The Brandywine River at the Brandywine River Museum is about 10 minutes from here. It was also in this general area where ‘The Village’ was filmed a couple of years ago. So this is basically the landscape of the area where we live. Pretty isn’t it? Thanks to Corbis.com for this great aerial shot.
Technorati Tags:autumn,Brandywine Valley

I get a lot of great ideas from other bloggers. Abby introduced me to tribe.net, My wishlist, de.licio.us and flickr. Know Katie pointed me in the direction of Technorati tags. I have seen tags on Flickr. I thought I’d add them to my posts when I remember to do so. It’s fun to click on say ‘cross stitch’ and see what other bloggers who have tags are saying about cross stitch.
Technorati Tags: Technorati tags
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Not a really exciting weekend. Brian is hurting with his left knee. He cleaned up filling about 8 trash cans with Chestnut burrs (which he dumped down the hill). Then he cut the grass. Today he was limbing around but did go to the grocery store with me because he needed to walk around. And he likes his goodies too. Right now he is on a Perrier water and bagged popcorn kick. He did have a brace on his knee for a while and took some Advil.
I got to try out a purchase from eBay today. I bought this thing that is the ceramic equivilent to a beer can to cook chicken on. I made the mistake of cooking it from about 1-2:45 (Brian’s dad came over for a little visit, so I wanted to get the chicken in the oven). I then turned the oven down to 165 where it sat for a few hours wrapped in foil. Plus I had no beer and had to use Worchestershire sauce, water, etc. So I think the beer would have been good. The chicken was a little dry, but I would definitely try it again, maybe with a honey glaze as suggested. For dessert, I bought some caramel and chocolate chip dipped apples-heaven.
I spent the entire evening ripping out a boo-boo on a cross stitch piece I had put aside for a few months. I can’t stand when the edges of the design and border don’t match up and this would have happened if I hadn’t of ripped it out. I have wanted to stitch ‘A Walk in the Woods’ for ages.
The guys are rejoicing over the Eagles football team winning over Kansas City. It was definitely a comeback kind of game. I am glad the two of them like to watch football together. I feel a little left out sometimes.
chicken recipes,
Philadelphia Eagles

What an interesting premise for a show! It’s on right now. I just found it last week as I wasn’t sure what time it was on. It’s either miss the noon news to watch it or catch it later on TLC at 6. I can’t seem to catch it on TLC.
Anyway, they just had a little black lady come out and said ‘hello, I’m Martha Stewart’. So cute, right?
I guess prison may have humbled our Martha. She seems more open and not as reserved. I hope that the second Cybil Shephard tv movie about her life behind bars won’t burst my bubble. She was asked if she had scrubbed toilets, and she said she did. They showed a scene from the movie where she wanted her fellow inmates to make origami cranes as Christmas decorations (guess they can’t use scissors). I’d watch the movie just to see that!
It was funny to see Sean Combs (P Diddy or Diddy or whatever) on with her. He taught her how to rap and she taught him how to wrap as in gift wrapping. One of the editors from ‘Celebrity Baby Blog’ caught the taping of that show and had people recognize her from the show or audience! She was invited back for a baby shower show they are doing. Danielle’s own daughter is due in early October, so she doesn’t know if she can come back for the special show.
I still love the MSL magazine. I stopped getting it for a while and then found myself picking it up at the grocery store.
Catch her if you can-don’t forget her apprentice show is airing on Wednesday nights.

I went to my mom’s today to deliver a new vacuum to her. The motor on the one I tried to fix must have gone bad. When I plugged it in last week, it sounded like a jet engine taking off! So I suggested that she get a new one from Walmart. Actually Brian and I got it and she paid for it. It was the same exact vacuum for under $40. I wasn’t going to pay over $55 for another make that was also 12 amps of power. So today I took off parts that may break (please no) off the old one and took the empty shell out to the trash bin. Then I tried the ‘whiz whiz’ (we call it that for the scaredy cat here Cosmo). I got up at least two+ pounds of dirt out of her downstairs rugs! That was after I ‘raked’ (she has a plastic rug rake) up dog hair. I decided to change the bag already just so all that fine dust doesn’t get into the motor.

The guys went to Pop-pop’s house, so I came home to an empty house. I got my shower and settled in to watch the pre-show for the Emmys and then the actual Emmys. I like to see what the Hollywood gals are wearing. I guess if you once dressed Barbie and her friends, you love evening dresses. ; ) I think the judges have no imagination or something. Brad Garrett is good, but 3 Emmys in a row? I was happy that ‘Lost’ won for best drama. I got hooked on that show. May season 2 be is as good.

I guess I will be cleaning up the yard decorations this week. I hate to wait until I have to do a mad scramble when the cold weather sets in. I have all the gnomes and fairies in a group already. It looks like they are having a meeting or something.

Mom’s birthday is Friday. My two sister-in-laws, my brother, maybe aunt and uncle and I will be taking her to a restaurant that I have never been to. I like the restaurant within walking distance of mom’s, but they want to take her somewhere different. I have to write a little something this week in celebration of mom’s 75th. I hope she likes her gifts from us. I’ll tell you about them after they are given to mom.

Do you stitch for events like weddings, engagements, or other things that might not last? If you’ve been unlucky, and the two have broken up, what happened to your stitched gift?
This is an unusual question.
I have stitched a wedding sampler for a friend. I mainly do gifts for kids or for people who I know will appreciate my many hours of stitching and will hang or display the design. As for if the people broke up, I don’t know. The sampler contained a Biblical verse and it had hung in their home years ago, so at least it got some ‘wall time’.

…I thought she was going for Preston and then I heard on Access Hollywood that she went with Sean Preston. Brian actually picked our boy’s name. At the time I was thinking the only well known Seans were Sean Connery and Shaun Cassidy. I think it’s a pretty name.
My Sean has a mean streak in him tonight. I had Cosmo on my lap and he was a bit skitterish there. I was trying to play with him and Sean came in and clapped his hands really loud. Why? Anyway, you guessed it, the cat tore into my hand and even left a piece of his claw embedded there. Ouch! Now I haven’t been feeling well either, and that’s all I needed. All my emotions over the last few months came to the surface and the floodgates opened. I went to the bedroom to collect myself and Brian told Sean to apologize to me and he got mad and threw down the remote control to the Dishnet and broke it! We now have the one out of his room and also ordered two from a seller on eBay which Sean paid for.
I guess he’s tired from driving a lot, but he knew that the cat freaked before the other two times he clapped his hands. So as punishment, I am not washing his clothes, getting his dinner or helping him with a school paper due soon.

The three of us have had our ‘moments of weakness’ this week. Brian had his on Sunday with his tummy, but after ‘that passed’ he was able to walk around the flea markets we attended. Sean had his on Tuesday with his mini-migraine which lasted a hour (until he took Tylenol) and mine was last night with my body aches. It must be some kind of bug floating around. I got up with a lower backache and sore knees. I did all my walking days ago, so what the hey? I need to get groceries in this house today, so I will push myself to get out.
We did have rain and it was a torrent rain. It rained a bit this morning too. When you depend on well water, every bit of rain is a blessing. We were lucky enough to get a water pumping station across the road at the end of our property-so if worse came to worse, we could hook up to it.
A pal on tribe got to go to a Extreme Makeover: Home Edition location last week. I am so happy for her! She got to meet everyone on the show except Ed and Preston. Preston is her main man. I don’t know if she mentioned to Paul DiMeo about our high school connection, but maybe she isn’t a talker. I would be blabbing my head off. The EM:HE gang were at a local mall here looking for candidates for a makeover. Maybe I’ll be able to go to a location too! That would be awesome.

Today it’s a funny kind of a day. I was going to go food shopping (tomorrow, tomorrow!), but it looks like we will be getting the first rain in 2 weeks. If we have had some more rain, the flowers in these photos would be twice as big.

Love those blue salvias, yellow celosia and marigolds mingling among the columbine and I believe soapwort. The annual under the pink portuluca took off-it’s blue blazer (my memory is bad today).
This did great except that the one salvia died. It looks a little unbalanced. I found some vinca on the ground and stuck it in and it took root.

Welcome to my home. Brian put down the brick sideway about 10 years ago.