RouletteWeekend

We got the living room painted yesterday. Valspar shaded grey. My sister came to help me. It took us about 4 hours or so to do the actual painting, not the prepping and not the cleanup and as I watched that drab room transform into something elegant, I was blown away.

I know that color can do a lot of the heavy lifting, but I never thought it would actually make that room feel pleasant. I’m still salty and it still doesn’t feel like “home” to me, but I’m trying my best to make it feel like a place where I can wave my white flag in surrender and live peacefully.

I have a short list of decorating projects that I plan to get done over the next week or so. I think I mentioned the gallery walls yesterday. If not, there will be a couple gallery walls. I’m even going to make a “gallery” wall of cast iron off the kitchen. Between mother in laws collection and my own we have quite a bit to show off. And the great thing about cast iron is that you can’t always tell whats current and what’s been through every historical milestone.

And then there’s the hall bath, also off the kitchen, that I am planning to paint a very dark and moody red, the kind a seductress might wear that matches her wine.

I guess it’s safe to say that I’ve gone from being in a funk to having a little fun. I didn’t get to the unpacking of my books yesterday. I was missing a small foot that goes on the bottom of my bookshelf and I need to get a tiny “L” bracket to fix a broken shelf, but after I do that, I’ll be off to the races.

I think the books may be the project I work on today and maybe even picking out the pictures that will make it on to the living room wall, but I don’t think I’ll be working too late since it’s Halloween. Mother in law doesn’t like this holiday. She hates it even. It’s one of my favorites, if that tells you anything. So, my plan is to just sit on the porch and hand out candy from 6-8 so she doesn’t have to be bothered by costumes or the doorbell. And I can just wear my own clothes and be an exhausted caregiver or a disgruntled daughter in law. Both fit the bill. Unless I can figure out how to dress up like a bitter pill, because that’s more what I feel like lately.

And to top it all off, when I went to Costco yesterday, they were sold out of the boxes of full size candy bars that I was planning on buying to prove that I could try to fit into this bougie neighborhood. I was hoping to be known as “that old lady who gives out full size candy bars” just in case nobody else was doing it, but now I’m a miniature candy giver like everyone else. I’ll have to figure out how to repair my reputation at Christmas, I guess.