A day spent in Pittsburgh

It's been awhile since my last post, I've been busy doing many things and I can't remember any of them. But home improvement stalled and I went to Texas, and now I'm going back to Texas and so there will be no more posting til at least a week or more. 

In the meantime, this post about our trip is at finality, so here it is.

On our first morning in Pennsylvania, our plans were to go back to Pittsburgh, sight see, ride the Duquesne Incline, eat at the famous Primanti Brothers restaurant and go to a Pirates game. Oh, and go to the Andy Warhol museum....insert the hugest eye roll you could EVER imagine here. 

We left our hotel in Butler and after an hour's ride, arrived in the Burgh. After being in Pennsylvania for one week, I discovered the keystone state hasn't ever met a Burgh they didn't like, not that there's anything wrong with that. There's Pittsburgh of course, Greensburg (loved what we saw), Harrisburg, Gettysburg (wanted to see that so bad but just didn't have the time) and Canonsburg. OK, that's only five but it seemed like a lot when we were there.

We drove through The Strip, that's a place with little shops, not clubs. We weren't in New Orleans! Once again we saw houses built on the side of a mountain, or hill, not sure about what elevation constitutes one or the other. 

There are tons of churches everywhere and they are all old and European looking. At least to me they are.

If that doesn't look like old world Europe I don't know what does. BUT. I've never been to Europe so I really have no basis for that observation. But I'm sticking with my original statement in spite of my lack of travel.

This green domed church was intriguing to me...

So we went and found it.

It was my fave.

This may be part of the strip where there are ethnic stores and restaurants. 

These things were all around town and went in the water as well as on land. It was a little disconcerting to me. We did not go for a ride. 

After riding around town we went to the Duquesne Incline for a ride up to see the city. 

John and Owen took forever buying a parking ticket. See that stuffed full parking lot? We had to have a ticket. 

We are still waiting!

Two of my lovely daughters. 

And the other with John. Olivia was supporting with her shirt. 

Me and the O.

Here we go.

We made it to the top and Owen, afraid of heights, survived. 

I could say blech, but I won't. We could have toured the stadium but Kenny Chesney was gonna have a concert later that week and therefore it was closed to touring. Way to ruin things Kenny. 

Pretty skyline. I was shocked to learn Pittsburgh only has a little over 300,000 people. 

It's also know as the city of bridges. They have the most of any city. 

I really like this picture lots. 

Caitlin asked someone to take our picture. 

Then I took one. 

I took this of old Pittsburgh. 

Pretty cool pictures. 

Then it was time to go back down and on to the next thing on our agenda.

My peeps. 

The next thing on our agenda was this. 

This isn't gonna be pretty....

The kids wanted...no insisted on going to the Andy Warhol museum and because I'm nothing if not a team player, I went as well. 

This is in the lobby and there are no more pictures BECAUSE no pictures were allowed. 

Here's the deal....actually there are many deals so prepare for my rant. John's grandmother and Andy Warhol's grandmother were first cousins. SO, technically and not even technically John and Andy were related, so I sorta have the right to have a strong opinion. Andy was a nut. And he was pretentious. I can't take pretentiousness in any shape or form. Andy Warhol was a pretentious nut who believed people cared about his every move. He thought he was someone other people thought was interesting. He was not. Well, I did not and I think his museum is stupid. 

He was selling the emperor's new clothes and everybody thought his pop art was fab. It is not. I think it's stupid. Every single floor, there were 7, was filled with weird, stupid stuff, not art. As I finished one floor and was waiting for the elevator, I looked over and saw on a TV, Andy Warhol's silly self sitting eating a hamburger. And that's when I lost it. I quit in my head long before that, but my body joined in the quitting. As in, I left the building. OK, I didn't physically leave the building til everyone was finished, but I went back to the lobby and waited for my people to realize that going was a horrible dumb mistake and a waste of our money. 

I told Olivia to look off into the day and I would make art. And it was better than Andy's.  

The art of my people.

Oh look! Owen changed his expression. More art. 

This is the look of people who know they just got taken by a scam....and their money was non-refundable. And they knew I was totally annoyed by the entire experience.

Then we went to an antique store where we found the same antiques as you do in Louisiana. 

But you never see one of these in a Louisiana store. 

There was something very similar to this at Gran's. Don't know what happened to it. 

John bought this coal bucket.

After the antique store we found a parking spot on the other side of this bridge and then walked across it to look around Pittsburgh.

That's our people not waiting on us. 

Here is more art. That's John and me...our shadows at least...as we looked out over the river...don't know which river. My hiney was so tight as I hung my camera over to take this picture. In fact, it's tight just thinking about it as I look at this. 

This is Primanti Bros. restaurant. Very delicious. 

Us.

The sandwich that was yum.

This is the receipt for the stupid place. That's the price for two adults, not that it makes it any better.  

This is better art than at the stupid place. 

After we ate, we walked back over the bridge to the Pirates stadium for the baseball game. 

Loved the skyline view.

We had great seats for the game. 

Us again.

Then, this eclipse came and sat right in front of me and I never saw anything again. 

Some of us....

May have been more bored than others. That's Caitlin keeping score so as to try to stay interested in the game. 

Owen ate his way through this cotton candy. 

The permanent eclipse never even went to the bathroom! There are many seats in this whole freaking place and he had to come sit in the one in front of me. 

Ice cream in the cute hat made it a little better. This is the only reason Emma went to the game. 

The goal.

After nightfall the lovely view changed colors.

This A and M guy was with the eclipse. Made me feel a little closer to home. 

After the game we drove around Pitt and then went back to the hotel. It was a fun filled day doing things we'd never done before together. It was a good day.

Now it's almost 2:30AM and I'm tired and leaving tomorrow, so I'll be back but I don't know when. 

Until then, happy and safe 4th of July to all.

God please bless us even though things seem to be going against your will.

I'm out like a person leaving town.

If it's Father's Day, there must be a gift to buy

Father's Day Eve has been such an unforgettable day that I felt the need to share with everyone. It's been filled with togetherness and happiness and team work. And not an ounce of sarcasm. It began with an attempt at home improvement with today's agenda being the crown molding install in the hall and bathroom attempted by the father of the household. Every piece had already been pre-cut by John and painted by me yesterday. Easy peasy. Just nail it in place. Not so fast. Each piece fit properly separately, but when the puzzle pieces began to take shape, nothing fit together. It seems the saw John was using wasn't cutting the angles correctly. As well as cutting crown molding is way different than cutting other things. Something about cutting it backwards and upside down? I don't know.  

After a phone call to Jared, John procured the correct cutting tool. BUT. All the pre-cut pieces had to be recut. We actually bought three 16 foot pieces of molding with very little to spare. (We will need 100 more to finish the job.) After he had the correct saw, and after he remeasured and recut and after he'd snapped at me, he discovered what I knew secretly but didn't speak out loud. All the recut pieces were now too short. Back to the drawing board. After more cutting and more measuring and more muttering under his breath, there were no successfully cut pieces of molding nailed in place. It's been a cluster to say the least. The more we know, the more it's understood that crown molding install is a little jerk. John rarely gets stumped. But he did today.  

While he was working on the molding, the kids and I had to secure a Father's Day gift for the carpenter in the family. It seems like only yesterday John told me what he wanted for Father's Day. And because it really WAS yesterday, it was off to Home Depot on the Saturday before Father's Day to purchase the grill he wanted.

 OMG. 

The inception of the trip to the depot began at about 3:00. The traffic was fab and parking was easy and we got a million dollar gift card when we walked in the place. Or not. We found the grill all put together and not in a box. It was then I realized we'd not come in John's truck and would be unable to get the grill home. In my defense, I didn't think there would be a grill ready and waiting for our purchase. I thought we'd find a box, find a Home Depot person to tell us there was no way we could have one put together today, and then I'd have to come back and pick the thing up. But there were whole grills everywhere, in anticipation of Father's Day no doubt. So we got other stuff we needed, including a right angle device to help John with the cutting of the crown molding. (Spoiler alert: it didn't).

After a brief discussion between Owen and I about our predicament, Owen texted his friend Tosten and asked if he could come get him and the grill in his truck. We decided I'd set out for home before the answer came, because if Tosten said no, I'd have to come back in the truck to get the grill and the boy. 

En route I got this text.... 

I was about to turn into our driveway when Owen texted me again...

So happily, I got the truck keys, headed BACK to the depot laughing out loud at the thought of Owen trudging through the streets of town towards our house with John's new grill in tow. After fighting traffic a second time I was back at the store, Owen and a depot employee put the grill in the truck, unsecured I might add, and it was when they lifted it into the truck that I saw a dent in the thing under a domaflachy part of the grill. I quickly decided to ignore it and off we went.

As the two of us were riding in the cab we were discussing tumping and the fact the grill wasn't secured and there were two railroad tracks to cross over and blah blah blah. After one turn and one railroad track, I pulled over, Owen got in the back to hold the grill steady and we continued on our way. We had gone about two miles when I turned a corner and saw a policeman parked in a lot as we passed, Owen ducked to prevent being discovered. Unfortunately his hands were still in plain view because he wasn't letting go of the grill.

You know, I think there has to be times when policemen see something strange and think, "I'm gonna turn and look the other way and pretend I didn't even see that." Because we continued, unhindered, on our ridiculous way. 

When we got to the college campus, I ducked down a side street when I saw a campus police car and determined I wasn't gonna try to get by him. I'm convinced campus police have no sense of humor at all. 

It was then I took these two pictures. 

The second one was taken just as he was saying, "Are ya kiddin with the pictures?" 

You'd think this story was over by now, but no.

As we were nearing the traffic circle near our house, a trifecta occurred. Owen took his grip off the grill to read a text from Tosten telling him he was on his way to the depot after all (no I'm not kidding), at the same time I looked behind me to check on Owen...or the grill..at the same time a car was making its way into the traffic circle. When I looked back around and saw the car, I shrieked and slammed on the brakes and the unsecured grill then fell over onto Owen. 

And I'm not even kidding. 

He was pissed, to say the least, as he was slammed by the tumping grill and so I stopped and opened the door to check on him...or the grill...and he said, "MOM! Are you kidding me?!?!" I barely laughed at all as I apologized and got back in the truck and then may have laughed more as we safely traveled the final mile to our house where we arrived at 5:00 to the happiest Father's Day there could ever be in the land. 

None of these facts were....or could ever be made up in any way possible because this crap is real and I'm not kidding for one second.

Oh, and there are no molding pieces in place anywhere it was supposed to be installed. 

I'd say today it's: 
Home Improvement 0
Lisa and John 0
A zero sum game for all.

Oh happy day to all in the world, whether you have a dangle or not.  

Some more home redo

People I don't have people. What that means is, I can't be multi places at once and I don't have someone to blog for me. Not that that would even be good... BUT. I'm in the middle of home improvement everywhere and if you didn't know, it takes so much time to improve the home. And that's always been my problem when home improving because I have no patience, or a very limited amount of it. 

As I already documented we took down the popcorn in our den, bathroom and hall, spackled, repainted and finished all of it. I just gaze above and admire our handiwork. BUT. I still have to paint all things in those rooms and other stuff as well. It's overwhelming to think about. 

And then there's this...
We've lived here for a long time and our back bathroom has always been a blight on the butt of humanity....or just this house. I say that because it's tiny and the shower was created for a hobbit. And it has multi colored tiles in it because a while back John had to replace the pan in the bottom of the shower and there was no way to match 30 year old tiles.

So, consequently we've never used it unless absolutely necessary. I've always wanted to redo it, but have always been nervous about trying it. 

Lately I've been talking to John about redoing it and well....

I started the process. The problem is, the tools to chip out these tiles are heavy and my arms are dainty. OK, that's not really true cause I don't think anyone has ever called anything on me dainty, but my arms DO wear out really fast when swinging a small sledge hammer. Of all the things we've found wrong in this house, they made sure these tiles will last til Jesus comes back. Or so it seemed. The good news is John's stronger than me, the bad news for John is, he's busted out more tile than me because of that fact. 

That gray stuff you see is not cement board and will have to come out in some manner before we put a new pan and a small shelf and new tile and a raised shower head as well as a raised ceiling. It makes me a little jittery when I think about all that must be done. BUT. I'm in it to win it now. There's no going back to the bad orange, tan and beige tile. And I'm not even kidding about all of those colors. Don't expect major progress on this shower project, this one will be a marathon and not a sprint.  

In between home projects I'm uploading more trip pictures and I'm just gonna warn people now, there are tons. And when there are tons, we know I have a hard time culling. So hope for the best and prepare for the worst in the overshare and you should hit that nail right on that head. 

I'm ending this post so I can go work on the others. 

I'll finish with asking God to bless us all in spite of the evil we live amongst, because it's beyond ignorant that people still hate based on skin color. We are all the same in God's eyes. No better. No worse. Tonight heaven is fuller, which means there are families with very heavy hearts.

Lord please give them peace that surpasses all we could ever imagine.

Colorblindness can be a good thing.