that was bad! The Creeping Charlie weed is such a pain. All that bending over hasn’t helped my problem I mentioned at the beginning of the week, but I really think I have a pulled muscle pressing on my bladder.

Dragged in many bags of groceries yesterday. Sean will be home on Wednesday and he’ll hungry! ; ) He is still trying to find an internship.

I’m trying to figure out if I want to go to my mom’s. She’s still in the middle of going through things. I could help her with that, but I do miss going shopping with her! She’s been in a few thrift shops lately though. She confessed to me. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

Happy 23rd to my nephew David tomorrow!

Have a great weekend!

Oct5

Some shares

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Finally! The ’57 Thunderbird for Elijah at Love Quilts is finished. I think it looks cool. The variegated floss for the border and flames was one ‘x’ at a time.

ElijahLQ

And here is where I hung up my framed pieces.

The lighthouse is in the living room over a watercolor of the same lighthouse in Cape May!
Cape May2

Doesn’t this photo look like my cross stitched piece?

Cape May Photo

Walk in the Woods is hanging over the entertainment center on the only gold wall in the family room. I look at it every time I watch tv or am stitching. Great inspiration!
WalkWoods
I have another ‘share’ but you can’t see it until I send it to the recipient.
Today I was decorating for fall and Halloween in the middle of an allergy attack. I am not careful when I vacuum (like behind the entertainment center) and am down in the basement digging for boxes. I do wear a dust mask when it’s a planned session-lol But it wasn’t funny today. Took a few doses of allergy nasal spray. I am far from finished. Maybe tomorrow!