Mar2

Snaps around the house

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I call this the candy cane Amaryllis. I received it for Christmas from Brian and it finally bloomed! It has two stalks and 6 flowers each, though only one stalk just started to bloom.
Amaryllis blooming

This is a cute little ceramic piece-birds sitting along a dish which looks vintage, but it’s not (Big Lots). I just but these pretty eggs in the dish part for the time being.
Birds and eggs
Brian gave me this cloche for Christmas plus the crystal egg underneath another time!
Cloche and glass egg
I was browsing some old photos online and loved this one. The phrase ‘don’t throw the baby out with the bath water‘ came to mind, so I used it! (most of the words)
Baby bathwater ATC

An ATC I made for my friend’s dad featuring a Red-breasted Nuthatch. It’s from a 62 year old Audubon bird book.

I thank another friend for sending some awesome papers which have truly inspired me! (background below). Thanks J! Nuthatch

Mar2

Ah fresh air!

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We mixed up our Sunday a bit and went to church today instead of last night. If I went one more Saturday night, I would have screamed! Really, it gets old. We headed down to a little coffee shop in Delaware for a sandwich afterwards and came home. I suggested Bri trim back the two sadly overgrown pear trees we have, but it may be too late for them. Fruit trees, especially the smaller ones, do take some care. They shouldn’t be over a certain height (I’m thinking 7 feet) and you have to trim out all the sucker branches. Plus you should spray them when they bud. We never did any of that. We lost a dwarf apple tree last summer when it fell over and pretty much destroyed half of the veggie patch. I helped Bri a little, but I suffered with a stuff upper back yesterday and didn’t want to aggravate that. I did promptly have to apply Icy Hot to my lower back though. My neighbor has cut down four trees (I think) 3 leaf trees and one evergreen. We still have a row of evergreens between our house and his (that belong to him).

My father’s half brother emailed me late last night and said that my father’s apartment was all cleaned out-all 6 boxes of the stuff. He gave away a table and a few other things. He had a broken 486 computer too. My uncle said he had some high school annuals, and things from the time he was in the Korean war on a ship. Sadly, he mentioned no photos. My brother wants the stuff, he can have it. The taxi driver who befriended him almost had the same last name as me, change out one letter and add a ‘s’ to his name-isn’t that weird?

I’ve been making some ATCs as gifts and really enjoying it. My one friend’s dad loves to garden and if I post a photo to tribe.net, she nearly always prints it out to show him.

Not sure about the Philly Flower show. I do want to go and I don’t . I have the pass to Longwood Gardens and usually don’t have to worry about crowds. My mom could go with her friend on Tuesday. I was thinking about Wednesday as I am getting my hair done and we could go afterwards. I was also hoping my brother could inspect my van and see what the funny hamster wheel noise is under the hood. I guess I’ll end up going. Any excuse to use my camera!

Mar1

Photo Hunt-Party/Wooden

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


This is my mom’s birthday last year and my youngest brother is giving her the cupcakes that I made to blow out the candles. I like the way he is looking at her here.

My brother is a master mechanic and has permanently stained arms, not really dirty ones. ; )

and for the 23rds hunt Wooden (I am late, didn’t feel much like doing it as I heard my estranged father had passed on).
Sean’s clipboard

This is my son’s clipboard with beautiful inlaid wood that he doesn’t use. I was looking through papers in his room and came across this a few weeks ago. He had received it as a gift.

Feb29

Blog burps

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Your Dominant Intelligence is Spatial Intelligence


You’ve got a good sense of space and how the world around you looks.
You can close your eyes and “see” images. You have innate artistic talent.
An eye for color and shapes, you’re also a natural designer.
Since you think in pictures, visual aids and demonstrations help you learn best.You would make a good navigator, sculptor, visual artist, inventor, architect, interior designer, or engineer.

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So I was sitting at the dining room table trying to organize my craft papers and general mess, and I remembered that a local high school’s postponed book sale started tonight-at 5 and it was 6:45. I reminded Bri and within 10 minutes we hit the road! It was fairly crowded and some of the books were pricey. I saw one lady with a scanner device checking out the ISBN on the books to see how much they were worth. I showed her a nice Charles Wysocki book with his collections (he is deceased), but she didn’t want to spend $7 on it and neither did I! Tomorrow is the $7 bag sale (which was $5 last year), but I probably won’t go back. I got old books I can cut up for my art projects-lots of birds in the mix! Bri got some decent train books-someone must have given away their collection. I should find out when they have donations and clear out some books I’ve had forever.

Feb28

It’s too darn cold!

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I was just telling Barbara on her blog that I faced the cold today-26 degrees and colder with the windchill factored in. Carole in Ontario probably thinks that’s balmy. I had to get some groceries in here and take a blouse back. And mail bills off. It’s hard buying food for two instead of three. I make too much and it’s not a pleasant task unless I’m going to Trader Joe’s, but that’s not often. Too far away. We have an empty grocery store here now as the Acme closed down the road. They built a new one near the hub of my town. Come on Trader Joe’s!

Brian just got his blood test results back and his cholesterol is high. His blood sugar was 106. He immediately says he’s not taking meds for it. The doctor didn’t call him or anything. The first thing he needs to do is some kind of exercise. He has a few pieces of equipment in the basement to use, but they are gathering dust. He has bad knees, but his extra weight isn’t helping. I have extra weight too, so now I’m nervous to get bloodwork checked out. I cook with olive oil, we eat a lot of ground turkey, hardly any red meat. Today my back is bothering me from sitting on the living room floor and bending down to put the snowbaby decorations away. I am pleased to say that nests and eggs, and a paper mache  bunny or two are making there way into the living room to welcome spring!
I got a used electronic postage scale for a good price from eBay and it’s not working. Won’t weigh a darn thing! The seller is going to see if the part she thinks she needs (called company) is cheaper than what I paid for it. If I had known it was 4 years old, I would have passed on it, good price and all. She’s telling me I should have purchased insurance, but in the paypal check out, she didn’t have it as an add on-option. The box she used barely fit the postal scale box! That surely didn’t help. Hope I’m not out almost $20. : (

Off to watch my Thursday shows and do a little stitching on-you guessed it-the zebra!

Feb27

Tried something new!

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I bought the punch needle kit back in the fall and just today decided to try it out. The lady at my LNS (Strawberry Sampler) was nice enough to show me how to do it, although that lesson was far in the recesses of my memory. I did get the knack of it and turned out this ‘pink’ ribbon. For some reason I grabbed a brownish pink, probably because I didn’t think I’d actually finish the project in one night. I think it’s not half bad for a first try. (update 2/27-I pulled out the incorrect color at the very top and redid-in 5 minutes. I may pick a pinker pink for the rest-it’s really easy to fix).  The only real pain was threading the needle. It comes with a hair thin wire with a loop on the end. Perhaps that reminded me of the needle they used on me in November-I remember it was pretty thin like this. I have another design-more folk art of a cat and a pumpkin I will have to do next!

Punch needle design
It’s a limited edition pink punch needle to benefit the Susan G Komen foundation.
I’ve made a few ATCs in the past week too. I ran some printed scrapbook paper (with music scales) through the printed and printed some photos on it. I got some interesting results:
Rejoice ATC

The baby’s photo just happen to print out right between the music notes! I used teal color tissue paper with a little glimmering chalk over it. Both my photos look a little out of focus. Hmmmm…guess I was going to close.

Tiny One ATC

Feb25

Going through the motions

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Things really seem in slow motion for me these last few days. Lots to digest, memories to push away. Mom is probably getting my father’s SS and will have a phone interview for that. My brother in Florida called the funeral home and they were glad to hear from him as no one had contacted them to give them permission to proceed-you can fill in to do what. Is that not so sad? My brother called for more information and got more than he bargained for! But at least it’s taken care of.

So I am trying to do a few things here and there, and mainly to finish up the little zebras’ quilt square that I must get to the quilter of the project by March 15th. I have to finish the second guy’s body and the grass they are in. I think I can do it. I’m a bit disappointed in this cross stitch group that organized the project. I try to drop in there a few times a month and left a message and no one replied to it! I think it’s time to move on. There’s about 10 of them who are really tight and go to IRL reunions, I can’t go to them! I would still be affiliated with Love Quilts and would do 1-2 charity squares a year. I’ve done over 40 in 9 years which is good for me!

I’m going to try and work on some crafts projects to finally sell on etsy. It’s by time! My head is full of ideas, just to get them made and up on the website takes a little doing.

Wish me luck!

Feb23

Mom got a phone call

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Last night, my estranged brother called up my mom! He hadn’t talked to her since November of ’06. Said he wants to come back to PA to live. His family is up here and he’s alone and getting older. I know it had to do with what happened over the last day and I guess it got him thinking. He said he wants to sit and talk to me face to face-oh joy. He’s the one who basically only listens to his own opinions. This should be an interesting year ahead.

I’m not sure if my father turned Catholic. I found the info that my cousin’s friend must have saw-that he is having a memorial mass in his name, which isn’t the same as the religious mass. Maybe a priest or someone felt bad for him. It feels weird and all, but I lost him a long time ago, especially when he decided to be physically abusive to me and my family. I don’t share this with everyone, but when I was little, around 2-4, I slept on a cot at the top of the stairs in our first home. I would sneak in my grandmom’s room and snuggle with her until my father pulled me out of my safe haven and tossed me on the cot again, under the light that was on all night. I didn’t have a real bed until I was about 5 or 6. He also took my beloved pacifier and threw it down that same hallway and I never cared for him after that. I absolutely loved my grandmom’s brother-in-law, Uncle Al and he had to hold me all the time. When my father tried to hold me, I’d cry. My father did buy me a Barbie I begged for and got me a pink and green dress with a matching shoulder bag one time. That’s all the nice I remember. When my parents divorced in 1972, we all went to court and he wouldn’t even look at us. I can remember what I was wearing- a white knit top with the outline of a sequin star on the front.  That’s the last time I saw him except for a photo he sent my older brother about 1985.

Once he took off with my little brother in the car for hours and my mom and grandmom started to get worried. I don’t think Ken was more than 2. He did bring him back, of course.

He loved Oregon so much and missed it. My mom lived out west in San Francisco for a year but she missed PA and was about to have my older brother, so they came back.

My father’s relatives are really nice people. I have some interesting family history through them too-my great grandfather was one of the first forest rangers and my gr-grandmom wrote a book about her life called ‘Honeymoon on Horseback’. I have a copy! And there’s a park and maybe a stream (or water source) named after my great gf. 

My cousin compiled that great book on our family and sent me a copy a few years ago. I didn’t know that my paternal family arrived through Maine until I received that book!

So although I had a black sheep for a father, the people around him (though not my paternal grandfather) were always nice to us, especially my cousin and her mother and sister-who I met with her husband when I was little.

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I was going to do the Photo Hunt, but I didn’t get around to taking my wooden photo item yet.

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I’m so proud of Sean! He donated blood to help kids with cancer. He never did this before and felt a little woozy, but he’s pretty psyched too. He got a free t-shirt out of it too!

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I got the jewelry shown below-love the necklace! The  earrings are much bigger than pictured and too big for me. If anyone wants them, they are about 2″ long and still in their packaging. They are suppose to be red, but are more brown.

Feb22

A passing

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I opened my email a few hours ago to see a note from my cousin in Oregon entitled Dad. I had a feeling what it was going to be about and I was correct, my father had passed away on February 16th, a little over a month past his 77th birthday. He was a sad man who lived alone and bothered with none of his four children and had never met his 5 grandchildren. I hadn’t seen him since about 1972-in divorce court. I had spoken to him a few times on the phone over the years, nothing memorable. Ann only found out as a friend of hers who read about his passing in the paper. Said he had a Catholic mass said for him. That was a surprise to us! So if he had just turned Catholic, maybe it helped him pass away in peace at the end. I called my mom and she did cry. She said it was so sad that his life turned out the way it did. He was her only spouse. I then called my two brothers and they were not too surprised. I have another brother who is acting just like our dad, so I will not be phoning him, I’ll let my younger brother take care of that.

CAK at Longwood Gardens 1950s

I see him in Sean, but Sean can look like him, just don’t act like him.

Feb21

Yikes!

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I went to the dentist at 2 pm expecting a filling, he cleaned it out and there was the nerve all showing, so I had to have a root canal! So a 1/2 hour thing turned into a 2 hours as I had to wait a bit as they got flooded with emergencies. I’m doing ok, bummed by the expense of it, but it had to be done. Dr. P said it was a blessing in disguise. I had the older dentist for a change and like his chair side manner and the way he drills, etc. much better than the younger dentist. I said to the assistant, who is only Sean’s age, if Dr. B. let you close your mouth and relax your jaw once in a while I’d be happier with him. With Dr. P, I didn’t even close my eyes once! I only had to say one prayer when he started the root canal, but I was fine. : )

Brian is bringing home some Subway chicken teriyaki sandwiches as I was a little out of it when I got home and that’s his way of helping.

I’m glad all my shows are on tonight, as I plan to curl up and relax big time!

And I almost forgot! Here’s the flat fold I made for Barbara’s newest edition Arden. It arrived safely in the Netherlands last week:

Arden’s gift
I received a sweet little win from the One World, One Heart contest-Joanne. I’ll have to find the blog or take a photo of it myself. It has photo on the cover of a bee on pink blossoms-just my cup of tea!