Sep10

Good yard sale

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For 5 hours ‘outside’ work, we made $80! Brian gave up his childhood desk that for some reason he had stashed in the basement bathroom. We had mainly people looking for clothes. I had a lot of craft books out, but no one out of about 10 or so cars really looked at them. I am trying to sell my Shaker style desk-I believe one woman got out of her car to look at it, but decided she didn’t have room for it-or didn’t feel like stripping it down. Do you remember when the Nordic track machines (like ski machines) were the rage back in the early 90s? Brian bought one and as the space shrunk and he stopped using it and it was getting in the way. He brought that up, but no one hardly looked at it or the Shaker desk. I am half tempted to go through my summer clothes early and toss some of them on a table. I may look in the boxes left over from when we had the kitchen remodeled-yep, still have a lot of them. I missed my intended audience-middle aged women who like to craft and like knick-knacks-makes sense-lol. I decided stuff that was marked $1 or less is going in a bag to the Goodwill. Oh and my mom came out with little bags of her costume jewelry (really too much) and only made $7. The heavy container is stuck in the back of my car now to return to her. I think she should have used different boxes and tagged the stuff with a red sticker for $1, etc. People love to touch stuff. We’ll see about tomorrow.
Photo share…
Here’s another view of the pretty stores in Alexandria, VA
Pretty store fronts

Sep8

Souvenirs of the trip

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I had to be selective here….they had $50 t-shirts! Crazy! The one I did buy with the 4 ‘mop tops’ was a fraction of the cost, but it’s a little tight, but so was the Paul McCartney shirt I bought last year and it fits now. I bought bookmarks, a pen and the cute Yellow Submarine totebag. Also had to get the ‘Baby you can drive my car’ for the Cruiser. But actually no one is allowed to drive it-I kid you!  The styrofoam cup holder was free with a donation for a sick person. There was a ‘Peeps’ store and they were giving away the hat, so I’ll give that to Tori or her little cousin. I thought the memo pad was too cute-‘Give Peeps a Chance’ and it had that moving action to it. There’s a little box of cherry mints in that cute tin. I also got White House socks as I couldn’t find the ones I wore down there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The gorgeous sheets of paper from ‘The Paper Source’ in Alexandria. Snip, snip, glue, collage!

 

From the Godiva store-worth every penny for these-eating in teenie, tiny pieces. : )

 


And the cake dish/cloche with the chip-you can kind of see it in the back. No credit for that store. Geez.

 
I’m gearing up for a yard sale on Saturday. I dragged a lot of stuff out of the basement and am still going to look for a few more things to sell-like for Halloween and Christmas. I have nothing really wiped down or tagged-soon! It’s been so rainy this week, I have had time to do this. Yesterday I went for a follow up to the eye doctor and she says my right eye is much better but still irritated, probably from allergies. I have my car at the station for inspection, hope they can do it and nothing is wrong.

Sep7

A step back in time to Alexandria

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Alexandria City hall, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

Sean took the water taxi over to this quaint town with it’s historic townhouses Saturday night (I won’t say row homes) which were well kept and I think almost every door had a wreath on it! Nice ‘chain’ stores that we know in old buildings, but some specialty stores that I found appealing like a shabby chic place and a paper ‘goodness’ store. I am a bit mad that the sales lady from the fancy store sold me a mini cake dish/cloche with a chip in the rim. I decided to buy it at the last minute and she picked it out and really bubble wrapped it as I told her we were traveling. I bet she knew the chip was there. I will have to keep it turned to the back as I’ll never get back there again and they would say it happened in transport (it didn’t).
Love the store front of Decorium

Anyway, isn’t that an interesting historic city hall? Sure looks like Independence Hall in Philadelphia.
The tourist building had winding steps to the second floor and you exited out to a sweet herb garden. I wanted to take a photo, but the guys wanted to get on the road.
Alexandria tourist center
I did get to see only the outside of an apothecary store museum. I had just read a book this summer called ‘The Apothecary’s Daughter’, a Kindle freebie so I knew about these pharmacies a bit.
Curved window of Alexandria Apothecary shop
Plaque on Apothecary Museum
The more I see of Virginia, the more I like it!
Here’s the Woodrow Wilson bridge (taken from the car) with the Gaylord in the distance…
Gaylord in view from Woodrow Wilson bridge

Sep5

Sunset and Sustenance

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NatlHAlex 044, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

Thanks to a lady for posting her own sunset photo on Pinterest, we found Sauciety( http://www.saucietyamericangrill.com/) right on the waterfront to get our own sunset photo, a good meal and a bit of a discount on the meal! It was the restaurant below the Westin Hotel. I booked an online reservation and mentioned a code word to get 20% off the bill. Anyway, we got a glass of wine (Brian and me) which shot the price up.
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The three of us chose a three course, prefixed meal and that saved a bit too. We had huge bowls of spring mix salad with raspberry vinigrette dressing, crusty bread with olive oil and some with sun dried tomatoes for dipping. Brian had salmon and asparagus:
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And Sean and I had lobster ravioli:
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How do you like the dishes?
And we had a creme brulee type custard for dessert
Crème caramel with fresh fruit
and Bri had bread pudding (not shown).
The prefixed price was about $35 each.
Us at dusk on the boardwalk:
Brian and Dianne on the boardwalk
Dusk sky over the harbor
And my favorite guys:
My guys on the boards at National Harbor

Sep5

All you need is Love

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Oh Beatles, we honor you! ; )
English Garden in front of the hotel:
Lovely English Herb Garden
Heading for concerts

Brian, Sean and me had a nice weekend down off the Potomac River at the National Harbor (also known as Oxion Hill, MD). Sean didn’t go to the concerts, but explored the little ‘boardwalk’ town and took a water taxi to Alexandria, VA. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to, but he finally made up his mind to do just go! We went there by car on Sunday and ate, shopped and walked around there.
It was a bit muggy but there was an occasional breeze off the river. The group pictured here is called ‘Brit Beat’ from Chicago. They dress and perform in four different ‘Beatle phases’. This happened to be the Sargent Pepper era. They were great. It was awesome as there were bands from all over the world! We especially liked the band called ‘Old Brown Shoe’ (from a George Harrison song) from the Netherlands. Another cute band was ‘Jukebox’ from Puerto Rico. There were some issues with waiting for bands to set up and then this one band ‘Norwegian Beatles’ didn’t play as they had equipment issues. We mostly enjoyed seeing a new place and sitting and listening to some of best known songs in the world. Some didn’t just play Beatle songs-some Rolling Stones and a few others, even the band’s original songs were tossed in the mix.
And the place we stayed, The Gaylord is the biggest non-gaming hotel on the east coast! There are 2 thousand guest rooms and at least 5 restaurants (we ate breakfast in one). They have an Olympic size pool (Sean stuck his feet in the water). If he had sat in a lounge chair right outside the pool area, he could have heard the music for free! It’s kind of hard not to hear it anyway.
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More later!
By the way-used a mesh back support thing I got in a Dollar Store which helped me most of the time, but the chairs provided were metal fold up chairs-ugh.

Sep2

Great chicken recipe

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You don’t even have to write it down. I think I have it memorized after making it a few times. Get a pound or so of extra thin sliced chicken breasts. Mix up two egg whites with two teaspoons of cornstarch with a little lemon juice (the secret sticking ingredients). Then roll them in breadcrumbs, parsley, salt and pepper and grated lemon peel and fry up in olive roll. I did this entire ‘plate’ in 15 minutes. Enough for leftovers!

We are getting ready for our weekend excursion to National Harbor. Never been there, but pretty close. I believe I just read our hotel is fairly new. Sean isn’t sure if he wants to go because of having school work again. I said he could sit in this lovely area and do work as well as he could at the end of the sofa. Sometimes he gets a bit grouchy as he thinks the trips should revolve around him. He threw cold water in my face when we were in Chincoteague a few weeks ago as he thought the area was boring. He got to have his fun the night before. And I remember I stopped going on family trips when I was younger than him! He’s not paying anything this time around. I plan to be listening to music the entire time. Please send some good vibes as my lower back has been bothering all week. It’s awful in the morning and is better as the day goes on. I alternately use heat and ice. Crossing fingers!

Aug30

Longwood Bruce Hornsby concert

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Longwood Bruce Hornsby concert, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

Brian and I had a nice time at this concert. It was the perfect evening, just cool enough to be pleasant. Bruce sang the songs I knew ‘The Way It Is’ and ‘Mandolin Rain’ near the end. I didn’t know many of his newer songs, but he has a great band. I saw a h.s. pal at the end when we had gotten up to leave and he came out for an encore.

Aug29

For you

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These were some of the sparse flowers I grew from seed. With the unusual growing season, only certain things (thinking tomatoes and zucchini) shot to stardom in my garden.

I had a few visitors on this Monday; our parish priest and a house painter, though not at the same time. Father only stays for about 5 minutes for family updates. We talked cars a little since he drives a Chrysler Sebring (a gift from the parish a few years ago). He asked if my car was a ‘mustard’ color-I replied ‘Inca Gold’.
The painter’s sign was seen up in Kennett-we need the short sides painted and over the roof. I hope he’s not too pricey as the paint is peeling over the roof.
Brian is over with his dad as he couldn’t get his cell phone to work right. We go to the concert tomorrow night. It’s a bit cool tonight, so I better take a jacket with me tomorrow. Can’t wait. I love to go to at least one concert a year.
It was a glorious day here and will be for a few more days.

I put up a sunflower wreath and added the sparkley metal one to it:

I’ll be taking down the beachy decor soon, but since I just dusted it, I took a few shots of it:

Aug28

We survived Hurricane Irene!

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It’s been a tense few days, but when we woke up with power and less rain we were very happy! According to the weather people, Hurricane Irene made landfall around 5:30 am in Little Egg Harbor, NJ, south from here, about 2 hours or so away. Unfortunately, my mom lost power around 10 pm or so and they think they heard a transmitter blow. Mom is more suburban than us. We do have a little water in a few places in our basement, but very manageable. Because it didn’t rain as much as they thought, that saved us. Also we put plastic around outside. Brian and I are dopey from nerves and achy from doing stuff outside. Thank goodness he cleaned the rain gutters out more as that probably helped too. Whew!

Now to look forward to the Bruce Hornsby concert on Tuesday and the Beatlemania trip on Saturday. No more hurricanes for my last hurrah of the summer. ; )

Update: 11:14 am is history-she’s a tropical storm now!