Category Archives: weird stuff

Jul1

I saw a camel today…

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I really did see a camel! I was coming home from CVS and turned on the east end of my road. This lovely farm always has a few donkeys, horses and even alpacas grazing in their fenced area, but I never, ever thought I’d see a two humped camel amongst them! There was no one behind me, so I did a slow cruise to check him out. Someday I’ll take my camera and get some shots if he’s still around. I’m not too crazy about being by myself on our road and getting out of the car since it’s a bit in the sticks.
I had felt rather silly just about 20 minutes before when I parked the wrong way in 15 minute parking in the next town. The meter guy was standing there, just a young fellow and was looking at me with a bit of a smirk on his face. I had parked ‘that way’ every time I parked there since the wintertime. Here I had to turn around and ‘face the flow’, it’s a small side street, but you have to follow the rules.
My van was making a loud chirping noise off and on when I was out and it appeared to be coming from the right side-like it’s done in the past. Brian sprayed the belt that seems to be troublesome and he took it for a spin tonight and said he didn’t hear anything. We want to take it to Penn State in August, so I hope we can finally get it ‘squeakless’. : )
I decided to order Sean’s favorite pizza from the new place-the taco one. It’s really good! It actually tastes more like an appetizer than a pizza.
My brothers wanted to talk to mom tonight and she was up at #3’s house for 3 hours. They want to continue to clean out her house and fix it up. That’s what it was all about. Interesting. And thanks for including me and our older brother. I’m my mom’s main shoulder and I try to make her happy.
I’m not that crazy about July and August. My gardens tend to start to bug me in more than one way-the real bugs and the weeds. We’ve been getting ‘yelled at’ by a catbird (and it’s mate) for the last 4 or so days. They must have babies nearby. It’s really annoying and makes going out very unpleasant, even for Cosmo the cat. I’ve been staying holed up more in the house and making some paper crafts, that I will share here.

Jun2

Tomato tepees?

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Today I was planting zucchini and beans in one part of the garden. I would like to toss a few gourd seeds in there to ‘ramble’ and to see if they amount to anything. I then tried to make the tomato tepees as strong as possible by adding metal poles I had. It’s a process. I hope it works. I think you have to keep the tomato vines as sucker-free as possible because they usually get heavy. I’ll add a photo if all goes well and they stay up.

Things have quieted down over at my group. I posted a blog comment over there (not here) about possibly leaving and mentioned indirectly who was causing me to think this way, no names. So the lady giving me the grief posted the first comment revealing the who, what and wheres of the situation. She then went on to publish it in two more places until I took the original off and she did hers. I read her grandfather was having surgery today, so I wished him well in a note to her.

It drives me bonkers though when someone completely ignores my point of view-like my brother did. The cons for this trip outweighted the pros. If you are thinking about having a get together with blog pals, research the travel options first. Make sure everyone is on the same page. My friend didn’t want to travel at all, not to even meet us half way someplace. She also didn’t want us to go to the tourist attraction, but to spend 4 days with her exclusively. How many of you would want to spend 4 days with someone you really don’t know that well? These are my thoughts.

With the cost of gas, we won’t even be traveling that much this year!

Off to the store in a few, though Sean is taking me. I have a tire that keeps going flat on the van! Bri is going to get that taken care of tomorrow.

I was so out of sorts yesterday, I could not get the fountain fixture in the pond to stay upright and to keep the tubing to the waterfall attached to that. I waited until the water settled today and it dawned on me that the tall plastic container that my water plants came in would be more stable. It worked! I was so happy. And happy that the changing mushroom solar lights came today too!

Jun1

Never hit your elbow into a brick wall

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Like I did last night! I’m a leftie and why I sat at the table in Perkins next to the wall is beyond me. Well my ‘funny bone’ went right into the brick and the pain was terrible. I put my head on the table a few times. I then felt a bit queasy (empty tummy) and then I had to get up because I broke into a cold sweat! I have ‘experienced’ hurting myself  like this at home a few times, but never in a crowded restaurant! Thank goodness the ladies’ restroom had the air blasting and it revived me. Needless to say, I ruined dinner. The above happened over the course of say 5-8 minutes. So watch your precious, bony elbows!

Kinda blue as a bunch of pals and I were planning a get-together and decided on a southern state next year where one lady lives as she doesn’t travel well. We were all getting excited until we looked at the flight schedules. For me to fly from Philly down to our proposed meeting area would be a 9 hour day with a couple of layovers and finally flying into a dinky airport. That completely soured me on it. Then another friend said if we went to a major city and tourist attraction, it would be a direct flight (3 hours for me!) We threw this pass the one lady and she got completely insulted as she thought we were more interested in sightseeing than being with her for 4 days. Now we had planned to rent a car and overnight in her town and spend at least 1.5 days with her. We were doing all the running around. She dropped out of our group over the above. Dropped like a hot potato! Her profile said she was ‘calm’ today. I haven’t been calm because I feel like I lost a friend. Hope she goes from mad to glad again soon.

Anyway, I am hoping to get out west to see 3 other friends in 2010 in celebration of the big ‘5-0’. Never been there. I have roots in Oregon. Bri suggested this. I hope we could stay for a while, heading from San Fran up to Oregon. We’ll see.

Not much going on today. It’s nice out though!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my pal Barbara over at Mainly Stitching and my friend Carol’s friend Steve! (so what if I’m 5 months older than Steve-lo)

May19

Magical Flowers

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Thanks to Gary over at tribe.net for animating this for me! He’s a wonderful photographer in California and good at animation too. It’s not working unless you click on the picture-grrrr!


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Today it reached 60 and was so chilly. I went outside and ‘high tailed’ it back in again! I do have things to do inside, no problem. My allergies were in a tailspin and I saw Bri looking for Claritin. Sean cut the grass around the house for the first time in a while and Bri finished off the long part. We’re still trying to get the yard work under control. If you could see the pile of debris you would wonder where it all came from!
Tomorrow seems like it’s going to be a repeat of today. Oh, more clutter control will be under way!
Reached my ‘half’ birthday today-oh joy!

Apr24

Hoping for new flowers

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My friend Zoey over at Perennial Passion blog was nice enough to send me a package of Rose Campion seeds last year. I figured since the Lilacs are blooming and the Lily of the Valley are unfurling their leaves, I might as well plant the seeds. I planted them in three different areas to see where they would do the best-near the pond, in my grass and lily garden and in the iris bed. All between sneezing and blowing my nose. My neighbor has a ton of flowering trees and I guess they are bothering me, but I guess a ton of things could be outside! I also threw in some flower seeds I had gotten from eBay last year-Butterfly weed, Bee balm and Columbine. If they come up, they come up-they hardly gave me any! I was going to start them inside, but I have had Columbine that has spread by itself.

Thanks to Barbara for defining the difference between ‘affect’ and ‘effect’ in the last post. I had to chuckle because a local tv ad for a dept. store says ‘Did you Boscov today?’ They are using a noun in a verb position!

Here’s an odd thing-my mom can’t get through to me on the phone, but I can call her! It’s been like that for a few days now. We both have called our respective phone service (we use Comcast VOI) I even had her dial my next door neighbor and it went through. She can call me on her cell phone, not her land line.

I really wanted to go to Longwood Gardens today, but too much of the nose problem. Maybe tomorrow. I can do everyday if I wanted with my pass. (There’s a tv commercial for Longwood on right now!)

Mar3

Weird stuff about me

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<—Emily over at the Floss Box tagged me and I am sure I did this before. My normal may be your weird, so this wasn’t easy for me.

1. Not fond of handling raw meat and then cooking and eating it an hour or so later. Stews and spaghetti sauces that cook a while are much better for my palate. I’m fine in restaurants because I’m not cooking.

2. Books, books and more books-may not be weird, but when you have a bookcase or two in every room (almost), it’s time to slow down. And I don’t read a lot of them either, but I have to have them! (The old adage of maybe needing it one day)
3. Same with cross stitch charts. I only had a small box of them and then starting buying for eBay and my collection snowballed! I hope to have some local blogger friends here to go through a bunch, but when we can sit out in the yard.

4. My nighttime bed routine-must always wash my face. I also use zinc oxide on my face. I think I’m sensitive to the plastic nose piece on my glasses and the zinc seems to help. In the wintertime I use Vick’s Vapor rub too. That’s not all I do, but it’s not really interesting.

5. I do much better with cross stitching when I have a deadline. My latest piece, the zebras is driving me batty! I have to have it mailed by at least the 13th. I think I can swing that. I have half a zebra, the grass and some name stitching to do.

6. Not crazy about crowds of people. I guess a lot of people aren’t, but I don’t want them pushing into me or breathing on me. Didn’t I say I was going to the flower show this week? Yikes!

7.I tend to make piles of stuff around my house. I know this would drive my one blogger friend crazy! At least the stuff isn’t in a jumble across the floor. And along with trying to stay organized, I seem to have to dust all the time! I hate it.

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We are heading for 60 degrees today! I left the rake out (like my avatar above) to rake out my iris bed which looked bad last fall. I don’t like neglected gardens.

Jan6

Venturing out

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Sean and I went to the grocery store and church yesterday. I was a bit nervous to go, but my sinuses were good, even with incense wafting through the air on several occasions. We also went to Wendy’s for dinner. It wasn’t until after 11 pm that I had ‘the tickle torture’-rats, almost 24 hours went by without one. We hope to get to BJs/Sam’s Club today so Sean can get food stuff for his dorm room. Before bed I had to take a little cough syrup. I swear that stuff is a hallucinative! The night before I dreamed Suri Cruise was telling tales about her infamous parents-like she was being a parrot to what she heard them saying to each other, some unpleasant things. I found this rather humorous upon awakening, but couldn’t remember exactly what she was telling people. All kids do this anyway. I was good at saying ‘what a mess’ when Sean was little and didn’t he go to the neighbor’s with me and proclaim her kitchen was a mess! Not good. Suri has the cutest little face and haircut and I am always looking at the Celebrity Baby blog and there she is.

Last night’s dream (or early morning) had me in a house in my mom’s old neighborhood when a Coca cola truck pulled in the driveway with balloons and stuff. I decided to see what the fuss was all about, in my t-shirt nightie (no Pam Anderson here) and got embarassed and crawled in the back of another red van. It started up and the older lady was headed to Philly to buy theater tickets! (I told you it was weird). Then I got talking to people in the neighborhood- like an improv group (still in my t-shirt) and went down every week with her. I have no idea what triggered that, unless I was thinking about Publisher’s Clearinghouse and also the Ticketmaster email I get…and one of those blog thingies my friend has us do all the time (are you a people person? )
Anyway, it’s warmer today and will be for the next few days which means my bedroom is not like a barn. We definitely need to go to Home Depot one of these days for a new door or something for the basement area below the bedroom.

I hope to dream about chocolate tonight.

Jan3

Home remedy anyone?

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Now I’m into my 5th day of this virus and Brian got it last night and couldn’t go to work today. Mine is mostly in my throat now (my head feels better), when you get that terrible tickle and almost hack up a lung-for nothing! Sean said he’d go get me the daytime cough medicine as I just took the Dm kind, which is all we had. That helped a bit, but I think the Altoids is shocking it a bit. Anyone have any good home remedies for coughing? And I tried salt water gargle and it ended up all over the mirror in the bathroom. And I’ve taken a few doses of honey too, which is soothing. The Nighttime Tylenol must be drying me out too much as I feel the worst after I’ve been up 1/2 hour or so with the coughing, etc.

Sean is doomed, I feel bad. He is still ok, though. Crossing fingers.

Update~-

Thanks for all your comments. We really appreciate them. I had Sean get a few things at the store from DayQuil to popsicles. My throat was getting sore. Seems I had the bad cough after I ate, so I’m thinking it was a bit reflux. I only did that a few hours after I got up. It seems to be moving down into my chest more. I am feeling a little something rattling around.

Brian’s going to try and get to work tomorrow. He’s at the pounding head stage. He also can’t taste anything. I was so happy that the hair on top of my head and some of my capped teeth didn’t hurt today! No kidding!

Sean rented a few DVDs, one of which was ‘Sicko’ the Michael Moore documentary about the state of the USA’s health insurance. Seems that Canadians and Brits don’t have to pay for anything health related (I guess a lot through taxes)! When Brits need medicine, they only have to pay around $10 for any size prescriptions 10 pills to 300 pills. If you can’t afford to pay, it’s free. No wonder I cried when I found out I didn’t need to have further treatment in December as the bill for the procedure I had was over 6K! We haven’t heard about how much the insurance will pay for most of it. To use the surgical suite for one hour was 4k alone. To be in recovery for less than an hour was $700. The small plastic bandage-$3 and the 2 shots of painkillers-$57 each.

Outrageous.

Oct13

What’s wrong with this cover?

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Supplement cover

Bri asked me earlier, and I couldn’t see it right away. But a local University did and asked for a refund. Bri doesn’t do the cover layout, he gets the ads for this supplement. Now I would be a little peeved to see that mistake on an educational supplement! Bri is hoping no one else makes a stink as that’s his bread and butter-he did most of the ads for this.
Speaking of smelly-I can’t think of a Photo Hunt photo for smelly that would be nice or interesting, so I pass today.
I went back to the LNS shop and got a bigger piece of linen on Friday. I’m glad the place is still in business after all these years. I use to go there when I was in my early 20s, so it’s been around a while. I also went to Michael’s and hit a rubber stamp sale and got a few nice ones plus one you can make your own words with and stamp it. I’m still looking for a rubber stamp of wings. And I did hit Trader Joe’s and am putting together a box of birthday goodies for Sean. He’s had a few rough days, and was blue over a test he studied really hard for and didn’t do well with. He did get a curve and has a ‘C’ now, so that helped. It’s homecoming weekend and he went to a parade last night. I’m sure the game and festivities will lighten his mood. He said he’d like to come home for a bit, but that’s up to him, he’s gotta do the driving to and fro.