Jan14

A different blogging approach

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(Post renamed and edited)

I think I’ll just be posting here mostly with the help of memes-to supplement blah days. I’m having more fun on Facebook and Flickr lately and it’s hard to talk about my trials and tribulations and keep people interested. I’ll still check out my pals’ blogs to see what they are up too, but blogging is getting old to me, and I need a fresher approach. I don’t have the time to read more than a few blogs a day either. I have so much on my plate with the internet. I want to do more organizing in my house and more art projects. Many of my blogger pals aren’t updating that frequently. I’m not on a bunch of specific boards, so my comments here are limited. I worked two hours on this post-not one comment. Ever since then I question why I do this. I thought I had some neat photos to reshow. On the above mentioned places, I get almost immediate feedback, a big plus in my opinion. I’m lucky to get one comment here, unless I do a meme. I guess my blog is too personal? Why do other people get 50 comments about a photo of food and a recipe. I don’t get it? So here’s probably some personal stuff that I may not be including in the future:
I may have to take my mom to the doctor today as she is still sick, though moving around. I don’t like her raspy cough.
I got my tooth fixed yesterday and it’s still in, knock wood.
Maybe I’ll have more to share when the weather gets nicer. : )
Update-I went to my mom’s for a few hours and she looks pretty blah and has an occasional raspy cough. I don’t know if that’s a good thing-I think she needs to use the expectorant I gave her. I made her soup and tuna salad, started her car and took her trash down. I left and ran into Trader Joe’s for dinner-got Mandarin orange chicken and Indonesian rice-good!
Thanks for your comments. I know who my friends are. Though I’d like new ones, I don’t know who you are unless you comment.

Jan12

Typical Monday

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I am in total agreement with The Carpenters who sang-‘rainy day and Mondays always get me down’.
I got up really early thinking the dentist opened at 8:30 and they would call me then. Seems they do, but they don’t take calls until 9. I called them at 9:30 and got in at 11. Ugh. Too much too soon. And I have to get a crown. Dr. B took too much of my cracked tooth off and the temp popped off at dinner tonight. He said I needed to come back if that happened. I think I’m getting Fixadent! I have to put up with that until the 29th? I’ll be eating pudding and mashed potatoes by then-or going bonkers. And I have so much dental work on the bottom left (the new tooth will go on the upper right), that the food is getting between the gums there. And I won’t discuss the price. I think all my crowns added up would have almost paid for Sean’s used car by now. Funny, one of the dentists has an awesome vintage car he is restoring. I know I helped pay for that.
After I ate soup-which I am hoping didn’t loosen the glue, I sorted out the Christmas lights. Anybody need any? I think I have as many as they do at Longwood Gardens! I then put on my dust mask and worked an hour on my ‘rearranging of the holiday deco on the shelves’ project. Trouble-the dust kept getting in my eyes. Bri knocked a wall down next to the shelves last year (who would build a wall in front of 12 feet of shelves) and just let the dry wall dust go all over my stuff. I didn’t want to touch it, but now I have to as it’s driving me crazy. I managed to irritate my left boo boo ankle and could barely put weight on it when I came upstairs. I have it wrapped up and it’s better tonight.
So, I’m hoping for a better Tuesday! Send me good vibes!
My mom has a terrible chest cold and I feel like I should be doctoring her. All her cold stuff is outdated. She buys 150 pairs of socks, and doesn’t keep her cold meds up to date. I really don’t need a chest cold with a tooth that could pop out at any second. I look like I did at age 8!

Jan11

A little ‘I recommend’

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Not having the best 12 hours-I was sitting here around 10:45 last night and a huge piece of my tooth on the top right broke off. I think it started breaking off at dinner, as I felt something sharp in my mouth. It doesn’t hurt as it had a root canal done on it, but it’s a bit annoying and I have to eat all on the left side. I called and left a message at the office last night, hoping I’d have first dibs on the Monday appointments. Crossing fingers.

My ‘I recommend’ is to try home remedies for simple cures. Yesterday my eyes were puffy and I remembered reading about teabags helping reduce that. I got my used teabag out of the kitchen and kept changing it from eye to eye for about 15 minutes. Lo and behold, it helped! I use zinc oxide on the slight eczema caused by the nose piece on my glasses. Vaseline is good for taking off make-up. A tiny dab up each nostril helps in the wintertime (I use to get terrible nosebleeds when I was little). If my tummy is off, I chew an acidolphilus tablet or eat the Activa yogurt to build up the good bacteria there.

Dr. Phil’s wife Robin was on Rachael Ray and puts eggs whites on her face to tighten it up-eek-but if it works!
Do you have any you swear by?

Could you keep my mom in your thoughts as she sounds like she is getting a doozie of a cold. She just got up to make herself breakfast and her friend is coming over, but her being by herself makes me nervous.

We didn’t get any snow, just some sleet. It’s warming up a bit to the higher 30s today. According to my Farmer’s Almanac calendar, last night was the Full Wolf Moon, it was too overcast here to see.
Here’s an ATC I made yesterday:
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Jan10

Photo Hunt-Aftermath

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PSHunt
A bonsai forest, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

Since ‘aftermath’ means-results, this is what I stopped on when I was going through my recent photos. Now Bonsai is definitely an art form and is achieved from the results of careful and tedious trimming and training of a variety of trees and bushes. I would say these are a white birch maybe? I didn’t get the name. These were under two feet tall. They don’t have their leaves as it’s the wintertime. I saw a photo on the web of it in full green tiny leaf that I can’t seem to share here. There were other fine examples of Bonsai here at Longwood Gardens. These are usually decades old.

Jan9

The rug

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Here’s the rug my father-in-law gave us last week. Cosmo loves it!

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And my amaryllis has 4 blooms on it now! I was wondering what to do with the bulbs later on…I know they need to rest, but any secrets to getting them to rebloom or is it a big process? I should ask the people at Longwood.  Speaking of Longwood, I think I’m skipping 20 minutes in the cold for the ice skating. I was waiting for Sean to get back to school and he did about 4:20. He just sounds so thrilled with being there. I had a blah day-blasted hormones!

img_3690This is on the center of my dining room table. I’m still packing away Christmas stuff, so when I get that cleaned up, I’ll show you the entire table! : )

Jan9

Come April

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Brian and I will celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary! Now I was thinking, that I should stitch something to commemorate this most auspicious occasion. I don’t want anything too detailed, maybe a nice verse with a nice border. I’ll have to look through my many books, but if anyone off the top of their head can think of a good piece, let me know.
I did find a few I liked on the web-not in love with-I’ll see if any grown on me. Please vote on your favorite:
#1stillhavfun
We’re still having fun
by Samsarah Design
#2

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It is the Silver anniversary. : )
By Silver Lining
#3milestones
Kind of small, but the beads are nice.
Mile Stones Anniversary by Kulik Kreations
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So I’m thinking about going to Longwood Gardens tomorrow night, solo, to see the ice skating show-we’ll see how brave I am. It’s an extra $5 charge and you have to get the ticket beforehand. Personally I think the show should be part of the admission price.
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I’m doing some art cards and here’s one I did for a ‘skinny’ card challenge on one of my Flickr groups called ‘Shoes and Swirls’:
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Lucky for me, I just took down a shoe calendar from 2008 with oodles of shoes to chose from. These shoes are ‘dancing shoes’ from the late 1800s.
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I’m estimating my little boy from Mirabilia’s ‘Giggles in the Snow’ cross stitch piece should be finished in a few weeks. I plan to get him and my Sleeping Kitty professionally framed as I did with a few pieces in 2007. I’ll share him when he is completed.

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People can be so peculiar -I went food shopping and kept seeing this woman from church who is really only an acquaintance around the aisles. I know her name (mushroom business), doubt she knows me. The few times I was near her, she kinda looked at me, but I smiled at her. The odd thing-she’d see other people and all of the sudden she was so sweet and chatty, even with an older guy by himself in like a custodian jacket. She got in my line and picked up a magazine so she wouldn’t have to look at me. Gawd people! No way was I going to start talking with her-didn’t really want to-stuck up woman. I always try to be nice and start upa  ‘how’s the weather’ conversation. ; )

Jan8

All kinds of busy

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I had fun picking out the photos for Carolyn’s Birthday bash yesterday! Teal/aqua is my favorite color! I’ve never been dripping in diamonds either and it was fun to pretend.

Today is my brother Ken’s 42nd birthday. I hope he has a nice day.

So…been so busy and need to take a breather, but Sean the food bulldozer has plowed through all the food, so I need to food shop later. Tuesday, we got out the deep carpet cleaner machine and did the Oriental rug we acquired from Brian’s dad. This gorgeous rug was stuck under the dining room table at his dad’s house on top of wall to wall carpet. It was all puckered and wouldn’t lay flat. It looks divine under my round table! It’s the right colors-mainly blue with pink. I’ll have to take a photo of it after I clean up the rest of the Christmas things. The cat loves it so much as it’s wool  (pretty sure it is) and plush. I also did the majority of the other rugs, having the guys move the coffee table, big chair and sofa in the family room. This proved to be the dirtiest rug. I only use Oxiclean now and it does a great job. Sean’s rug is 22 yrs old and the family room rug is 16 yrs old and both sprang back to life.

Yesterday I took down the Christmas tree. I was up and down the basement steps a zillion times. I still have the lights and a few breakables to pack up, but that took almost 3 hours. The guys got it in the coffin-like box and pushed it back up in the attic. I am rearranging my basement shelves which look like a tornado went through them. That’s a job and a half.

Today at Brian’s work, there will be an employment meeting. As of 12:10, the ‘big cheese’ hadn’t arrived at the paper yet.They are coming there after leaving the office where Bri use to work-they fired everyone over there. Wish him and his fellow office workers well. In case the worse happens, I went on the Long*wood Garde*ns website and they had a job that Bri could probably do.

Update-Brian’s job was ‘spared’ for the time being-thank goodness, but about 2-3 people lost their jobs.

Sean just went to use a Wawa gift card he got to buy us lunch. I should watch what I eat as my tummy has been in a funk. Oh well.. Off to get ready for shopping.

Jan7

Carolyn’s Birthday Oscar Bash

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It’s that award time of year again and Carolyn invited us to attend a smashing birthday party like we did last year!
Here’s the cake I just picked up for Carolyn:
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That ’70’ on the top is a mistake!

Oppsie!

And I threw together this little number:
tealgown

This doesn’t clash does it?
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And crystal encrusted low heels:

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Love this antique necklace:

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This one may work better:

artdeco-bridal-pearl-necklace

I tried to borrow this from the museum and they promptly said no and thought I was one crazy lady!

oscardiaThe Hope diamond-it clashes with my gown anyway

My date?

oscargc2George

Look what they are doing to the statues!

OSCARS PREP

I’m going to sneak some of these into the show-

oscarchocLittle chocolate Oscars

A gift for Carolyn, since she is so colorful:

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And last but not least, a little giggle:
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Jan5

About 200 photos later

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Sean and I tried again at Longwood Gardens and practically had the entire place to ourselves! Yeah. I think I took at least 200 photos and narrowed it down to 175, which I will upload to Flickr. The gardens are using LED lights, so all the wrapped trees and hand fashioned trees look brighter. I really need to see how people are getting tri-pods in there, that would make a difference. I’ll share a few shots, first of the face I’ll be missing in a few days:

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Taken through a window in the orchid room. Sean treated me to dinner in the ‘fancy’ restaurant at Longwood. He had pasta with olive, mushrooms and capers and I had Citrus grilled chicken with white beans and spinach. I treated him to dessert in the cafe section. I had chocolate chip cake and he had a creme brulee type of cheese cake.
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The water in this area was decorated with cranberries!

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A natural themed tree with white and gold lights. I’d like a tree like this next year.
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A sampler from 1802 found in the DuPont House.
Thanks Mr. DuPont for Longwood Gardens!
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Here is the slideshow from today. I only got up to 60 uploads. The above photos are the unedited versions of what will be on there. Enjoy!