The Colors of My Life: ORANGE

When I wrote my first color post--about the color red--I envisioned writing a little about each color that means something to me.  You know, just for fun, whenever I needed a fun topic to blab about.  Red was the obvious place for me to start.  My daughters then gave me the idea of going in rainbow order through all the colors, and since I love (almost) all things rainbow, I agreed with their plan.  So here we go with color number two, ORANGE.  I am including this incredibly awesome rainbow picture because when I saw it I fell in love (pointe shoes are another of my most favorite things in this whole wide world), and couldn't pass it up.








If I could own only one fruit tree in this world, it would be an orange tree.  Because hello, just look at this round delicious ball of perfection.  I remember when I was in 6th grade, our family owned quite a lot of fruit trees (we lived in southern CA), and I used to love picking an orange every day from our yard on my way to the bus stop.  My dad used to blend them with sugar, ice, and milk to make orange julius for us.  Our oranges were always as sweet as dessert, and as large and round as an orange could ever want to be.  It was a little piece of heaven.


There's one other fruit that complements oranges as perfectly as frosting complements a birthday cake, and that's a banana.  Those two flavors together are like an explosion of happiness in my mouth.  I thought this picture was too funny to pass up.











Because oranges yield one of my favorite flavors in the world, it combines well with many other wonderful flavors, such as chocolate, and cookie dough.  YUMMMMMMM. 

Let's take a moment now to talk about cheese.  Cheddar cheese is orange.  Cheese is probably my favorite food.  A grilled cheese sandwich took on a whole new sentimental value with the birth of my last baby.  Personally, I love having babies, and I love how they take care of new mommies in the hospital.  I like hospital food too, so shoot me.  During my last hospital stay, I loved how after the blessed delivery of our new baby was done, the nurse asked me if there was anything I would like to eat.  Anything at all.  So I let my imagination go crazy and I thought up the most delicious food I could possibly enjoy in that moment--because heaven knows I deserved whatever I wanted--NO GUILT ALLOWED.  No calories counted and no food angel sat on my shoulder to shake a finger at my less-than Weight-Watcher friendly choices.  So I requested a large grilled cheese sandwich and had a king-size Drumstick (ice cream cone) on the side.  I think it was probably one of my most favorite meals that I've ever had.  And that, my dear friends, is the value of a grilled orange-cheese sandwich.

Enough about food though.  There are plenty of non-food orange things in this world that merit mention.  Like the color of my hair.  I know, I know, my hair isn't really orange--and I know that I already claimed red as my hair color--but redheads often also get called carrot-top, and carrots are orange, so I think that's reason enough to claim this fun color for my hair. 













Orange-handled scissors.  Very reliable.  Mom used them for sewing, I use them for paper crafting, and sometimes even for hair-cutting.  I wish I had 5 more pairs.  They're always sharp for you when you need them.


Golden poppies!  Bet you didn't think of those!  This was my state flower when I was a kid (in California), and I thought they were a magnificent flower.  I loved them so much I wanted to pick them.  But I didn't dare, because for some reason, I was under the understanding that if you picked the state flower, someone was going to report you and you would surely end up in jail.  So I did not pick the golden poppies.  To this day I significantly hesitate whenever it comes to picking flowers, thanks to my fear of being discovered by the wrong authorities.

My favorite representation of orange in this world is shown in these last two pictures.  Not the pumpkins, mind you...but the striped orange and white hat that my son Tate is wearing here.  This hat was a gift to him, as every member of his Head Start preschool class was given one as a Christmas gift from some generous members of the community.  Each child got to pick out the one he or she wanted, and this is the one Tate chose.  He loves orange.  It is his favorite color.  I never knew orange could be someone's favorite color, but it fits him perfectly.  And since I love my little orange-loving Tate more than life itself, I love the color orange, too.