Hi,

Tomorrow is the birth anniversary of two of the most famous economists Adam Smith (1723) and John Mynard Keynes  (1883).  It is the anniversary of the release of Apple II (1977-the consumer Mac wasn’t released until 1984) and the assassination of Robert F Kennedy (1968)   It is also the United Nations World Environment Day, what floods, tornadoes, earthquakes record breaking highs and lows.  Who is still in denial?

The reason you haven’t heard from me in a bit, I was getting ready for a wedding this weekend.  Weddings consume a lot of time and work and when they are as successful as Meagan & Josh’s yesterday, it’s all worth it.  It was a great event and all had a fabulous time.  They opted to make it a three day event, since most of their guests were from out of town.  They had their rehearsal dinner at Atria’s in PNC Park, the wedding here on Friday and a picnic this afternoon at Schenley Park.  The weather really worked for them.  The best of luck Meagan & Josh.  🙂

If anyone sees me around and I have a white paste smeared on me, yes, I again have poison ivy.  Soooo annoying.  I was out at Betty’s house cleaning up some sheds and burning some stuff in the woods.  I’m so sensitive to it, I usually spy it before it strikes.  But obviously not this time.  The baking soda paste is working, it just takes awhile to dry it all out.  I’ve tried several of those off the shelf products, but nothing works as well as baking soda on me.  The last time I had it bad was when I bought The Parador of Pittsburgh.  The entire building was engulfed in wisteria, ivy AND poison ivy, which I didn’t notice.  I was climbing all over in flip flops, shorts and a tee shirt.  Did I ever pay for that.  I do have a funny story on my brother Tom and poison ivy.  The sibs and friends were all skiing in the Poconos and we rented a cabin.  There was a fire place with cut wood stored right outside.  Tom, being the goof he can be picked up a stick from the fire wood and played with it putting it in his nose, etc.  Someone said “I think that may be poison ivy.”  He ended up in the hospital with the worst poison ivy I’ve ever been aware of, even in personal places.  🙂  🙂

There’s a fairly new company in Pittsburgh making About Time brand of whey protein.  Whey protein is one of two major proteins in milk and is left when milk solids are separated to make cheese.  The liquid is filtered and dried to make it into a powder form.  It’s the rage of many major athletes and health conscious people.  About  Time developed a proprietary formula based on whey protein isolate, the purest form.  They use stevia as a sweetener and non artificial flavors.  EZ ist is to just mix it in a smoothie or something like that.  You can find it at GNC stores or order from their web site About Time.

Let’s visit Lady Palm, my largest guest room.  869 square feet, many guests checking in refer to it as bigger than their first (or current) apartment.  The first and second pictures are the before and after of the living room.  The model in the picture is my good friend Kathleen Flaherty , she’s the artist that did all the murals here.  The two stained glass windows in the third picture are two of the only five original stained glass windows here (the other three are in the dining room.)  There real story with this room is the bed room.  Unfortunately, I don’t have any before pictures of it.  It was the storage room for the mansion.  It just had a rough sub floor that I put bamboo flooring over.  There’s the built in that you see on the left of the sixth picture that’s original.  You can’t see it in the picture, but this built in has this fabulous naturally crackled finish.  There was never any heat or cooling in the room, so over the years, the extreme temperatures pulled the old varnish apart.  Next to it where the white wicker dresser is there was this tall dresser with with only three very large drawers in it.  Behind the white wicker chairs was another built in.  Then if you look at the last picture, the “head board” for the bed is also an original storage unit.  When I was deciding which side to make the bedroom, I thought what a cool “head board” it would be to put the bed up against those drawers.  So I took the 16 drawers to the basement, refinished them and brought them back up.  I pulled a drawer out on either side of the bed and did a mosaic on plywood for the bed’s end tables.  I love it.  🙂

I think that’s about it for tonight.  Have great night and we’ll talk again sonner than last,

ed