Sunday, June 30

I still don't have much time to sit at the computer. Between work and our home improvement projects, I barely sit down. Anyway, we are now painting our living room. Since we chose such vivid colors for the dining room, mud room and butler's pantry, we went for a more neutral color in the living room -- a light gold / sand color. I painted two walls this weekend, and will try to do the other two walls during the week. We will probably do the family room in the same color, but it looks like that will have to happen after Erica leaves. She comes in late July for three weeks.

Friday night we stopped by at the Pink Poodle Promenade up on 19th St. This is a small festival emphasizing shopping at the antique and boutique shops in the Heights, but also featuring bands, pink poodles (real ones!) and drag queens (real ones!). Then we went out for Greek food.

Sunday, June 16

It's been almost a month since I've posted, I know. I'll try to do better.

Here's where I try to catch up. We've been spending our weekends on home improvements. Staining the front porch inspired me to do the back deck the next week, even though it was quite a bit hotter. The following week we decided to start our interior painting projects. Ed had already picked out colors for all the rooms, but we decided not to get all of the paint at once in case the first colors might affect what we wanted for the later colors. We started with the butler's pantry, which was Savannah Green, a gold-green. Then we did the dining room in Navajo Red. The effect of those two colors is kind of olive / pimiento, which is nicer than it probably sounds. We did the mud room in the green also, and all look great. The darker colors really make the white woodwork stand out. Now the rest of the house looks boring, so we're picking colors for the living room, family room and office. This project took up the last two weekends, though so this weekend is painting-free.

Memorial Day weekend, after I finished staining and Ed finished cleaning out the garage, we went for a drive. Figuring that the beach and most other places would be too crowded, we headed up to Huntsville, TX. I had driven by Huntsville once before on my way to Dallas. I was very surprised to come across the 67-foot statue of Sam Houston that appears out of nowhere along the highway, but that was when I hadn't been in Texas long. It wouldn't surprise me now. I recently learned that the sculptor has his studio here in the Heights, and probably lives here as well. I discovered this while researching another Heights oddity, which I keep meaning to write about and will someday.

Anyway, Huntsville is most famous for the state prison where all the executions that Texas is so famous for take place. The prison and prison museum did look interesting enough to spend more time touring, but as it was Memorial Day and a Monday, the museums were closed. So we headed over to the Sam Houston Memorial Museum, which was also technically closed. The museum was really a park, though, so we could still walk through it an look into the various buildings, including the house where he lived and the house where he died. After this, our tour of Sam Houston led us to Oakwood Cemetery, where he and other illustrious Texas figures are buried. Then we drove home on the Sam Houston Tollway, stopping for barbecue on the way.

Last week I flew up to Dallas for a Siebel User's Group meeting. The meeting was very informative, and I liked having an up-and-back in the same day trip. The flight to Dallas is shorter than many of my friends' commutes into work each day.

And last night we went to a surprise party for some friends of Ed's who moved away last summer and were back visiting. The party was at Melissa's house -- we went to a crawfish boil there soon after moving here. Melissa lives very close to us in a neighborhood that was built in the 50's. The houses aren't that interesting (ranch houses), but the lots are great. Melissa's yard is huge, and goes down to a bayou. She has planted gardens back down the hill.

And that's about it, at least the interesting parts.

Happy Father's Day!

 

 

Archives