Reminds me of when I was working and would come home after a stessful day. I was a supervisor at an auto assembly plant. Job pressure was horrendous. I'd come home, notice a weed or bloom that needed deadheading and stop for a minute to take care of them. After an hour or two, my wife would call out and ask me if I was coming in. I'd be working in my dress shirt and tie and not notice it. My roses were my chance to relax and wind down.. Same thing happens now, except I don't work anymore. I do get the same relaxation though. I'll step out the door, spot something that needs tending, jump on my Rascal, and be outside for hours. People stopping and looking don't bother me one bit. I actually enjoy sharing my roses and answering questions. That's what's nice about being retired, I can take time to give an impromptu garden tour, that often ties me up for a couple of hours, and still get my chores finished. While showing people around and answering questions, I'll be deadheading or pulling weeds.

Hue families, color notations and LRV is the tactical way to approach color. If you've read some of my stuff, you also know that I firmly believe that you cannot color by numbers alone. "Always remember that nobody accepts or rejects color because of numbers - it is the way it looks that counts." (Billmeyer 1970 and 1979) There is a balance of art and science with regards to color for the built environment; too much weight one way or another and it's like trying to juggle with one hand. Sure, you can do it but it's a heck of a lot easier with both. With that said... Do you think any of these colors would be good exterior colors? Yes. Which one is the best fit should be based on the fixed elements of the house: brick, mortar, stone, roof, etc. Which one looks right? Do you think either are too pink or green? Here are how the numbers stack up: Balanced Beige .44 Y / 7.25 / 1.49 ⢠LRV 46.0 Bleeker Beige 1.36 Y / 7.61 / 1.89 ⢠LRV 54.0 Jackson Tan 7.47 YR / 5.83 / 3.56 ⢠LRV 25.6 (color notations from The LoC color lab) About pinkness: all the colors, the two new and one old, are snuggled up around the 10YR mark. (see color wheel below). Odds of Balanced B. or Bleeker B. showing a pink overtone is unlikely because they are too far away from the Red Hue Family. About greeness: With colors from the yellow hue family like Bleeker B. and Balanced B., the lower the last number, chroma, the better the odds that a color could have some greeness with which to respond to a quality of light that also has a green characteristic. The direction of your house comes into play. The south and west sides are least likely to have a green quality of light to sync up with any greeness qualities in a paint color. Looking at the numbers and we know that Balanced B. with a chroma of 1.49 would be more likely to show an edge of greeness than Bleeker B. with a chroma of 1.89. I want light, but deep? Does that make sense? Yes. I'm assuming you've read up on LRV and will get this next part. The second and last numbers in a color notation combined are called nuance. In other words, value + chroma = nuance. Nuance is not the same thing as LRV. To evaluate "light" look at the LRV number. The higher the number, the more light a color will reflect. To evaluate "deep" look at nuance, value + chroma together. Both axes. Chroma - "Deep" colors will have an amount of chroma in the 2, 4, 6 range. -AND- Value - Comparatively, the lower the value number, the "deeper" the color. Hope that helps... and doesn't keep you up tonight. ;)

I like the dance - a sort of mini-prom, kinda cute, lets the kids get dressed up for something special with their parents. father/daughter, mother/son, just the whole family. It's very spring. Another idea.. At DS's old school they did a cultural arts fair in the spring. It was organized by the music teacher, she really put a lot into it. It was no small project, but it was sort of her brainchild and pet. She had an open talent show for all the kids to enter if they chose. A lot of kids were able to demonstrate a dance or song from their family culture. No prizes, just for demonstration. She also had performance groups from other schools (elem, middle and high or local dance/arts schools). So there was a percussion group from an elem, the dance class from the school of the arts, the jazz band, on and on. Groups did performances highlighting a culture/nationality. So the percussion did an African thing, the dance group did a Spanish thing. Then she invited teacher to have their individual class do a performance -some did, some didn't. Those that did chose a culture and learned about it and did a performance - storytelling, costumes, etc. Some classes set up tables of activities, cultural games or crafts. The art teacher had the kids do some very special projects leading into this, then the library was made into the art studio where the projects were put on display and sold (part of the procededs went to art dept. and kids actually kept a buck or two). There was food - egg rolls, pizza, tacos, (see the cultural theme) whatever could be purchased cheap in bulk to sell. And she ask all the families if they had items from their homes - traditional cultural heirlooms, souvenirs from travels. She put those on display. She has some sort of waiver for permission to use them, a tag system to reclaim items, and put them on hands-off kind of displaying. If someone had an instrument in this collection she asked them to play it. Or clothing to model it. It was fun, involved a lot of families, and was education. It was, however, labor intensive as far as planning/organizing. I don't know if they still do it, I hope so, it was very impressive. It lasted hours and you still couldn't see everything there. She had a program so full (because so many people wanted to participate) that there wasn't a lot of time to stop and eat or look at her exhibits. So, it was almost too good! It was awesome, worth the effort, I think. But the dance would be easier!

Holly-Kay, I was pretty sure I remembered a pretty tight limitation on pets/animals. I couldn't find the covenants or restrictions online, but someone posted a quote limiting animals to "customary household pets." There seems to be a presumption that dogs and cats fit the description but fish, snakes, lizards -- doesn't say where the line is drawn. And ten there is a clause "except as allowed by [the regulating authority]." Well there's a loophole they could run a chicken coup through - at least a small one. Maybe I'll make some inquiries and see if I can get them to allow a small number of chickens -- though I'm pretty sure roosters wont be allowed on what are mostly 1/4 acre lots. Not sure I'd want them either. But to stay on topic -- will definitely be another reason to wear my pinafore! :)