Nov19

52-25

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Card that was on my hospital bassinet
I was the second child and the only girl of four born this day in 1959. I’ve always loved Barbie who was ‘born’ in February of the same year. Lots of celebrities are my age like Marie Osmond, John McEnroe and Sarah Ferguson. Jodie Foster, Meg Ryan and Calvin Klein share my birthday as does a good friend of Brian’s Kathy. My brother’s late friend Carol was also born today. Mom almost gave me a 1st birthday gift the following year when my brother Don was born on the 28th of the November. I tell Sean he was my early 27th birthday gift and Sean is 25, the reverse of my age!
Brian and I got engaged on my 23rd birthday too. Lots of nice things associated with my big day. Not sure if we will go out for dinner, we’ll have to see how Brian is later.
My baby book


Found this yesterday blooming in a very dead looking garden. It’s the Julia Child rose that Brian got me as a gift a year or two ago.

Chocolate cupcakes (gluten free) with butter cream icing.


My mom and brother sent me Stargazer lilies, a teddy bear and chocolates. I got some awesome cards and a Target gift card from my pal Carole (Pea) and calendars from pal Angela. Sean gave me a Walmart gift card, the Jackie Evancho Christmas, candles and a t-shirt from the college he is attending and needs to return as it’s too big. Brian gave me a ‘D’ necklace and a heart necklace from Peebles. He had gotten me the other necklace from the craft show a few weeks ago. I bought myself the Sephora make-up kit and a few cross stitch charts for my collection.
Brian didn’t go to the restaurant with Sean and me. At the last minute we went to a pub at a golf course as I had an entertainment.com coupon and Sean’s dinner was practically free. We brought Brian home some onion soup. Sean tends to walk way a head of people and he was already to the car and I tripped over the curb. He said he looked over and I was in a bush. I sprang up fast, but my right hand is sore and I scraped my left boot. I felt silly! I’m just relaxing now.

Nov18

Found amongst his possessions

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My Uncle Don passed away almost a year ago (Dec. 7th) and his stepdaughter and her family cleaned out and sold his home this year.  I should add, his wife is almost 96 and in a nursing home. My family didn’t hardly get anything of his (tools, an heirloom copper pot that was from ‘our’ family that my mom asked for, etc.) I went down to mom’s a few weeks ago and saw this laying on the table:

Uncle Don had drawn this of Sean-I think he was about 10. (He had  blue and ‘red’ pjs on). This is really precious to me and I wish it wasn’t all bent up. He probably didn’t think it was good enough to give us, but I could tell it was Sean the minute I laid my eyes on it.  Thanks Uncle Don from Babycakes. : )

Bri is still sick and running a fever, so it was wise we didn’t go anywhere. Not to sound selfish, but I hope to heck I don’t catch it as I have the new job looming on Monday. They say you can catch stuff from people when they are first getting sick-oh great. I am using my neti pot, my ferrum phosphate  (a natural pain killer and for inflammation) and Vicks. I may take a walk around the yard for fresh air, briefly as it’s really chilly in the 40s today.

Have a great weekend-I’ll be a year older tomorrow!

Nov17

Get-away postponed

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I just postponed our B&B weekend as Brian has the same bug Sean had. I feel bad he is coughing and feverish, but I think being in close vicinity with a sick person won’t be very romantic. As soon as he came home for lunch, I got all nervous (I had just packed up the bag too). Who’s to say I won’t get it too as I’ve had some cold like symptoms-crossing fingers. I’m bummed, but I’d rather us both be healthy. It may be a ‘New Year’s’ weekend. The room was really nice looking with a whirlpool tub and electric or gas fireplace. I need to run down to the store and get Bri some daytime cough medicine. He is off tomorrow, so maybe we can go out to lunch if he is up to it. We have until April to use the Livingsocial deal and of course we got charged for the late cancellation.
I start the job on Monday. I think we will get paid for the training. We were just given the paperwork yesterday and had to be put in the system.

Nov16

Training

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It’s a rainy, cool day. That describes many days this year as it’s one of the wettest ones on record. I headed down to the store at 2 and a young man in his 30s got dropped off. Seemed we were the only ‘new recruits’. I noticed a poster with 18 names on it in the room where we were, so we’ll be 19 and 20. I think I’m 19 as he was waiting to hear from the guy when he called me last week. That’s one of my lucky numbers! : )   We basically filled out paperwork with the assistant manager and she left and we watched 4 DVDs about how to use the registers and helping customers. We had to guess the correct reply and got 10 out of 12 right. Then we looked around the store and since we aren’t on the clock, left after almost 2.5 hours. The assistant had called the manager on the phone and he said to come in on Friday. I won’t be in the area (I told him this earlier), so will call soon and find out my first day. We will be ‘shadowing’ people mostly the first week or so. We saw where there are 3 pay periods until the end of December and that may be all for us. There’s some cute clothes and gift items in the store, wish I could show you!

Brian is home sick today. He was running about a 101 temp last night. Seems he has a similar bug to what Sean had, but more in his throat and he’s coughing. Our reservations probably can’t be canceled now and I really want to still go-please send good vibes our way. I wasn’t feeling that wonderful today with allergies, etc. but I’m hyped to help out!

Nov14

Grateful for a fine fall day

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I wanted to do some walking for exercise as I was a couch potato over the weekend. It wasn’t a difficult choice to go to old faithful-Longwood Gardens. A few others had the same idea, but I didn’t mind. I always take my camera. I figure I got a good 3/4 -1 mile in.

November rose

Some of their fabulous Mum displays

Did you know there were so many Mums?

I love the Orchid room and like this shot

Another unusual mum topiary

And I thought this was really neat-a Pomegranate Bonsai (over 100 yrs old) with two gorgeous fruits

It’s a lovely pink sunset, nice ending to a pretty decent day.

Only problem, the store manager hasn’t called to tell me when to come in for training.

Update-He called at 5:30 and I got in for a few hours on Wednesday afternoon-finally!

Nov13

Paranormal event in my hometown

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I’m on a Facebook group called ‘you know you grew up in Media, PA…if’ and it really snowballed into a popular group. If you haven’t started one for your hometown, you should. One of the memories that was stirred from my subconscious was about the Helibron Mansion located on Rose Tree Road not far from Penncrest high school. Seems the school bus use to go by this place every day. What I remembered more was ‘the cat house’, up the road and had a cat visible in every window of the cottage like place. The summer air would not be sweetly perfumed from that place. So the mansion was the subject of a non-fiction winning book called ‘Night Stalks the Mansion’written by Constance Westbie and Harold Cameron and back in 1977. Cameron and his family lived in the house for 2 frightful years. I don’t know why they say they lived in ‘Wynne, Pa’ which isn’t even a town in this state!

It’s been investigated a number of times. A friend of my brothers did a photo documentary about the place and was inside it many times. Seems 3 ghosts haunted it, a mother, her daughter and a black man who was a slave and hung on the property for killing the daughter.
There were a few things brought up by the local paper that Margaret (the young girl) was on the 1870 census, 6 years after she was suppose to have been killed.., Anyway…spooky. Why was the house just abandoned with all it’s antiques and I also read a safe full of Christmas gifts from about 1942? The Camerons lived in the place in the 1960s, so around the time we were living 5 miles or so away. I’m glad it’s a short book as I’m reading it at bedtime and then turning off the light to pitch blackness. Yikes! There were plans for a movie, but they can’t seem to sign on actors.
On a more pleasant note, the original place was hazed in the late 1980s and rebuilt shortly afterwards and it’s beautiful. Heres’ an update and a dark photo of it. The present owners don’t have any ghostly inhabitants either. The book is available on Kindle.

Nov12

In the country

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I thought you’d like to see one of the quaint buildings about 5 miles from here where Brian and I went to a book sale. Usually book sales are swamped around here and sadly this one at London Grove Friends wasn’t. Most of the books were $1 and I found some awesome ones, even a couple for my mom for Christmas. The place has a plant sale every year that is better attended. I posted on Facebook to give them some publicity.

Here is Ina parked outside the Kindergarten area.

It’s so sweet in there and I’d love to work there if I had enough credits (they need a teacher). It’s one of those places where you have a good vibe. From the internet only 33 kids (Quaker oriented-‘friends’) attend.

London Grove Meeting was settled in about 1724, although Friends had been worshipping in each other’s homes since 1714 when several Friends’ families settled in Marlborough. The home of John Smith was a regular venue. The first meeting house was built in 1724, and a larger one constructed in 1743. The present one is larger still, built in 1818. It is on Newark Road and Route 926, five miles west of Kennett Square. It was held by the Hicksite majority at the time of the separation in 1827. The Orthodox withdrew and met in a small house on lower ground about a quarter mile nearer the railroad station. [A Little Book of Information on the Particular Meetings composing Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends (n.d.).]

'Penn Oak" at London Grove meeting house

Photo on the left is the London Grove burial ground and the ancient “Penn Oak”. It is a quercus alba, a white oak that provided shade once for William Penn when he ate lunch beneath it. [Norma Jacob, ed., Quaker Roots: The Story of Western Quarterly Meeting of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (1980), 23.]

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m waiting on the store manager to tell me when to come in for training. I think it will be Tuesday or Wednesday. Then I have to shadow people as a trainee. Then I’m wondering after all that they won’t need me anymore? Staying positive. : )