Category Archives: shopping

A little excursion before the storm

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On Friday night, right after I ordered our pizza dinner, Bri called to say his car wouldn’t start and he was still at work. He can come home for lunch and it was fine then. We are lucky he works in the next town, so I ran up there with the van and we tried to jump it-nothing. We later went to a book sale at a local high school, which was junky (they let book buyers come in first and they had box after box of ‘the good stuff’). I just had a few books and one I thought was 85 cents was in fact $5!-the dollar sign looked like an 8! I bought it anyway. We dropped by the parking lot again and the car still wouldn’t start. Bri left a note and we came home. Saturday morning he went up again to wait for the tow truck and didn’t his car turn over! He still had it towed as he didn’t want it to break down on him along our country back road. So now it sits at a service station about 5 miles from here. He just had it serviced a few months ago. I think it’s turning into a ‘nickel and dimer’, and he has the newest car-2000 and mine is a 1996!
A local church had a book sale too and we went to that. It was just before noon and people were just browsing because after the noon hour-it was $1 for a bag! It wasn’t really crowded, but man did the people there grab the bags and go to town. I bought mostly books I could cut up. I grabbed a few novels for my mom and ‘The Secret Garden’ for my niece. I was pleased when Bri found a book on the Vikings as Sean is doing a research paper on them and needs a little more info-what luck was that? So we gave them a little extra money as they were raising money for fire victims. I’m sure the high school book sale made 90% more than them and it’s a wealthy area.
After we hit Burger King, Bri wanted to get his license renewed, so we had to drive 18 miles to the license place in the town where he use to work. There was no wait and the man said Bri hadn’t changed in 4 years, a nice compliment. We drove through the town (some of which was used in the opening credits of the movie ‘Signs’) and ended up near the Herr’s Potato Chip Factory in Nottingham. I believe there is a little zoo there too. We were looking for a Goodwill drop off place. What we found was a big old horse barn-now a Flea Market. We decided to go in, but it wasn’t heated and about 35 degrees in there like it was outside. If it was warmer, I would have dug around more. I did get some pink glass cordials:
Flea market find pink glass cordials
an aqua colored small glass rooster (Bri almost insisted I get it-ah)
Flea market find Aqua rooster
and some old photos-all for $10. That was fun and I think I’ll go out again. It’s a straight trip on Route one, so hardly any stopping.
We did go to a Goodwill ‘shed’ in Hockessin, DE to drop of several bags of stuff-yeah! I then ran in Tuesday Morning to look around again and didn’t get that much-some papers and a little resin bird. I think I spent about $21 in the places I visited. I feel so frugal!
We are expecting 4-6″ of snow tonight and blizzard conditions. Bri is worried about driving around in our only good car. I said maybe he should wait an hour or so until they clean the roads off good. The road to town is curvy and downhill.
He is still having sleeping issues and tried to get the doctor to give him something and we aren’t sure if he did or not, we missed a private caller call one morning.
I hope all of you are keeping warm this weekend!
By the way, for my stitcher friends, I’m trying to finish up another UFO-will hopefully share it soon.

Dianne’s Dummy guide to using a MP3 player

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Brian and I were in Big Lots Tuesday night and after we had checked out with our measly purchases, I took a gander at the locked cases around from the register. Here they had two different kinds of MP3 players for $24 and $40. My friend had recommended one over an i*pod as it was easier to download music (snicker snicker-more later). So I opted for the higher priced one because it had a bigger display screen. You can download photos and videos too. So I got home and while we were trying to get the DVD player to work (always remember to change the channel on the tv!), I looked at music on A*mazon and downloader software. Today I bought some music and the software wouldn’t download the songs to our computer. I called A*mazon twice. The first guy, was definitely an Indian (sounded like the guy from Heroes) and really didn’t help. The second guy, Teddy was a gem. Told me to get rid of the software and download right to our computer. It worked! So I have 20 songs and lots of space left on it. I don’t care for the earbuds-they hurt my ears. I need to get padded ones. And I need a case too. This was an early anniversary gift.
I bought this little Vera Bradley case for my player at eBags (great site)
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Keep Bri in your thoughts as he is suffering from insomnia really bad lately. He had that doctor visit last month and didn’t have any problems from his x-ray and bloodwork. He worries so much.
I may be seeing my mom tomorrow.

Show and Tell

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This past Monday I went to my Mom’s house and we went over to the Goodwill so I could drop off a few things. We always look around inside, and I found a few ‘treasures’. Why would anyone give this charming plate away?
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Perfect for a birthday celebration!
Then I saw this little hobnail salt holder stuck on a shelf for $1:
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Mom located a couple of thumbprint cobalt blue drinking glasses to go with some of the other glasses I have.
I have to make another run to my mom’s as she woke up Thursday with a terrible sore throat. I had to go to the dentist, so she had to wait until today. I feel bad, but her 100 foot long stone driveway wasn’t plowed and now the snow has a crusty ice topping. My brother’s friend will be doing that this morning. Please say a few prayers that she doesn’t have strep throat. I’m also thinking tonsillitis.
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I’m wondering how crowded this event would be as I’d love to go! When people hear ‘free’ they go bonkers!
The Brandywine River Museum will host a public celebration of Andrew Wyeth’s life and work on January 31 with complimentary admission and a display of his most famous work, “Christina’s World” on loan from The Museum of Modern Art in New York. More details at: http://www.brandywinemuseum.org/

Our tree is still up

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Last year I was ready for the tree to come down (it may have been too red even). This year I’m quite enjoying it. Because I had to set up my mom’s tree, it took away from me wanting mine up as I knew I’d end up taking hers down also. This year she figured it out, so I was off the hook. I took a few things off the walls and have a pile of Christmasy things to put away. My storage area looks so dishelved, I have my work cut out for me, unfortunately.

Sean and I went  out for a few hours Sunday to look around a few more stores, though I am broke and shopped out. I can’t believe how many decorations and gift bags are left over at most of the stores. I am being really selective, trying to find things to use for crafting.

When we got home, Sean headed for a pal’s house to watch the Eagles football game. He missed out on a good roast beef dinner. I cooked most of it before we went out and had Bri keep it warm at 170. I only had to do a few things like cook the potatoes and warm up the peas. And how neat was it the Eagles won! Our local sports teams are in general doing great this year.

Sean and I are hoping to go to Longwood Gardens tomorrow-our second try. The kids are going back to school, so that should cut back on the crowd. Then Sean heads back to school on Saturday.

Cosmo Capers blog has been getting lots of hits because a pal added him to a cat blog. I just can’t keep up with everything!

Hopefully my next post will include pretty photos!

Photo Hunt-Hope

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Happy 2009 Flickr pals!, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

A whole new year to ‘hope’ for good things to happen.
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Not a lot going on. We still have our Christmas stuff up and keep it up until the 6th or so which is ‘Little Christmas’-Epiphany.
Friday we went over to Bri’s dad’s house and took up a few rugs that were on top of the wall to wall carpet-they were all bunched up. We took one for the dining room. It needs to be aired out and cleaned.
Having some tummy issues-I know I’ve been snacking at all hours this past week-not good for me. I swear by Activa and Equalactin. : )
After we left Bri’s dad’s house, we went to Chili’s Restaurant-not ideal food for me to be eating and then hit BJs Wholesale where Sean got stuff for taking back to school. My best buy there was 5 ink cartridges for my printer at $50-I saved $10 buying them pre-packaged. Bri was happy to get Perrier water.
Not sure what the weekend will bring. Hope everyone is warm and happy!

Sniffing out sales

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You usually score better at after Christmas sales, the day after the holiday. But we found some decent things, mostly for 50-75% off today. After I got my hair done, we headed to JoAnn’s. Brother #2 had given me a gift card. Most of their Christmas stuff was picked over. I did manage to spend much more than $25 though. I try to be selective, and I know I will be donating most of a box of  old holiday stuff this year. I got nicer things at our local Peebles, but I got some crafty things too. Then we went to a local mall. Sean was along too. We ate at Carrabba’s and then went in Macy’s. This was a store with a slim Christmas stock. I did get 4 gorgeous dinner plates that have realistic Christmas plants and flowers on them-with a gold trim too-for $7.99 each, they were priced at $20 each! I’ll use them for New Year’s dinner. I had a Bath and Body Works gift card (thanks to Karin) and got a plug in scent dispenser, one for the van and lotions. We went into Yankee Candle and they had nice things for cheap. I even got Sean a trio of gel scent hang-ups for his car. He is using the Macintosh apple one right now which smells so good!

Finally, we hit a Walgreen’s on the way home. I was looking for pink and purple lights (Easter is coming up) and ended up with a 6.5′ tree for my mom-pre-lit with clear lights for $10 and some little pre-lit pine trees for me-$5. Not sure where I will put them-probably the family room. The bows and wrap were dirt cheap too. Got my brother a Disney tree for $2.50-though it’s really a Minnie Mouse tree-opps-but the little ornies are shaped like the mouse ears. He and his family were just down there a few weeks ago. My brother wore a huge top hat with Mickey bursting through the front of it at our family gathering that he purchased in Florida. I didn’t get the pink or purple lights, maybe I’ll try another Walgreens. : )
Color changing angel
My new angel-she’s like a snow globe inside-not bad for $3.25!

Happy but tired.

The tree is up-the tree is up!

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Brian got the tree out of the attic and it sets up quickly. I had trouble locating the multi-color lights I planned to use. Over the past few years, I’ve done pink and white, white and blue and red and white, so this is back to our ‘traditional’ look.
I met my mom at the Farmer’s Market, which was crowded and then thinned down. First I stopped at the TD Bank and got $117 for the coins I had. It kept telling me I had a lot of coins-no kidding! I split it up and saved $50 for Bri, but used the rest at the market. What a great feeling! I got mostly stocking stuffers for Sean. I have to watch what my mom picks up, so that makes me a little nervous. Got lots of yummy candies and Amish made salads, etc. for tonight and the weekend. We had pulled pork on rolls with fruit salad tonight. It was so much better than what Ruby’s passes off as pulled pork (I had it last Saturday and it was all dried out on top). Mom bought us half a chocolate cake-yum! I bought a little red poinsettia that looks like it has pink spatters on it and a new Christmas cactus-one of my favorite plants.
While in the end store I saw someone who looked familiar. I asked if she had gone to my high school and she said yes and I asked what year and she said ’77’! It was Lynn my old classmate shopping with her daughter. It’s so ironic as I am friending so many of my old chums on Face Book and Bri and I just went to that get-together last week. : ) I told her to come next time. She was a brain and great tennis player in high school.
I got an ornament exchange from Peggy in NC today-a great surprise! She sent a penguin made out of a light bulb-adorable!
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She makes soap and lotion from her goat’s milk, so she sent me some. I’ll have to take photos tomorrow. I have her ornies almost ready to go. I had to make a few too.
Tomorrow I’ll decorate the tree-can’t wait. I hope my back holds up!

Facebook fun

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Happy Birthday MaryAnne! (my sister-in-law)
Playing around in Facebook and found this connection thing on someone else’s page. Most of the blue circles are high school pals:
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Sent off a few packages and went food shopping Wednesday. Exciting stuff, I know. It was raining and about 65 degrees out, so wore a sweat jacket, that’s it. A deluge is expected later, so I get to do more inside stuff. I tried to find my pizelle maker-couldn’t. Oh St. Anthony!

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Now where is that?

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I spent way too much time looking for things today. I had a rebate offer to complete and looked everywhere except the most obvious place, a little receipt basket I use before the receipts go in to storage. Please don’t ask about the receipts that I was going through last week-ok-well…I gave it up for a while. I’m halfway done though and need a container for the ones I have rubber banded and separated.

I don’t know what I did with the handmade calendar for December that I made last year. I remember taking it down and folding it up-that’s it. And my only Santa cross stitch pieces are MIA. Gotta look harder.

Mom continues to improve, though her eye hurts. She is bummed as she hasn’t done any shopping. I told her to get out some catalogs and shop that way! She seems to need the tactile sensation of handling the merchandise. Once a shopper, always a shopper. I helped Bri to set up a Amazon account and he did pick out things off my wishlist. I already got my new car coat today-a pretty lavender with a chartreuse lining. I tried it outside in our cold weather today and it felt good.

Slowly decorating….hope to get the tree up over the weekend.

I had a little mishap Friday- I tried to climb on a child’s chair I have at a old-fashioned desk to adjust Christmas lights in the front window, slipped and made a 4″ bruise on my right leg and have a groin pull-lucky me. It bothers me enough to make me feel grouchy. I will hang in there.

Bri’s car is in the shop-it needs a major tune-up! So I won’t have a car tomorrow either. He could have taken it for a tune-up months earlier, but had to ‘wait’ until it had a hard time starting. Bummer.

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Getting ready

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Even though the night before I had a strange time with my ache caused either from indigestion or strain, I managed to take down most of my autumn decor yesterday and to make tuna noodle casserole from scratch (I had no ‘cream of’ anything soup, so I had to make a roux). I am good today, but Bri left a note that said he was awake at 4:30 feeling jumpy and not himself. Maybe we had a little bug? This time of the year, you never know.
I opened up a can of worms the other evening (Sunday) when I decided to sort through the ‘paper chase’ bag. I have a huge plastic quilt bag of receipts, bill stubs, etc.that was just plopped in my bedroom. I would pay the monthly bills and stick the papers in the bag. You can imagine why I had to take on this task-the bag was going to burst at the seams! I think I am half way through it-yeah! When I should be decorating, I am sorting through papers. It’s just something I needed to do-I am a neat freak when the mood strikes. If we need to take a look at a year’s worth of Sean’s student loan stubs-they are all together now. Makes sense to me.
Today, I’ll probably go to the store. Tomorrow I want to get my Christmas cards started. I made one last year and will take the new to the copy center. As a hint, I used a really old family photo (one of my favorites) as the card’s design.
I’m going to do a little cyber shopping now. Here’s a photo of Shirley Temple I found to put you in the holiday mood.

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