My Colorful Life

I was inspired by a meme that my fearless sister Laura had done, writing seven things about yourself with a certain theme. So I decided to do a variation on that meme and write about seven colors in my life.

Red: I used to have the most beautiful ground-cover roses in the front yard when we lived in Illinois, and they were a deep red. I miss those roses. Red is also the color of my favorite fruit, cherries!

Yellow: When I was growing up, each person in our family was assigned a color for our coat hook, cup, toothbrush, etc. My color was yellow. Despite that fact, I still like the color yellow, and if I'm shopping and I see a bright yellow shirt I will probably buy it, if I like the style. Also, yellow is the color of my favorite flower, the sunflower. I picked a sunflower border for our dining room, which was installed by Dad and Marvis shortly after Vinny was born.

Green: I grew up in Central Kentucky, which was green and hilly. Then I lived in Illinois for seven years, which was green but flat. I spent a summer in Albuquerque, which is hilly but not green, and that helped me to realize that if I have to choose between green and hilly, I'd pick green. Luckily I now live in a place that is both. Actually, now that I'm used to the mountains, Central Kentucky seems really flat.

Blue: I grew up in Kentucky, so I'm a Wildcats fan (Go Big Blue!). I just can't get into the orange of my new state, unfortunately. Volunteer orange is a particularly hideous shade, in my opinion.

Gray: We lived in England for a year when I was 13 years old. I went to the Highworth School for Girls that school year, and we had to wear a uniform. It was particularly hideous: a gray skirt, a sky blue blouse, a mustard colored tie, and a gray v-neck pullover, with gray socks and brown or black shoes. I positively detested having to wear a uniform, and especially wearing such a hideously ugly uniform. I promised myself that after that school year was over, I would never wear gray again. So I haven't!

Rainbow: I bought a lot of work-related books with some fellowship money one year. They were all related to the work that I do, but they were on a wide variety of subjects, so I didn't quite know how best to order them on my shelf. So instead of ordering them by subject, I settled for ordering them by color. That made it easy because I tend to remember the books more by appearance than by title. Here is a picture of me from a long time ago at my office in grad school with my rainbow books in the background.