Jan23

Flying the coop

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Sean was online picking out dorms for the fall semester at Penn State. He’ll be a junior and will be at University Park campus in the middle of PA about 3-4 hours from here. Gulp-a college ‘junior’ already! I can’t fathom it. He had to sign up for Chemistry this semester as he would be below the 60 credits he needs to transfer. He has to get up at the crack of dawn, but home by 1 pm. He’ll have to take a couple of classes this summer. I had a feeling taking a few semesters of only 4 classes would catch up with him. His stomach has been a little funny tonight. Guess he has a lot to think about.

I went down to my mom’s today. I tried to fix the belt on her fairly new vacuum, but it broke again. The brush part is broken-one of the ends of it was missing. I went to a vacuum store around the corner from her and they wanted $25 for a brush. I told them I could get a new one, an entire vacuum for $30-35 at Walmart-so there! We dropped off stuff at the Goodwill and went inside to look around. Mom is not allowed to buy clothes (in my presence anyway, but she better cut it out). I found a few little things for Easter and eBay. When we were leaving, I noticed a lady had bought something I dropped off, a pinball machine of Sean’s. It’s not everyday you see who acquires your discarded items. I have a little surprise for one of my online pals and will mail it to her soon. It’s a Goodwill find and I know she’ll like it. I’m not telling.We went to the nearby mall and had a nice pasta dinner and shopped in Macy’s as I had some credit on a gift card. Mom went and bought a top behind my back when I was undies shopping (no short task)-she’s bad!

Jan22

Dust mite or dust mate?

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I stole the title from a webpage as it was just too perfect. Rachael Ray had a lady on today talking about the dust mite. Now she said to replace your bed every 5-7 years because they just get so ‘into’ the mattress, especially loading it with their droppings! Ugh! She also said pillows should be replaced every 1-3 years. She weighed one that was 3 yrs old and compared it to a new one-the old one weighed 8 ounces more.

I thought you should replace your mattress every 10 yrs, which we try to do. Some people never buy a new one! So come on-just imagine all the  dust mite poo you are sleeping on top of!  Ugh! At least enclose your mattress in plastic as that should help. 

dustmite.gif

Jan22

The white stuff

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Snow is on the ground-like a coating. Sean is hoping to miss classes-Sean just went back to classes last Tuesday! He acts like he’s in 5th grade again. : ) I think he may be worried about driving on bad roads-that I don’t blame him for one iota.

I ruined my roast last night. I took it out of the oven too soon and it was still red in the middle. I sliced it up and stuck it back in as my potatoes and parsnips were done. Why I cooked the veggies so soon is beyond me. I should have waited a hour or so. I like my roast beef when it’s really brown and almost getting a ‘fall apart’ texture to it.

I guess I was preoccupied with cleaning off my bedroom bookcase of lotions, etc and dusting it. I found a plastic shoebox of nail polish under my jewelry cabinet that was as old as the hills. I don’t know about you, but when I’m in the middle of a project, I just hate stopping it to do something else like cook.

 ; (

The potatoes and veggies were good. Used the ricer (and am using the ricer-thanks to Von’s recommendation). I think I’ll make the chicken fingers that both Carole and Zoey made for their Sunday night din dins tonight.

Jan21

Yeah Abigail!

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I was flipping channels after our dinner fiasco last night and found the Critic Choice awards. Abigail Breslin from ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ received an award for ‘Best Young Actress’. The teen who played her brother won for ‘Best Young Actor’. The movie won a few more awards too.

Update 1-23

Looks what 10 yr old is a nominee for a Best Actress Oscar!

Could Abigail pull a Tatum O’Neal and win an Oscar as a child?
Woo hoo!

So after church Sean wanted to go to a new Olive Garden down near Christiana, Delaware. When we got there it was mobbed and there was a hour to an hour and 45 minutes wait. Needless to say, we left. All the three other restaurants we tried were packed. It was cold as heck last night and we thought people would stay in their nice warm houses-wrong!  We finally went into a crowded place at 6:45 which was like diner. Some older man was in line and for some reason said; ‘women don’t want to cook anymore’. I thought that was totally uncalled for. What we had was fair-my turkey was dry around the edges. I have a whole turkey to cook down in the freezer and should get that out and make a yummy hot turkey sammie that I won’t let dry out. Is there any good restaurant food anymore?I’m still working on bags and boxes from the basement. I am going through gift wrap, bows, tags, etc. I got rid of a huge bag of squooshed bows, wrinkled wrap and tissue, you name it! I see a slight improvement.

Jan20

Photo Hunt-WILD

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I am lucky to have a nice sized yard (1.4 acres) and we see lots of wildlife. My favorite wild things are the mostly Leopard frogs who sometimes live in my 50 gallon pond. I took this a few years ago. This little guy is next to an old piece of tv glass-my husband’s uncle use to work at Corning glass.

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

Froggie pal

Jan20

Stitching WIP

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I’m long overdue showing you some stitching projects. I’ve only worked on the little boy making a snow angel  (Giggles in the Snow by Mirabilia) and the pink  flower blossom (for a charity quilt). The other things are the finished half of an ornament featured in the JCS Ornie magazine and Cape May by Valentine Stitchery. I plan to work on the later tomorrow. Hope to get the house round robin project soon from Rachael to work on and then it will be that and the bee and pink flower for the next few months. I just added the legs to the bee that is on the blossom as I needed a break from the pink.
Not much new-just cold and windy. I did make 6 Valentines today for my pals over at tribe.net. I forgot to take photos of them. We’ve been sending each other mailart since October ’06.  We have a new particpant-a guy. I had a little trouble with his Valentine as I don’t usually do cards like that for other guys. : )
wips07.JPG

Jan19

Amazing Bird Photographer

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I was reading The Kennett Paper (local weekly) that had a story on Kim Steininger, a local award winning bird photographer taking the big prize from the National Wildlife Federation in 2005. You have to see her amazing owl shot- it’s swoping toward her! Kim does volunteer work at the Tri-State Bird Rescue as seen below helping out a Red-throated loon. Click photo to see the loon.
Kim rescuing a loon

Jan19

Now what?

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One of those weeks that are not very pleasant for my family. Between me and my teeth, my uncle fracturing his right hip and now my mom getting an ‘abnormal’ electrocardiogram as a pretest for her cataract surgery. The doctor wants to compare this cardio to a previous one and possibly she’ll have to have another one. She was a little scared, but she’s under a lot of stress because of my uncle and of course thinking about her surgery. She took heart meds for over 20 years for an extra heartbeat. She doesn’t complain about chest pain or palpations. Please wish her well.

Jan18

Kid stars

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Just playing with the paint shop pro again. I just love Abigail Breslin (Signs, Little Miss Sunshine), Dakota Fanning (I am Sam-favorite-War of the Worlds, Dreamer, Charlotte’s Web and she has a little sister just like her Elle!), Angus T. Jones (Two and a Half Men the tv show that I don’t watch too often, but he reminds me of my brother Ken at that age) and  new one to the list Jaden Smith (son of Will and Jada, though I haven’t seen his debut movie, he is just so dang cute in his interviews and his dad is from Philly). I made this collage to salute their cuteness. Everytime you see them on tv, like The Tonight Show, etc. they are just happy kids. I can’t believe Dakota is almost 13. If you haven’t seen any of their movies/show, you should!

I forgot Bindi Irwin, the late Steve Irwin’s charismatic daughter who is just amazing, but not sure if she will be a movie star. She’s popular on tv though.
Kid stars

Jan17

Dianne Crocker

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Having a little fun taking photos to thank my friend for the goodies I purchased from the g.c. she gave me from the Williams Somona catalog (as a Christmas gift). I got the personalized pink apron, the bowl, pink-tipped spatulas and a paring knife.
I had just gotten my hair done today, so that was the motivation for the photo taking. This was touched up a bit in PSP as the flash didn’t go off and it was a bit dark and I added some contrast and a border to it.

I have dark blonde/lt brown hair, so the editing made me look like a red head.

Dianne Crocker