After one coat of gel stain and one coat of primer. But the difference is profound.
I thought you might like to see our progress. Frankly, I haven’t done much personally with this project. Jacob unloaded the bookcases for us, and Dave is doing everything else. More »
Our next (small) DIY project, freshening up our fireplace.
We’re at it again. Dave and I had been contemplating our fireplace for quite some time…with some of other changes happening on the main floor of our house, we wondered what we could do to make our mundane, builder-grade fireplace more modern-looking. More »
Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
If you were a fan of 2005’s Freakonomics by Dubner and Levitt, you’ll enjoy this compilation of examples of how successful people might or might not have had some amazing opportunities and circumstances that led to enhanced success. Outliers author Malcolm Gladwell delves into anecdotes of famous personalities such as Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Robert Oppenheimer. He explores how hockey players’ birthdates correlate with their successes and likelihood of making it all the way to the pros.
But Gladwell contends that it’s a bit more than just being in the right place at the right time. There’s also an element of hard work. The second half of the book takes a look at the work ethic of successful people and groups.
Gladwell’s use of data to support his claims help solidify his assertions.
We got a nice photo of the family before boarding.
As you might imagine, being the wife of a train guy, I’ve been on a lot of trains. From the Amtrak Auto Train to dozens of tourist railroads, we’ve experienced rides that range from luxurious to utilitarian, with lengths from just 15 minutes to 7 hours.
We have been driving past the Royal Gorge Route Railroad depot for the past couple years on our numerous day- and weekend-trips to Monarch Mountain. We kept telling ourselves “We need to check out that railroad.” but hadn’t gotten around to it for a while. The Royal Gorge takes a 20 mile route along the Arkansas River that one can only see via this train or whitewater raft (or the Royal Gorge pedestrian bridge at the park).
In 2014 we tried to get tickets for a ride, but the Holiday Train route we were interested in was sold out. The boys are too old for the Santa Train that dominates the holiday season, and besides, it didn’t take the complete route. Dave would have wanted the complete route.
Dave’s parents visited during Christmas week and we got tickets for everyone for a daytime Holiday Train for the day after Christmas. We got the tickets nice and early (around Veteran’s Day) and were very pleased with the number of options available to us. We choose to do a 12:30pm trip so that we could see the beautiful gorge. More »
I know, it’s been a while! I’m here, really, but with my full time work and the kids’ activities, I have had to re-prioritize my blogging. This also goes for GeekMom, where my writing is now at a bare minimum (despite having ideas for posts all the time), but I still do editor duty every few weeks.
I have numerous things to write about here on the home front, including a stunning ride on the Royal Gorge Railroad back in December but for now I want to share what a fun weekend our family had in Breckenridge. We didn’t ski (I’ll explain in a minute) but we found many other things to enjoy without spending much money.
Breckenridge Ski Resort is like the Walt Disney World of skiing. Tourists come in from all around the world for some amazing skiing, and the town of Breckenridge keeps up with that tourism industry with premier shopping, restaurants, and lodging options for their guests. More »
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A fun read, which I think would be especially exciting for Rigg’s intended YA audience. However, I didn’t give it 5 stars because I saw numerous parallels to other stories I’ve read over the years. For example, Jacob discovering he’s a “peculiar” reminded me of Harry Potter discovering his wizard identity. The World War II exposition of the younger children in the country in Britain and Wales reminded me of the The Lion, the Witch, and the WardrobeChronicle of Narnia stories. The incessant pursuit of the peculiars by the wights reminded me of both Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and The Fellowship of the Ring.
I commend Riggs for the imaginative storytelling. I enjoyed the fun vocabulary he incorporates, which is great for pre-teen/teen readers looking for SAT-caliber words used in context.
I know, I know, I know…I showed all these in-progress pictures but then disappeared off the face of the earth before I showed the final result. More »
I’m not sure it’s actually called “planking”, since my first thought would have gravitated towards this kind of planking. But it’s what I’m calling the process Dave and I went through today, putting the planks up on the wall in our guest room.
We picked up the wood, called blue stain “beetle kill” ponderosa pine, at our local Home Depot. The planks are actually cut for paneling on the opposite side, and there are tongue-and-groove cuts on the long edges…for vertical paneling. I’m sure Home Depot was happy that we were picking the most beat-up planks for our project. We purposefully took the pieces with holes and gashes. More »
Most of the room is this color: Behr Ultra Premium Plus in a color called “Dry Pasture”.
We couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day to paint a bedroom. Even though it’s mid-October, today Colorado Springs hit a high temperature of 87F, shattering the record for this date by FIVE DEGREES! We were able to open the windows and let the warm air quickly dry the walls and we were able to put both coats of color on the walls in about 4 hours.
The colors we chose were ones that we already had from previous painting work. The greenish color is Behr’s Ultra Premium Plus “Dry Pasture“, which we already have on our dining room and basement bathroom walls. We had a full can of Dry Pasture in the basement storage area, which ended up taking care of about 85% of what we needed. Isn’t it always like that? Dave ran to our local Home Depot and picked up another can while I worked on the corners and top edges. More »
The guest bedroom is the last liveable part of the house that has not been painted since we moved here. It’s still the original builder-grade paint, in fact. Some of the accessories have already been placed in the spare bedroom (lamp on the nightstand, some antlers on the far left edge) but when it’s fully complete it will be transformed into something pretty cool! We can’t wait!
Hello there! I’ve been a bit scarce lately, mostly because my MacBook’s keyboard died. I turned it in this weekend for repairs at my local Apple Store, which was a monumental task in and of itself. The Apple Store here is so swamped, you have to make an appointment to turn in the computer for repairs, and they were booking a week out.
In the meantime, I’m using a Acer touchscreen laptop we had bought a few years ago, but had given us so much trouble with Windows 8.1 not being compatible with the built-in WiFi adapter. Last spring I blew away the Windows operating system and completely replaced it with the Ubuntu system (Linux). I found the proper drivers to re-activate the touchscreen with Ubuntu, and things are going decently. I still miss my MacBook, though…I’ll have it back by next weekend.
So on to our next project: changing the guest room from a plain junk-storage space that occasionally hosts guests to a no-kidding guest bedroom. This past summer when Dave and I visited the local Parade of Homes we saw a DIY idea that we both agreed was worth trying to do: planking a wall to look like a log-cabin. More »
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