Rainy rain and a wall mural.

Well, nothing like a day of non-stop rain to make your dog nutso in the evening.  She was killing our baby dolls and her baby teeth were falling out everywhere.
She needs 2 walks a day like crazy.  Also, she wouldn't go pee unless I stood out there in the rain too.  Eventually I just locked her outside and she smooshed up against the door and cried.  But wouldn't pee.  And then she woke up at 4:30in the morning, which hasn't happened for weeks now.  Dog napping all day is a no-no.

My mood is so dependent on the weather.  Yesterday's gloomy rain was just hard.  I cleaned some things and cooked dinner and even made myself exercise, only because I knew the depression would eat me if I didn't.  It makes me trudge.
I had a lot of guilt that my dog napped all day.  Nathan came home from work and I just sighed happily that the rain had stopped and it was his turn to walk the dog. :)

I hope you all have the latest Civil Wars album.  Those songs are so fun to sing.  Lola and I were singing "Oh Lord, Oh Lord, What have I done?  I've fallen in love with a man on the run..."  all day.  And she paused and asked, "Wiat...Wait, what?" *stutters* *squints nose* "What, well, what does that mean?"  We talked about it and she said, "When I grow up, I would never fall in love with a bad man."  She would fall in love with someone like daddy. :)

I know it's not half as cute when I tell the story.  Just trust me when I say, she is so cute in everything she says.  I have to consciously hide my amusement or she would be constantly self-conscious.  It's sad that if I ever get out my camera to capture her singing, she turns down the passion.  Maybe some day I'll sneak a recording.  It's just adorbs.

It's her gesticulation and articulation that does it.  She actually just ran in here to explain with chubby fingers waving, eyebrows raised, lips just awesomely articulating, "Mom.  A square is actually a very special rectangle!"  And I have to very seriously reply, "You are so right.  That's awesome."  She loves to be taken seriously, no matter how cute she is.  She actually gets mad if I smile when she's talking.  I think we've done it too much and she's sensitive about it.

Anyway.
I have a plan for the blank walls of my neutral kitchen:

Now that the cabinets are a clean Snow Caps, and the walls are a light Silver Birch, I feel the need for colorful wall coverage.  We've got silver and black hardware, black/brown/goldish swirly counter tops.

You may hate me for this.
I feel the need for something stencil-ish.
When I first said that word to Nathan he pictured country blue ducks bordering the top.  I'm talking about awesome lines here.

But then when I pinterest stencils, I see a lot of the same thing, and I actually don't love having something that you may have seen before.  Like, as soon as I saw chevron 3 times, I decided I would not purchase a chevron thing, ever.
So then Nathan said simultaneously with my thoughts in my head: We should make our own stencil.  And I said, "I love you!"
We were made for each other.  I'll design it.  He'll shop-bot it.  Perfect!  No one else will have it in their home or on their Pinterest board!  It will not be chevron!

So, if you hated on the stencil-ish idea.  Just you wait.  Possibly in 3 years, this idea will come to fruition.  And maybe you'll like it.

But the more we talked about it, I realized I may not love a stencil.  I had another crazy idea that I would just free-hand it so it's not so uniform.  More organic.  And as I had that thought, Nathan jokingly said, "You should just draw it up there with a pencil and then paint over it." I said, "YES! I hate stencils!"  I'm sure I'll change my mind again soon.