I think that is my brother Dave’s expression. : )
What I am referring to is finding the homepage of an wonderful family that I ran across last night. I am a friend of one of the daughters (I hope I still am). We went to community college together, she was a bridesmaid in my wedding and we pretty much kept in touch until about 2001. Then she stopped sending her Christmas newsletters. From googling her name I found out she started a tutoring business (like a Sylvan Learning Center) and has three children that keep her busy. I’d love to know how she is doing. I know she located in the midwest and all, but I do miss hearing from her. I even ran across a photo of her oldest daughter on her high school website. I can’t believe that is the little baby I held so long ago on my friend’s visit with her mom. I wonder if she still has the pillow I cross stitched for her? (Mrs. P. the matriarch-looks great!)
Anyway, I got to catch up with this family of 11 children (that is amazing in itself) and saw photos and remembered names. Read with tears in my eyes that they lost one of the sisters. Smiled at the baby photos. The youngest sister really contributes to this site and she is an amazing lady. If anyone wants to say ‘hi’ (they have my blog address), please do.

I watch the rebroadcasts of The Daily Show and The Stephen Colbert Show in the morning. Both are satirical views of politics and current events. The Daily Show had a story today about bird hunting. Though nothing new (according to Brian), I found it quite appalling as an animal lover. People go and order say 4 pheasants at $20 each. They can get a bird dog too. They take the birds out of a shed (where they are raised or kept) and the worker ‘plants’ them in the brush. The dog then sniffs them out (this was the only funny part) and the bird gets scared and starts to fly away and then the hunter takes aim and most of the time kills it. The thrill to them is killing a frightened planted bird? I hate hunting of all kinds. I have to put up with a trigger happy neighbor who killed a groundhog in my yard one time without me knowing he was in the yard or that he was going to fire his weapon. That scared the beejeebers out of me.

I meant to write about the Cone-man’s trip to Finland days ago! This was his best show in ages. The last good ones were when he was in Canada a few years ago. So Conan, your forte is going out amongst ‘your’ people and doing things. We need to see your long legs-lol. I am sure this will be in reruns a few times. The whole Finland thing happened when Conan thought he resembled the lady president Targa (close I think)-he does in a way with his pale skin and red hair. He got to meet her too.
Seeing him knocking on doors of apartments to meet fans and no one answering was pretty funny. Seeing him on a dog sled-ha!
I’d love to invite him to ‘Mushroomland’ here in Penna. I can see him harvesting the mushrooms in his white hair net! We could race him in our Tauruses! (He says he still has a ’92 Taurus-we have a ’98 and ’00). I’d love it.
Carl Reiner in on Leno right now. He is one of my favorite guys in his age group (he’s about to turn 84). He’s always been funny, even when he had hair back on the Dick Van Dyke Show.

The contractor came this afternoon. I just signed away a great deal of moola-but it will be so worth it! I have a lot of emotions flowing through me-excitement, apprehension, anxiousness, etc.! Saturday we will go back to the Home Depot and order and pay for the cabinets. All in all, 2 months isn’t that long to wait (we started this in the middle of January). A lot of things have to be in sync-like having the appliances delivered at the right time so the workers can have the old ones disconnected so the delivery guys can haul away the old stuff. And Bill (the guy) said if we ever resell the house we will get something like 104% back in our investment. He said to try and sell a house with outdated electrical work in the kitchen is a no-no. We’ve had the electric reworked a few times-in the family room and for the central air.
Guess what caught my eye on the tv-an inflatable hot tub! This commercial had a guy sitting in one and the secretary came along and handed him papers to go over. Sean looked up inflatable ones on the web and they are like $800-1k! Ouch! But if I had one last night, I bet that knot or whatever in my back would have worked itself out in no time.
My back was so much better today (not my stomach though). I sat again with the heating pad on it when I got up this morning. It didn’t keep me awake last night, thank goodness. I think I pulled something by unscrewing and emptying about 15 bottles of old beverages-really! Think about how you are positioned over the sink when you would do this.
My van is back from inspection and my purse is over $200 lighter. It needed a new turn signal switch. My brother works at the sister station and the guy said he was giving me a 10% discount-yeah on the part-I got $7 off. Big deal.
Stitchingwise-I had to put Independence Hall down for a few days. It’s more than half finished. I picked up Cape May. That blue is hard to work on too. Since I am starting at the top of a rectangle, I flipped the piece and am stitching upsidedown. Us lefties can do that. : )

I am always getting various aches and pains. I know in part this is from having Lyme Disease as it never fully goes away. I know I’m not a kid anymore. I don’t know what I did (well I do know-bending, moving furniture, pulling a too heavy trash out of the can, sitting in the adirondack chair, tensing while getting my teeth cleaned by Carla the carver-you get the picture). After the dentist, I went to the food store. I had lifted heavy drinks and had to pick up a display of cough drop packets I knocked down). So I’m standing there and holy you know what-feels like a drill is hitting my left shoulder blade. I think I was making a few faces as the lady behind me was looking at me oddly. I got all the groceries in the van (it was an ebbing pain) and got home and promptly had Sean unload all the bags. He also had to rub the Icy hot on me. I got a Tylenol and a water and sat down and it felt better. When I had to get dinner set up (I had precooked fried chicken on sale) I had one more episode of stabbing pain when I turned a certain way. I did eat, but Sean suggested the heating pad. I utilized that all evening and I do feel better.
Tv was good-I watched the first hour of American Idol with Sean, then a new show called Sons and Daughters (from the producer of Saturday Night Live and some of it is improvised) and The Amazing Race. I am working diligently on a charity square-Independence Hall. Something didn’t look quite right. The bricks are brown in the chart! So I am backstitching the brown with some rust to make it look like the real building which I’ve been in a few times. It’s doing the trick, but it’s time consuming.
Tomorrow the contractor guy wants to look at the kitchen again. It looks like crap right now. I didn’t feel like doing anything tonight. Brian got me a few more crates, but at 8 pm, I was done for the evening. The guys dropped off the van for me at the station for inspection. No way could I drive again.
Well, I hope I have a good night. Please, oh please. ; )

It was in the 70s today! I did get to take the cat out on his harness, but alas I am still moving stuff around in the kitchen as I need more boxes. I am throwing more things away too. I moved a tall shelved unit into the dining room area that held cat food, first aid, beverages, booze, etc. I threw away about 15 drinks that were expired. This was my main complaint about the storage in the kitchen-things got buried on shelves and we just forgot about them. Brian needs to look at the booze tomorrow. I set him up with a lot of recycling tonight!

My mom went to the eye doctor for the first time today since last June. The pressure was up in both eyes and the doctor recommended cataract surgery for both eyes. She’ll have that in June and be in and out of the hospital in 6 hours. Mom has trouble driving at night.
My grandmom seemed to follow the same course when I was a teenager. She even had the lens removed in one eye but she’d lose the contact all the time. I am sure all that is vastly improved.

And in closing-thanks for all your comments. I appreciate them all and keep them coming!

Yellows

For Zoey!

Winter landscape

Part of a fairy garden

Actually we couldn’t order the cabinets until we sign the agreement with the contractor. I’ll give him a call tomorrow to set that up. I did order all my ‘bisque’ colored appliances-I want them to ‘sort of’ blend in with the cabinets. They are all Maytag except for the microwave which is a GE. I didn’t get the 2k frig (it was really much bigger than we needed), but we got a side by side with the ice and water dispenser on the door for half the price. I got the freestanding double oven with the smooth cooking surface. We are also getting the floor measured for Dupont laminate that looks like really hardwood and guaranteed for 30 yrs! We bought lighting too (got to bring that home). We got a fairly modern looking overhead fixture that can be adjusted to your liking that has 5 lights on it. This will replace a lighted ceiling fan. I got some round under the counter task lighting for two areas and a light for over the sink with a cobalt blue glass shade.


It will be a tan granite. We purchased the faucet too. The prettiest thing we are getting is the granite counter top-blue with some black and mica like speckles. It’s darker than what I thought I’d originally get, but I saw this and it’s gorgeous. We are taking advantage of the credit there and won’t have to pay for the appliances for a year. Hopefully all this will be in place by the end of April.

No more double sinks that eat up counter space!!!

I just ordered this on the internet and saved almost $50! (shipping was $50) Features
Swanstone authentic solid surface. Color and texture run all the way through and cannot wear away.
Drop-in or Undermount installation.
Hot pots & boiling water cause no harm.
Large single bowl easily accomodates your largest cooking pots and baking sheets.
1-Hole faucet drilling.
Highest resistance of impact from heavy objects.

Back to cleaning and sorting. I ran out of boxes for my everyday dishes and food from the cabinets.
This is a terribly busy week ahead. I have to get my van inspected and go to the dentist.

A house for fish

Me at the Reading Terminal at the same place where Rachael Ray ate (Homestyle Diner, I think) when she taped her show $40 a Day here. See the poster behind me. I had an opened face hot turkey sandwich with mashed potatoes.

A dragon in the garden!

Me in at the fairy garden display

A swirly glazing ball

We got to see a wonderful display of paintings by Timothy Martin. His paintings are part fantasy and mostly nature. Like the tiger lily settee with the tiger lounging on it. Check out his site. He was actually there painting in the middle of the flower show.

Sheep’s gate-is this not gorgeous? It’s definitely prettier in person.