Choosing Color

I don't know if you know this or not, but I've been working on some things lately.  Lots of things.  Its kind of a revolving door of things to work on, and some things jump in and some jump out and some keep going 'round and 'round.

Got it?

Anyhow, it started with the "Do what makes you come alive" post.  I felt those things then I wrote those things then I started to do more of what makes me come alive.  So I bought some candles, because apparently controlled flames and the scent of apple cider make me feel alive.  I walked in the woods more.  I made the food I wanted to eat, and I decided to want the food I could make.  I started reading The Barefoot Church Primer.  I made Handsome sometimes hold my hand.  All of these things, and more, I started consciously doing.  

And while that was a good change, I realized that I also needed to stop doing life-sucking things.  Like watching entire seasons of New Girl in one sitting.  Or answering every little "ding" from my phone the very moment it happens, even if my baby/husband/dog is trying to give me a kiss.  Or failing to eat lunch.  These things were not actions that made me feel more alive.  These fall into the "life-sucking" category. Because even though I think I want to do them in the moment, they turn into a series of choices that *zap!* takes the life right out of ya.

The changes, though, they just keep coming.  I know that there's a sort of reprogramming going on.  Which is probably a nerd thing to say, and I am not sorry for it.  Honestly, we've probably all got some sort of reprogramming going on all of the time.  The decisions we make, they either reinforce current habits or the begin new ones.  We are constantly becoming.

This is feeling heavy.  True, but heavy.

Really, I just got on here to say this: another change that I'm trying to make is to choose colorful things.  I tend towards neutral.  Heather Gray is my jam.  My homie.  My bestie-for-the-restie.  And white and black and more gray... always safe.  Heck, when I moved into my house, it was beige on beige with beige.  And then when I went wild and painted a room, I painted it gray.

Blah blah blah I have too much neutral stuff blah blah that doesn't represent the me I want to be blah blah blah blah blah I'm trying to choose colorful things.

Aren't you glad we've had this talk?  I'm branching out slowly, but deliberately.  I ordered some sweaters recently, and chose colors I wasn't sure about. And then, strangely enough, I kept them!  I mean, I kept a white one, too, but one of the sweaters was MUSTARD.  And I've never in my life worn mustard.  But its a color, and it turns out, I like it.

Sidenote: I don't like actual mustard.  So there's that.

On a related topic, going back to the beige on beige-i-ness of my home, I've got this wild idea to paint everything white.  I know Handsome thinks there are other things we should care about (something about heat retention and structural integrity...) but I have this overwhelming desire, particularly after peeping on Young House Love's kitchen reno, to paint. everything. white.  All of it.  And then, once that is done?  You guessed it!  Accent with color, baby, color!

And finally, on a not-really-but-slightly related note (re: white), I must confess that I used picmonkey's "whitening" tool on my teeth in the above photo.  Y'all are the only ones I've told.  If you see me in real life, please don't mention this, I'll feel all yellow-ed out in the moment,  by comparison, and I'll feel the need to start doing the closed-lip smile that I made famous in the 6th grade when I realized that not everyone could fit a straw in the gap between their two front teeth.  Yellow sweater: good.  Yellow teeth: not what I'm going for.  

Well.  That was a brain dump.  Thank you for sticking it out.  Tune in tomorrow when I go ga-ga for Thanksgiving meal planning and spontaneously invite you all!

<3 M.

31 Days: Homophone

Definition: 2 or more words having the same pronunciation but different meanings, origins, or spellings.

Example: Bow, Beau.  Sean, Shawn.  Billed, Build.  Burough, Burrow, Burro.

Truth: I had to look up the definition, and then I looked up a list and picked the letter B.  I came up with the Sean/Shawn thing all by myself.  Actually, until I was well into highschool (still think it should be one word), I thought there was Shawn and Sean (pronounced Seen).  Couldn't figure out why anyone would want to name their kid Seen.  

Other Truth:  I don't care about homophones.  Even Onomatopoeia's don't really get me going.  What I want to write about is how I chopped down a 20-foot pine tree yesterday using only a handsaw and a dull hatchet.  And now I have 3 blisters.  And I put shingles on a roof today, so now I can add that to my list of "Things I know how to do at least moderately well".  I want to just pour out all of these confessions, probably mostly because Handsome has been working a lot lately, and Duke is still refusing to talk to me since I won't let him sit on the couch with me.  I want to tell you that I had chocolate bars and apple pie for dinner, and while it tasted good in my mouth, it's wreaking such havoc on my stomach that I've promised myself no junk food for a week.  I want to get your insight on what exactly you think "No junkfood" means.  Does it mean only stuff I buy at the store (for example the Cheetos can hidden on the top shelf behind the oatmeal) or does it mean no baking, too?  Since apple pie was an equal contributor to the problem I'm suffering from, I'm going to say it means no baked goods, too.  What about chips?  What if there's salsa with the chips?  Salsa is a great source of vegetables...  I want to tell you that my sister is newly and suddenly and wonderfully and happily married, and I'm thrilled about it.  I want to tell you that I moved a week ago and just tonight found the box my bible was packed in, and these last two weeks, while they've been hectic in general, have kind of sucked without spending that time I used to spend reading and praying.  I want to tell you that sewing a baby vest for a Toadstool halloween costume is a little trickier than just making squares out of T-shirts.  I WANT TO TELL YOU ALL OF THIS.

But...

I still haven't found my camera cord, and I feel like there is only so much of the picture my words can paint.  I really think that perhaps my camera is my muse (mews - another homophone), and without it, I've just felt defeated before even starting. So my plan is thus: Resolved that I will buy a new camera that has a cord.  Done.  SYKE!  

I'm going to keep unpacking and try to find it.  And I'm probably going to be more absent in this month that I've promised to write every day than I ever have been before.  That's how things roll around here.  On a final note, Handsome has failed his sociopath test for the month.

M: You have a Daddy Longleg's crawling on you.

D: Fun fact - if you squeeze a daddy longleg's leg really tightly for a while, it just falls off.  

M: That's gross.

D: Sometimes I like to just leave him there, the little ball with no legs, and let him think about what he's done.

-Fail (homophone: faille) - 

gross.  Grosse.

Muse-less,

TFW

*To see the other 31 Days: Home posts, check out the bottom of this link.