Ode to Paint Chips

Oh you enticing little flecks of color... you call to me like a siren's song... and I heed your call...

Ok enough cheesiness. I don't know why I love paint chips, but I do! I don't think I've ever been able to walk past a rack of paint chips without taking at least one card home... usually something from the teal blue family. Maybe its just my colorful personality trying to get me to represent it on my wall or something. Maybe they remind me of the times when I would go with my dad to home depot to get paint and supplies to work on the houses we rented out in Bakersfield and Visalia. I guess that is when my paint-chip-addiction began.

I always loved those trips. I thought it was great to get to spend time with my dad. We'd always go out to dinner and usually a movie and I liked that I got to do those things with my dad and my brother didn't... he probably didn't want to, but anything that I felt like I had one uped my bro on was worth while to me. Plus my dad would say I was his "little helper" and it made me feel useful... and he would pay me like 50 dollars or so for each weekend that I would help out and it felt soo cool to earn that money...especially since I felt like I really had earned it.

I liked to scrape wall paper off of the walls and wash the floors and make everything look clean... and I loved painting. I've alwasy found it really satisifying to get dirty and sweaty and work hard and then end up with a something new... or something old that was suddenly pretty again. I love having something to show for your work... something palpable. I don't get that much lately since I work a customer service job, although I do take some satisfaction in seeing all the paper work from the jobs that I've booked... but it's nothing like seeing a wall that I've just painted perfectly

... I guess that's why I love plants so much too... growing food is the ultimate accomplishment because you are helping to create something that is essential to life out nothing but a seed, soil and sunlight... plants amaze me! I am determined to some day subsist on my own garden. It would be so nice to seperate myself from all of the political and economic crap that ties in with buying groceries. It's annoying to have to scan through labels to make sure that they didn't somehow sneak a defenceless ground up calf or something into the spaghetti Os that I am buying...

I was at Safeway yesterday with my friend, Emily, and she spent like 10 minutes comparing pasta sauces 'cause they didn't have her usual flavor... I don't know what choice she finally made, but it wasn't exactly what she wanted... wouldn't it be so much better if we could all just make our own pasta sauce with all the things we want... and only the things we want... I can't wait to do that... I will be feasting on pasta topped with a jar of my home grown sauce this time next year... I better be...

I wish I coul have a couple chickens and a dairy cow too or maybe a goat ('cause it took me about 24 years to realize it but goat cheese kicks ass!!!) Unfortunately I dont think the "fairway park" section of Hayward is zoned for livestock... boo to that!

Anyway, it's almost my bed time... I started writing this blog entry thinking I was gonna write about how silly it is that I like paint chips and how they have crazy romance novel names for the colors, but now I've gone and gotten myself all nostalgic about working on houses with my dad and I'm all fired up about starting my garden. Woo hoo in like three days I can start ripping up concrete so that I can start on my soil!!!

I feel like after writing this though that nothing would be more fitting in the world than for me to paint at least one wall in our new house "gardening girl green"... in fact I think that just became my new favorite color... what a productive blog entry!!!