The big test run for our growing blended family and our Happier Yellow House is just days away.

“A home, not a compound,” I said. DC knows I’m kidding. I am happiest when in the eye of a family hurricane.

That’s right: Seven grownups, three youngsters ages 8, 5 and 2, and one baby. Holy Legos and diaper pails.

“I can’t pick a wall color from another state,” I tell her from my home in Florida. “I have to see it in the space.”

Occasionally, I write a column that pulls a ripcord of replies.

When a museum director called me a few months ago to ask if I would give the keynote talk at a community event she was planning, I thought,

If all goes well, and so far it hasn’t, congratulations may soon be in order. I’m about to be a house grandma.

Graceful, stately, sculptural, and elegant, blooming orchids have elevated any room I have ever put them in.

Houseplants all around. Plants clean the air of pollutants, those infamous volatile organic compounds, says Brown.

I never meant to hurt anybody, especially not a sweet old woman. But it happened.