While my husband is in California, having fun visiting our adorable baby granddaughters and taking lots of photos of them, my mother and I have been working hard painting the final two rooms in my house. (I would post a photo of the work-in-progress but my husband has the camera.)

I have been painting something for a year now and I am relieved to say that IT IS FINISHED. When we bought our house, every room was either painted the same safe, boring beige or it was covered in wallpaper. I am not a fan of either. After a lifetime of renting places with white walls, I now live in a technicolor world and I love it.

All the personality tests I’ve taken tell me that I enjoy the finished product much more than the process. That’s certainly been true with these last rooms we painted. Picking up the ladder and lifting it above the furniture huddled in the center of the room, then climbing and stretching and squatting . . . well, I’m rather sore today. Sore but contented. It may not be a perfect paint job, but it is done.

My final act involved cleaning my rollers and brushes, and storing them away in the garage. And, with sadness, I threw away my 1985 U.C. Berkeley sweatshirt – long ago worn thin and now covered in Obi Lilac paint.