One thing I find amusing about life in the small city I’ve moved to is that there seems to be a lot more going on here than there was in the Dallas area. I’m sure there were actually more events in the entire DFW Metroplex, but they were scattered all over the place, so going to anything usually involved at least half an hour of driving on freeways. There wasn’t much happening in my immediate area. Here, there’s always so much going on that I sometimes get paralyzed by the choices, and most of it is within walking distance or, if it’s at night, it’s a 5-minute drive.

Today was a chamber music day. There’s a summer string institute hosted at the local university, with kids and young adults from all over the world coming to spend a couple of months studying with top-ranked teachers. There are a bunch of concerts associated with the event, but my favorites are the chamber music matinees. They have free midday concerts at the Shakespeare theater, with the kids divided into string quartets and devoting the summer to working on a major piece that they then perform at these concerts. They have to introduce the piece and describe what it means to them, and they have to go through the proper protocol for bows and response to applause.

This venue is amazing for chamber music. It’s a replica of the Blackfriars Theatre, where Shakespeare’s troupe performed once they were famous and were organized as the King’s Men, and all that wood makes the music sing. It’s like being inside a cello, and you can even feel the music. I like sitting in the box seats that are beside the stage because the vibrations are stronger there and I can see the violinists’ faces. I like watching the interplay between the musicians as they check in with each other and cue each other. It gives me hope for the future to see kids from China, Taiwan, and the US making music together.

Today’s concert also included a few solo pieces, with a cello and two violin solos, featuring some of the more advanced, older students.

Then next month is the classical music festival put on in this town. I usher for that, so I get into a lot of the concerts for free. There are people who make it their summer vacation to spend two weeks in town going to every concert.

Meanwhile, there are concerts just about every night in the park, with the community band on Mondays, bluegrass on Wednesdays, and jazz on Thursdays. There’s a concert on the street downtown this Saturday evening. There are also Irish jam sessions in various places around town.

I could fill my schedule with music alone. Then there’s all the theater, gallery shows, lectures, festivals, etc. I seem to have found the small town that isn’t at all boring.

I’ve been on a home improvement kick lately. I got the new office rug last week, and last weekend’s project was redoing the kitchen window. It’s an odd window not like any others in the house. I think it may have been added after the fact during some other renovations. The cart with the air fryer oven sits in front of it, so curtains are out, but it also faces the street, so I need something at that window for privacy. There are tall bushes along the front of the yard next to the street and there’s not a lot of traffic at this end of the dead-end street, but you could still see into the kitchen while coming up the street or from the front yard across the street.

The solution I came up with last year was cling film on the lower pane. That came up to about my neck, so if I did go to the refrigerator while wearing my pajamas, anyone who saw me would only see my head. But the film wasn’t what I thought it would be. I was hoping for something like stained glass, but it was more matte and looked cheap.

Then I found a valance that matches some placemats I already have that I mostly use to protect the countertops. It would have clashed with the old cling film, so I got some that has an etched glass effect but no color. Last weekend, I put up the curtain rod with the valance and the new cling film, and I really like the result. It pulls the kitchen together.

As a bonus, I moved the old film to the south-facing window in my spare room, and it blocks a lot of the direct sunlight I get in the afternoon, which keeps the house cool. I had extra etched glass film, so I put one bit of it in the downstairs window that directly faces the neighbor’s house. I can still see out of the upper pane but it gives me a little more privacy, and it’s supposed to have some UV protection. I think it softens the direct sunlight in the evening (the window faces west). I’m going to put the other piece of it in the bedroom window that faces the neighbor’s house. I like to open the shades, but then if I need to change clothes during the day I have to go to another room or close the shades. With this and the lace curtains I think I won’t be visible. I’ve tried looking from outside and can’t see anything, but when I can see my neighbor’s windows from inside, I feel like I can be seen.

Then I went to work on getting the front porch ready so I can eat outside. I had a coupon from Lowe’s, so I got the rest of the stepping stones I needed to redo my front walk. They’re currently in place, killing the grass below them. Later I’ll get them set in the ground better and fill it out with gravel. It’s so much more convenient taking that path. I’ll be turning the little triangle that creates into a flowerbed, and that’s where I’ll move some lilies and hostas when I divide them this fall. I got the new table this morning, so my front porch dining is ready to go. Alas, it will have to wait because we’re getting the wildfire smoke, and it’s not pleasant to sit outdoors right now. Next week, though, I’m looking forward to having breakfast outside.

One other thing I found when shopping for the table was a rechargeable LED table lamp. The overhead light in the spare room is too bright for when I do yoga in the evening in there, and since the light is on the ceiling fan, turning on the light means turning on the fan in the summer when I have the ceiling fans on. There’s only one power outlet in that room. So a battery-operated light that dims and changes color temperature will give me some light without it being overwhelming, and I can easily turn on a light when I need to just grab something in that room without turning on the ceiling fan and then pulling the cord to turn on a light. I have a similar lamp on my desk in my office, and it’s really handy. I just have to remember to charge it every so often. It should be good for power outages, too.

Eventually I may get this house just the way I want it, but by then I’ll come up with some new project. I still plan to get some curtains for the office and front room, and I may eventually want a rug in the spare room (I currently have a moving blanket folded up under my yoga mat). My main project, though, is the yard. That’s an ongoing struggle, but I’m gradually reducing the number of weeds and I have some flower beds started. The raspberries have stopped producing fruit, so I can start clearing those out, and I may even be able to get to the fire pit by this fall.

I got my new office rug earlier this week, and it turns out it wasn’t just a frivolous “pretend my office is fancy and belongs to a bestseller” thing. It functions differently. The old rug had a pebbly texture that kept my chair from rolling smoothly, so it was difficult to position myself for optimum comfort while writing. The new rug lets my chair roll easily, so I can move around and get into place. Since it’s bigger, it means I don’t have to worry about rolling off the rug. It’s also more pleasant to walk to my desk. I didn’t realize how much the texture of the old rug bothered me until I got the new one.I wouldn’t say that my productivity has escalated since I got it, but it’s only been a couple of days, and on one of those days I had an appointment so I was out all afternoon. The true test will come next week. It’s funny what a big difference little things make.

My next project may be fixing up my front porch and finishing moving the front walk. I haven’t really used my front porch because I haven’t lived in a place that really had a front porch so I don’t think about it. The porch was mostly something that gave some shelter while I unlocked the door. But since I have an old house, I have a proper front porch, and I live in a very front porch neighborhood in a front porch town. I’ve pretty much gone on autopilot, thinking in terms of the back porch, so I’ve been using my deck for sitting outside. But the deck isn’t covered, so it’s not good in rain or when the sun’s at the wrong angle. It’s also up the stairs and through the house, which has affected my breakfast and lunch habits.

In my old house and in the apartment I had here before I got the house, I ate breakfast and lunch most days on my back porch/patio when the weather was decent. I haven’t been doing that much in this house because getting to the deck from the kitchen involves going up the stairs and through the house. In the old house and apartment, the back door was pretty much right at the kitchen.

But last night when I was walking to the park for a concert, I passed a Victorian house where a couple was eating dinner on their front porch, and I remembered that my next-door neighbors putting a dining table on their front porch was the reason I needed to get better blinds in the window that directly faces their porch. I came home and had the “duh” moment of realizing that I have a front porch that opens almost directly from the kitchen.

I currently have a couple of chairs and a small table there. The table’s just enough to set down a drink. But if I put a bistro table there, I could eat meals there. I need to finish moving the front walk because the new path takes it to the front door and the current path means you’d have to walk past the table. The front porch isn’t as private as the deck, but then the porch at the apartment wasn’t entirely private, as the yard was open to everyone in the building. Then again, I’ve frequently had conversations with neighbors over the fence from my deck, so it’s not as though I’d want to go out there without being properly dressed. There’s not a lot of traffic on my street, so most of the time it would be pretty private. And since it’s covered, I could be outside in the rain unless it’s really windy, and I could eat lunch there. The deck is a bit too sunny at lunchtime.

So I just need to find a table. Fortunately, we’re at the time of year when patio furniture is being put on clearance, so I might be able to find a deal. Then I need to finish the front walk, and I’ll be turning the area in front of where the table will go into a flowerbed, which will eventually offer more privacy. I need to divide a lot of my dayliles and hostas after this growing season, so the excess will go in that flowerbed. I may also put up a trellis and get something climbing. I suspect this is another one of those small changes that will make a big difference in day-to-day life.

Even before I get that table, I need to remember how much I enjoy sitting under a covered area when it’s raining. There’s something about having a cup of tea with rain falling just feet away. I can do that on my porch at any time and yet I haven’t.

I moved to the mountains of Virginia from Texas in large part to escape from the summer heat, and this week it seems to be coming after me because we’re getting hit with a heat wave. We might even make it to 100 degrees. They’ve been talking about this and warning us on the local weather forecast, and I was getting caught up in the hype, and then I realized that the heat wave is pretty much a normal July in Texas, and it won’t even be quite as bad because it’ll still be under 80 overnight. That was the part about Texas summers that got to me, that you could get up at 6 in the morning and it would already be about 83 degrees. At least we’ll be in the lower 70s overnight. The big difference in the mornings so far has been that I don’t need a sweater to sit on the deck to drink tea and read the newspaper in the morning.

One thing that is worse here is the humidity. I thought it was pretty humid in Texas, and on paper it didn’t seem to be that much worse here, but it feels a lot worse, so it feels hotter. I had a chance to ask the local TV meteorologist about that at a library talk, and she said it may be that the humid layer goes up higher in the atmosphere and there’s less wind during the summer here. It also feels like the direct sun is more intense. When it was about 85 in Texas in the summer, we’d consider that cool, and here I go indoors and close the blinds.

The sad thing is that this is hitting for the July 4 weekend. I’d been thinking about walking to the park to go to the city parade, but it may be too uncomfortable. It is in the morning so it may not be too hot. My main activity may be going to an organ concert of patriotic music being held at the church. I can see the city fireworks from my house, so I can sit on the front porch for that, or maybe even lie in bed and watch through my bedroom window. I think I’m going to make barbecued chicken (cooked indoors, not grilling outside), and I’ve got raspberry pie from the berries in my yard. I may watch Hamilton again in the evening before the fireworks start. I’ll watch the Capitol Fourth and the fireworks from Mount Vernon on PBS on Friday night, so I’ll get my fill of fireworks.

I’m giving myself the day off on Friday, so no post then. I figure I need a holiday every so often. There are some things going on in town I want to go to, or I may be lazy and stay home in the air conditioning.

I’ve had a fascination with trains since I was a little kid — not to the point of things like memorizing timetables and routes or learning all the different kinds of locomotives, just “ooh, trains!” It may have had something to do with “The Little Engine That Could” or the trolley on Mr. Rogers, maybe the little train that went around the zoo. Anyway, there’s something thrilling about a train and rail travel. I like visiting Europe and being able to really take the train to get around, and I’ve traveled a bit by train on the East Coast, particularly around New York. I once took Amtrak from Denver to Dallas, which involved two overnight rides in a sleeper compartment, which was fun.

One thing I miss about Dallas is the rail system for getting around the metro area. I used to love being able to take the train to get places and bypassing the cars stuck in traffic. Where I live now, the city’s too small to have a rail system. It apparently once had a streetcar system, and you can still tell about where the stops were. Now we just have a bus in the form of a trolley. Our rail service now is Amtrak a few days a week — you can go east to D.C. and then on to New York and west to Chicago — and sightseeing trains. In one embarrassing incident, the sightseeing train had to rescue a stalled Amtrak train. They hitched the Amtrak train to the excursion train and finished the sightseeing route, hauling the Amtrak to the station. I haven’t yet taken the train from here, but if I ever make a trip to D.C. or maybe even New York, I’ll probably go that way.

There’s a railroad museum nearby, and they have a working mid-century steam engine that they occasionally use for the sightseeing excursions. I have found it to be elusive, though. They were supposedly running it when I visited on vacation before moving here, but when I went to the station to see it come in, it turned out that the steam engine was out of service that day. Then last fall they were running special excursions, and it should have come through the railway crossing that’s just a short walk from my house, but it seems they moved the boarding point away from the downtown station sometimes. Every time I walked down there at the right time, that was a day they were boarding elsewhere. If I didn’t bother to walk down there, that was when I’d hear the steam train whistle from my house. I did see it running one day when I was driving on a road that parallels the train tracks.

This summer, they were running steam train excursions from the downtown station for two weekends. They had an open house at the station, so I got to go see the engine up close. Then on Saturday morning I had an event at the church, not long after the morning departure, so I walked over there early to see the train leaving downtown and crossing the bridge over the street that leads out of downtown. I wasn’t the only one there. A whole crowd of rail fans had gathered at the park that used to be the turntable for turning engines around. Since I was dressed for the church event, I didn’t exactly blend in. I was wearing a dress, pastel cardigan, and pearls. The rail fans were all in cargo shorts and t-shirts from the rail museum (apparently this engine has an actual fan club. They were wearing shirts for this train. It was like wearing a Star Wars t-shirt to see a Star Wars movie).

But I finally got a close-up look at the train when it was running. It really was pretty.

This town was a big rail hub back in the day. It was a supply center for the Confederacy during the Civil War, so the Union blew up the tracks and the rail depot, but spared the town, so all the old architecture is surprisingly intact. The current passenger terminal dates from the early 1900s (the old one was destroyed when a train missed a curve and crashed into it) and is now a restaurant. The passenger waiting area is the bar/lounge area, and they’ve kept a lot of the charm. The restaurant part is in the now-enclosed old platform area, right next to the tracks. The current passenger platform is next to it. There’s also a restaurant in the old freight depot, but it doesn’t have the good view of the train tracks.

Even if I don’t get to see the steam engine often, I love when it’s running because I love the sound of the steam whistle, which I can hear from downtown. I think they run it through here every so often to give it a workout, even when they aren’t scheduling excursions.