titivate.

TIT-uh-veyt

verb

1: to make smart or spruce.

2: to make oneself smart or spruce.

My cozy cabin is brown, brown, brown. The walls, the carpet, the couch. The porch, the firewood, the boots on the floor. I love it, but a girl can only take being surrounded by so much brown before she has to titivate.

So I’ve got a new addiction to titvating with teal. A free wooden coffee table? Perfect, paint it teal. A bookcase from the past tenant? Sure, that’ll look lovely in teal and I’ll use it as a dresser. I spruced up some dull picture frames. My nephew looks impossibly cute surrounded by teal. I bought Pal a teal bandana, teal nail polish for myself, and a jar of unneeded push pins with a teal lid.

I found a sweet little rocking chair at the thrift store and I looked it over, checked the price, and didn’t care about nicks because I’d titivate it in teal within the hour.

Jeff said, “Beth, I don’t know how to say this.”

I looked at him, prepared for a serious comment.

“Not everything you own needs to be teal. In fact, I think it shouldn’t be.”

The nerve! The ignorance!

He saw my disappointment and shock.

“What about a cushion? It’s a nice looking rocking chair already. But a teal cushion might be nice,” he said.

Ah, he was right. It looks fantastic with just a cushion. The porch is such a pleasant place to sip coffee and read. Pal sits so close to me that I have to look down to make sure his paws aren’t in the way before I rock.