It Was One of Those Great Weekends

• My husband took Friday off of work and we got to enjoy a 3-day weekend. We went to Pittsburgh on Friday to visit the Science Center that we didn't have time for the last time we went to Pittsburgh.
  

• If I had school-age kids this would be the place to bring them. But you never outgrow having fun with science. This was the first time I saw live seahorses swimming around.
  

• I let myself be a bit silly and went in the blue-screen booth and did the weather forecast. I was doing an imitation of Groundhog Day. I figured no one knows me there so I could act silly. Later, at the scale-model train room the assistant said there were several people from Erie there that day.... Oh.

• My favorite part was the real (cold war) submarine. I loved the old brass and how well everything was made. It is amazing how small a space those guys had to live in.

• We saw the Everest Imax film which was great. We rented it a few years ago and saw it on our TV but it is nothing like the IMAX theater screen. My favorite part of that was the introduction that showed Pittsburgh. The flyovers etc. You really feel like you are flying.
  

• After the Science Center we visited some of the "for sale" Mexican War Street historic homes and took pictures for my sister. My sister (from California) is interested in buying one for a vacation home. Who would want to vacation in Pittsburgh? That was my first question but I guess if you are used to living at the beach in southern California it is nice to get away to something different. Pittsburgh does have some interesting things to do.
  

• Saturday was spent working on my little backyard. We bought some landscape fabric and covered the rest of the yard with that and added the red mulch. The Scott's mulch came in 2 cu ft bags. We figured about 5 would cover the little area. We had to go back 2 more times to get enough to cover the grassy area of the yard. My back yard is something like 16 by 20 ft and half is garden not being mulched. The grand total to cover the area that was grass was 24 bags of that stuff. Boy were we off! But it really looks nice and neat now and no more weed whipping. Maybe a little roundup along the edges. When I finish with the front lawn next year, about 10 ft x 16 ft, we can sell our lawnmower!
  

• Yesterday we drove to Findley Lake (I love it there), then on to Cambridge Springs and then visited Campbell pottery again. I love going there and there is always new stuff to see. I didn't buy anything this time but I'm sure I'll make up for it in the future.

• So this week is going to be filled with working on the bathroom. I'm adding 4 GFI outlets and new lighting fixtures. I'll have to plan it all out and get my permits. In the mean time, I have the door stripped and primered. It took just about a week of tedious work and huge mess on that one and I have decided to just do the bad spots on the rest of the woodwork in the bathrooms. The rest of the house has natural oak and heart pine. Now I know why very few people strip the paint off. Just sand and paint over it even it it looks a bit bumpy. It is an antique house, after all, gives is character :-)