In the bleak midwinter....

In the bleak midwinter

Frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron,

Water like a stone:

Snow had fallen, snow on snow,

Snow on snow,

In the bleak midwinter

Long ago.



Christina Rossetti, 1872



Except it's not "long ago", it is NOW. The cold is literally radiating into our house through windows and doors. I am staring out white framed windows,hung with white slatted blinds at everything covered in a thickening slather of white, white snow. This morning it is not the soft fluff of a snowglobe slowly falling like feathers....it is insistent, tight little ice pellet snow, urgently throwing itself to earth with a purpose.



I hate the fact that the calendar is forcing me to give up the cheerful bits of Christmas decorations around the house....I am putting up a fight. I've cleared away the Santas and most obvious Christmas themed frippery, but the white lights ....I NEED them!



How to counteract the effect of bleak midwinter:

Paint your rooms in stimulating colors to contrast the outdoors. ( Seriously, It really is looking alot like "The Shining" outside my "sun" porch....I am waiting for Jack Nicholson to pop into my back deck window...)



The Benjamin Moore paint names describe what I'm talkin' about. I've a BM 1307 GERANIUM laundry and half bath ( I talked myself down from "Habanero"). My front room is BM 2019-40 AMERICAN CHEESE ( go to your refrigerator and look at your Kraft Singles...then go up two steps and you're there). BM 828 AIRWAY BLUE flows through the main parts of the first floor living areas. This actually is a beautiful, soft, comforting blue.

My latest, and presently most loved antidote to bleak midwinter, is the repainted sunroom. I considered colors, literally for years before coming up with BM 2146-40 PALE AVOCADO. Well worth the wait. It is perfect and I LOVE it. It is the bright shade of the center of a stalk of asparagas or a creamy quacamole. It somehow energizes me whenever I look into the room and reminds me of Spring....which will return.



So, as January insists upon ripping cheerful Christmas from the tight grip of my frozen fingers, I'd like to thank Avery, my partner in painting adventures for all he's done to help me survive what Christina Georgina Rossetti so accurately described...long ago.