It’s just like I saw him yesterday

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We were all waiting with great anticipation to see Sean today for the first time in almost 3 months. I made a big pot of stew early in the day and some ‘easy’ empanadas later on. I put on some makeup to look good-ha!

Around 2:15 he called and said he was in Lancaster where his bud and him stopped at Burger King, but didn’t go shopping. At 3:30, I was waiting for James Taylor’s appearance on Ellen and I heard the door open and I almost flew off the sofa to the living room! There was my handsome son with a big smile on his face. And as I said above, it was like all those lost days melted away and I had just seen him! He was tired, but said he liked the way down better than the way up (we didn’t do that right in August). He just ate dinner about 6:30 and went to get some videos and said he’d get one for me.

I didn’t cry….then. What touched me was the slideshow that the webmistress from ‘Make A Child Smile’ sent to share of her late beloved pooch Buddy. My friend Karin sent me the sweetest birthday card and said I was more like family then a friend. She’s the lady whose wedding we went to in NYC. It’s been a nice Friday.

This thing about chicken and then hoarding

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Make note to self-do not buy the big package of thick chicken breasts anymore. Although you pounded the last two pieces, and must I say with great vigor, they were too thick and had that funny chicken taste-almost like an uncooked taste. Buy some regular olive oil as suggested by Giada DeL. and use the EVOO for salad dressing. Throw a hunk of butter in there too. OR buy the skinny cutlets, yeah that’s the ticket.

Here’s dinner last night with the hunky chicken. Martha’s Stewart’s Everyday Food magazine, Dec. ’07 issue Chicken with olives, rice, spinach and raisins. I didn’t have the golden raisins as suggested in the recipe. I think another kind of white wine would be tastier too:

Chicken with olives

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Let’s talk about the Oprah show that will air the second part later on today. It’s about Hoarders. I am one to a degree, but I keep most of my hoarded stuff in the basement and most of my boxes are see-through plastic ones-and there is a lot of those. It’s spilling over a little in the bedrooms and family room. Mostly books. But the lady on the show had 15 dumpsters full of stuff in her house! Every room and the basement was jam-packed with stuff from her daily shopping sprees. Now if you know me, I talk about my mom having a similar, but not as drastic problem with too much stuff in her house. Like the lady on the show, her younger grandkids haven’t been inside her house for months, maybe a year or more. I try to help her, but it just gets bad again. She is always sorting, but never tossing. Her favorite phrase now is ‘I need to buy more Rubbermaid containers’!! She buys the big monster ones in green or whatever and you can’t see what’s inside. She has them taking up room in two bedrooms that she can’t even get in. I said tonight, and this really applies to all of us who are holding on to stuff, that she is 77 and better get real. Everything will be tossed in the long run. And I know deep down she really wants to use watercolors or sketch or embroider and live a less stressful life. I see how she will sit here and do those things when she visits. I bet she has dozens of started embroidery kits. Stuff is a replacement for an empty nest. Shopping is definitely a problem too. She was so proud that she was staying out of the department stores, but now she goes to the Goodwill to shop! This is hard to deal with as Brian’s dad hasn’t really gotten rid of too many things of Bri’s mom’s and she’s been gone over 11 yrs now.

Andrew Wyeth honored

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Andrew WyethArtist and local Chadds Ford, PA resident Andrew Wyeth received a national medal of honor from President George W. Bush today. He is 90 yrs old. I found some trivia about him on Wikipedia:
* Wyeth was often referenced by cartoonist Charles M. Schulz (a longtime admirer) in the comic strip Peanuts. In one strip the character Snoopy was presented with a bill for “psychiatic help” 20 cents and states “I refuse to sell my Andrew Wyeth”. In another strip, Snoopy’s prized Van Gogh painting is burned in a fire, and he replaces it with an Andrew Wyeth.

* Tom Duffield, the production designer for the American remake of The Ring, drew inspiration from Wyeth’s paintings for the look of the film.

* M. Night Shyamalan based his movie The Village on paintings by Andrew Wyeth. The Village was filmed in Chadds Ford not far from Wyeth’s studio.

* Director Philip Ridley has stated that his 1990 film The Reflecting Skin is heavily inspired by the paintings of Andrew Wyeth in its visual style.

Googleville

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Zoey, over at Perennial Passion inspired me to recheck my statcounter which was still associated with blogspot. I changed it to this one. Not sure if it will work correctly, but I also went to the ‘recent keyword activity’ page….so weird- Google search
Why would some people look up some of that stuff? I mentioned that I once used a Cheryl Ladd exercise mat where you put on booties and slide back and forth. I had to chuckle about the yard long bean search. I don’t think Carter Oosterhouse is gay, but mentioned about being friends with gay guys maybe? Who knows.

At least I was the top two searches for this one:

Knothole

And just because this is so darn cute and a real photo:
Penguins

After these little guys are rescued from oil spills, the volunteers put these little sweaters on them to keep them warm and to up their survival rate. I want to snuggle with them, don’t you?

There’s even a song for the penguins in sweaters!

Here’s a paint shop pro challenge I did, it’s clickable:

Penguin beach party

Colors for a gloomy day

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I had to run down to the store. I really shouldn’t say ‘run’ as I’m still so achy, all in the area I strained while moving the books, my left side and in ‘that’ area. My purpose for the trip was to get Sean a Carvel ice cream cake (football shaped) for a belated birthday cake and the makings of stew. He is driving home on Friday with a friend in tow, so I figure stew can sit on the stove all day. He mentioned they may stop in Lancaster for lunch and shopping. Lucky guys! That trip down here isn’t terrible, except for maybe the first 40 or so miles through the mountains as there isn’t any place to pull over if you even have a flat! I told him to make sure he goes to the bathroom too-ha!

Here’s a Thanksgiving cactus that is blooming in my family room window:

Thanksgiving cactus

And my $1.98 flower purchase from the reduced bucket:

Spider mums

Spider mums 2

Spider mums 3
These are Spider mums and I love the colors. Quite a few of them weren’t any good and a few of these are falling, but they have already given me $2 worth of pleasure.
I’m dedicating these photos to my friend Barbara’s Aunt Hattie who just passed on.

My tip for the day-Most times Altoids will open up a stuffed head. They use real peppermint oil too. I would say most of the times I eat one, I will sneeze! 

Mini card Moos

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When I signed up for my pro account at Flickr, I was offered some free  mini-cards by Moo. Today they arrived from London, England! There are 10- 1″ x less than 3″ matte finished cards. I guess it’s all the rage over at Flickr to trade them! You have to be sure you use an image what will fit in that space. What a nice surprise for a somewhat blah day for me (super achy from all the stress).

Mini cards

Ed McMahon visits my hometown

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Ed McMahon, a Veteran from both WWII and Korean, was chosen as Grand Marshall of my hometown’s Veteran’s Day parade (video in link and you get to see the streets I roamed). Ed also lived in the same apartment complex (in the ’50s) that Bri and I lived in as newlyweds (Dick Clark too). My mom didn’t go see him and of course I couldn’t go today. Last week I missed Rachael Ray, but she was over in NJ.

16 days from now

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I have to have a needle localization done at the hospital and they will put me under for the procedure. I’m hoping they don’t find anything. I’m going to try and take it one day at a time or I’ll going to make myself crazy. I have Thanksgiving and my 30th high school reunion to look forward to before then. Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers and click on those buttons in the left side bar there.

Hey… I’m going to do a page here (Me Stuff) about what’s going on. Hopefully it will be short and sweet,not the writing part, the diagnosis part. I want to keep my blog interesting and fun. So check out the tab above.

Wuss Report-2

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Bri likes to flip the channels and PBS had a show on about Carol Burnett’s career. I think she’s wonderful! She had a rough beginning with parents who were alcoholics and she was mainly raised by her Nanny. I was raised by my mom and grandmom, so I understand what it is like to have a senior citizen around the house all the time. I believe Carol’s first play was ‘Once Upon A Mattress’ which really made her a star. Her tv show was on for 11 years after that and personally, I don’t think any of us missed an episode. If you remember the scene of Carol ‘dressed’ like Scarlett O’Hara in the curtain dress with the rod still through it, I’m sure you are laughing right now.

Here’s the skit from Youtube:

My brother Don was in our high school production of ‘Once Upon A Mattress’. My mom wrote to Carol and Don got back an autographed picture of her! That was pretty neat. In the show last night, they had a question and answer session and a girl said she had played Winifred in OUAM and if Carol could sign a few bars of ‘Shy’ with her. Carol asked the young lady to come on stage and they sang together.

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By the way, here’s my dinner from a few nights ago, my 3rd entree from the Everyday Foo, Nov. 07 issue-Penne in a pumpkin sauce. It was good, but I think it needed a pinch of nutmeg or even some roasted pine nuts.
Penne with pumpkin sauce

Think about me about 11:00 at my consultation tomorrow with Dr. R.

Photo Hunt-Flexible

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

Upsidedown Kitty, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

Our cat Cosmo is so darn flexible-look how comfy he is in this position. Last night he was half hanging off the dining room chair playing with his feather on a stick-I thought he’d do a back flip like a gymnast! Love this guy!