Thankful for the color blue

We can always learn new things about ourselves.

I always considered my favorite color to be red.  Indeed, I do think red is uncommonly pretty, a shiny red sports car zooming down the highway, an eyecatching shade of snazzy red lipstick, sparkling ruby slippers, a ripe strawberry glistening after I've rinsed it under the faucet.  A classic rose.

However, since I've been living in the Midwest, I've developed a staggering love for the blue sky.  Blue sky was sadly rare in New York, but here I awaken to it almost every day.

This is a picture of blue sky in my neighborhood.  It isn't a great picture, but it shows the beautiful color just the same.

Everything is more colorful when the sky is blue.  Isn't God wonderful, to give us the gorgeous blue canopy of a sunny day?

The other day I came home from buying supplies and discovered that I had chosen the blue option for everything, even the Q-tips.

Haha! I had already filled a hand soap dispenser with that blue shower gel . . .

I'm realizing that I have tucked blue surprises for myself all around my house.  Who knew?

I love these blue glass flowers that Laura and Jonathan made when we visited the Corning Museum of Glass about 7 years ago.  I keep them behind my kitchen sink, where the afternoon sun splashes through them.

Above my kitchen sink, I alternated blue and yellow antique dessert plates on little display shelves that Shawn built for me.

To the right of my kitchen sink, I have a little display of blue "artifacts."  A tiny pitcher I bought at an estate sale, a toothpick holder from Japan that a friend in the Air Force brought me, a perfect blue flowered creamer from Laura, an antique milk of magnesia bottle dug out from the foundation beneath Aunt Nunie's house, and salt and pepper shakers I use every day (they often have smeary fingerprints on them).

Of course, there is the quintessential blue tea kettle that always sits on the stove.  I realized that my kitchen scissors in the knife block have blue handles; I'm sure I chose the blue pair without thinking about it.

Here's a closeup of the blue spoon rest to the right of the stove.  It makes me smile every time I see it.

I've had cobalt blue glasses forever.  Milk tastes delicious out of cold cobalt blue glass.

You might think my house is blue, from perusing these pictures, but it really isn't.  There isn't a speck of blue in the dining room, which has cherry floors and furniture, pale gray walls, and white curtains.  The living room has the same cherry floor and gray walls, with a burgundy leather sofa and Persian style rug (with only the tiniest dollops of gray-blue in the pattern).

My family room isn't blue, either, but it has a few pops of blue that make me happy.

See that lone blue book in the middle of the ones that match the room?  It gives me a wicked sense of delight.  Also, I just realized that the few "toys" I keep in the corner by the fireplace happen to be blue.  And then there is the star that hangs from the lamp.  It's an ornament I got once at a Christmas ornament exchange.  I was not enamored originally, because I am adamantly opposed to blue as a Christmas color.  Then one day I realized that I did not have to use it as a Christmas ornament.  It's fabulous as a non-Christmas decoration!

A closeup of my blue star non-Christmas ornament.

My study was supposed to be gray and white with pastel accents, but somehow this blue futon setup crept in.  This week, I nested in here with Schubert while Shawn was in Pittsburgh.  You can see a sweet depression in the duvet, where Schubert has been enjoying himself.  He's such a good little companion, and keeps my feet warm at night.

Here's our real bed, which is also blue.  I think blue is absolutely the very best color for sleeping.

Here's the blue chair in the corner of our bedroom, where Shawn sits to drink his coffee in the mornings.  I love to wrap my shoulders in the soft blue cotton blanket draped across its back.  This chair also usually has a blue blanket in the seat, to protect it from little dogs.  I removed that for the photo, but if you notice some blanket fuzz left behind, please forgive me.

You can see the bottom of a wall hanging behind the chair.  Here's a closeup of it; it's also blue.  Perhaps I will tell you story behind this wall hanging some day.

My bedroom and all three of our bathrooms are painted "silver gray," which is actually blue.  It's an extremely soothing color.  I do not tire of it.

Once I hung this (blue) necklace over the spare towel by our bathtub.  I like looking at it there, so now this is its permanent home.  Except when I wear it.

It was very recently that I realized how good I feel when I wear pretty shades of blue.  I went on a quest for blue shoes and found these, which were suede and not satin, as I had hoped, but they are very comfortable, and satisfyingly blue.

I've become comfortable enough with my love of blue that I've actually purchased three items for myself in the last few years, without agonizing, knowing immediately that I liked them:

This necklace:

This fluffy dotted swiss scarf:

And this crushed velvet flared tunic:

. . . which I was not wearing the day I took the picture, because I was feeling lupus-y and hanging out in these:

We haven't even discussed my precious blue flowered teapot that Shawn brought me from England, or my big cobalt blue fruit bowl, or my kitchen vase, or my canisters, or the sweet blue pendant Jonathan gave me when he worked for the jewelry store . . .

Yes, I guess I like blue.  I like red too, but I'm much more at home in blue.

Isn't it amazing that God made colors for us to enjoy?  They are all beautiful in different ways and in different places, but today I'm drinking up the delight of blue.