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she figured it out she had too much time invested to back out.
    Out of the corner of one eye she watched the Waterford Ball drop in Times Square, while tugging at the last few rows of tape.  At the stroke of midnight her transformation of the kitchen was complete, and she was thrilled with what she’d done.
    When she and Craig bought the house, the first thing they did was  update the kitchen.  With the help of the Home Depot coordinator acting as arbitrator between them, they ended up with white cabinets, quartz counters in a dark grey/black, and for the back-splash chose small glass tiles in a mixture of taupe tones, with a random touch of black; the original wood floors were stripped and stained a dark mahogany.  The taupe had been a very safe, howbeit boring, color choice.  At the time, she hadn’t cared other than she did not want the small space to seem smaller by dark cabinets, and the taupe was a good contrast with the white. It was the one room in the house that had personality. Even her mother had been complimentary of it.
    She backed up, surveying what she had done, pleased to see how the black striping made sense of what was already there, adding depth and drama to the relatively small kitchen; and it added height.  Best of all, she had done it by herself.  Perhaps, she had a bit of her mother’s flair, after all. 
    Earlier that afternoon she purchased a demi-bottle of Champagne, feeling it was important to acknowledge her passage into this new season in some celebratory way, even if she was alone. With a ‘pop’ the cork gave way, and she poured its contents into a juice glass, not wanting to use the flutes they habitually used from their wedding.  She had the fleeting thought of using one and smashing it in the fireplace, but concluded it would be too messy and might injure the kitten.  The gesture, she knew, would be more destructive to her than to the crystal.
    She bent over to scoop up Shadow, interrupting his furious batting around of a ball of wadded-up blue tape.  Bringing him to her eye-level, she kissed his wet nose, singing out loud, “May auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind” thinking, I actually think I know what that means now!   But his eyes remained fixated on the tape-ball on the floor.  “Okay, little kitten, I’m not taking this personally,” she told him, setting him back down, watching with amusement while he declared war on another blue invader.  
    Next she would run a hot bath and take a soak in the Jacuzzi, alone with her thoughts—she had a new year to plan.
     
     
     

 
     
     
     
                                                        Chapter Six
     
     
     
    Happy with the results of her newly striped kitchen Brittany decided to move forward with some other simple, and cosmetic, changes to the house. One Saturday evening, late in January, she lay sprawled across the bed in the master bedroom. The bed was strewn with paint chips and color charts she had been collecting from various outlets for the proposed facelift to the room.  One by one she held them up to the light, wishing she could ask her mother for some help.  If Alma was good at anything, she was good with color, and in spite of her rigidity in personality, her decorating style was eclectic and colorful, made more interesting because of the many art pieces and artifacts she and Ted had collected on their travels. 
    How can there be so many different shades of green ?  Brittany wondered.  There was sage, mint, moss, lime. light, dark, each named with exotic names that only added to her confused state of mind.
    It hadn’t taken long for her to conclude the next rooms in line for transforming would be the taupe master bedroom and bath, symbolically important in the reclaiming of her house. From there, she would move to the dining and living rooms, having already chosen the color for them.  Their color choice was easier; she would