Yippeee! I have a computer again! After first losing my main computer two weeks ago (I blame AOL for it, I hate AOL) but not panicking about the loss because I still had the laptop which has 10 times more memory and RAM and hard drive and all of that good stuff, I then lost the laptop also. Well, I kind of lost the laptop, the screen went totally black and we think there must be some kind of bulb in it which needs to be replaced. But since it is only 8 months old, we need to send it back to the factory to be repaired. They arranged to have Fedex come to our house to pick it up but didn't take into account the fact that we work and no one is home during the day. After several frustrating calls to the service center in India, we think it will finally be picked up at Bill's mother's house tomorrow and hopefully, it will be home next week sometime. In the meantime, Bill was able to get the regular PC functioning enough that I can retrieve my email and play online again. I love you, Bill!!
Today is the playoff game to see who goes to the SuperBowl and there is a bit of tension around here. Bill is a diehard Steelers fan and is totally counting on this to be their year. I am an Eagles fan but my second favorite team is the Steelers (gotta keep that Pennsylvania thing going) so I am hoping too that they make it. We will see later on today.
In the meantime, to work off some of the tension from anticipation and from painting half of the house in preparation for the new carpeting that we are getting, I made a trip to Nolde Forest to clean up the last of my unfound boxes there. Today I successfully found a bonus mystery box after three other failed attempts. I was so happy to find it that I almost cried when I moved the rock and it was there! I also found Lightnin' Bug's Berks County Beryl and checked on my own Swan Lake. I have been a little worried about Swan Lake because it is a driveby and it is near Nolde but had not had a recorded find but was happy to see that it is in good shape. I had taken my new GPS along to try to find some of the geocaches which are there but by that time, I was ready to head back to the car. I have discovered that I am in a lot worse shape than I want to be and need to start to get toughened up for the spring letterboxing season.
I wasn't quite ready to head for home so I decided to pursue some of the markers for my Markeroni challenge. I also decided that since it was a beautiful, sunshiny Sunday morning, I would attempt to locate some of the historical markers in downtown Reading, a place that I don't normally visit, especially alone. There were four or five right near what might be considered the square in Reading, the intersection of Penn St. and Fifth St. so I parked my car and walked to the markers to take photos. Wouldn't you know it, at one marker, there were two homeless looking people sleeping in a bench so I took my picture and skedaddled to the next one which was in an unoccupied area. As I made my way to the next one which was right on the corner of Fifth and Penn, a lovely city resident decided to empty his stomach on the street in front of me, then he staggered over to the trash can next to me and finished the job. I snapped my picture and started walking rapidly back to my car and heard him calling after me, "hey miss, hey miss, come on back!". I learned my lesson, no more going into the city alone for me, not even for my hobbies. Now how do I manage to convince Bill that Markeroni's might be more fun than letterboxing is for him?
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Catching Up
I have just spent the last hour re-reading my blog and realized that even though I didn't letterbox for a few days, I could just catch up on some of the topics that I had mentioned throughout my writings. First, my health issues - I did have my angiogram on December 19 and the decision was made to wait another six months before we talk about any surgery. The carotid dissection (which I found out is the more scientific name for a pseudoaneurysm) at the base of my brain appears to finally be showing some signs of healing from the inside. Prior to the angiogram all of the tests were looking at it from the outside and no changes had been noted. But now the view from the inside gave the doctors some hope that it could be healing itself. I will be retested in June. By that time, this thing will be a fifteen months old and who knows if I will even want to consider surgery.
In good news, I had the pure pleasure of keeping Lil Milkmonster for the entire past weekend. He is growing up so fast, I wish I could post pictures of him here but his Mommy and Daddy have asked me not to. He is now pulling himself up into a standing position and enjoys using me as his Mimser gym. He never, ever slows down. Laura had sent a whole bag of toys along for him this weekend but he spent most of his time playing with two aluminum pie tins, two measuring cups, an empty computer paper box that I brought home from work and Barney's tennis ball. Bill spent so much time showing him how to roll the tenis ball back and forth between them and on Sunday was also showing him how to spread his little legs into a V so that the ball rolls between them. Bill also taught him how to bang the two pie tins together for maximum noise. At one point they had a concert going with Bill on the pie tins and Nicholas shaking a little musical rattle to accompany him.
Today I was showing a coworker some of the pictures from this weekend and she asked me why I was babysitting Nicholas. She was totally astounded when I told her it was because I wanted to spend time with him. She assumed grandparents only kept their grandchildren for a reason. I guess she could be right, my reason is because he totally fascinates me and I can't seem to get enough time with him. Thank heavens his parents also enjoy the fact that I want to be with him and allow me so much time with him.
I have picked up a new little sideline hobby to accompany my letterboxing. I had read about Markeroni on one of the Atlas Quest message boards and after investigating the website, decided it would be a fun thing to add to a day of letterboxing. It is simply a matter of photographing or even just visiting the historic markers in an area. Since letterboxes are so often in historic sites, what could be easier to do and in addition, I have a lot of photos of sites that I have visited already. Pennsylvania is full of historic sites, we are so rich in participating in the development of our country so this is going to be fun for me. I contacted the creator, Linda, and offered to enter the sites onto her website for the state of Pennsylvania and spent most of the last two weeks finishing up the Pennsylvania state markers. She requested that I begin with Berks County, which is my own county, and Centre County since another person had requested that Centre County sites be added. I got about half way through all of the state markers before I thought to look to see who the Centre County person was and had to laugh when I discovered that it was my own good friend, Terri aka True Indigo! As they say, it's a small world! You can read about Markeroni yourself at www.markeroni.com.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention that Bill had given me a Legend Etrex GPS unit for Christmas and I can now also play around with geocaches. It will take me a while to master this beast but I will! Now when I visit any area to letterbox, I can also get the historic markers and any local geocaches and will have so much to keep me busy in one site that I won't have to waste time to drive from spot to spot. Till I leave an area, there should not be too many nooks or crannies that I won't have visited.
Enough news for today, I hope to be out letterboxing this upcoming weekend and need to decide where to head. I could stay right here in Berks County and find the new letterbox in Nolde - yes, one more has been planted, and also look again for the mystery box which has been eluding me. And then I could go down to my least favorite park in the state, French Creek, and find the two Lightnin' Bug Zodiac boxes and the other mystery box that is there. Or I could travel a bit and explore a whole new area. Who knows where I will end up?
In good news, I had the pure pleasure of keeping Lil Milkmonster for the entire past weekend. He is growing up so fast, I wish I could post pictures of him here but his Mommy and Daddy have asked me not to. He is now pulling himself up into a standing position and enjoys using me as his Mimser gym. He never, ever slows down. Laura had sent a whole bag of toys along for him this weekend but he spent most of his time playing with two aluminum pie tins, two measuring cups, an empty computer paper box that I brought home from work and Barney's tennis ball. Bill spent so much time showing him how to roll the tenis ball back and forth between them and on Sunday was also showing him how to spread his little legs into a V so that the ball rolls between them. Bill also taught him how to bang the two pie tins together for maximum noise. At one point they had a concert going with Bill on the pie tins and Nicholas shaking a little musical rattle to accompany him.
Today I was showing a coworker some of the pictures from this weekend and she asked me why I was babysitting Nicholas. She was totally astounded when I told her it was because I wanted to spend time with him. She assumed grandparents only kept their grandchildren for a reason. I guess she could be right, my reason is because he totally fascinates me and I can't seem to get enough time with him. Thank heavens his parents also enjoy the fact that I want to be with him and allow me so much time with him.
I have picked up a new little sideline hobby to accompany my letterboxing. I had read about Markeroni on one of the Atlas Quest message boards and after investigating the website, decided it would be a fun thing to add to a day of letterboxing. It is simply a matter of photographing or even just visiting the historic markers in an area. Since letterboxes are so often in historic sites, what could be easier to do and in addition, I have a lot of photos of sites that I have visited already. Pennsylvania is full of historic sites, we are so rich in participating in the development of our country so this is going to be fun for me. I contacted the creator, Linda, and offered to enter the sites onto her website for the state of Pennsylvania and spent most of the last two weeks finishing up the Pennsylvania state markers. She requested that I begin with Berks County, which is my own county, and Centre County since another person had requested that Centre County sites be added. I got about half way through all of the state markers before I thought to look to see who the Centre County person was and had to laugh when I discovered that it was my own good friend, Terri aka True Indigo! As they say, it's a small world! You can read about Markeroni yourself at www.markeroni.com.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention that Bill had given me a Legend Etrex GPS unit for Christmas and I can now also play around with geocaches. It will take me a while to master this beast but I will! Now when I visit any area to letterbox, I can also get the historic markers and any local geocaches and will have so much to keep me busy in one site that I won't have to waste time to drive from spot to spot. Till I leave an area, there should not be too many nooks or crannies that I won't have visited.
Enough news for today, I hope to be out letterboxing this upcoming weekend and need to decide where to head. I could stay right here in Berks County and find the new letterbox in Nolde - yes, one more has been planted, and also look again for the mystery box which has been eluding me. And then I could go down to my least favorite park in the state, French Creek, and find the two Lightnin' Bug Zodiac boxes and the other mystery box that is there. Or I could travel a bit and explore a whole new area. Who knows where I will end up?
Thursday, January 05, 2006
December 27 Bucks County
On the Tuesday after Christmas, I decided to head to the Doylestown area and on the way, stopped to pick up the Songs of the Seasons series by Warcat. Keep in mind that I am NOT a big fan of Christmas (Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday!) but I am so glad that I had the chance to find these boxes and visit this little bit of enchanted wonderland. I arrived at daybreak and fortunately, I was the only one any where around. I had heard from other boxers that they had some difficulty being
stealthy while finding the boxes because there were so many visitors to the Byers Choice grounds. As I meandered my way around the grounds, enjoying the whimsical statuary scattered here and there, I admit to a bit of worrying about the possibility of some security cameras filming me and wondering just what the heck I was doing there but I didn't let that stop me. The clues to this series were certainly appropriate, the location was absolutely perfect and even the store bought stamps were enchanting. Thanks, Warcat!The pictures above are of some of the statuary on the Byers Choice grounds - the Children on a Log and the Headless Man. Below is one of the many "deer" who are make their home around the grounds.
After my visit to Chalfont, I continued on to Doylestown and made my second unsuccessful attempt to find the Alma Mater
box at Delaware Valley College. Once again I was alone on the grounds since the school was out for Christmas break but it didn't help me to locate the crucial PawPaw tree. Oh well, maybe the third time will be the charm.
Next stop was the Mercer Hunt
at Font Hill. I have to say that my first sight of this estate literally took my breath away. A castle in Doylestown, how neat is that! I got out and poked around the estate for awhile before starting on my search for the Green Star and the Crimson Cat. The paths were really neat and even on the dreary winter day were pretty well occupied. My biggest disappointment was locating the stone cottage in the woods and finding it covered with graffiti. I can never understand the need to destroy history with a can of spray paint. I successfully found my two boxes and later found out that I just missed meeting the planter on the trail by a matter of an hour or two.
Then I moved on to find my first Emma box by Clueless, The Jane Austen Series: Emma This was in a nondescript little park but it was highlighted by being next to a covered bridge. Since it is a semi-mystery box I can't give away any clues or post any pictures but I can talk about my find there. I, who never, ever, find Hitchhikers (except my own) found a traveler box which debuted on Labor Day 2002 in Connecticutt. It is called the Peter J. McGuire Travelling box and was placed by Bruce and Aili. The clues to this box were included in the Emma box with the directions to find the box and take it and the clue book and hide it near another box. This box had already visited Reading once so I will take it with me and try to move it along a bit further.
Last but not least for the day was looking for Indigo Vulture's Lost Cat Series. I am happy to report that all of Indigo Vultures cats are safe and sound in spite of the fact that the park was a quagmire of mud. This was a fun and fairly easy series to end my day on an upbeat note. Thanks, Myke.
December 10 Harrisburg Holiday Happening
December 10, Team Little Dog, on this day consisting of Janila and Lil Milkmonster made our way to Bressler, PA, to join the Crayola Posse and JBZFarm for a Harrisburg Holiday Happening. RGBisMe and True Indigo prepared a wonderful event stamp which was enough of a reason to make the trip but Herbey's turned out to be a wonderful restaurant with good and abundant Mexican food. Lil Milkmonster, however, was not the least bit interested in the stamp or the food. His pleasure lay in seeing how many times he could get Joe to pick his toys off of the floor after he had thrown them down. Thank heavens Joe is a practiced father of two already and knew how to play that game. Whatever the Milkmonster did, it really tired him out and I had a totally quiet ride back to Reading with him. Thanks, Joe!
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