Getting Out of a Rut

It was just over 25 years ago that I got my first apartment, a 2BR/1BA in a nice complex just outside of Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, CO.  My mother and grandmothers got together and helped outfit me--I had plenty of bath towels and dishes and even furniture.  My mother had also bought me some nice framed posters of places I'd been--Florence, Paris, and New York.  To that mix I bought and framed a picture of Schloss Neuschwanstein.

Every place I've lived for the next 25 years, those posters lived, too.  In my current house, in which I've lived for 7 1/2 years, Florence held a place of honor over my fireplace while Neuschwanstein held guard in my bedroom.

This weekend I was out doing some shopping at my favorite art store (OK, it was Ross, but whatever) and I saw a beautiful picture of the Grand Canal in Venice.  It looks like a photograph that had been transferred to canvas, and the price was right.  It now hangs over my fireplace; Florence is (temporarily?) in a closet.

On my cruise last summer I won a lithograph of an oil painting of the Casino building in Avalon, Catalina Island, and being tired of tripping over the shipping tube, I decided to go out and get a frame for it.  The custom matting (the picture is an odd size) will be here this week, and Avalon will replace Neuschwanstein in my bedroom.

After 25 years, I'm starting to change the decorations in my abode :-)

Update, 2/13/13:  Here are the new pictures: