So I hope to make some!
I was up until 2 am setting up a shop at Cafepress.com! It’s free for a small business and I thought, what the heck? So I had to almost redo everything this morning as they prefer png files over jpegs. Also, my chosen photos needed cropping, etc. So please check out my store-I have a little bit of everything, even thongs and what’s below! I’m so excited. I’ll probably be changing things around now and then too.
I never saw a guy get so excited about big boxes of food like Sean was in BJs Wholesale Club today! He loves that place. ☺
Since we have a small family, we don’t shop there that often. He was looking for snacks and meals he could have in his dorm room. He got lots of soup-the noodle kind and Healthy Choice, Chex mix, dried milk, lots of little boxes of cereal, Starbursts(!) and a few other things. He also got a ‘safe’ made especially for his laptop with a combination lock on it and a wire that loops around something for added security. He also got a Penn State folding chair. His room has a microwave/frig combo. He’s been using a lot of his work pay this summer to buy the things he needed. He helped today with BJs too.
I did buy myself a few things. Two scrapbooking books-called Instant Memories-Travel and Love editions. They have vintage images on nice card stock, but you also get a CD with all the images in the book. I saw them on Amazon with a bunch of other editions for under $6 each (used and new), half of what I paid. I also bought a faux scrapbook by Cicely Mary Barker, the flower fairy illustrator. It has little envelopes you can open up, one of which may have what is suppose to be a butterfly wing. That is also a good price at Amazon.
So Sean is all set!
We went to Bertucci’s, a brick oven pizza/Italian food restaurant. Mom had fettucini with asparagus and shrimp while Sean and I shared a Shrimp Bella Venezia pizza. Best pizza I have tasted for a while.
Going to my mom’s still makes me anxious as there is a lot going on there, mostly things that need cleaning. Her yard needs attention around the house. I guess the first cooler day I’ll have to go weed wack down there. And the inside is crazy. She tries to go through too many boxes at once. Plus instead of going to the department stores, she is now going shopping at the Goodwill! She bought a nice glider rocker that was new (Sean loved it) and a small wing back chair with a saggy seat. She thinks it is comfortable and more so then a leather chair I bought for her many years ago at a nice department store. I’m thinking about bringing the white leather chair home. I like it. It has big arms and you can curl up in it and read or stitch. We have a recliner that is a good make (Lane), but I have never liked it and it’s Bri’s chair. He said he’ll have to check out the leather chair.
We had to drive home tonight in the pouring rain and had to get the stuff in between raindrops. Bri is complaining about his new job already. Says that when he drove around a lot, it helped with his salary. He’s not driving that much, but he has more ads. We’ll have to see how it works out.
For Zoey, are you watching ‘The Parker’ about the Palm Springs hotel on Bravo? Just wondering.
Guess I’ll play with my new books tomorrow.
Yeah, mom is still here and no surprise, she is mad at me! It’s so juvenile I know. So I learned not to take a compulsive shopper shopping and then tell her to put things back. And I learned that two days is really enough time for a friendly visit, after that it’s downhill. Sean and I were going to take her home yesterday and on the way have a nice lunch at Ruby’s Diner. Mom figured that since her car also needs brakes, she’d hang around a few more days. We did go to the Olive Garden last night and have a nice dinner. The mistake was going to Kohl’s (and later Barnes and Noble) where they have those 60-75% off sale racks. I went to look for swimsuits as mine are old as the hills. They hardly had any left and they were still pricey. I go to find mom and she has an arm full of clothes. You can have discussions galore with people like her and she just wants to spend. I also see her personality change in a store, even a crappy store like a Dollar Store. She had two of the same tops in different sizes, two pairs of slacks, a jacket and another top that was the same as the two she already had but in pink. I made her try the jacket on at the checkout (as it was the most pricey item) which she said was embarrassing and it was too big all over for her. She ended up saving about $30. Now she had just bought things in Peebles the day before. She said I can’t take her to stores and not expect her to buy things when Sean and I were. I guess, but she had just borrowed money from me and there she was wanting to spend a chunk of it on clothes she doesn’t need. She has 4 bedrooms in her house and all of the closets except two contain clothing. And that’s not even mentioning the Rubbermaid containers of clothing.
So today she is ignoring me and I have to go to the dentist in a few hours. This makes me a bit anxious. I had a 10:40 appointment, but Dr. B figures he’ll need more time with me, so I got bumped to 2:40. I probably would have taken mom home.
Thanks for lending an ear. I guess some people just can’t stand hearing the truth. I’ll keep you posted.
And thanks to Su for the adorable house fob she sent my way yesterday. It’s in a place of honor on my special cross stitch tree.
Update-I had to get a filling in the bothersome tooth and was gone from 2:30-4:00. I came in and my mom didn’t ask what was wrong. She came to the doorway of the family room where I was numb to the gills and announced she wanted to go home after dinner. Things kinda blew up and I went out to make a nice dinner. She got on the phone and started crying to my brother and then he wanted to talk to me. To make a long story short, Sean had to take her home with no dinner in his belly and just ate it at 7:00. So I don’t know what to do about her and she doesn’t remember things and makes them ten times as worse in her brain. Yes, company and fish stink after 3 days, thanks Vonna and Ben!
Sean and I went down to Hockessin to a little coffee and sandwich shop called ‘The Perfect Cup Cafe’ for lunch-a rather pricey lunch, but we don’t go there that often. He was off today. He had a veggie wrap and I had a chicken salad with swiss that was grilled-not bad. I asked if we could go a few blocks down to the Gateway Garden Nursery as I needed a few plants for an interesting urn I just purchased at JoAnns. I bought one (for about $7), but I’m thinking three would look neat tucked under my hedges out front. You can either hang the urn or it lays flat. Lucky for me the nursery had a 50% off annual sale and I got quite a few plants for under $20. I got my 9th variety of coleus-lime green and white (it’s a good year for it and of course I plan to save some for my experiment!). I also bought another licorice plant (like a variegated one) for the urn so it hangs over its edge). I got some yellow pinwheels zinnias and a couple of variety of ferns (which I like up there on my list with coleus). At the check out, a lady who works there, probably the owner or manager, asked if we had a cat and I said yes, so she handed me a cute little tin that came with cat grass-for free (from the sale table)! A few minutes later as we were putting the plants in Sean’s trunk, I noticed she had a wagon of plants she was tossing. I asked if ‘anything was worth saving (HA) and she handed me a mandevilla, another viney plant and a gardenia-for free. When she went to back to the nursery yard, I snagged some blue lobelia out of the trash too. Don’t ya love when stuff like that happens?
My mom is still trying to work out her problems but she is really using me as a sounding board. I was really stressed tonight and blame myself for not taking charge of her bills and not giving her an allowance. She use to have my uncle to help her, but he’s probably in the nursing home for good now. She doesn’t talk to him that often, but I know he has no appetite and only weighs about 138 lbs (and he’s 5’10”). I haven’t been out to see him either as it’s a trip and he’s so down all the time. I know that sounds awful, but maybe he needs people who don’t know and love him as much as us to talk to. Hopefully things will get better soon.
Locally-so the Phillies lost their 10,000th game in their over 100 year history beating out all other teams for that honor. So what? I can’t tell you how good a summer and fall that team gave us all in 1980 when they won the World Series and again in ’93 when they tried again. I got to meet Tug McGraw, the relief pitcher in person. He and Mike Schmidt (3rd base) lived in my hometown and I had seen Mike’s house several times. So many fans have good memories like that.
Sean and I had a nice visit with mom today-we mainly went shopping! : ) I am always happy to find paper craft stuff at the Dollar Tree. Also got a few things at Value City (new badly needed bath towels) and JoAnn’s where I got a few magazines and discounted garden stuff.Mom gave me this copy of her at about age 20, so it was 1950-1. I was playing with it in PSP7. Brian took a photo of the copy for me. I’m not really done with #2, but I thought you’d like to see some improvements. She was and is still a pretty lady. She also has an outstanding soprano voice, though I haven’t heard her sing lately. All are clickable…
This was cut out and glued on paper! Not sure what the definite shading is on the right side of her face…
Here I airbrushed boo-boos-where her hair and blouse had been taped, the unbalanced background, the drawn in eyelashes at the corner of her eyes. I did add ‘whiter’ flash dots in her eyes to make the photo looked newer. As I said, I still need to touch it up. This was over an hour’s worth of work.
And finally some artistic effects…
A cool effect…
I vote for Penelope Cruz to play Jeanne in her life story. She looks more like my mom than I do!
In about 6 weeks, I’ll miss my shopping companion when he heads off to State College. I have taught him so well in these last 20.5 year that he is a good bargain shopper like the old lady. Really he is! So I suggested we head down to Delaware as I wanted to see if Kmart had any good floral buys. We decided to hit Value City first. They were having a buy one at the blue/red ticket price and the second item was 99¢! I got Bri a few Pierre Cardin polo shirts-a total of about $14.99. I also got some 1928 jewelry and half off garden stuff-two little oval tables-two tone peach and blue, a mushroom that looks real-all mossy (that got a piece out of it somewhere in transit, but I can just turn it so it doesn’t show) and what I have wanted for a while, a two-tier planter! It has a smaller bowl on the top that connects to the bigger one in the bottom. We did eventually hit Kmart and I found some plants for it and it’s planted already! We’re having a downpour right now or I’d take a few photos of the goodies.
We decided to go to Pizza Hut-it was warm in there and there was no server! People came in and left, but we stuck it out. We were kinda waited on. I enjoy this particular restaurant as the one near Brian’s work just can’t make a decent pizza.
I didn’t call my mom today and she didn’t call me. I did call my sister-in-law and she had spoken to my mom and said she didn’t mention me. Oh well, I’ve talked about our little spats in the past. Maybe it’s healthy once in a while to take a break from one another. I wanted to take her to Longwood Gardens and Shady Maple (a place in Lancaster). She is always worried about her house and buying storage boxes instead of downsizing as she should come to the realization that she’ll be 77 in a few months and can’t keep a 4 bedroom place in shape.
A slow day because I did so much before noon! Not a morning gal, but Sean wanted to get his car early to go work out at the ‘Y’. So we got the car at 11:15 (which is early for me), then I went to the produce place, the drugstore, Acme and McDonalds all before 12 struck. And you know it wasn’t as crowded at the above places then. ; )
Here’s what I did to entertain myself-take photos of Cosmo. Check out his blog .
Here’s a teaser for you…
Working on another cross stitch UFO called ‘A Walk in the Woods’ even though I cut the fabric too short and can’t add the second violet border. I completely forgot it had two until I saw the ‘repeat above design here’. It will look fine without it. I’m excited about getting the final project for the Neighborhood Round Robin that my pals and I have been working on. I hope to have it by the middle to end of June.
Sean and I went down to a few garden centers in nearby Hockessin, Delaware on Wednesday. The one place has unusual plants, but as my grandmom would say ‘are very dear’ with their prices. I did purchase plants with an all yellow tone-some of which were portulaca, marigold and licorice plant-it’s a whitish yellow. I bought two different kinds of fuchsia and planted them together. I also added to my coleus collection. I planted my purple and yellow sweet potato vine in strawberry jars and in it’s holes I added apricot color portulaca.
I have yet to plant my flower seeds though I am not worried. Zinnias and cosmos are quick to germinate. I found some lavender and green zinnia seeds. I also have seeds I saved from last year. I want to plant sunflowers, but I am afraid they will be a snack for deer. I guess I’ll throw some in to see what happens.
We’ve been watching all the tv finales-nothing too surprising with the ‘reality’ based shows. I did think that maybe Laila Ali would win Dancing with the Stars. I think she got a bit of a chip on her shoulder and people didn’t care for that. I thought that Blake would win on American Idol, but Jordin did. She’s a pretty decent singer for a 17 yr old, but he is a great performer.
Lost also had it’s finale. I’m really confused now. I think they get rescued, but Jack (Matthew Fox) is really messed up. I’ll be curious to see how they continue that saga.
Happy 18th to my nephew Patrick!
The funeral for Bri’s Aunt Rose was today. He attended the viewing last night and left before we did this morning to go to the funeral home first. Sean and I picked up my mom and went right to the church. I just didn’t want to remember his aunt ‘that way’, you know? I showed my respect for her and my husband’s family which is really decreasing rapidly. I think with the one son’s wife’s family, there was only 40 people there. The kids (Sean’s age and a bit younger) are getting so big which makes us feel old. Soon we’ll be the oldest generation. Ugh. I got up to go to the restroom (at the restaurant), the mom of Aunt Rose’s daughter-in-law said loudly (so I could hear her) ‘Oh those are the people who didn’t go to the wedding’. I acted like I didn’t hear her. If Brian’s dad had gone last year to his nephew’s wedding (and the nephew begged him), then we would have gone too.
The church was the one we use to go to 20+ years ago when we lived in the area (we lived in the same apartment complex as Aunt Rose and Uncle John (also residents in the late 50s-early 60s were Dick Clark and Ed McMahon).
After the luncheon (at an Irish pub style restaurant-one of the dishes Shepherd’s Pie), we went to a Dollar Tree store across from the restaurant (ha) and then remembered that a great plant/product place was about 10 minutes away. I got 3 nice hanging baskets for $7.50 each (two toned pink petunia, multi-colored vinca and burgundy impatiens) , a gorgeous Christmas cactus and a clematis vine for $5.00. Good prices!
I came home and planted a few tomatoes (roma), green pepper and an eggplant before the early evening chill sent me in.
I didn’t get to spend the day with my own mom, but I promised her Sean and I would come down on Tuesday to plant a few annuals in the garden I fixed up for her last year.
I have terrible dry (and a bit itchy) allergy eyes. I thought it was from handling dusty Space Bags of my summer clothes, but I’m now thinking something is pollening that is bothering me. I am using both tears and allergy formula and it helps a bit, but looking at this screen is not easy. I’ll call the eye doctor if they aren’t better in a few days. I just have some circles under my eyes (what else is new).
I got two lovely cards today and one from my friend Terri in Alabama the other day-hers was a total surprise and so sweet. Sean’s was oversized and pink and flowery with sweet reflections of motherhood. Bri gave me a musical card that played ‘How Sweet it is’ by Marvin Gaye. (James Taylor also recorded it later on).
I asked Sean to drive to a garden center at a store in Delaware, but they didn’t have one this year. We ended up at Loew’s and their stuff was just ok. I got some tomatoes and a few flowers and bags of red mulch.
We grabbed a burger at Friendly’s and headed home.
I just watched the 3-hour long ‘Survivor’ finale and reunion while trying to finish up a redwork cross stitched piece. I was cheering for a 54-yr old man to win named Yau-man, but he got back stabbed as the remaining players knew he’d win if he was left in the ‘final three’. I miss talking about ‘Survivor’ with my estranged brother who enjoys it too.
So to end this nice weekend, here are some things I admire about my mom-her beautiful, trained soprano voice, her ability to pick up a pen, pencil or marker and sketch a portrait that resembles the person she is trying to capture (and from memory sometimes) and her love of giving, though that gets her in trouble sometimes. I told her once that Penelope Cruz could be her daughter more than me as she looks like mom a little. The next thing you know someone asks if we are mother and daughter and they say ‘I can tell’. What a nice compliment.
Mom on her 75th birthday-9-23-05
and-Mom as a young mom with my grandmom and older brother Dave. (See how she looks like Penelope Cruz here? It’s clickable)
I tried the edger tool that Brian just gave me (so long electric edger) and it works pretty good, but I can see me only using it after a rainstorm like we had last night.
Collages & Creative Goodness 