Category Archives: travel

Aug19

Pickle Power!

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We’re having a warm and sticky week. I go sit outside for about 10 minutes and come back in to the a/c. Since the tomatoes went bust, we have been lucky to get the cherry and grape ones, but the cucumbers really took off. Yesterday I made refrigerator pickles with about 7 cups of sliced cukes, vinegar, sugar, salt,chopped onion and dillweed. Needless to say, the guys have been dipping into the container a few times. They are really easy to make!
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One of big hibiscus flowers (I grew the plants from seed about 4 yrs ago) broke off, so I brought it in. The deer usually make a meal out of these, but I have some blooming this year.
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Today I was tidying up my living room area as that is where I will sit the priest when he visits on Monday as we hardly use this area. My craft stuff is tucked in every nook and cranny since I have so much of it now. Yes, I will downsize and keep things I really like (one of these days).
My brother is working on the air in my van. I just can’t drive with the windows open. My class is having a get-together at the beach at the end of September and Brian said we could attend. It’s in Ocean City, but I’d like to find a room in Cape May and drive over to the get-together. When we were there last week, it was a tease for mom and me as we hardly saw anything as it started to rain and we had to leave.
Guess I’ll be headed to my hometown tomorrow to get my van. Hope the weather holds out. We lost power for two hours last night from mostly gusty winds. That makes 12 hours without power in the last month.

Aug16

Stitch by Stitch sign in Cape May

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For all my fellow stitchers-indeed!
Lee over at Lake Stitcher mentioned this store and of course it was one of the first places I snooped out when we were in Cape May last week! I didn’t photograph the store, it was tiny, jammed packed and the walls were covered with finished pieces. I had my mom with me. You know I worry about what she can possibly do with the condition of her eyesight. She picked up a chart with about 20 color changes per line that I wouldn’t even tackle! I found a blackwork of some of the Victorians in tiny form and she said she wanted it too. I told her to save her money and I would lend it to her. I also bought a kitty kit over one of the newer The Prairie*Schoolers. How can they sell the leaflets for over $9 now??-I got the kit with the fabric, design and floss for the same price. I’ll share what it is when I find it. ; )
The building you see in the background are retirement apts. Can you imagine living a few blocks from the beach and across the street from a cross stitch store? The only thing it is missing is a place to garden, but I didn’t see the entire place.
I haven’t done that much cross stitch lately. I’ve been pretty steady with it for over 10 years and I have found other hobbies with the satisfaction of completing things in a shorter amount of time and being able to swap them with others. I still love cross stitch, but I want to finish one thing before starting another. I really need to go through my 2 crates, big plastic box and library of books and downsize. That may be my project for the cooler months.
It’s a sizzler here-haven’t been out today yet!
Tomorrow, hopefully my brother will look at the a/c in my van and also check out the transmission which seems to slip once in a while. I’m also getting my hair done by his wifey, so I hope he can help me out. I have to get her birthday things together. She’s only turning 39!
Stay cool!

Aug13

Back home again

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We had a few ‘interesting’ days away-10 mile back-up Monday for ‘nothing’ except a part of the Garden State Expressway had one line and one truck blocking a lane. It took 1.5 hours to go 10 miles-the worst traffic jam ever.

But we got to see sights like this:

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The Atlantic City Convention center where the Miss America pageant use to be held and this today:
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A pod of dolphins at the Cape May Point beach in New Jersey-about 10 or so were following the boat.
Somewhat closer up and circled-

dolphins

More later!

Aug8

Post 2,500!!!

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5thanblog
This is almost my 5th blog anniversary. I started at the end of 2004 when Sean was a high school senior, now he is a college graduate. My post back in 2004 was about Atlantic City as it was around this same time last year. Guess what?-we are headed down there and Cape May (hoping) for a few jam-filled days next week. My first vacation of the year! I don’t count going to State College a vacation, but I did see some awesome scenery and of course the college campus.
I was in Pier*One and bought a few things for my ‘5th Anniversary Giveaway’. I plan to add a few things from the New Jersey shore to the booty. And I’m not telling you what the goodies are, you’ll have to trust me they are cute, yummy or fun-lol
Please comment on just this post if you want to try and win my goodie bag-the goodie bag is a lovely real bag from Pier*One-I’ll tell you that!
Thanks to all my faithful followers who I have met over the years. I hope we continue to keep in touch and perhaps even met each other someday! And I enjoy making new friends too, so welcome if you are just peeking. ; )
My other milestones-almost 7 thousand uploads to Flickr! and now over 500 uploads of my art cards and collages-about 2.5 yrs of creating!

Oh and the drawing will be randomly generated and the winner picked on August 31st to give many people a chance to enter.

Aug6

Thursday Thunks

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1. What the hell were you thinking?
I know, I totally skipped these questions last week because they were so strange-lol

2. The tornado sirens go off in your neighborhood – what do you do?
Get everyone down the basement.

3. Give us a recipe.
Since we are growing cucumbers-a Martha Stewart one-
Cucumber Ranch Dressing
Ingredients

Makes 2 1/4 cups

* 1 medium cucumber, peeled, halved lengthwise, seeded, and grated on the large holes of a box grater
* 1 tablespoon shallot, finely chopped
* 3/4 cup sour cream
* 1/4 cup low-fat buttermilk
* 1/4 cup mayonnaise
* 3 1/2 tablespoons (about 1 lemon) fresh lemon juice
* 1 1/4 teaspoons coarse salt
* Pinch of cayenne pepper
* 3 tablespoons fresh flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
* 3 tablespoons fresh chives, finely chopped
Directions
1. Stir together cucumber, shallot, sour cream, buttermilk, mayonnaise, lemon juice, salt, cayenne, parsley, and chives in a medium bowl. Season with additional salt and cayenne, if desired. Dressing can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
Serve with pita chips-yum!
4. It’s the middle of the night, there isnt a car in sight and you are stuck at a red light that just won’t change…. how long do you wait until you run it?
Within a few minutes.

5. When was the last time you got all dressed up fancy-like? Where did you go? For my son’s college graduation in May and then I wore a new dress to a little grad party we had last month for him.

6. Have you ever had a mole removed? Yes, it was right where necklaces would rub on it.

7. Are you in an area of record highs or record lows for the temps this summer? Are you lucky and stuck in the middle where it’s somewhat normal? We’ve had a fairly ‘cool’ summer. In this past week we’ve had high 80s and humidity. It’s really playing with my sinuses.

8. When was the last time you changed your furnace filter?
I just asked my husband as we run the a/c through it too. It’s been a few months. I asked before reading this too!

9. What’s your favorite type of frog?
The ones I see in my little pond-Leopards.

10. If you were to go on America’s Got Talent, what would you do for your talent? (and choosing not to go is not an option….)
Sing!

11. Have you ever been on a rooftop of a building? Yes! Down at Caesar’s in Atlantic City (where we are going again next week) they have a pool there.

12. What is the first website you go to each day when you sit down at your computer, other than your email?
Either my blog or Facebook.
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My sinuses are being bothersome-the ones around my eyes-ugh. My throat is weird too. Even Claritin isn’t helping a lot. I have something else to try too.
I got a phone call yesterday from ‘Private caller’. At first I thought it was a charity, and then I picked it up and it was my friend from college who was also my maid of honor. We had lost touch because she wouldn’t write anything about what was going on in her life in Christmas cards, just wrote ‘Love, L’. I asked her to and she wouldn’t. Anyway, we talked for an hour. She got her Master’s at age 45 and still is working in the prison in NJ (I think she processes inmates). Said they are hiring people that haven’t had college training as they don’t want to pay for that. She’s hoping to retire in 7 yrs at age 55. Found her through her brother on Facebook! She’s not a computer person.
Sean is off to Bethany Beach, DE to spend a few days with his pal who will be going to Miami for his Masters in a week or so. We are going down to Atlantic City for a few days next week like we did last year. We are hoping to drive over to Cape May as we haven’t been there for 10 yrs! Last year we went to Margate and saw the Lucy the Elephant structure.

Jul18

Photo Hunt-Rock

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Dome of Hard Rock Cafe, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

We got to eat in here back in 2005 when we took a trip to Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida for Sean’s high school graduation. Our waitress took a shine to us and took us on the tour of the John Lennon room that had his furniture and piano in it(the outside of which you see here). Pretty neat.
Incidentally, this is the biggest Hard Rock Cafe in the world.

Biggest Hard Rock Cafe in the World
Here’s the Hard Rock in Times Square we saw a couple of years:
Hard Rock Cafe

May19

Penn’s Cave Farm, PA

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Penn’s Cave Farm, PA, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

About 13-15 miles from State College, in the valley of the Allegheny Mts.,we were looking for this attraction, but didn’t have time to walk down 48 steps and take a boat ride in the caves. We weren’t even sure where the entrance was. We enjoyed looking at the long horns and bison, both within the boundaries of electric fences. The church was down a bumpy road called ‘Swamp Church Road’ and was built in 1885. I like to take photos of churches in my travels. There is a website about it with some history, including a ghost story! A husband and wife that lived near the church saw a ghostly figure go by them in early May as they sat on their porch in the early evening (the house was razed and no longer there). It was a young woman and she entered the church.They could see the soft glow of candlelight after she entered. Then she went from pew to pew showing off a baby. It was known that a young woman had a baby 8 months after her sweetheart died in the Civil War. She was a member of this church and was shunned by the congregation. She disappeared and was never seen again.