Lost in Translation

It has been a trying week. My last blog that I could not print was titled "Pissed." Now you know why I didn't publish it. I have debated on the basis of being true to my subject matter that my previous blog should indeed be printed. But I detest whiners, complainers and nit-pickers, and I don't want to join that rabble. However there is a valid argument and good correlation between nit-pickers and excellence. Unfortunately I don't know if you can be one without being the other. I prefer to call it attention to detail! (Spoken like a true nit-picker.)
My first challenge this week was perfecting a lime paint color with my husband, who gruelingly mixed and remixed paint himself until his lime blistered fingers could take no more. After "a little more yellow," "a little less gray," "no, a little less yellow" - he finally said, "It's perfect," out of sheer exhaustion. My husband went from "I like warmth," to saying a silver gray-white was perfect. I DID want a cool-toned wall, but not that cool. But I am nit-picking now. So I am acquiescing to pale dove gray walls. Believe me it could be worse.
Then there was the utter gut-wrenching despair when our sun-bleached wood planks for a loft floor got stained rustic red. It's a long and complicated story as to how this happened. But needless to say our rustic red floor has now been sanded down again. But now because of the rustic red fiasco, my husband wants to paint the cabinets clear. I am horrified that we may end up with yellow streaked cabinets and have the knotty-pine look. So now between my husband,our architect and myself there is an emotional Bermuda triangle.
But the piece de resistance was our "multi-tono" floor. When I saw the sample I was told it was multi-tono gris (my translation - various shades of gray.) This is where my title "Lost in Translation" comes in. I did not know that the sample floor I was looking at was unsealed and that most unsealed stone floors look grayish. And wouldn't you know that the one tile my husband put water on was gray, so I thought it was great. Stan was complaining, I mean expounding, that he did not want a floor that looked like gray concrete, so I jumped on the "multi-tonal gris" verbage to get my husband to see the light and agree to my beautiful, soft gray floors. Little did I know that I would end up with burgundy, terracotta, pink, white, and almost no gray in my floor. Then whenever I spoke to my architect I was sure to emphasize "multi-tonal gris." But somehow the gris got left out of the translation. Anyway I am now trying to come to terms with the utter abolition of the word monochromatic in my design scheme. I am trying to convince myself that the varied hues ( I can't bear to say the term "tones") of stone will add a "hint" of color to the rooms.
Anyway I think I have begun wallowing in whining and complaining.
I could go on, but I won't. Monday in my journal I wrote Romans 5:3-4, "...we glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulations produce perseverance, and perseverance, character; and character, hope." Well I hope and do believe that I will make it through this "tribulation" and in the mean time I am really developing perseverance and character. I also have to sit back and say, "If your biggest problem is that the stone tiles in your Caribbean home are not gray enough, then you have it pretty good." I guess I can't complain, whine or nitpick too much. I need to accept the fact that when you are an American in Mexico, some things are just going to get lost in translation.