Zinnias for my grandmom

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I grow these every year and it’s a bumper crop!

Fuchsia Zinnia

Lime green zinnia

Pink Zinnia

I wanted to add that I made some comments about someone’s looks today that I regret. No one is perfect on the outside, it’s what’s on the inside that counts. My little grandmom had very homely feet. But she stood on her poor little feet many an hour to cook us hot meals and suffered finding shoes that were comfortable for her. By the time she was an elderly lady she didn’t worry that much about her feet. So from a middle-aged, near-sighted,  chubby, gap-toothed lady with some capped teeth and dyed hair-I wish you a good weekend! (I feel so much better)

New job!

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Yeah! Congrats to Bri for getting the job today in the next town!  He had started in that area about 8.5 years ago and they moved him first to the Maryland office and then to the Lancaster office (not near here at all!). Miles are piling up on his car plus we’ve had some added expenses with my teeth, getting a new heater and having the air conditioner repaired. I’ll say the lady who left had excellent territory (‘big bucks’ areas) and he should do well getting ads for the papers. So synched!!! Congrats dear hubby!

Food Network Star Finalists

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Rachael Ray hosted the final ‘3’ Food Network star finalists on her show this morning. ‘Jag’ the only guy left, cooked Puerto Rican food, Rory cooked Tex Mex (grilled food) and Amy who is the Next Door Gourmet did an egg dish. All received kudos from the three judges, but I think Amy stood out as being calm and collected and remembering everything she had to do and say. But Amy got to go last. I’m not sure if she got to watch the others, but she looks like she learned from their mistakes. I didn’t care for Jag calling Rachael ‘sweetie’. Rachael joked that she didn’t mind being his sweetie. Plus what he was cooking was something that the average cook would have to save up a month to cook-lobster. He used an oil that he called ‘poor man’s saffron’ but he used lobster, contradicting himself-Rachael pointed that out. Rory was really nervous. Plus, I know how to cook steak on the grill! But to be fair, of the three dishes that were made, Rory’s looked the most appetizing. When I eat lobster, I don’t want to mess with it too much and I’m not much on eggs unless they are scrambled or a frittata. The remainder here was edited as I shouldn’t have said what I said and I didn’t mean to hurt Rory as she wrote to me-I didn’t expect that. (I just looked at what my commenter said and I am the first on the list in a Google blog search) I am so sorry, I’m almost a Jersey girl myself. I was making fun of myself in that passage though. Good luck in your quest Rory, for hosting a show on one of my favorite networks. Here’s a plug for her. And I so want those ribs!!!!

Update-Rory wrote back and thanked me for editing my blog. I told her in reply that Bri has one of the toothiest smiles

A big Bri smile

around and I have loved that smile for 25 years! What the heck was I thinking? And I noticed from her blog that she loves preschoolers (so do I, remember I have an AAS in Early Childhood Ed)-she has a Youtube video with her and her niece’s class. All forgiven I think. If you can’t say anything nice….yes mom!

Funny thing seen on the side of a bus yesterday (and twice): webuyuglyhouses.com! I mentioned this to mom and she asked if I meant her house-no-just that it was a weird thing to see twice.

Have a cool Friday the 13th!

Mom circa 1950

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Sean and I had a nice visit with mom today-we mainly went shopping! : ) I am always happy to find paper craft stuff at the Dollar Tree. Also got a few things at Value City (new badly needed bath towels) and JoAnn’s where I got a few magazines and discounted garden stuff.Mom gave me this copy of her at about age 20, so it was 1950-1. I was playing with it in PSP7. Brian took a photo of the copy for me. I’m not really done with #2, but I thought you’d like to see some improvements. She was and is still a pretty lady. She also has an outstanding soprano voice, though I haven’t heard her sing lately. All are clickable…

This was cut out and glued on paper! Not sure what the definite shading is on the right side of her face…

The original shot of Mom

Here I airbrushed boo-boos-where her hair and blouse had been taped, the unbalanced background, the drawn in eyelashes at the corner of her eyes. I did add ‘whiter’ flash dots in her eyes to make the photo looked newer. As I said, I still need to touch it up. This was over an hour’s worth of work.

Fixed up in PSP7
And finally some artistic effects…

Artistic effects

A cool effect…
A cool effect…

I vote for Penelope Cruz to play Jeanne in her life story. She looks more like my mom than I do!
Penelope

Wildflowers forever!

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Mrs. Claudia Taylor Johnson passed away yesterday. She loved wildflowers and made preserving their natural beauty for future generations one of her causes in her later years. Here is the wildflower website. By the way, Mrs. Johnson was also know as Lady Bird Johnson, wife of President Lyndon Johnson. I hope her legacy continues.

Self-seeding Cosmos

~We are obligated to leave the country looking as good, if not better, than we found it-LB Johnson

I had quoted her in a paper I wrote for a correspondence course I took in the early 1990s called ‘Writing for Children’s Magazines’. (I did get my diploma, but never wrote anything! I took it at a time when Sean was little and my mind and energy were wrapped around him).

Today we are venturing down to my mom’s. We haven’t seen her for 3 weeks. I was hoping she’d come out here for a visit soon. I do feel better today. I am keeping a food diary to record how I feel and what I eat. I think the probiotics are helping me. Thanks for your suggestions too.

Getting together a plan

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Most of you know that my son Sean is moving away from home for the first time next month to start his junior year at PSU. I accept it even though I know it will take a bit of adjustment on my part (darn wet eyes as I type this). So he’s all excited about being able to finally feel like an adult (AKA taking care of himself completely). What am I going to do-not that I didn’t have a choice before-but I want to add to the family income or at least make pocket money until something comes along in the outside world. I was sitting here thinking and looking at blogs and it dawned on me that I could work from home doing things I enjoy and work with the computer, another fun thing-why not? Plan is to craft and sell on etsy.com first. Some divine force ‘made’ me buy all these craft books for a reason-because ‘they’ knew. Get my drift? I can sew, crochet, cross stitch, photograph and edit photos, do paper crafts, draw, etc.. And then there is half.com-for the books I just don’t need anymore. I have sold on there in the past. Sometimes it’s a while between sales. Lastly, my old standby eBay. So maybe my right brain side will be so darn happy!

Trying to cut back on refined sugars and yeasty things. I really think they are the culprit to my crummy tummy problems. Today I was in the grocery store forever! I got some agave sugar substitute. I know there is sugar in almost everything. It’s a start. I had looked up a list of what’s good to eat and believe me it’s mostly meat and veggies-a lot of fruits aren’t good. I was taking that med for a few months and am almost finished with it. It is said to produce lots of yeast! You get med for one problem and it aggravates another one. Six of one, half dozen of another. I did take a acidolphilus tablet to promote healthy bacteria in the gut and it was better today. I may just have to take it everyday.

Lots of rain is expected tonight. I went to the store knowing a storm was on it’s way. I had my Mary Poppins umbrella and it saved me. : )

Out my window

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We had a wild thunderstorm pass through right after I caught this groundhog munching on the fallen apples from our tree out back. I took this through the dining room window with the zoom lens. I won’t eat apples off the ground because of all the critters that roam by. Isn’t he funny?

Hungry groundhog

Apparently it rained right over our house and not a mile down the road where Sean was at the video store. He said about two drops came down! As long as I don’t have to drag around the watering can tonight!

And here is one of the friendly catbirds that kept me company and poo all over my outdoor chairs! I just found an illustration of one in my ATC stuff, so I think a card in honor of them is appropriate.

Catbird
And finally, just my one pal and I are doing an ATC exchange on tribe.net this month as our other two pals are busy. I thought of the theme this month-‘Patriotic’ or red, white and blue. This is what I made for her…
Gret’s card

A Walk in the Woods

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My latest cross stitch finish-boy are my eyes tired! I think I started this in April-2005 (I checked my blog!). I actually had enough room (with about 1/4″ to spare) to add that second border. I have no idea what the crown represents. It’s 11″ x 15″. I will probably get this professionally framed. Does any craft store ever offer specials on framing (that you know of?)

A Walk in the Woods

I waited until 6 pm to do a quick watering job. I almost couldn’t stand it for more than 15 minutes. Cos wanted to go out and by that time, I really needed to come in and cool off, so he had a few nibbles of grass and we came in 5 minutes later.

Bri may have a job opportunity in the next town over! He started there over 8 years ago before they moved him first to Maryland and then to Lancaster county. Apparently a lady who does a similar job resigned today without notice. Weird. I think she probably wanted a raise and they said no. Crossing fingers!

I found a pedometer while tidying up my bedroom and put it on about 2 pm. It’s 8:45 and I’ve walked almost 2 miles in that time! (5,000 steps=2 miles). Good motivator for moving my fanny!

4 day scorcher begins

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I knew we were being spoiled by the cooler days at the beginning of July. I am SO glad I got a lot of my garden work out of the way. About 7:45 last night, I took a break from my almost finished BIG cross stitch piece and the Live Earth concert and headed outside. It was so pleasant, I decided to get the string and tie up the tomatoes. The job isn’t that terrible as I have kept up with it. I have also been pinching the suckers off the joints inside the tomato branches-that’s so the plant will put energy into the fruit and not into making new branches and leaves. It’s paying off! I figure right now, I see 4 tomatoes each, other than the blossoms-times 12-so right now we have at least 50 tomatoes counting the Romas that are low laying and don’t get tied up. The Romas are right on that mulch, so I think I’ll put some paper bags under them. The zucchini and green beans are thriving too! I also have one eggplant in my herb bed near the house. We are getting those downpours followed by sunny days-perfecto for veggies.

I am working on my Art trading cards again. I’ve made quite a few in the last month-6 for tribe.net pals based on the bulletin from St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

ATCs for pals

The others were a few wedding themed cards I put in my friend Karin’s wedding card. I’m finishing up a series of a little Princesses birthday party I snagged from an old children’s reader. I also started ‘minis’-about 1″ x 2″-an alphabet series. Since they are so tiny, they are quick to do. If I like them enough, I may try and sell a series on eBay.

Sean’s working like a full-time employer down at Big Lots these days. Seems a lot of people left or were let go. One girl was a thorn in his side. We feel she took $20 out of his drawer a few times when she subbed for him when he was eating or on break. Since it was brought up to the attention of his manager that he wasn’t the only one using that particular register those days, things seems to have gotten better. He’s either a few cents over or under now. He’s been buying a bunch of stuff for the dorm there as he gets a 20% off discount. Last night he brought home a HP printer for about $28. We were holding our breath that it would work with his laptop, and it did, and it’s not bad either. He’s also bought towels, two desk fans, laundry detergent, to name a few things he needs. I can’t believe the time is finally here when he’ll be taking care of himself-it’s a mixed blessings kind of feeling. I remember wanting to live away from home and lived in a dorm for almost two semesters. Unfortunately I had less than perfect roomies. Sean is trying to get a room by himself, that may be the ticket to his ultimate dorm happiness.

I made a delicious pasta dish last night-I roasted zucchini, red onions, garlic and eggplant. I tossed the pasta with fresh basil, a grated assortment of cheese and some butter. The veggies get tossed in the pasta after roasting for about 40 minutes. I recommend it.

Tonight I am making a turkey breast. I have to have Sean’s dinner on the table pronto as he only has 1/2 hour to eat. I want to make sure he has decent grub.

Well, that’s all that’s new. I’ll sneak out to water a few plants when the sun goes down. Hope you are staying cool and comfortable.

When things drive you crazy

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Take a look at these gorgeous flowers:

Bee Balm perhaps?

I thank Brian for taking this photo of my neighbor’s gorgeous watermelon red flowers. I could not tell from way across the road what they were. The easy thing would be to ask my neighbor, but she doesn’t even look at us cross-eyed these days. So we went out to the side yard with the zoom lens-ha! After he uploaded the shots (and the camera software zoomed in nicely) I could tell these were bee balm flowers. At least I’m pretty sure that’s what they are. Yeah. I’m gonna get me some red bee balm. ; )

Are you watching any of the Live Earth Concerts? We turned it on at 10 am and it’s on Bravo until 2 am this morning. Reminiscent of Live Aid back in 1985 (I watched almost the entire thing back then). A stand-out group was a group of British scientists called Nunatak (see my Vod:Pod) in Antarctica who performed on the barren snowy plains with penguins around them.