Oct13

This is October?

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The outside is beckoning for me with these kinds of temps. Actually, it’s a bit warm to do stuff that is too strenuous, but I guess I can hose down the items in the last post!

Happy Thanksgiving to our Canadian neighbors! Also Happy Birthday to my pal Carole (at Pea’s Corner) who is celebrating both Thanksgiving and her birthday today.

I was invited to her tea party and graciously attended!

Rant-Last weekend I helped Sean with a summary. I didn’t rewrite the paper, just suggest wording and order-he still got a ‘C’! The prof is just too picky or narrow minded. Sean is to read a 6+ page paper that is mostly about research. The prof already gives his summary of the article and then asks the class to answer a question or two in 200 words or less. To think he will be happy to get a ‘C’ is sad. Too bad the prof is treating seniors like freshman. I feel bad because Sean really tried hard this last time around. And to think he has the same prof next semester!

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I think I’ll be finished a cross stitched piece tonight after over 2 months of working on it. I’m so ready to do something else!

Oct12

Packing up the lawn ornaments

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Packing up the lawn ornaments, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

I have ‘things’ scattered in various gardens around the house that are getting put away soon. For instance, there are mostly squirrels in here that are looking a bit green and sad from spending months and months outside. Since we’re going to have good weather, I’ll give them a little spray with bleach. I also double check to see if I really want to keep them. It would be a good time to clean the beds out better to avoid all the work I have to do in March and April.
Unfortunately between planting 20 odd iris rhizomes and playing Word Twist like a maniac last night ( Bri was helping), I had a achy left hand until 4 am when I finally went looking for an ace bandage and the icy hot. It’s much better now! Bri was wearing one on his knee. The price for yardwork!

Rant-
I bought a tiny pot roast (they call it oven) for dinner. It was like 1.5 pds and cost $8 and was fatty, tough and horrible. I want to complain, but the local store has a large patronage of shoppers. The Hispanic shoppers tend to go in one day and buy an entire cart of meat. Frankly, they don’t care what I say, as they are making money off of unsuspecting people. But if they are trying to sell cheaper cuts of meat for ‘oven roasts’ then I am perturbed. I think I’ll buy my roasts elsewhere. Dang, I’m hungry right now.

Oct11

October Nasturtiums

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October Nasturtiums, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

Not to bump my Photo Hunt (which no one seems to comment on anymore), but I was amazed to see all these amazing colors of nasturtiums while I walked the cat last night. I had to run in and grab the camera. If anyone wants any seeds, I’m trying to save them as I find them.
Today I dug up about 5 or so clumps of irises and separated them into about 25-30 individual plants. Not an easy task. I replanted about 20 and almost had a heat stroke (it’s in the 70s today). Bri did help me rake the bed out. I had a hayfever attack beforehand. I’m so happy to save my beautiful flowers and get more! I’m going to need a bigger garden soon!

Oct11

Photo Hunt-Lazy

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PSHunt

beachscene.jpg, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

I don’t like the word ‘lazy‘. I can be lazy, like sitting and watching tv, but I’ll have something in my hand like cross stitching or a magazine (always looking for craft ideas and recipes).

I am truly lazy on the beach, though I’m still reading something or taking photos. This is one of my favorite photos of the last few years. This is probably Ocean City, MD. Love the umbrellas and the paraglider.

Oct9

Show & Tell #13

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Today I want to share a pastel drawing of my son Sean that was done in Paris, France in 1989. My in-laws went to France several times back then as my father-in-law was there for business and my mother-in-law went along. I would too! They happened upon this artist who did a few drawings for them. Having a little artist training, I know a drawing or painting looks more like a person when they aren’t looking straight at the artist, so I picked the one with Sean looking away.

It looks a lot like him. I’m not crazy about the striped shirt. We obviously still have it hanging up-in the living/dining area.
Here’s the photo it was taken from.

My mom likes to draw and she said the artist didn’t quite get his chin and nose correct. I think she was very talented!

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I decided to rearrange my postage stamp collector’s album. I have been collecting mint US stamps since Sean was about the age he is above-3. Not all of them for each year, but quite a few. I had stuck a bunch of canceled postage from the US and around the world in the same book, but took them out. I did leave the uncanceled stamps from France in the book, as my in-laws had bought them for us while they were there.

Of course I wanted to use some of the stamps in my collage art and made these cards:

Here’s what’s cool about the above. I was making an Asia themed card the night before, (check Flickr side bar) and cut out this bamboo ‘deer chaser’ to use, but it didn’t quite fit. I cut it out and used it on a card and starting to go through the stamps and found the perfect Chinese stamp of the little boys with the bucket in a shallow pool of water. The verse says-“Not all those who wonder are lost’ by JRR Tolkien

I have done a few cards using Chinese fortune cookie fortunes. Used another Chinese stamp and the registered piece from an envelope that the first stamp was on. Apparently it came from Brian’s former place of employment.

Oct9

Bam! Look what I made Emeril…

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Last night I made Emeril’s Seafood Mac and Cheese from Everyday Food magazine:

I used shrimp. The hardest part was the roux and it was a bit expensive, but I got to separate it in three containers-one to freeze, one to give away and one for leftovers! It has three cheeses in it-not lowfat except for the milk. I didn’t have the Asian breadcrumbs(panko) or the Creole spices, so I made due with what I had.  I thought stewed tomatoes would go good with this. Pure comfort food!

And here are the one two smallish eggplants that I grew:

I’m a bit fed up with vegetable gardening. I think our garden soil is eroded. We need to add top soil and nutrients to it again. I spent some moola making the Martha Stewart tomato tepees, and the tomatoes were sad. We didn’t water the garden that much, and we could have mulched it more, so those were issues too.

I did feel better yesterday and went food shopping. Not that hungry though. Seems ‘my peeps’ lay off complaining when they hear I want to go to the doctor. Is this a good thing, for my stress level-yes! : ) I’m wondering if I am developing more and more food allergies or sensitivities to food too.

Jay Leno just did a great parody about the debate Wednesday night, pinpointing McCain’s frequent use of ‘my friends’-holding up a ‘Friends’ tv show DVD and asking who the people were on his MySpace page. Obama’s sound bytes mentioned shopping and Delaware-lol-because that is what we do to save paying taxes. : )

Thanks for your comments! I am always thrilled to get them!

Oct8

It’s a matter of fact

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That our next president will be left-handed and be the 8th president to be a lefty (yeah for lefties)

Watched the town hall debate-McCain scribbled out a lot of smudged left handed notes while Obama didn’t-he drank a lot of water. Wonder what McCain was trying to remember? Not crazy about people who say ‘my friends’. What happened to ‘my fellow Americans’-is that not in fashion now? And McCain kinda sounded like he was selling snake oil.

Noticed more people wanted to pose for photos with Obama than McCain at the end.

Brian wondered what was wrong with Obama’s hair. I think he is getting gray patches and it looks like bald spots.

Obama reminds me of Kerry when he speaks, maybe not in a good way-that deliberate way about his voice. It is better than McCain’s-he sounds like a nice grandpa.

It sounded like the same arguments from the 1st debate, but they got to walk around and stare at the people in the audience.

Oh…later…James Taylor was on the Tonight Show and I took a photo off the new tv.  Pretty clear!

Oct7

SSSssssss

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Brian thought he’d contribute to my blog tonight. He almost stepped on this guy:

He’s showing you his tongue there! I’m pretty sure this garter snake (who looks bigger than he really is) lived in the vicinity of where I have an herb bed as I saw him there this summer.

It’s not funny how much I have to do outside to separate irises and put away decorations. I’ve felt a bit blah these last few days, so I’m waiting until I feel stronger to get the work done before it gets too chilly, though that is nice weather to work in. You bet I’ll be wearing gloves near that herb bed.

Oct6

Just a wee bit lucky

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On Wednesdays and Saturdays, we buy Powerball tickets, actually Brian does. We only spent about $3 each time and buying them in a way is suppose to help senior citizens. So Saturday night, we actually got the powerball-twice-little bells didn’t go off, but that’s $3! Yippie do dah! And we got one number in the line with the powerball-so that’s $4! Holy moley, what’s next? This got me thinking about if we actually won a large sum of money, would we spread the wealth around? I wonder if my siblings would give us any? I think it depends on how much it was-if it was millions and millions, then yes. : )

I’ve won a few things in my life-the neatest was $1k worth of gift certificates to the stores up in the next town. All you had to do was put your name in a number of businesses and I believe I was second place. I may have mentioned this in my blog a few years back. The lady who won  first may have gotten $1,500. We had our photo in the paper too! That was when Sean was an itty bitty guy. I think that’s the year I had gallbladder surgery when Sean was 9 months, so it was good to have something nice happen. The town never did that giveaway again. I’ve also won a cassette player for my car at my senior fair (back in 1976 or 1977) that got stolen soon after I got it. I’ve won a few online things like a Country Living hardback book and some blogger giveaways. Winning is fun!!

What would you do if you won a large sum of money? Would you help your family, keep it or give it away? ; )

I made some ATCs and a Skinny card yesterday to get my mind off Sean’s long trip back to school. Here’s one that made me crack up:

I had that Wicked Witch cut out and didn’t know how to use her. I figure love and flowers would make her melt. The fortune cookie verse said it all. I was in a Wizard of Oz swap, but have yet to get my goodie. My partner has/had to deal with the hurricane, so I understand.

Oct5

Say cya later

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Sean’s about to leave. I think it’s too much driving for not even two days, but he seemed to need a change of scenery. I also sat down at the table with him last night to go over an article for a  difficult class. He’s been having trouble writing summaries. So we went through it and he wrote down the important points. He has to answer a few questions about it in 200 words. I think that’s what’s throwing him-condensing what he’s written to that few words. Also, he’s to write 4 drafts of the paper before the final version and hand them all in. I think he’s changing too much around and it’s getting confusing to read. I suggested he write more than 200 and keep taking some away with each draft. I think the prof wants it to see if they understand what they are reading as the articles are filled with research. He hasn’t gotten very good grades so far, I hope I helped a bit. The photo above is at a luau party he attended with the Newman group he is in. His friend in the photo is from Seattle and chose to go to school at PSU.

The angel food cake I made which was gone in a day! Glad it’s lowfat!
First ever Angel food cake

Was so bummed I missed seeing my niece cheer at Sean’s high school yesterday. She cheers for the youth football league and we weren’t sure where she was until it dawned on Sean that they were called the Titans. He looked up the website and we found out too late it was at the high school. Plus Colleen had sent me email at 6:30 yesterday morning with the address. I am not on the computer before 9 am usually. I called her cellphone, and my niece answered and said ‘Hello Aunt Dianne’. I asked where she was and she was home already at 11:15. I thought she was cheering again at noon, but she said the older girls were. I promised to try and see her cheer again and even sent her a ‘I’m sorry’ e-card.

Ok, here’s something funny…Greg Kinnear, the actor, was on Conan O’Brien’s show Friday night. He said there was a new word coined for him because of a knitting blogger lady-The Yarn Harlot! She was at the airport last year and recognized him when they were in line waiting to board. So not to be too much ‘in his face’, she took a photo with her cellphone of him from a lower angle where he wouldn’t notice. The photo is only of his wife’s suitcase and part of his shorts, so you really can’t tell if it’s him or not! LOL On her blog, she coined the low photo angle as ‘kinnearing’. Now it’s like a new slang word and was posted in the NY Times. It makes sense because ‘near’ is in there.

Sean just left, so I’m collecting myself. I was fine until Bri gave him a hug before he left for his dad’s house. It should be getting easier for me. I’m blaming it on hormones!