Painting with Adrenaline

Claudia, my favorite therapist ever in the whole world once told me, "When you don't know what to do, don't do anything."  This makes brilliant sense.  I have those moments of not knowing what to do often.  My jump-start to snap out of them for the past several years: climb into a gallon or two of paint.  I figure I am keeping to myself, not meddling in anyone else's business and it's a the only person you can fix is you activity (thanks Dr. Phil, you goofball).

Examples:

 June 2004: I painted the kitchen cabinets white. This took at least a month to do. I had decided that I would leave X as soon as the kids were in school full time (projected 2 year timeline) and climbed into a gallon of paint. He was gone about a week later.

March 2005: I painted my bedroom yellow. 

I never could havegotten away with that married.  

I think I was trying online dating at the time, didn't work out then either. 

(Seen here with possible paint swatches for my NEXT bedroom color.)

March 2006: Dining room goes Venetian Glass with bright white trim.  Reminds me of a Tiffany box.  I was just about to become a full-time working single mom.

August 2007: I painted the living room Seafoam Green. 

I just quit my full-time job because the schedule

was too demanding on my family-time and despite my

once 30% close rate (that is impressive btw)

I had begun to suck out loud at selling timeshare.

January 2008: I painted Thing 1 & 2's room the color of chocolate milk. 
My mother died the month before.

April 2009: I painted the kitchen Smoked Salmon.  I got arrested.  Don't ask.

September 2009: I ripped up the carpet in the living room and painted the concrete floor in a 2 ft. checkerboard pattern of Sea Foam and Turquoise.  X decided he was cutting me off financially for some misperceived transgression.  Luckily that was only temporary.  Oh, the floor still looks like this though.  Now with dirty sneaker prints all over it.

As you can see, I tend to drown my sorrows in paint.  Everything in the house was varying shades of brown before this.  I even picked those varying shades of brown.  They reflected my mood at the time.  I was not myself; I picked "neutral" colors because I had given up on the inside...and that's what they were raving about all over HGTV.  The only room that has survived my color upheaval is the big bathroom.  Those walls are still the vague color of masking tape but I painted the cabinets white and threw in some blood red accents, so I'm still okay with that room for now.

Anyway, Jan Brady declared last Spring that she absolutely HATED my color choices.  She told me none of them made sense at all and she thought they were stupid.  Until I did the salmon in the kitchen.  Then she said it looked like a caribbean theme and therefore she approved.  Backhanded compliments pop out of Jan Brady like jelly from a doughnut.

She suggested I paint my kitchen and living room ceilings lavender to really commit to the caribbean color palette.  To this day I believe she would have fallen to the floor choking on laughter had I actually done that.  I did not paint my ceiling lavender.  But she planted a seed...

I am painting my bedroom Lilac.  Going from three unfinished walls of Sunlight yellow for the last several years to four finished walls of Sassy Lilac sometime next week.  I hate the name of this color to the bottom of my feet but I love the color itself so I am ignoring the fact that someone, likely with an ornamental shoe collection and an unhealthy obsession with tiaras, also has a bedroom this exact shade of purple.  I am even painting the ceiling.  NOT lilac I mean, although the color goes on light purple it will dry bright white.

By the way, the paint guy said you shouldn't paint your bathrooms with the turny-color ceiling paint because everytime the room gets all steamed up the ceiling will change back to that purply-blue color until it dries again.  FYI, in case you didn't know that (which I did not), you are welcome.

So, for those of you who think Man, Silver has a lot of energy.  Look at all these projects she's doing: landscaping, paint, class reunion, blogging Every Day, total world domination - I want the drugs she's taking!

I say emphatically, "No.  No you don't."  Every major project I take on is fueled by some corresponding catastrophic event.  Do not envy me here.  If I didn't do this stuff I would be in a strait jacket somewhere.  And I'm not on any prescribed medication or anything illegal either.  This is pure adrenaline.