Collages & Creative Goodness

Listen to this playlist: DianneCC’s playlist

Dianne — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:09:22 +0000

Around the corner nature shots

Dianne — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 04:37:30 +0000

I drive in this area several times a month and just today I told Brian that I’d love to get out and take some photos. We were on our way home with lunch, so a bit later we headed a few miles down the road. The area is a nature preserve called The White Clay Creek, a tributary of the Christiana River. We parked in front of the closed off bridge where the road was buckling. The bridge was just named to the national registry of historic places a couple of years ago.

Brian always wants to take a photo of yours truly….

(did a little free photoshopping because Flickr’s editing program called Picnik is closing in April so I had access to the premium features. Gave myself some lipstick and botox-lol)

Last summer, Sean and I stopped the car in this same area to see if we could get a photo of a white heron we spotted there. Of course the stork-like bird was skitterish and we didn’t get a shot of him. I see the Audubon Society thinks this is an important area.

A mile or less up this road is a cemetery we didn’t know about until a few years or less ago. I remember driving by here at night, (before the cemetery was fenced off) and swearing I saw the white of a grave marker and it really was one! There use to be a Black church located here 300 years ago!

I believe the Boy Scouts fenced it off and made the sign for their Eagle Scout project. You could go in and look around, but by that time we were both chilled to the bone and glad to get some hot tea and coffee when we got home.

I hope you enjoyed seeing a little part of my world.

Some home shares

Dianne — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:48:31 +0000

The porcelain girls, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

There is a nice thrift shop that is part of the hospital where my mom goes to the doctor. Sometimes if I have more time, I’ll run in there myself. On Monday we dropped in, and I found a gorgeous tapestry jacket-it’s in greens and golds. When I wear it I’ll make a point of taking a photo. Then mom found a plaid green and blue mohair jacket. It was a 2P and she tried it on and it fit perfectly. I was happy mine was a’ L’ ! So we were pleased we found a few things we liked right away and went downstairs in the shop where I found the sweet doll in the red and white for $5. I do have some dolls around the house and haven’t bought one for years. The little girl in the plaid is by Richard Simmons and she is usually holding a gift. Both will be put away in a few weeks anyway. ‘Olivia’, my doll with the pink bow is out year ’round. She was pricey when I bought her. I always thought I’d have a daughter with green eyes and the curly hair as it runs on Brian’s side of the family. Sean has more of the Knowles family wavy hair. The doll in red is by Knowles china!
I found these cute Carnival glass butterfly dishes- salts maybe? There probably is suppose to be 4.

I haven’t taken photos in a while and here is the ‘Sweets’ tree that was on the camera but not uploaded yet:

And my Valentine art from last week:

I hope to do something more crafty over the weekend. Today I went to the dentist at 11:20 as my temp crown broke off in the back again and he decided to make a new one. When he went to smooth it, the drill made it pop off and break. So now the third one is in my mouth and it looks and feels much better. I have 11 days to wait for the permanent crowns. It’s been a crazy dental month! NYC in a month!

Cooking made easy

Dianne — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:37:36 +0000

I found this on Amazon a year or so ago. I had it on my wishlist and never got it. Then I decided to open up an Amazon charge and they give you a $40 gift card, so I finally got one!

I made the basic red sauce lasagna for dinner. My substitutes were -no cook noodles, ground turkey and low fat ricotta. I sauteed onion and garlic to dress up the turkey when I cooked it. The noodles were too wide to put in the pan long ways, so I had to break them all. This made them fit sideways and made 3 perfect servings in each section. I think it needed a bit more sauce, but all in all pleased with it! It also came with it’s own little spatula.

I plan to try other recipes-chicken and broccoli, lobster(!), etc.

I also had a nice Caesar salad with lemon garlic dressing.

Let’s hope these fixes hold

Dianne — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 04:34:05 +0000

I was at the dentist yet again. The new temp duo was fixed by the dentist’s assistant (got a chip in it last night) and I asked her to check my upper crown too. She called the dentist in and he filled it like a cavity. He said no more crowns for that one, that he’d continue to fix it until I eventually need an implant. I had a bit of a rant in an email to him last night…some of my words…’financial burden’….’my anxiety level keeps raising’… I guess he got the picture. I came home and ate popcorn. Hopefully all will stay good for a few more weeks until the crowns are ready. The receptionist tried to milk more moola out of me, ‘for my balance’. I said in two weeks. It was rough waiting until 5 to go. I ate dinner at 4-shrimp fried rice and apple chicken sausage from Trader Joe’s.

All was well with my mom. I should have started off with that. Being a lady’s matter I’m sure she wouldn’t want me to come right out and say what was the matter. I’ll say one word, (so go look it up) ‘prolapsed’. She’s good for another year and is getting a mammogram soon. She had us worried, but she’s like her mom and bounces back. The weather was strange yesterday-rainy, a bit warm and foggy-perfect for ducks.

I’ve been working on projects, including one for a Flickr group. They all need finishing touches and I will share soon. Doing these helped get my mind off my teeth and annoying postnasal drip. The later seems to get stirred up every few weeks.

I got declined from the online writing job. I guess they thought either my blog stunk or I didn’t have enough writing experience. I took a look at one of their writers when I was checking out their site and she was just alright, nothing flashy about her writing. Brian just reminded me that I took a correspondence course in the 90s and did have samples of my actual ‘typed’ writing. I got a diploma for ‘Writing for Children’s Magazines’. Maybe I should see if that is still in demand. So the search goes on. BTW, this is post 3, 293- Suite101.com. So there….

Better start living up to my blog name

Dianne — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 02:09:34 +0000

I worked on three projects last night, one of which was:

The little love bird is new and a Martha S. piece. I have the copy machine with the printer and the edging is some copied music I accordian pleated.

Today I remembered that there was that fab book sale a few miles away down in Hockessin, DE. I called the library and sure enough, it was running a few more hours. I high tailed it down there and if they were going to close at 3, they would have been crazy-the place was jam packed! I hesitated buying a bag for $6 and finally did. Well, you know I can’t just buy one book. I had such a heavy bag, I had to leave it near the door and go get the car first. I got a few for my mom.

Of course we were saddened (and I shed a few tears) over the passing of former Penn State football coach Joe ‘JoePa’ Paterno at the age of 85. The scandal from a few months ago hastened the poor man’s bout with lung cancer. He is survived by his wife Sue (who gave communion to Sean a few times at church), his 5 children and 17 grandchildren. There is quite a memorial now outside of Beaver Stadium near his bronze statue.

Off to my mom’s to take her to the doctor tomorrow. I know she is nervous about her reoccurring issue over the last 50 odd years. Keep her in your thoughts.

A little snow event

Dianne — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 22:29:21 +0000

Overnight we got a little snow, about 2″ of it, but of course it wouldn’t be a complete dump without a little frozen precipitation on top. I would have been fine with that, but I had to go out this morning as I had a piece of a crown break off while sucking on a peppermint Life Saver! Talk about luck! Brian took me in at 9:30 and the dentist cleaned around the temp on the bottom as it still was bothering me and said the one on top (yep, problems with the bottom left and top right-fun chewing times!) that has a post into my gum needs to be replaced! This will be the third one now (roughly at $900 each). I can eat with it. I guess when I go in to get the ones on the bottom, they will prepare that one and probably the one next to it which needs a filling underneath (that’s the one I thought broke). Luckily the tops ones both have had root canals.
Here is a bit of a peek of the snow:

Last week, before all the dental stuff, Sean and I went up to the outlets in Lancaster. I got some great deals in the QVC outlet store, some slacks, tops and this which I tried out last night:

It’s a Technique muffin pan that makes square muffins! They didn’t stick, but deflated a bit, but very moist. The mix was a raspberry one found at The Christmas Tree Shops for $2.00 (half off). The price on the page does not reflect what I paid-I think mine was $15 with something off!

I ‘did’ work on a little project for my arts and crafts day. I am almost finished, but not quite up to it today. It’s a little shadow box. I don’t know about you, but when I have teeth or head issues, I just tend to be blah and stare at stuff. Glad I made an effort. I did print out some Valentine’s things and may work on them tomorrow.

Sean just booked a room in Seacaucus, NJ, 8 miles out of NYC. We can grab a bus in. We’ll plan our itinerary now.

Monday I take my mom to the doctor. A long time coming and I pray all is fine.

One year ago

Dianne — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 05:58:59 +0000

I was not to be seen in blogland for over 3 days. I had that gnawing pain in my gut and it turned out to be a bum appendix (with a benign polyp) and a case of pneumonia and I ended up in the hospital. I didn’t feel that bad from it really, but the shots in the tummy were not fun nor getting pumped up with medication. The guys went out and bought the Mariner the day after I got home, a big surprise!

So this January it’s all about the teeth. Went for a cleaning, they took x-rays and all the work that needs to be fixed sprang out from the shadows. Yesterday I went to the dentist and was there two hours. So nice of them to let me use an iPod with James Taylor drowning out the drilling-which I wondered why went on for over 4 songs. Seems I had 4 cavities and of course had the temp crowns made. My gums are hurting a bit, but so far I can live with it.

I declared Fridays for ‘Arts and Crafts’ on a Facebook post. I don’t necessarily mean all day, but it can be from paper collaging to baking for a few hours-I just want to produce something to share. : ) I need to do this for myself. I am happy getting help with the big jobs like the basement so I can think of being creative again. What was down in that dungeon (and still is) taking up space was insane. I have a few boxes to sort, maybe tomorrow if I can lean over.

I’m waiting to hear from a few online sites about writing articles for them. I submitted a blog post, so hello there Suite101.com if you happen to read this too. The child care leads seems to be going no where. I don’t have a premium account, not sure if that’s it, but it’s expensive. I got a background check thinking that may make the people happy-maybe I’m too old.

Cats can paint!

Dianne — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 20:30:19 +0000

This is an app for the iPad2. So much fun watching Cosmo play with it. I have a protective cover on it.

And this is a video of my front window made from the iPad:

The Presence of trees and other things

Dianne — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 02:59:20 +0000

The Presence of Trees

by Michael S. Glaser

I have always felt the living presence
of trees

the forest that calls to me as deeply
as I breathe,

as though the woods were marrow of my bone
as though

I myself were tree, a breathing, reaching
arc of the larger canopy

beside a brook bubbling to foam
like the one

deep in these woods,
that calls

that whispers home

(so it’s not the woods, but isn’t this a wonderful tree?)

I had the rare opportunity to enjoy a walk at the park in January as it was in the 50s (this was on Thursday). I had my new-ish phone and captured this of what I think is a Sweet Gum tree. My fellow h.s.alumni , a movie director in California, gave me a thumbs up on Facebook (I sent the photo there first)-I was really flattered Todd. : )

So what else is new-sorting and cleaning in the super dusty and yucky basement-it was so bone chilling cold outside and I still needed to get Christmas stuff put away. I had a helper-thanks to Brian for sticking his nose in the dust. He’s making ‘smoke’ now. Good thing I took a Claritin. We had a nice roaring fire in the fireplace and he gave me a mixed drink of some peachy stuff and tequila-a bit strong. I had the ‘brilliant’ idea to get wood from under the Chestnut tree and it’s just not burning now. The ‘bought’ wood was fine, but I didn’t like the smell of it.

I got this today-a gift to myself and since I put so much moola in the iPad2, I wanted it to be protected:

(my protective cover has specks of dust under it, so little bubbles there)

You can see my messy wall desk calling out to me in the background. I am getting to that maybe tomorrow.

It’s a stand and the iPad can swivel from ‘portrait’ to ‘landscape’

I sent this to Zoey via email, not sure if she got it, but here’s catalog shopping at your fingertips! I got the case from eBags-funny I checked for coupons on the laptop while using the catalog app and found one for 20% off with free shipping. I really like that site. Got the case in two days! (Came from Penna. too).

(That’s my $5 ‘five below’ case, I think I’ll find a new use for it).

I got my mom the Le Pan tablet and she was upset as it froze up on her tonight. I went online and it said to just push the ‘reset’ button on the back. She is having fun browsing the web. She has an email account and Facebook but hasn’t used them yet, or any applications. It’s Android like the phones I am using. I got it for $180 and saw it for $350 on another website. She is enjoying it, but needs to learn how to clean out the cache.

I feel a weight off my shoulders as we start to dig through the mess of the basement. I want a craft corner for messy projects, etc. We made a resolution to go down there once a month and do more sorting. I have about 5 blue Hefty bags and only a few cardboard boxes with stuff left to sort. I’ll be buying more plastic bins for sure. We had 3 bags of trash and several things for the Goodwill. I still need to whiddle it down.

Keep warm!

Taken from the iPad2