Today on the news they showed this magnificient creature laying still on the beach in Wildwood Crest, a popular vacation spot in NJ. There may be a connection between the men whose boat was hit and they all had to be rescued at sea by the coast guard (see my post a few days ago). I wonder why it got so close to the boat or maybe the men were too far out? What a sad thing.
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We had some wild weather today, lots of rain and some lightning. I was wondering how the cross stitchers at CATS in Hershey were getting by in the bad weather? I wish I could have attended, but since I’ve been to shows in the past, I know that I spend money I shouldn’t spend. Like tonight on eBay! Actually I got sniped when the auction was about to close-5 minutes. I wanted The Prairie Schooler Christmas tree charts I and II and refused to spend over $21.00 on pieces of cardstock. I do have a bid on the II with another bidder and I like these patterns better than the first anyway. The poor woman in Alaska who sniped me now has to blow $36 on the charts. I was winning them for a few days too. I am bidding on other PS charts that I don’t have and are more reasonablyt priced. I also bid on some figurines-like I need them too.
I have been working all week on a round robin. Boy it’s a tiny count and it’s hard on my eyes because it’s linen too(the threads aren’t all uniform). I think it will be sweet when I am finished. I chose a Prairie Schooler house with a formal garden in the front. I changed the color of the house from brown to gold. My own RR is in New Hampshire or maybe Hershey. ; )

I’ve been watching some of the new shows. I like the new one Six Degrees that was on tonight-I like Campbell Scott a lot. I am fascinated with the whole 6 degree phenomena. You know the Kevin Bacon 6 degrees of separation game-well I am in the game with him as he’s from the Philly area!

I really wanted to see Barbara Walter’s interview with Terri Irwin, Steve’s wife. I think it may have been a little too soon. She seems so geniune and sweet and when she held back tears, I felt my own leaking out. She said she would relive the last 14 yrs of her life in a minute, even if she knew what would happen. She said Steve was fun and ‘her prince’. Terri remembers everything that they did together. She is very articulate too. Thank goodness she has so much film footage to share with Bindi and Bob. I didn’t know Steve had lost his mum in a car accident in 2000. Terri said that broke his heart. I thought Terri was from Ohio, but she’s from Oregon. I have family out there too. I hope time at least heals some of her pain.

Tell me that wasn’t fast shipping! And it looks just like the photo. It actually arrived yesterday, but Bri had gone to his dad’s for a visit. I asked if we could get it up tonight. It took him about an hour and I like how sturdy it is. It almost matches the kitchen as I stated a few posts ago. I did cover it with a tablecloth and Bri wanted to know why…to protect it! The old one is next to the drive-I bet someone will get the hint and come along and take it. It’s served about 4-5 families, so adios!

Photo by Sean’s cellphone camera. : )

Thank goodness for stores like Joann’s and Value City. I hardly ever leave either place without a good buy. The pretty mosaic pots are from Value City. They originally sold for $12.99 each (there are 3 of them) and I got them for 75% off. At Joann’s I got the pretty artificial foliage and seashell balls and the glass acorns. The pinecones are from the Life Saving Station parking lot in Delaware (we stopped there on our way home from the beach), so they were free. The pumpkin candle was from the Home Goods store.

My mom came out here for the first time in nine months yesterday! Sean goes to college a few miles away from her house, so I asked her to come out to let us treat her like a queen on her birthday and she agreed. Sean and mom stopped at Ruby’s Diner and brought lunch-hamburgers for them and turkey for me (not sure why I didn’t get a burger, but the turkey was good!) Mom totally flipped when she saw the kitchen. She said the photos of it didn’t do it justice. After we ate, we made the above cake for her birthday cake. She had a mix, but we followed the recipe for the pineapple upside down cake on the box. We used the Kitchen Aid mixer and it made the batter very light. The dark you see on the top is what was left in the pan after I turned it onto the cookie sheet. I couldn’t rinse away butter and brown sugar! We had it last night for dessert (I had made minestrone soup) and it was scrumptious!
This morning Brian went out and got us McDonald’s breakfasts (I know-I am lazy). Mom opened her gifts from us and my brother (while he was on the phone) and received a few phone calls for good wishes. This really tired her out as she didn’t sleep well. She asked to lay on our bed and she loved it and didn’t want to get up. We didn’t get on the road until 3:00. We had talked about going somewhere special like Lancaster or Winterthur Gardens, but she wasn’t up to it. We ended up at a farmer’s market and mostly in one store where I saw mom’s adrenaline suddenly raise as she filled her cart with Halloween and assorted goodies. We left there and headed to ‘The Olive Garden’ and I sneaked to the front and asked the maitre’de to bring us a cake at the end of our meal. Mom was really surprised. She had said it didn’t feel much like her birthday earlier in the day. I think that helped. And we went to Boscov’s and she saw racks of clothing for $3.99 each (end of summer) and her eyes bugged out again! She had just told me she wasn’t going to buy anymore. Ha! It’s nice to be thin and get into a size 8 or 10. She did well there.
So all in all it turned out to be a nice birthday for her. We drove her home and I think tomorrow my brother and his family are treating her to dinner.

This morning I bit the bullet and went online to look for a round pedestal table. We’ve been married 22.5 yrs and have always had a used table that wasn’t quite right. So I just googled ’round table’ and after a few minutes of looking, found this at Target:

It matches the kitchen cabinets pretty well and where it will be situated, will coordinate well with them. I got $30 off, but the shipping was high. I know, I should have gone to a Target store and looked to see if they had it, but to the best of my knowledge, I don’t remember any elaborate furniture displays at the 3 stores I’ve shopped in. My old table is also round. It has the 4 legs that we have all managed to crack our knees on if you weren’t sitting directly in the middle of two of them. I use to have a big rectangular table (also used), but it took up too much space. I’m looking for a new china cabinet-maybe Ikea. I guess I’d like more of a sideboard with maybe a coordinating hanging cabinet to utilize more of the wall space. The one I have now was my inlaws and it’s a monster piece of furniture.

BTW, October is Breast cancer awareness month. I happen to be getting my mammogram near the end of the month-it will be about my 8th one. When I was in Joann’s, they were selling the silicone pink bracelets, so I bought one.

I almost forgot to tell you about seeing a large and scary spider on the bathroom ceiling-the size of a dime. I had just stepped out of the shower and not being a fan of big spiders that resemble brown recluses, I was having a fit (you should have seen the cat looking at me when I exited the bathroom later). I sprayed ‘her’ with the shower spray and she dropped to the floor! Ahhhh!! I grabbed the container of cleaner behind the door and….WHAM… she curled up like a withered leaf! I was wondering where it came from-of course-the vent in the ceiling! I was reading that you have to watch ‘piles of clothes and magazines’ that haven’t been touched for a while-holy smokes people. If it was indeed a brown recluse, they can leave you with some nasty bites-more like craters. If I work in my basement, I try to wear rubber gloves if I am reaching in corners, etc. Too many nightmare stories!