OMG! As the title already states, "I Have Been Queer-Eyed !" I had an idea, and I am experimenting. I had wanted to make a change. nothing drastic, but I wanted to do something different. I no longer just wanted to live with just plain blank, painted walls.
I am not artsy enough to do murals or anything, or even faux-suede a paint scheme, so I had a thought. Mind you, I never said it was a good one, or well thought out.
My idea was to use material to hand and put a scene up in one corner of the living room. In my mind, and stole the idea from someone else, I wanted to put up trees. I had originally seen White Birch Tree pattern used like this in a corner and it really brightened up the room, and made a little statement. Sure did break up just the whole mono-chromatic paint scheme.
Sighs, as is always my luck, "A Day Late, And A Dollar Short," It took me some time to track down where the material was purchased at. They no longer handled the White Birch design. Sighs, Had to go to a plan B. Had to find another design. Finally decided on an Oak Tree Pattern. Of the four designs available, the one I opted for was the lightest shade. Sighing, it is still too dark now that I have it up.
Which brings me up to my next hurdle, How to hang this. I had asked questions when I got the material. They recommended me to go to a paint store. Alas, the one they recommended is not long in existence. Some thoughts given to me was to use wall paper paste to glue it up, Grommets was another option, and to not have the grommets show, would turn the top edge over so that the material would drape back up and over the grommets and they would not show at all. This would have moved the top edge of the material out from the wall before coming back down. I went for another route. I went with Velcro. So, if the idea does not work out, can more easily return back to the way it was.
So, below is how the end? product looks. Comments or guffaws are always welcomed.
Not a big thing to say today, but, As I was driving home from dinner tonight, I had noted at first that there were a few snowflakes mixed with the rain. Well, before long, it had changed over to a lot of snowflakes mixed with a little rain. We are not expecting much, but, this was our first real snow of the season. It actually got cold enough outside, that the temperature dropped lower than my low limit for the furnace in the house, and my furnace kicked on. Brr, am not looking forward to the rest of the season. Whatever happened to Indian Summer? LOL I would like a week or so yet of warmer weather.
p.s. The grey streaks above the car is the snow as it is falling down yet. this was taken at about 8:45 this evening
I had promised my nephew and his wife a special Birthday present for their son Grady. he likes trains, so I had promised to take him on a train ride. Alas, at the time of his birthday, things just had not worked out. I had a week of vacation time, but alas, between families, out off time did not co-ordinate well. Now, the last week of Sept. had been nothing but cold and rain, but, in a good way, that was good for us. I am off from work now, and it just worked out well, that Sat. Oct 3rd, was open and there were seats available on the train. This was questionable because with the fall season, a lot of people go on the train to see the fall changing of the leaves. As mentioned above, with the rain the prior week, and temps down into the 50's well, that made for some available seating. Train was due to depart the station in Titusville at 11 AM. I arrived at the house, and the kids were ready, and with directions from the Garmin, we were on the way. Evan was a great help with the navigation, but, his own personal knowledge ended at Rte 198. We went a bit beyond that. But, all was well, and we arrived with a little time to spare.
I had gotten a bit anxious as the last 15 minutes out of town, were were following a bus. Sure enough, it was going to the same place. Yikes! Well, we unloaded out of the car, and got into the station before the bus did and got out tickets. Not to worry though, there was still plenty of seating available. The train excursion for this trip was the OCTRR, or otherwise known as Oil Creek & Titusville Rail Road. All told, there were like six cars, plus one open stand up car for the passengers as well as a few freight cars. This trip as posted, was in THE VALLEY THAT CHANGED HISTORY. That was because we were running the valley where commercial oil was first discovered and refined and shipped from. Up this valley where the cliffs could be within 5 feet of the car on one side and about 15 feet from the water. All told, we crossed the Oil Creek four times on each direction. This train also had a dining car/post office. This post office is the last moving railroad post office still in existence.
Jennifer, the children's mom, had accompanied us for this adventure. Mike was involved with his work and the school. We were all excited. We found a couple of seats, and within a few minutes, we were underway. Approximately 10 minutes into the trip, the train stopped at Drakes Well Park. Here we picked up some bicyclists. They were going on closer to Oil City. And off we were once again. We found that even though the cars were riding in and original, we found that we could open the windows. The opened up about half way. This was enough for the youngsters to look out unimpeded. For them, it was an adventure. For once, while traveling, they were not seat-belted into place. They could actually get up and move around. One of the big thrills was to be able to move from one car to another while the train was underway. The floors were moving from side to side and a little up and down and you can actually see the tracks below us as we went from one car to another.
This excursion is scheduled for about a total of 3 hours. they held pretty close. For a 3 year old, 3 hours is a long time. We got a little antsy before the end, but nothing too bad. We had fun all along the way. We even enjoyed a snack! At the haly way point in Oil City, as we were waiting to load new passengers, Our engine decoupled, and went a ahead a bit, and then switched to a set of tracks right next to ours, and Then swapped ends and hooked back uo so that they could pull us back to our start point in Titusville.
After three and a quarter hours, we all arrived back at our original train station. They boys seemed to be really thrilled with just looking and watching the model train display that was set up in the lobby. After viewing the lobby/museum/gift shop, we loaded back up into the car, and with navigator Evan, we found a place to have some lunch before heading home. Even got some time in at the play area. On the way back home, the skies had darkened but no rain had fallen the whole day. Was a great trip and great company to go with.
