Mar27

Extreme Home Makeover-local

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About a month ago, the ABC show Extreme Makeover:Home Edition redid a home in Wilmington, DE., very near our neck of the woods. In the local paper it was saying how a local meat/food market provided the food for the crew (gourmet they said). Anderson Homes did the major work, but some local contractors did things like painting and removing debris and went back even after their alloted time was put in. The one guy’s daughter graduated from high school with Sean and I worked with his mom when I did the teacher aide fill in job. It’s a small world! Watch it on Sunday night at 8:00 and you’ll see those guys (other than carpenter Paul DiMeo) with heavy Philly accents!

Mom had me turn on a PBS show the other night as they were showing scenes from the Mushroom festival that takes place here in September, and one chatty lady who was telling them quite a bit about mushrooms was in the church choir with me.

Today, I’m like the lady in the commercial who feels like her head is blowing up like a balloon. My right sinus was achy like a toothache last night. I know it’s suppose to rain for about 1.5 days, so I was wondering if that has something to do with people and their sinuses-like barometric pressure inside your head? Anyway, got a pot of stew cooking to get my mind off my head as I can’t use Flonase until I get my eyes checked next week. I have to stick with salt spray or the homeopathic kind of nasal spray.

Bri has some dental work today, about 3 different spots and he’s just thrilled about that. My mom went to the doctor and he wants her to get a few tests on her spine as he is concerned about her sciatica still bothering her as much as it still does. She weighs about 120, not terrible, but she could stand about another 10 pds.

I want to get to Longwood Gardens before the 31st as that’s the orchid display is only up until. I completely forgot about it! I want some awesome photos!

Here’s some more flower shots from yesterday:

Tulips

Two different colors of roses

Mar26

For BJ

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In rememberance of B

Received this email from one of my longtime internet pals, I’ve known her for at least 10 years. She met her husband online through a Titanic chat room. I enjoyed hearing about her Titanic dinners and their various cruise trips.
Here’s some of the email:

On March 5, 2008, B passed away at home with me there. It was sudden.
Dianne, of all of the thoughtful things that you have sent to me, the cross stitched, framed piece that you gave me of the couple on a ship’s deck means the most at this time. It was indeed B and me. Thank you.

Fondly,
BJ

 

Needless to say I was very touched. I feel the same way about anything anyone ever made for me too. I’m very sad for my friend tonight. I will always associate anything about the Titanic with her and B.

I got a couple of bunches of roses for dirt cheap again at the supermarket, and this is one of them that I just photographed.

Mar26

Movies!

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I bit the bullet and went into the video store yesterday. Why was this such a hard thing for me to do? Sean usually picks out the flicks and if I’m interested, I watch too. Let’s say I don’t watch everything he likes. So Tuesday, I wanted to get ‘Atonement’ and also got ‘Enchanted’ and ‘Becoming Jane’! I watched Enchanted (yes, it’s Disney) because I think Amy Adams and Patrick Dempsey are cute as buttons. There I said it! I enjoyed it-the characters, the costumes, NYC, the songs, you name it! There were a few scenes I wondered about, but all in all, fun!

Amy and Patrick

Later, after ‘Dancing with the Stars’, I watched ‘Atonement’. For some reason, I pegged one of the main characters, James McAvoy as resembling my late father as a young man. It was set before war time in 1935 and then after the war had begun in England and France. Bri was looking up info about the setting. The English accents were a bit thick, but again, great characters, etc.

James MacAvoy and Keira Knightly

I think I’ll make this a weekly event as long as tv is so boring and Sean isn’t here. That way I can rent the ‘chick flicks’. : )

Mar25

Dinner review

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Brian and I went out to dinner to a new place and weren’t really impressed by what we ate. We weren’t satisfied like we usually are after eating at The Olive Garden. I had a steak dinner called Bistecca Franceshe-it was NY strip covered with a mild pesto (I couldn’t really taste it) and accompanied by stringy broccoli rabe and cannelloni beans. Beforehand, we had a salad-it was just a large pile of mixed spring lettuces with ‘one’ sliced cherry tomato and served with vinegar and oil.  We also had crusty bread served with a bowl of plain olive oil for dipping. Brian had a Salmon dish and they were nice enough to substitute asparagus for the mushrooms it is usually served with. He had a small pile of spinach too. I gave him almost half of my dinner as I could tell he hadn’t had enough of his own. That left room for me to get the Chocolate flan-which was like a thin brownie with warm chocolate inside served on top of vanilla custard. The presentation of the food was really nice and I told our server I wish I had brought a camera. She was a nice girl, but you couldn’t help to notice that she has a pierced tongue as you saw a turquoise ball there everytime she spoke.

I don’t think we’d go here again. It has a fancy Italian name and we were thinking The Olive Garden on a grandeur scale and it wasn’t.

When we got home, Brian ripped through his gifts in about 5 minutes. He got mainly clothing. His one non-clothes item from me didn’t arrive yet. He had a quiet birthday, but it was nice to send some alone time together-the restaurant was very low key with some interesting belly dancing type music in the background. There were other patrons, but they were very quiet.

Mar24

The day after Easter and Happy Birthday Brian!

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What I made for dinner Gramma’s Pineapple side dish:

Gramma’s Pineapple Side
This is similar to what my late mother-in-law use to make. I believe she used bread cubes, I cut up Pepperidge Farm white bread. Can you see the butter oozing on the top there? It’s like a stuffing for ham.
Scalloped potatoes
I haven’t made scalloped potatoes for a while. They were pretty good, I like them a little crisper on the top. I used fresh dill and dried parsley. I kept having to ‘zap’ them in the microwave because my mom was ‘hogging’ the oven with a 12 pd ham! So this presented a problem as we couldn’t wait until 6-6:30 to eat as Brian was taking food to his dad. So we sliced some off and stuck it back in the oven for a bit. I found a meat thermometer about as old as me and it said the meat was at the right temp to eat. I thought it was ok, a little salty. Mom didn’t care for hers and said she wasn’t crazy about scalloped potatoes. Spending Easter with people over 75 is interesting. We got to the point where my uncle looked up Bentyl (the med the dr prescribed for me last week that I didn’t take) in a ‘bad pill’ book. Said not to take it! And my uncle has a habit of lighting his pipe all the time and by the time we went home, I was really stuffed up. I’m not saying I don’t like to be with mom and uncle, but old habits sure die hard. I was glad to see him chow down. Mom hardly ate anything. We did sing ‘happy birthday’ to Brian and had some cake. We will go out to dinner later. Bri’s been in a funk, not sure what’s up-work, his car, his dad? He complains about holidays being a money making thing and didn’t want anyone singing to his when it wasn’t his birthday (before went to my uncle’s house).
Back to Easter-I spent an hour or so downloading mostly Sean’s photos to a keychain for Bri’s dad:
Slideshow on a keychain

I guess he liked it (I didn’t go to his house), but his 1989 Lincoln is probably on it’s last legs and he was worried about that.

On the home front, I picked up an African Violet sampler last night to work on for a change. I was also looking at the real violets in the window and they need repotting and trimming. Many have flowers! A few are on their last legs and I moved them to the kitchen to see if I could maybe root any of their leaves. Also on the stitching front, I was looking at my neighborhood round robin from last year and I need to add another house, so that will be fun. I do want to get it framed, so need to save up for that huge frame.

Both mom and I have goodies for Brian, mostly things he needs. Something he asked for hasn’t arrived from Amazon yet-rats! I didn’t really wrap things but may do a bit of a quick tissue paper thing in a bit. I think he threw out all my saved gift boxes anyway.

A fragrant lily Bri gave me:

Easter lily

Mar23

Birthday boys and Easter

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Nephew and Brian 12/24, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

This was taken in late December, but my nephew turns 12 today and Brian has a birthday on Monday!

Here’s the cake I made for Brian, it’s devil’s food with vanilla icing and I think a festive Easter look. : ) I used colored sugars (they sell them in a little set) and malted milk eggs.

Brian’s birthday cake

We went to church last night for their 2 hour vigil mass with candles, darkness, let their be light, baptism and confirmation! I needed some ice cream afterwards.

Off in a few to my uncle’s house. I am making scalloped potatoes and a pineapple/bread side my late mother-in-law use to make. I never made it before, but found the recipe on the internet.

Happy Easter to all!

Mar22

Photo Hunt-Metal

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PSHunt
Grab the Scavenger Hunt code.Photo Theme. Join the blogroll. Visit participants.

A metal structure from the recent Philadelphia Flower Show. That big leaf looks like he is being modest and hiding behind it!

Metal sax player, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

And one of the most famous structures in Orlando, Florida-

The Epcot sphere. That’s Sean giving the thumbs up. We weren’t planning on doing Disney (just Universal) back in ’05, but decided to go on Mother’s Day. I could have had my legs fall off that night and wouldn’t have known it!

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I’m the 3rd comment on Martha Stewart’s blog-woo hoo!

Congrats on 500 fabulous shows! I really enjoyed your photos too. Thanks for inspiring a domestic goddess in mushroom country of PA!

Posted by: Dianne | March 21, 2008 at 01:08 AM

Mar21

Reading mojo

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Thanks to Annemarie for bringing up ‘mojo’ a bit ago. I do see my mojo in various lights, so to speak. Sometimes I love cross stitching, sometimes I can’t get through a line on the chart in an hour. So lately I haven’t had any reading mojo. I tried a few books, got bored or didn’t understand them (a Nicholas Sparks book and the book Wicked), so I just stopped reading. Altogether. Not me at all.

When Sean and I were in Walmart last week, I went down the magazine and book aisle and ‘The Five People You Meet in Heaven’ stood out like a beacon to me for some reason. I bought it and it sat around until the beginning of this week. I started reading and it’s really good so far! Hooray! Mitch Abbom is a very visual writer and there are some twists that I am liking. So I am recommending this like one of my favorite authors Amy Tan did.

Here is my little strawberry punch needle I made last night. I made it a flip lid for this 4″ basket. I think the loops are bigger as it’s a looser weave fabric. The pattern for the strawberry came from a rubber stamp. Punch needle basket

Feeling better. Only liking Pringles (they have the mini ones and they aren’t greasy, just crisp) and rice cakes. I hope I get my appetite back before Easter.