"Embrace the Beige" Will Not Be My New Mantra, However

Everyday I think to myself in the shower (my most useful 10 minutes of the day), "Bring camera into work. Really.  Nancy*, do it." And everyday I get distracted by the antics of the cat or the really tough decisions regarding what to wear or DK would like to talk to me for just a minute seriously girl would you please focus on the window treatment options, and I rush out of the apartment sans camera and waving over my shoulder at the cat and boy framed in the doorway.  (Topo is fascinated by the hallway.  Very cautious, he will only gingerly step two little paws outside the sanctity of our apartment, but oh, he is taken with it.)

* When you scold yourself inside your head, do you actually say your name? I imagine my usual thought process runs something like whattimeisit?ohshit-gettowork-wherearemypapers- highlighter-notepad-stopringingtelephone- hhmmmmmmcoffee. But when I'm sternly telling myself something, I pull out the big guns and it's all NANCY Jesus Christ would you please just get that email/brief/memo written already, NANCY! FOCUS.  Oh, ego/identity, you are a strange little thing. 

So, photos to come (NANCY!) but suffice to say, we are home owners. Happy, happy homeowners.  The closing itself was fine.  Yes, the bank managed to get the numbers wrong. Yes, there had to be frantic phone calls among various parties to correct said numbers and get the right documents sent to the law offices. Yes, we were sitting in a conference room for four hours signing and initialing away our future earnings and first born child. But DK and I were uncharacteristically zen.  I took to heart the best piece of advice I got from a friend, Leave your lawyer cap at home; you have a lawyer, the bank has a lawyer, the sponsor has a lawyer. You are just there to sign shit.  And when snafus occurred, DK and I leaned back, smiled complacently at our attorney Peter, and let him work it out.  I could get used to that modus operandi.

Afterwards, signed, sealed and delivered, we walked over to our new place and collected our spanking new keys from the doorman. We surveyed the apartment we've seen ten times with whole new eyes. Possessory eyes.  And, because DK is a total sweetpea, he surprised me by pulling out of his bag a hidden half-bottle of champagne, two bubble-wrapped flutes from home and a tiny jewelry box with a delicate gold ring inside. So I cried and blubbered about him being my home and we smooched and then ran around the apartment opening windows and measuring closets and pantomiming where the furniture could go. He is a sweet man, that one. 

And . . . Enter paint. In the last week before we officially move-in (tomorrow y'all, tomorrow, holy moses), DK and I have spent an inordinate amount of time talking about paint colors. Getting samples of paint colors.  Painting test patches all over the walls. At first, after careful consideration, we bought four small "tester" cans.  Then a couple more. Then maybe one or two extra.  I left DK alone by himself on Monday and he called me to confess that our new apartment looked like it was inhabited by crazy people as he had bought eight quarts of new colors (who knew there were so many variations of gray?) and had taken to painting more and more test patches around the apartment in the different rooms, in different lights. Note the plural.  plurals.  many many plurals.

Paints were eyeballed and some hard decisions were made.  We've got some lilac gray, some blue gray, some brownish gray and some indecipherable color named "Calm."  [which btw, can we talk about the absurdity paint names? I am depressed to tell that we were deciding between the cheery "Cement Gray" and "Barren Plain" for the foyer. Barren Plain?  Jesus, Emily gets "Happy Camper Green" and I've got suicide watch choices up on my walls.]  Anyway, Calm.  In my heart of hearts, I think its just good ol' off-white, but because DK is who he is, I convinced him it was a magical color. "It's ineffable, darlin'! Is it cream? Is it gray?  Is it purple based?  Only the Shadow knows."  DK is, well . . . he is not a man to embrace the predictable. I, on the other hand, smile and wave cheerily at my sometimes provincial taste because, dude? Sometime beige looks good.  Embrace the beige.  We just painted our bedroom lilac for pete's sake.

So! ARG.  TOMORROW.  Yipes.  Photos pictures yadda yadda (NANCY!)

Comments

[Sally]

Congratulations! Can't wait to see photos with the much vaunted "Calm" color. "Ineffable"? Ha!

And yes, now that I think about it, I too call myself by my name when in scold-mode. Sheesh. Some therapist somewhere would have a field day with that one.

[hazelblackberry]

Congratulations, and yes, photos please. Yippee!