That's right, we've been wielding paint brushes around here again. James bought a new paint sprayer a couple of weeks ago, but we haven't gotten around to using it yet for one reason or another. One reason: he didn't feel like it. Another: me either. :-) Last night we decided: IT'S TIME. James even set his alarm so we could get an early start. (It's best to do any outdoor labor before noon around here, -- it's just way too hot after that, usually!) Well, we got up, got our paint clothes on, started collecting our supplies, opened the door and ~whoosh!~ WIND. Lots of it. You can't use a paint sprayer when it's windy!!! At least WE can't. We're worried about the overspray ruining the rest of our house or our cars or our neighbors' yards even on a calm day. It's our first time, mind you. So scratch that plan. No spraying the carport today.

Instead, James went and picked up a quart of "Foxtail" red -- burgundy, really -- paint. It's our second try with shades of red. I gave up on blue after the third failure, remember? I painted part of the trim a light brown color instead, but have been determined to paint the shutters a dark red color. The first shade of red was far too bright. It was a reach-out-and-slap-you-and-shout-"Hey, look at ME!!! I'm RED!" kind of red. Just too much, you know? Anyway, on only our second try this time we were able to nail it! I LOVE IT. It's almost exactly what I had envisioned, just a tad bit darker. It adds just enough flair to the otherwise boring shades on the rest of the house. So we now have a yellow brick home with cream and tan trim and, as of today, dark red shutters, front door, garage door and side gates. It makes me so happy! I think the name Foxtail isn't the most accurate description of this shade though. It should rightfully be called Chameleon Red due to it's ability to imitate 6 or eight different shades throughout the course of the day. The most drastic change occured in the evening when most of the red tones disappeared nearly completely and the paint put on it's best Chocolate Brown robe. Freaky. It looks quite red in the afternoon sun, but makes it all the way to almost-brown at even. I detest brown. It's got to be the most depressing, drab color ever invented. Nonetheless, I love my freshly painted shutters and doors. I know that way deep down even when they look brown, they're really red. And that makes me happy. :-)

James just came and asked me if I was blogging about our day today or our day yesterday. "Yesterday?" I said, "What happened yesterday?" AH YES. James decided we should have a family day! So we loaded up the little ones and took off for Midland. We went to the Children's Museum down there and the kids had a blast. However, it wasn't nearly as fun as when we took the 5 younger Shuler children last year -- be sure to tell them so, Grace! :-) They change the "theme" at the Museum a few times a year and right now it's "Golf Around the World." They've got a putt-putt course set up inside with each hole representing a differnt landmark somewhere in the world (ei. Big Ben, the Taj Mahal (sp?) the Great Wall of China, etc.). It was our kids' first time to play miniature golf and it was hilarious. Kids are just so awkward with things like that, you know?! Katie kept trying to use her putter like a croquet mallet, Sam kept using his to slide the ball hockey-style toward the hole, and Joe, being the only lefty in the bunch, couldn't even figure out which side of the ball to stand on. If it weren't so funny, it would've been stressful.

After the museum we stopped at a few stores, then James took us to Barnes & Nobles before coming home. We milled around the kid section for the longest time. I picked out another book to read to them once we're finished with what we currently have (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea this time. Hope it's a good one! It's so hard to find good books that don't have a bunch of sorcery and stuff in 'em, you know?!) and we also got a couple of cheap kid books that looked really fun -- and Katie even made out with a Sticker Spelling school book. She's SO excited. It was a nice day. Oh, I almost forgot -- we ate at Furr's. You know, all the old folks' favorite cafeteria? My kids LOVE it. "We getta pick whatever we want!"

So that's about it from around here. Tomorrow I'll try to put the house back together. It always amazes me how in just ONE DAY without supervision (or under a Dad's supervision!) it can TOTALLY fall apart. That's it for now!

~ The Painting Fiend ~