Category Archives: Sean

August, 1989

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My post was getting ‘eaten’, so 3 is the charm. This was taken when Sean was almost 3. He was about to start preschool and had some ‘training’ issues, not too bad. He loved to follow me around in the yard, so busy. He changed a bit as an adult. : ) This is one of my favorite photos of us. Please note that I was not the incredible Hulk mommy. I had to take the photo of this photo at a funny angle to avoid the camera’s flash.
Dianne and Sean

I miss you like crazy, I miss you like crazy, ever since you went away. Every hour of every day…the rest is a love song.

Collages

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I’m still trying to do a few collages a week, but I don’t seem to be able to catch up with my friend Gret. She’s really into collaging lately. We still love doing the Art trading cards. Here is our latest theme-nature inspired. Can you guess what I used?

Nature ATCs

I kept the one on the bottom right. Gret’s is the one that looks like animals on the top left since she loves critters.

Here’s a collage page I recently made:

Love in the mist

The little window opens to a Romeo and Juliet kind of scene. The raspberries are cut out pieces of wallpaper.

College boy update: Sean went to some meetings today and said the people were nice. Not thrilled to hear he ate a chili dog for his Sunday dinner, especially starting classes tomorrow-geez, I told him about that kind of eating. Uh-oh, still being a mommy here!

Need a little change

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Now that my boy is gone for 3 months, I feel like I need to change things around in here little. The first thing I did was clean out a circular tin Sean keeps on the back of the toidy. I threw away a ton of stuff and put other stuff in a plastic bag and in the bathroom closet it went (even his old retainer-ugh). Also put his footballs and sneaks that were behind the front door in his room (grrghh). I would put things in his room and out they came. I think when he comes home, he’ll be editing the quantity of what’s in there. There is hardly a dent! The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Back to the change part. Not sure if I just mean to do a change of the table cloth on the dining room table or to rearrange a bunch of stuff. I could start by getting into the autumn themed things-soon.

Sean is fine. He wrote an email and said the trash truck woke him up at 4 am this morning. Said it was hot all night. I told him two 6″ fans were a joke-he didn’t listen. He did move his bed away from the door a few feet. I’m curious to see what the room looks like now.

Wait until you hear this-Sean’s cousin is two doors down! They don’t know each other well, but maybe this will be the time they can get better acquainted. Their grandfathers (Bri’s dad and Ryan’s mom’s late dad) were brothers.

So I’ll have plenty to keep me busy today. I am tidying up for the priest’s visit tomorrow. I hope he doesn’t ask too much about Friday and Saturday as I am still a bit weepy.
Bri has had his moments, but he eggs me on I think. Worries about the car, Sean being sick, all that negative stuff. I’m trying to envision him going to his first football game in the second largest college stadium in the country; meeting a nice girl, you get my drift. Time to grow up. Times change and so can you.

Many, many miles and one less

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What an emotional experience, the hardest I ever had to do as a volunteer thing. It was a long, trying trip to start off with yesterday. We were doing fine and lost our way near Harrisburg, our state capital. We went about 25 miles one way out of our way and took like 5 hours to reach the motel. That was a lot of driving and seeing scenery like this:

Allegheny Mts.
These are big mountains. We also crossed the Susquehanna River.
We ate dinner at the motel and ventured out to Penn State a few hours before dark. Here are Bri and Sean outside Sean’s dorm,
Hamilton Hall:
Brian and Sean outside the dorm
The motel was about 12 miles further away, but off the main drag where the kids do all their shopping. We had a good laugh when we saw Big Lots, the store Sean had worked in all summer down here. We also passed through Bellefonte, a town near the water and there was a quaint park there with a little waterfall and a few step bridges with wrought iron sides. Sean said he’d go back to take photos of that area someday.
It was a humid and hot day and we got to check in at 10 and seemed to beat a lot of people who were probably waiting to check out of their rooms and eat lunch. His room is on the 3rd floor, which is really the 5th floor. The first two floors are used for a cafe, computer room, etc.
I should say how nice and clean the campus is, like Williamburg a bit, lots of brick and fancy building. His dorm was built in 1949.

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Photo Hunt-Happy
(I hope he will get this way)
Here is Sean in part of his room (not sharing and no a/c) which is 9’x16′. He has his laptop, printer, a tv that plays DVDs, a microfrig and lots of storage. I’m sure he’ll make it his own, but it’s nice to have this photo so I remember what the room looks like: Sean in  dorm room
And his window (open)-hello up there! He should be glad for the tree!
Dorm window
That’s the hottest I have felt in ages! I climbed the steps to his room twice-yikes, I felt really old. Notice there are no photos of me. I asked a few times, but it was too hot for Bri to bother and I was too blubbery.

Sean called his old high school classmate Peter and they met up for lunch, which was nice. Sean’s also been to a few meetings. He will be so busy he won’t worry about what roads to take home. Today we got home faster, even after stopping in Lancaster to stretch our feet and a few miles down in Gap for dinner. We went a different way which was better.

Good luck Sean and we miss you like crazy!

Amphibian adieu

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We’re all set. Bri finished up the lawn and found this little guy to show me. I got some cute photo ops as he sat on the edge of my waterlily garden.

Toadie pal
I have seen a ton of frogs and toads all over the yard. I hope they are helping with the bug population. I also saw a new colony of caterpillars on the milkweed today. Awesome.
My pond garden pump was a major pain today. It wouldn’t stay on when I immersed it in the water. I took it out of the water and let it run without water going through it for a while and that seemed to do the trick. We do have to unplug it tomorrow-rats!
I’m taking the camera, so be prepared to see some lovely PA countryside.

So this is it…

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…Sean’s last day here until Thanksgiving! Wow! I remember when he was looking into dorms back in February and August seemed so far away. Sean got to see his grandmom, uncle, aunt and cousins yesterday. My mom got all weepy when we left which lead me to get weepy in the van. I usually have to be provoked into tears. I want to be cool up at the dorm when the actual separation occurs. Give we strength! Sean’s car is already almost jammed packed. He has a few more things to put in there and he needs to leave room for me. Bri will be following us on the 3+ hour trip. We’ll stay a night in a hotel about 12 miles further away and his move in is 12-8 on Saturday and Bri and I turn around to come home.

This had to be the week when the sun never came out and my sinuses have been awful. I’ve had congestion and post nasal drip. I can’t sneeze I’m so stuffed up! I did a Google search ‘how to sneeze’ and people had tips, even a little English boy on youtube.com who stuck a rolled up piece of tissue up his nose-I think so high it made him cough and then sneeze. I came close last night, but I just can’t sneeze. Today I’ll have to take Claritin or Sudafed which I try to hold off doing as long as possible. ~Update-as I proofread this post, I finally sneezed after 3 days! Yippee!!

Here’s a video about my hometown (my high school pal sent me the link) as a company entered them in a contest sponsored by Ikea which they are currently in 2nd place-they won’t announce the winner for a few weeks. You can see the old Media High School where I went one year to junior high and that my niece and nephew attend/attended as an elementary school. You’ll also see Media Theatre where we use to attend $1 movies.

I received some prints from my friend Karin’s wedding that I personally got to chose. I never had anyone offer to do that with their wedding photos, but she and Michael bought the proofs and set them up online at Kodak-a great idea. I bought a special album for them last night at JoAnn’s (plus a few other goodies). Keep Michael in your thoughts as he needs to get an injection in his back from pain that wakes him up several times a night.

My friend Terri had good news that her mom was still in remission after a bout with cancer and then her mom’s sister passed on a few days ago from a heart attack. The thing that bothered me is that the poor woman went to the ER for terrible indigestion, a red flag for women as it is sometimes means heart problems.

My other friend Joy lost her 51 yr old male cousin from a heart attack too. He had a special title, I’ll have to look up the email again, but he was working to preserve waterways if I remember correctly. The cousins set up a nice slideshow in memory of him on Flickr.

If I don’t post again, I’ll see you in a few days. I also have to tidy up as the parish priest is coming on Monday.

By the way, added some new videos and yes I know, two are James Taylor singing ‘Only a Dream in Rio’ one of my favorite JT songs.

The last hoo-ha of the summer

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It’s nice to be home, but of course next Friday we’ll be in central Penna. to help Sean with his move in at PSU. Sean did most of the driving over the last three days. He said he needs to ‘get use to it’ since it’s about 160 miles one way to PSU.

Day 1-It was smooth sailing and we stopped off at the rest stop in Smyrna. This time I was looking for the freebie literature for my art projects. They had quite a few of them. The people working there were watching me, but didn’t say anything. I even got a neat NYC book. We got to Rehoboth Beach in a jiffy, but the traffic was backed up which we sat in for 20 minutes for so. We went to our favorite sandwich shop there called ‘The Arena’. It’s not like it’s name, a rather small hole in the wall with mile high sandwiches. I got chicken salad and actually took the second half apart to eat the filling out of it. Sean did the same with his tuna, but Bri ate his entire sandwich. I swear when that man is on vacation, he eats to his heart’s content. I wanted to go in a cute gift shop and sent them to the bookstore. I got a cute journal with a leaf cover and little handmade sandals as a cover decoration. I went to the bookstore and no guys! Here they had gone to the bookstore way up near the boardwalk. I had to get a bathing suit cover up and found a long sleeveless t-shirt style and got a freebie decal for the front. It was hot walking around and we had a 5 minute walk to the van, which is a long walk for R. Beach.

We got to the Atlantic Coastal Inn which sits in front of the old Fenwick Island lighthouse. This was taken from outside our room.

Fenwick Island lighthouse

Fenwick Island lighthouse at night

Directly near the lighthouse are trailers, a little tacky to have near this historic place. The only downfall was that we had to cross over the wide and highly traveled highway to get to the beach. The place last year was on that side of the road. We went to the beach for about an hour as the wind was like 25-30 mph, so you felt like you were going to get blown away.

Bri and Di on the beach

Sean on the beach

The water was nice after you got use to it. I don’t go swimming, but Bri and Sean do. We went to an Italian place for dinner and had to wait a while. We decided on pizza because of the big lunch. Afterwards, we went to the Country Store where I got a variety of fudge and jams. Sean wanted to drive all the way down to the inlet area of Ocean City (140 blocks) and cross the bridge to an outlet area (HA-I used inlet and outlet in the same sentence!) We had to wait about 20 minutes for the bridge to close. The outlets were a bust-the bookstore was gone and we got there too late to really look in any stores. Sean was happy to get ‘Dippin’ Dots’ ice cream. He’s still a kid in that respect.

The next day we went the same place where we went to breakfast last year and sat at the same table (without telling the hostess even). Later we went to the beach again. Still a bit windy, but hot. It got overcast and started to rain. I haven’t been on the beach for years when we got rained on. When I was little we got caught in a torrential downpour down in Wildwood, NJ and that scared me. We left and hung out a bit in our room. It was too humid to really do anything. We went out to ‘our big dinner’ at Harpoon Hannah’s. It was right down the road and thank goodness we got there fairly early. Sean and I had lobster tails (3 each!)

My dinner

and Bri had swordfish. It was pretty good. After dinner the guys went to find a car museum place and couldn’t and decided to play miniature golf. I got some down time and read up on Lewes, DE. a little town down the road that I hadn’t been to for a while. I wanted to see the actual town, not where you get on the ferry to go to Cape May, NJ, across the bay. We did that when I was a kid and I was seasick for like 3 hours when we got home.

On the last day we went to breakfast again and headed for the Shipwreck Museum. The bottom is a store that sells hermit crabs and lots of souvenirs. They do a great job with the free museum. I asked the woman there if I could take photos and she said yes. I’ll make a slideshow of the photos from there, but here’s a sneak peek:

Boat model with real gold coins, etc.

We checked out and headed for the Rehoboth Beach outlets. Sean wanted to go to Old Navy. It was crowded and the clothes weren’t that great. We didn’t stay long and headed for Lewes. We drove down to the beach area. It’s not huge, but you can see down the shoreline and we saw a few lighthouses in the distance. We headed to where a lightship was and got out and took a few photos. We found the Zwaanendael Museum,

Zwaanenael Museum

erected in 1931 to commemorate the founding of the town by the Dutch back in 1631, it’s 300th anniversary. It’s an unusual building. All the parking was taken, so Sean sat in the van while I went around and took some photos. I did manage to get one of a cross stitch sampler inside.

Dutch Sampler 1976

I really like Lewes. It’s a Victorian town and on the water! There are some retirement places there too. Hmmm! We headed to Dover, DE where my favorite bookstore is located-Atlantic warehouse. I tried to be chosey and concentrated on scrapbooking books and gift items. We headed home after an hour and stopped off at Wendy’s for an early dinner. Cos was glad to see us.

Off to eat lunch and then pick a ton of ripe tomatoes. It’s a gorgeous day here, a little cool and no humidty. I’ve already been outside for over an hour, most of that time with the cat.

I got my Cafepress.com rose t-shirt and it’s pretty. I’ll have Sean take a photo of me in it soon.

The Coleus experiment continues

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I’m a little bleary-eyed from tweaking my nature photos for the Cafepress.com store. I was also going through my Flickr photos looking for good ones. I needed a break, so I went outside and noticed that my little coleus plants had really taken root and needed their own pots:

Baby coleus
I love the crimson red ‘stained glass’ one. I also realized I didn’t have any from the lime green or frilly one in my windowbox, so I clipped some to root. The mama red one needed to be topped, so I stuck what I pinched in more soil. I’m giving some to mom, but I want to try and overwinter the young ones in my front window.
Here’s a hanging basket that I recently planted with some coleus babies in it:
Newer hanging basket
Sean bought me a new weed whacker today! It’s a Craftsmen and can that sucker trim! I wasn’t up to doing it today, but it should cut the time I spend trimming in half. Bri used my old one yesterday and lost the spring that held the spool in place.

My friend Gret and I are doing an artsy challenge-do one collage page a day in a book. She’s a few days ahead of me, but it’s fun! The pages aren’t huge, but you really have to think about what you what to do. Mine today:
Bee work
The bees, wording, zinnia and elves are from a 1952 kids science book.
And last but not least, a neat shot, worthy of my new store, maybe?
Hugging bees
Keep my friend Barbara in your thoughts and prayers. She had a sad thing happen to her lately. Big hugs.