Minnesota Prairie Roots

I WAS LOOKING at paint swatches today while my husband was searching for a toilet bowl gasket at the hardware store.

It seemed like the right thing to do. Crap or color. (I can’t believe I wrote that.) Give me the color.

For some reason, I’ve had bright orange on the brain. I’ve been contemplating adding a jolt of color to my bathroom. Orange towels would do the trick.

I've been fixated with orange lately, like the orange in this poppy I photographed in my neighbor's yard, long, long ago, during the summertime, long, long ago in Minnesota.

But there’s one teeny, tiny problem. My husband, the one who was looking in the, well you know, section of the hardware store while I was ogling the paint, says the towels are just fine.

I suppose they are. They are not threadbare. But I am ready for a change. I need an infusion of brilliant color in my bathroom. Yellow. Orange. Anything but the sage and green that have hung on the towel racks for too many years.

However, because we’ve spent (and are still spending) a lot of money on a major home improvement project, I’ll appease him and hold off on the towel purchase.

But a girl can dream in the meantime. While he searched for that toilet bowl gasket, I admired the sunrise, tangerines and the carrot stix. And then I asked the paint expert at the hardware store if anyone ever buys orange paint.

Orange. Orange. Orange. I can't stop thinking about orange.

“For a kid’s room” she said.

Then I explained my recent fixation with orange, my desire to brighten my bathroom.

She figured this might have something to do with the long, cold and snowy Minnesota winter.

I didn’t disagree.

TODAY MY HUSBAND and I repainted our bathroom in “Popular Gray” by Sherwin Williams. I figure my orange towels will really pop against that gray.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling