Mar26

Some of my favorite orchids shots

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Dyed orchids, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

My mom drove out and we went over to the Longwood Gardens orchid show as it is a competition and there are some extraordinary displays. This one however was way over on the other side of the conservatory near the work room. It’s really white, but they add dye to the roots or vascular system to get this effect. Awesome, isn’t it?
Very purple orchids
Purple orchids
Unusual orchid
This was so neat-looks like a big mouth with a moustache!
An award winner!
An award winner!
Orchids in water feature
Displays features water too!
Orchids in front of a screen
The screen looked very exotic
Wall of orchids
A wall of orchids

Mar25

The birthday boy

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The birthday boy, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

Sean and I took Brian out to a Greek restaurant last night. It was new to us and it wasn’t too crowded, a pretty place and the food was great. I ordered 3 appetizers which I hardly ever do as I wanted to try their stuffed grape leaves, spinach pie and meatballs. They were all good, but I have to confess that the take-out we got at the Greek Fair last year in Wilmington, DE was better and with bigger portions. I got a Greek salad with excellent grilled salmon and the guys got Greek pasta. I was a bit peeved as I make them pasta all the time. I was hoping they’d pick more authentic Greek food.
After dinner we went to Barnes & Noble and I ran into Michael’s for a few more scrapbooking boxes (on sale).
Bri got mostly clothes-3 pairs of dress pants (2 ordered from K-Mart), nice t-shirts, a Penn State hat and a wallet. He’s hard to buy for.
We had ice cream cake when we got home though Sean had Baklava at the restaurant which was yummy. I’ve made that before and will have to make it again.
I think Bri had a nice 54th.

Dianne and Brian

Trying the Greek appetizers

Lights reflected in mirror
Two guys full of Greek food

The night sky 3/24

Mar23

Thumbs up!

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A few hours ago, I went back to the eye doctor and a young man (not sure if he was a doctor or assistant) not much older than Sean looked at my optic nerves with a fancy machine. I had to stare at a green star twice while an infrared line went down the screen for 5 seconds. He said everything looked fine, no glaucoma! I feel truly blessed, but also feel for my mom who just had her umpteenth needle in her eye yesterday. She still drives and plans to come out here on Friday. Unfortunately most of us will get cataracts and glaucoma sometime down the road.

Happy 15th to my third nephew Kenny! He’s a talented guitarist, artist and now ‘remodeling’ an old Ford Falcon and doing a great job with that. All that talent started to shine when he was just a little tyke.
Sad to hear of the passing of Hollywood icon Elizabeth Taylor. She said she lived her life to the fullest when she was well. She sure did after having 7 husbands! She was a beautiful woman with her violet color eyes and perfect face. I thought ‘National Velvet’ was one of her best movies.
Speaking of movies, my favorite two were named ‘Best in Film’ on ABC last night. ‘Gone with the Wind’ and ‘The Wizard of Oz’. : ) They were both made in 1939, 20 yrs before I was born.

Mar22

Optimistic

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We used this vintage girl image in a Flickr challenge a year or so ago. I love her eyes and the sticker ‘optimistic’ seemed to fit. I’m trying my best to be optimistic about things like my eyes and teeth. Today the right side of my face was bothering me, so I was wondering if it was my teeth or sinuses or a combo. I think it’s a combo. I’ve been using the water pik again and maybe it was a little rough om my gums near a few crowns. Sensodyne seems to help, but my new crown is being troublesome as when I bite into something warm or hot, it hurts. Getting that looked at next week.
I don’t like talking about personal stuff a whole lot (really!), but I like input if you’ve been through similar experiences and I hope I can help others.
Sean is on a cabbage kick! He really enjoyed the cabbage and corned beef from St. Paddy’s Day. Tonight I made cabbage rolls for him as he bought the cabbage from his work (they are carrying more produce as it will be a super store soon). I found an Amish recipe in one of my cookbooks, but tomato paste and sour cream didn’t sound good. Of course I went on the internet and found another recipes. I think stuffed cabbage ‘needs’ hamburger, but I used ground turkey-very pale. And I like lots of rice and the recipe’s rice was skimpy. A pal from Facebook wrote me a message with her recipe which includes mushrooms. Sounds good!
I’m happy to report that some of my spring flowers like daffodils are about to open as are the forsythia bushes along the road. If it was warmer today, I would have photographed them. I’m so ready to get walking! I think that will help me too.

Mar21

Eye see you

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I went to the eye doctor today even though I wasn’t feeling that great. Seems we all are having allergy issues which makes me wonder if the mushroom houses around here were just cleaned out. But there was also a fire not too far away a few nights ago. And the temps keep going up and down and up and down.
Sean and I are trying cinnamon capsules. They are suppose to help regulate your blood sugar and help with that extra baggage around your middle where a lot of people (like me and Bri) tend to hold the fat. I don’t know what Sean is worried about, but I am giving it a try. Yesterday I was really hungry in the morning, so it must be working? I only took one yesterday, but ate a big dinner last night. Maybe ‘things’ are getting stirred up in the tum tum. ; ) I really don’t have a big butt, so if I could lose some around the middle, I could go down a size or so in my slacks as I buy them bigger for my waist. And it’s not good to have a big middle. Brian had lost a lot of his middle, but he put it back on again. All the gunk squeezes on your internal organs.
So back to my eyes-they haven’t changed too much in 3 yrs. I thought I needed some better bifocals, so I am going to get new eyeglasses. I also had a little redness in my left eye, from allergies or infection, so I got one of those tiny bottles of medicine. I do have to go back on Wednesday (rats) because they want to check out my optic nerves more closely. I am sure that’s been done before, but they are checking to see if one is getting stretched out and that means you may have Glaucoma. I am hoping not as this age as I see what my mom is going through and she’s 29 years older than me. I’m thinking positively and it would mean using drops, no big deal.
I do have to get some bloodwork done soon to check my thyroid. My BP was a bit high this morning, but I was feeling weird all over. Good thing I’m taking medicine, but the GP thinks I may have to go from 10mg to 20mg. The best thing I can do is to try and lose weight. My father-in-law took hbp med for years and he lost about 100 pds and he’s not on them anymore. Makes sense.
Such is life…fix it and move on. I’ve got a lot more I’d like to see and do. : )
Here’s one of my latest 4″ x 4″ collages. I just call this ‘Lady and Butterfly’
Lady and Butterfly 4" x 4" Collage Card

Mar20

Plant flowers for the bees

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Chocolate Sunflower with Bee, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

When you go to buy your flowers and seeds, remember the bees. We need them more than most people realize! They pollinate the veggies in the gardens for one thing. Unfortunately they are dying and we need to help them anyway we can. I am happy to say I saw more bees than any other insects (maybe not skeeters) last year, but I feel they love the flowers I plant and also most of my perennials. They love red and even flowers that that have more that one color (variegated) because they use the stripes as ‘landing pads’. Be a keeper of bees in any way you can.

Mar19

Saturday’s shares

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Mantel with Sarah’s fan, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

I wanted to share the fan that I received from a Flickr pal as part of a group trade. I sent the one I made to another British lady. I didn’t realize that it wasn’t fully opened up, but what is showing looks pretty on my mantel.
Not far from this pretty sight is this sight:
Still sorting craft stuff
Some of those things are the decor in the living room, like the teddies in the chair and wicker carriage. That’s my old desk which I was going to paint. I have no place to put it right now, so hoping someone may want it. Opps-I still see some silk poinsettias! I plan on getting all this finally taken care of and soon. I am having trouble with how to sub-categorize the stickers and if I should sort ‘the scraps’ more. But to me the fun part is going through all the bits and pieces!
I filled up the rest of the cupcake holder with some carrots-the plastic sleeves that you can fill with candy-I used jelly beans!
Easter themed cupcake holder
I just got the pink salad bowl ‘back’ from Bri’s dad-we had given to them years ago and I could have been using it in the last 14 years.
I love the topiary bunnies!
Close up of faux topiary bunny
And the Full Worm moon is bigger (14%) and brighter (30%) than it’s been in 18 yrs! My photo doesnt’ show the detail. It’s in a position where it’s closer to the earth:
Full Worm Moon
And last but not least, I hope to do something neat with this framed mirror I bought at Ikea in January:
A project I'm thinking about
Have a nice Sunday!

Mar17

Happy St. Paddy’s Day

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Thanks to Ladybird Ln. for sharing the lovely traditional Irish blessing.
We are having some nice weather here in Pennsylvania. After I got the corned beef browned and settled in it’s beer braising bath, I took a walk around the yard. The daffodils and other spring flowers will be blooming soon. The croci are already! I came around front and Cosmo kitty was peeking out the front door and I decided he should get a chance to enjoy the nice outdoors. He’s really good on his harness and his sniffing was a bit out of control and he was stopping taking some long whiffs. I had to pull him along and then he hisses. I see that the deer made some meals on my hedges along the house. If they don’t grow back, I think we have to cut them down along with the nibbled on holly bushes. We have so much wilderness behind us, you’d think the deer would be happy, but no.
The corned beef was good. We had cabbage, potatoes, carrots and green beans also. I made a sauce but added a little honey mustard to it which was tasty.
Tomorrow it will be in the 70s! Wow!

Mar16

All is good

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I’m home from the hospital and had good results from the procedure. The little things the doctor mentioned like an acidity tummy can be taken care of. But I don’t have any polyps which I was so happy about! Now I feel like I can join the gym that Sean uses and get a little more serious about weight loss. I’d like Brian to get a bit more serious too. I think exercise would help our stress levels too.
It was a year ago I had the ablation at that other hospital (which in the long run didn’t do me any good). It was like night and day between the two places and I will never go to the one from a year ago again. I plan to switch doctors. The anesthesia didn’t bother me at all this time. I told the man in charge about the 3 hours of terrible nerves I had from it last year. They were running late and the doctor was too. I had to wait right outside the procedure room and listen to a doctor talking about a procedure he had just performed and it didn’t sound too nice. But I was in and out of the procedure room in less than an hour as I noticed she started at 10:50 and I was in the recovery room a little before noon-all ladies too!
We saw a couple from church (whose house even have been too) as we saw her being wheeled by us- she was having hip replacement.
I’m home, I’ve eaten and I’m tired. I have a rumba dance in my gut right now and then I’ll lay down. I think I had 3 hours sleep last night-ugh.
I hope you like my Asian lady card as Japan is certainly on all of our minds lately.