Solved!

Ingenious mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law suggest solution and blue it is...looks great.  Thanks!!

:)

Why so many rooms in my house are shades of beige...or...Tales of a color wheel reject

For my brief bit of personal time today (whilst younger naps and elder has his video time), I will share one episode in the saga of poor paint-picking skills which has played out during my adult life.  I know when I like something, and I know when I don't.  Problem is, I don't know how to achieve the former when it comes to paint.  I am picky, but need a class in interior decorating.  There are a couple of rooms in my house currently with colors so displeasing to me that I still feel stress about them, even though they've now been that way for years (because they're some of the few rooms that aren't beige or brown and my poor color-loving husband will not let me change them to something more muted :).  I think he'd rather have a wrong bright color than no color at all, and these are the little things that are not worth getting in fights about, right?   I personally love shades of brown, find them soothing, and able to coordinate with anything...then a few colored accessories are all you need for it to look passable.

Well, it's been time to paint the bathroom for a while, and I've been dreading it.  Even I did not want another beige room this time.  So, I picked neutral tile, white fixtures, and wood flooring.  Any color should work, right?  Theoretically, but I know my track record.  So, I decided to do something smart and find a shower curtain that would bring some bold pattern into the room, and combine colors I'm interested in trying with the beige of the tile and browns of faucets and floor.

Voila, on super discount at Kohl's this morning.  PERFECT.

And indeed, I think it will look great in the bathroom. Dark brown to match floor and faucets, light khaki to match shower tile, white to go with fixtures and beadboard and some spunky blues and greens.  I bought super-discount awesome light blue towels while at Kohl's and then headed over to Lowe's and picked the perfect green paint, a light shade, drawn right from the curtain.  Finally.  This is the way to decorate!!  I was so proud of myself.  (And Asher was only going crazy with all this shopping toward the end, so even that wasn't a disaster.)

Draped the shower curtain in the room to see if I still liked it...check.  (Floor is darkish brown wood, can't see it.)

Then started putting up a little paint just to make sure in the daylight (Reuel has to do the painting tonight...carpal tunnel OUCH during these last few weeks of preggo-ness).

I opened the can.

WHAT?!!!! 

I knew it was a disaster before the first brush stroke.  It was seriously perfect in the store.  I even conferred with two other women picking paint colors as I did.  But oh my, it is the color of newborn you-know-what in real life, and the sickly yellow-green next to the shower tile makes the particular shade of neutral in the tile appear quite pink.  I don't think that comes through in the pictures.  So, all neutrals are not created equal.  I think this tile is pinky-brown, and that does not work at all with the yellow-green paint.  On the other hand, the background of the shower curtain is pinky-brown-khaki.  So shouldn't that tie it all together??  I may just let the kids splatter paint the walls.  Seriously, if I did not get it right with this approach, it is just hopeless.  Do you know how many gallons of paint I have wasted in my life??  Sigh.

Maybe I can get away with a less yellow green (there's also a more olive green accenting the green flowers in the fabric).  But this little exercise has left me burned again.  Why didn't this work?  For any readers who are tsk-tsk-ing the shallowness and overworry about something as trivial as paint, I heartily agree.  Send me a color chip that works and I will gladly move on to something that deserves more attention than this :}  At least we have a working bathroom!!  :)

Embarrassing.

I have been prideful in my nose-snubbing of Black Friday shopping...I would rather pay more and/or not be sucked into unnecessary purchases than be part of the consumer melee...but oh my goodness, I actually left the house at 3:30am and bought a washer and dryer at 50% off from Sears this morning.  So I've lost my mockery rights.  Sigh.  Maybe a new washer and dryer will make laundry fun?  (Doubtful.)

We went to the cousin's for Thanksgiving feasting on fried turkey and fixin's...yum!  The kids just love going there and getting big kid attention.  Thanks for entertaining them!!  It's like vacation (I don't get away from them much, it's true).  So much to be thankful for, despite my aching back, belly, feet and feeling that any moment all day could be bedtime.  And missing my Dad.  But oh how rich we are in every way and blessed beyond what is deserved, for sure!!  The glass is way more than half full.

Owen wore his 'Daddy jacket' for the first time to the festivities yesterday and would not be parted with it.  Said to his cousins, "I like to wear this because it keeps me warm...and it makes me look handsome."  Hah!  Perfect chicken-chasing wardrobe...!

 

School pictures

I was very much unsure of sending in any money for school pictures at preschool earlier this fall.  I mean, those pictures are famously awful, and the backgrounds are atrocious.  Well, the background *is* atrocious, but have you ever seen a better shot of Owen?  (Actually, the scanning messed it up a bit...colors are better in the print.)  Glad I bought a few after all!  Anyone who can get such a good shot of a 4 year old (and a class of 4 year olds...not a bad shot either!) must be a pro.  Why are they in the school picture business?

Halloween Eve

Footage from Halloween Eve (as Owen named the evening when he figured out trick or treating was to follow the next day).  Actually, we went trick or treating on Friday, as the town was 70% out of electricity on Monday.  In this clip, Asher and Owen ate a bunch of the freshly toasted pumpkin seeds, then proceeded to turn them into tiddlywinks and fodder for pouring in and out of stacks of cups they found in the cabinet (I wouldn't have oiled and salted them if I knew that was their destiny!).  http://vimeo.com/31937371

Halloween for us involves carving a pumpkin, putting on costumes and going trick or treating.  It's nice to meet the neighbors and have a momentary sense of community in a not-overly-social neighborhood.  It would be nice to have things to bring everyone out of their house more often...should think on that.  Anyway, Owen was in high gear to get on the road and trick or treat, and Asher figured it all out pretty fast.  They were an adorable pair with their yelled THANK YOU!!! at each house, and social little Asher happy to give smiles and giggles and say, "Happy How-een!" each time a door opened.  He just LOVES PEOPLE.  It's extraordinary.  Of course, this does not mean he would actually *wear* the Halloween costume I made him.  He was supposed to be a school bus (his favorite thing of all, excepting sugar in all forms).  He would not, no way, no how, put the bus on to trick or treat, but the next day of course wore it around proudly.  2 year olds!!  Owen wanted to be a pumpkin, so it was a pretty simple $10 costume for him!

Asher, Dancer

Asher still loves to dance.  His moves have become increasingly refined and vary to match the music style quite a bit.  I'm not saying he's a pro dancer, but he definitely has a sense of the music and moves to try to match it...fun to watch! Owen also carving the pumpkin at the end.

http://vimeo.com/31936882

Snow!

We are now almost recovered from a 4-day power outage following a freak snowstorm in October.  We only got a few inches, but wet, heavy snow combined with still-leafy trees makes for a ton of broken branches and downed utility lines.  My magnificent husband rigged a system by which the boiler could be run for short periods of time off of the idling car engine.  As long as I could get a hot shower, we made it just fine :)  Lots of people left town.  The worst of it was losing our fridge contents, but between you and me, the fridge needed a good cleaning anyway ;)  All that's left is to get rid of a ton of branch debris from the 4 trees that mostly came down in our yard and across our driveways.  Reuel chainsawed up the logs, but we're trying to hire someone with a chipper for a non-exorbitant price to do the rest of the job.

Here's the boys enjoying the start of the snow!  http://vimeo.com/31936527

You know Dad's been babysitting when...

...this kind of stuff is happening.  Reuel:  "Amy, you're going to want to do the next load of laundry with items that you want to be thoroughly Oxi-Cleaned."

http://vimeo.com/31936405