GPP Day 2

So it turns out that the Great Paint Project is really all about me owning the fact that I love red.

I woke up Friday morning knowing that I hated "meditation".  I went to the family room to check it out and confirm what I wished weren't true.  Yep, meditation made me want to crawl in a hole and meditate forever.  It was a confused color - not sure if it was gray and blue or - gasp - even maybe lavender?

That said, if anyone needs a gallon of "meditation," its yours.  I used no more.

Instead I went back to the paint store.  Levent and Tim and I are dear friends.  I'm quite sure that when I go out the door and drive away they refer to me as the Wackadoo Paint Lady Who Can't Make Up Her Mind.  Or something worse.  But when I'm in there, they treat me like a queen.  And if these two ever-so-knowledgeable 19 year olds say they like a color, who am I to argue!?  So I came home with a gallon "stolen kiss".  There was nothing stolen, especially not kisses.   But it is a great color with a great name.  And look....

Its great on the wall too!  I tried, so very very very very hard, to avoid red.  Just feeling like its a tired theme for me.  There's red in every room of the house.  But you know, I like red.  I just do.  So let's just  name it and own it and paint it on the wall.  (Yes, Gretchen, you did tell me so.)

I also woke up with the clarity that I like "watery" and by golly, I'm using watery on those walls.  

This whole thing seems to be an exercise in: "Paint what you like.  Trust your gut.  Don't care what an adult might paint.  Do what makes you happy."  

So now 3 walls are the color of underwear.  But at least its pretty underwear, right?

The whole painting day was fun except for the parts when I stood on the tip top of that 10 foot ladder.  Sonic Run, Megan outside having a waterfight with the kids, good music, The Friday News Roundup on NPR.  All good except balancing on the ladder. 

This is the project for when Ryan gets home from work today.  Its taped and ready, but I don't know yet what I'll do.  Of course.  More change.  (Insert wringing of the hands and eating of the potato chips here.)  Quite sure it will be a saga all its own.  So the great paint project continues....

GPP Day 1

Well, we knew this would be a saga, didn't we?

Today began wonderfully.  Megan on the floor with my kids while I listened to NPR and drank coffee and patched some holes.

Mom stopped by to lend moral support and reminded me that although change is hard, I did not decide this overnight.  I've been working on it in my brain for about 6 years.  Sad, but true.  And very big of her to do that, considering that I'm painting the walls she so lovingly cleaned and polished for 20 years.

And a friend who shall remain nameless told me that I can decorate as well as any gay man, which just might be the nicest compliment anyone has ever given me.  

So with full confidence, I headed into the big project...

It might seem like a good idea to buy your husband a dartboard for Father's Day and hang it somewhere inside. Showing your openness to him having toys in the house and all.  But don't do it.

Holes everywhere.  I did find that I am an excellent hole-filler.  I can patch walls like a pro.  

I  called River in to leave his message on the wall.  We always do this when we paint a room.  It occurs to me now that he wrote "Rod". 

This is the point at which I began to accept the fact that I had indeed chosen the wrong color.  I love this color.  Really love it.  Went through 6 quarts of sample paint to find it.  But its all wrong for the room.  I went ahead and did the whole room.  It needed primer anyway and I might as well enjoy the color for a brief while.

Eva came home and added her message.  Something about Evelyn and Mom and ? ? ! and 1+2=3.

Then the room was finished and the crisis began.  The color is named "watery" - a perfect name for us water-lovers.  Just like names of my children, names of my paint colors m.a.t.t.e.r.  They do.  My living room is painted "turkish coffee" and the kitchen is "basil".  It matters.  

But as it turns out, according to Ryan, this chosen color would make a great underwear color (I assume he means mine?!).  Dad stopped by and suggested that we add white polka dots.  I agreed.  It would look just like the bikini that I won't be wearing this summer.  

So, crisis.  It looked something like this:

 Fortunately, Megan is not only great with kids, but she's also great with freaking out housewives.  She helped me narrow it down a bit.  After we got down to 20 or so colors (yes, 20), I turned it over to Sage...

But she was too vague.  It came down to 2.  I was dangerously close to picking a wretched color because it was called "content".  Very close.  But went with "meditative" instead.

So "meditative" is on one wall now.  Its not perfect, but its ok.  And its a really good name.  And its still blue-ish, which is what I stubbornly clung to.

All in all, a good day.....Pink got the party started, Adele pulled me through, and Eddie Veder and his ukelele brought me home.

Might change the color again tomorrow.  But for now, I'm very very old and very very creaky and must go take a bath to get these aching bones ready for another go-round.

GPP Eve

So here I am, on the eve of the Great Paint Project, and I'm not doing well.

The crazies are swarming in my head because I know I've said I want to paint the playroom and make a huge change but really I'm all talk and I hate change.

Its making me snap at Ryan, even though he stayed up after he had already said goodnight to unscrew the light switch covers.  And he even went to the garage for a ladder to unscrew the vent, without a single sigh.  I snapped because he was standing there with the paintbrush doing a test spot to check out if it will bead or not, because of the varnish already there.  He was standing there painting this extra edge thing after already doing the test spot, and just seeing the test spot on the wall made me panicky and twitchy, so I had to quickly medicate my anxiety by snapping.

And now I'm breaking the "don't eat after supper" rule and not only eating, but eating greasy sour cream and onion chips straight from the bag.  With orange juice.

And sitting there eating and reading Anne Lamott and thinking that I have no taste in decorating and my whole house looks like a consignment sale and what in the world am I thinking choosing this weird gray green blue color to cover up those gorgeous walls?

This, my friends, is how I experience change.  Always have.  Always will.  Might as well own it.

So tomorrow it begins.  I will keep you posted with pictures.  Goal #1 for tomorrow:  Turn on some music, drink a Sonic cherry limeade, and enjoy my kids being in Megan's great care while I get to paint.  All this while not getting my panties in a wad of how dreadfully, painfully, ridiculously, achingly painful this simple change is.  Sigh.