Our painter called last night. Tomorrow's the long-awaited day. He's coming early tomorrow morning to begin painting our house.

We’ve thought about this paint color for months, emailing photos to one another, bringing home fan after fan of paint chips, and spending hours upon hours in the front yard reviewing every one of them.

The last time we painted our house it was yellow, and we sat in the front yard and asked, "Could we really paint our house red?" We simultaneously answered ourselves and one another with a resounding "Yes."

I've gotten to relive that moment every time I've pulled into the drive of our little red house with the stone walk and the round porch, its color as much a statement as the beautiful ash and sweet gum trees that no one's supposed to love as much as we do. But there they are, and here it stands, and I love this little house in red. It's almost as if red has become our tiny abode's identity - and ours along with it. 

So we've chosen a new color for our house. It's a little less bold, a little more restrained, but perhaps we are, too. Maybe this is who we are now, the people in the tan house. I've loved being the people in the red house. You know, the ones who planted the ash and the sweet gum. The ones who tore up half the front lawn to plant a perennial garden. Yeah, those are the ones. They live in a tan house now. 

But I remember the afternoon they sat out in the front yard under that sweet gum and asked themselves, as much as one another, "Could we really paint our house red?" The answer, a resounding yes.