What a difference a new color can make!

We recently discovered a leak from the second floor was coming through to our first floor. Joy. My husband walked into our kitchen one afternoon and said “Hey, what is that?” and there was a large bubble of water in the ceiling paint. Delightful. We initially thought it was our new shower and stopped using it immediately, but the contractor determined nope— brand new toilet!  So they replaced the wood, drywall and reseated the toilet properly and then of course we had to have a good bit of the kitchen repainted. I was going to just do a color match of what we had and then an idea struck.

Why don’t we change the color?

So off to Sherwin Williams we went and selected 6 colors that spoke to us in the blue/grey family. Brought them home and half of them were immediately wrong with our quartz, backsplash and cabinets. Two were strong contenders and in the end, the win went to Earl Grey.

It has transformed our kitchen in a way I did not know was possible with just two coats of paint!  It has caused my stainless espresso maker and refrigerator to almost appear glowing with satin metal. The high gloss black dishwashers, double ovens and cooktop all appear more deeply black now. It has brought a lot of visual pop to the glass backsplash above my cooktop, colors that were dominant before have receded visually and colors that had faded into the background are now very much front and center. The icy bluish, whitish, greyish flecks in my countertops are much more visible than they were with the old color. It is almost as if there was some sort of precision drill team movement of what was in front stepping back and those in back being the new star of the show.

I wasn’t there when the job was completed and had been in such an arduous meeting at work, I’d quite frankly forgotten it was kitchen painting day until I got a text from my husband with the simple question of “Is this the color you wanted?” and I drew in my breath. YES. YES. YES! A million times, yes! It was so much better than I’d anticipated! I could not wait to get home and see it in person.

The color on the walls is 100% Earl Grey, the ceiling is 75% Earl Grey. There is a sense of visual lift and my 8 foot ceilings don’t seem quite as low when we lighten the amount of color saturation in them. My thought is that it is a more finished room when the ceiling is painted, it truly is my fifth wall!  

One day I’ll paint over this color, I am sure. The kitchen was Barbie pink when we bought our home. We had some serious vision of what could be.  Then it was the deep terracotta color called Oriental Silk with a metallic finish on the ceiling which was so lovely 7 years ago, but had grown tired over time and now it is the soothing, restorative Earl Grey. I have no idea what color is next. I do know one thing though, I am enjoying this color tremendously and it has actually lifted my spirits to be greeted by this color for the past few days and it’s making me consider making some changes in at least two other rooms as well.

Someone once said, paint your door and change your life. I think there is something to be said about painting any room and refreshing your outlook on life.

What is your current favorite paint color, and why?

Boomerang changes, I am embracing them!

The sole goal of all the expense, headache and emotional trauma of completely redoing this house top to bottom, inside and out, was to sell it and settle once and for all in our new hometown an hour north. Children no longer at home, living grown adult lives of their own and my husband and I were embarking on the delightfully new adventure of feathering our empty nest. 

The solution to boomerang back certainly shook up our plans, but as much as I had initially fought this change, I now find myself embracing it and almost resisting the idea of moving again for quite a while. My husband is still struggling with the reentry into our old home, but I can only be here to listen to him and give him positive feedback on my experience, he’ll need to achieve the peace I have found on his own. 

When we moved in, we kept only a few rooms as they had been. We repurposed most of them. My old studio became my husband’s man cave. The former guest room became my office. The bedrooms of our children became a guest room and workout room. Even the sunroom, which was largely just 20 feet of something to walk through to reach the backyard has become an oasis that we enjoy tremendously and spend time on each morning as we share a latte and have a quiet, connecting start to our days. 

The level of resistance to this move was incredibly high for me, and I cried enough tears to end the drought in California once and for all, or so it felt. But then, with the passing of our beloved aunt and her last words gently chiming in my ears and seeing each day the time we had to spend with my inlaws and be of comfort, assistance and support to them erased any doubts I’d had about this being the right thing. The move somehow became the best thing and my level of peace was extreme. 

The adaptation of ‘the big house’ to be ‘the love nest’ has been completed for...me. I feel that I have almost everything I ever wanted from the move, right here where we started. The only component that I don’t have is the ability to walk three blocks to downtown. But I am okay with that right now. I am a few minutes from what seems like…everything. I have neighbors I adore and enjoy spending time with. I have a beautiful vista out my back windows and doors that is soothing and restorative to my soul. The flood of happy memories in this home has been a wonderful surprise as well…things I’d nearly forgotten are well remembered now. 

My emotional attachment to the tiny Love Nest is releasing, bit by bit. I am letting go of that space because the things I needed from it, and needed so very desperately three years ago when we purchased it, are the things I carried with me back here.  Peace. Quiet. Sloughing off layers of things that did not matter any longer. Respite from the world. Finding who I am in this phase of my life. Casting off what I did not love and embracing deeply what I value. 

So while I’m back, I am not the same. I am changed. I am different. I am not on a circuitous journey, but continuing to move forward, even if to some it seems like same old/same old, I know it is far from that. It is delightfully new in so many ways and comfortably familiar in others and I am celebrating both sides of this equation.

In Girl Scouts I was taught a song “Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other gold.” It applies to my life right now, I’ve mined both silver and gold in this new/old home and feel richly blessed for having settled in peacefully.

Serenity, peace and thankfulness that surprises me

I'd like to say surprised me, but that would indicate that I understand it fully and am no longer marveling at the fact that I am actually pleased when I did not expect to be. But it's a good kind of surprise, like flowers for no reason, so I'm okay with that. 

The surprise is that I really do feel a deep serenity, a calming peace and a full sense of thankfulness for our move back to Charlotte. I wasn't happy, at all, with the move initially. It was a 'had to do' not a 'want to do' and let's face it, there are very few things that fall into the first category which turn into things you are happy about. This move however, is a wonderfully delightful exception. 

Two weeks ago today we had the final moving truck (yes, three loads in a large truck!) being packed and moved from the Love Nest to the Zoo and got the call that our Aunt Geri was not answering her door and was expected for church. I hopped in our pick up with my younger son and sped towards her home, cutting nearly 20 minutes from the normal drive time and thankful the police had others to pull over in my quest to arrive as quickly as possible. 

It felt so wrong to enter her house with the key, but as I made my way room to room and then found her, cool to the touch, on her bathroom floor, I knew the lives of my family were about to change dramatically. And they have. 

Even now, with her viewing, cremation and funeral over, it feels wrong to let ourselves in both uninvited and unannounced. To go through her things and help my father in law as the task of emptying her home gets underway. It was her wish, expressed countless times, that her home be sold quickly after her death. I think she didn't realize how tough it would be for us to do so, but shoulder in the yoke we are all helping empty the contents, decide who gets what and what goes to donation or the dump. She was a hoarder of all things and perhaps the greatest lesson I've learned this week is that I need to let go of more 'things' than I already have and not leave such an onerous and painful task for my children one day. 

Each night for the first week and more sporadically now, we've taken dinner to my inlaws. We've comforted my father in law who is bereft as well as my mother in law who has known Geri for over 60 years. My husband and I have arranged the funeral and taken on as many difficult tasks as we can to lighten the load for my in laws who are more fragile than I've ever seen them before. 

We are moments away instead of more than an hour. It doesn't matter what time we're needed, the vexing lake traffic doesn't factor into our arrival or departure. We are enjoying our home tremendously with just the two of us and like koi from a backyard garden to a large lake, we've happily grown into the 'new' space in a very different way than we'd utilized it before. 

I am so thankful to be close and able to assist with family support and love. I am happy that we are overcome with peace about the choice we made and are embracing the 'new' that has sprung from our 'old' and finding the platinum lining to storm clouds that are feeling ever further in the distance each day. 

Things are very different in this home--no dogs upstairs--but we spend so much more time outside with them in part, due to that. We have a different kind of quiet and respite at home. We are getting to explore the new shops that have opened around us as well as the favorites we'd missed after the move. 

One of the last conversations I had with Geri was her telling me how very tired she was, how glad she was that we'd be close to help with Paul and give her some additional company. That she knew it wasn't our top choice, but let me know it was most definitely a happy change for her.  And perhaps I'd not have fully realized the joy in this move if the status of things had all just stayed the same, but in the shake up of our lives, we certainly love the fact that we're settled in close and comfortable...right where we should be!

Serenity, peace and thankfulness are mine. 
 

God speed, Aunt Geri. God Speed!

For 83 years, our family was blessed to have Geri with us. On Sunday May 31, she went to be with the Lord and leaves all who knew here wishing for just one more day with her. 

Born in New York City in 1931, she was the first child of Eleanor and Joseph Orio, who gave her roots of a strong family foundation and wings of a world to be discovered.  Geri graduated from Hunter College and had a long and distinguished career in the NYC city schools where she found much joy in teaching children from many walks of life in Home Economics.  

As a young woman, Geri had traveled with her dear friend Lee around the world and the two women had many wonderful stories to share for decades to come about the 6 continents visited on a rather extended vacation. 

A fashionista, Geri loved to shop and be adventurous in her style.  A lifelong reader of the New York Times, even after her move to Charlotte in 2000, she would clip ads of the items that caught her eye and share them with family over cake and coffee following Mass at St. Matthew each week. A devout Catholic, she rarely missed Mass and prayed daily for those in her life. Geri had a deep faith that was strong and unwavering, even in the face of adversity and loss. 

Geri was incredibly doting to the three dogs in her life, Bandit, Samantha and Lucky, all of whom preceded her in death.  She was truly kind to everyone and had a generous heart. She is survived by her brother Paul and his wife Patrician Ann.  No greater love in this life did Geri have than that for her baby brother. Never an unkind word was said about Paul, she held him in the highest regard and delighted in him.  

Geri adored her niece, Courtney and her two children, Dylan and Grayson, her nephew Carter, his wife Lesli An and their children, Nicholas and Jackson, all of whom loved Geri deeply and will miss her laughter, her smile, her wonderful stories and the great, unwavering pride that she exhibited for each of them.   

She is preceded in death by her nephew Christopher, whom she missed greatly in this life and we rejoice in knowing she has been reunited with him in Heaven.