You mean there's still more purple to put on the house?

One of the neighbor kids saw me on the stepladder yesterday and said, "You mean there's still more purple you're painting on the house?"

The kids and neighbors are raving. Everyone who talks to us loves the purple (if you go to http://lynda.com/hue.html, you can see roughly our house color if you look at the hue 996699).

When the neighbors talk to each other, I hear, it can be a different story. A couple of my neighbors reported this conversation:

A woman who lives at the other end of our block, in a house that is painted deep teal (#009999) with rust orange (#CC3333) shutters, said, "What do you think of that purple?"

"I like it!" "I think it's great!" said my neighbors.

"I've seen prettier shades of purple," said the turquoise-and-rust lady.

When my neighbors passed this along to me, we all exploded with laughter -- she's one to talk!

When I adopted a little girl from India, I felt I gave myself permission to come out of the shadows, and I have. Painting the house purple feels like an extension of this permission to be myself, out loud. To be visible and to have a presence.

I am loving this life.