First the Good News: Noone Will Ever Mistake Our House For Cheese

That's because the new paint color on the exterior of our house isn't Velveeta yellow, as is the house across the street. In fact, once upon a time, before the days of GPS, we would use that house as a landmark  when giving directions. "Just turn left at the Velveeta House.".  The owners, now grandparents, didn't mind; in fact the house's color is a point of pride. "Our house used to be Dunkin' Donuts pink," the matriarch told me once. You see, they let their eight kids vote on the house color.

So it was my 13 year old and I who decided on the new house color. At first, we liked a Benjamin Moore color called "California Blue." The paint would be only on the first floor of the house, since the second floor is white siding. And are white wooden front porch will stay white too.

But then, I got to thinking: let's go with something a little more sedate. Let's go with Number 805, "New York State of Mind." (Imagine getting paid for coming up with these paint color names). And so that's what the painters bought and have been painting the exterior with. But instead of this....

we're ending  up with this...

People. Whoever named this color at Benjamin Moore? We are talking Electrifying Blue. Voltaic Blue. Juiced Blue. (Yes, that is our orange tomcat keeping guard of the front of the house)

(taken at night and you can see why we are waaaay overdue for a new coat of paint)

Understand, that other than the Velveeta House, whose color has mercifully faded in the 16 years we've lived across the street, the rest of our neighborhood is full of homes awash in neutrals, including several shades of beige.

For example, my next-door neighbors' houses look like this:

and this:

And it's not like they live all that far from us. I took both these photos from our own yard. I know, I know, file this under White People Problems. I am indulging in this obsession about my house color at a time when folks in my own county a couple of days ago lost their homes in the Storm of the 21st century.

So of course I had to take this problem to my personal facebook page. It was my high school friend who told me to celebrate the fact that my house would never be equated with pasteurized processed cheese product, Velveeta or otherwise. And then another friend, a fellow cycling mom, told me a house in her neighborhood is purple and that she is sure my house will look great in the summer, with all the flowers. (This means I need to start gardening for real.) And then my neighbor, the one whose beige house is in the background of the first photo, called me a trend setter.

But the best facebook comment of all came from Firoozeh Dumas THE Firoozeh Dumas, who quipped:

"There are beautiful blue houses all over the Greek islands. You can always say you are channeling Greece."

So hey, if a bestselling author likes my house color, I figure it's all good.