Things I Love and Things I Notice

The prompt for DOCUMENTED LIFE (DLP) this week was to "Fill the page with numbers that relate to your week (e.g 4 trips to the grocery store)."  Can I just tell you how much anxiety this filled me with?

First, I hate...HATE...lists.  And no matter what you tell me, this prompt wanted me to make a list.  Not only that, but this prompt wanted me to tabulate various things that occurred in my week.  This may not seem like it should be a big deal, but about the only thing I do is go to work, eat and make art.  There's not a lot going on.  PLUS...keeping track of things!?!  I'm lucky if I remember what year it is...  There was a lot of resistance happening for me concerning this prompt...

So, in order to break it down to my level, I decided to number various things that happened in a single day this week.  ...and then I made up fictitious numbers that corresponded to the amount times I feel like something happened:

1 day in numbers at age 31

For instance, 800 is the number of times I thought or felt something completely inappropriate.  But out of those 800 times, 376 is the number of times I actually said the inappropriate thing out loud.  As you can see, I say a lot of horrible things, but not near as many as I think...

This picture is the most true to color...I don't know why the other pics look so dingy...

Everything about this prompt was troublesome, including the background, which is why the #4 on the above page stands for the number of times I COMPLETELY overhauled this spread...

Check out that sweet "2" from the "25" though, it's rocking my socks off!

The one thing I actually enjoyed about this spread was practicing my lettering (or would it be numbering?)...I was pretty happy with the way some of the numbers turned out...especially the 2 in 25 in the above picture!

"Times I questioned my sanity in a given hour."

I glued down my tags on one end only, so that they would flip up and reveal the writing that went along with them on the reverse side.  As you can see in the above picture, 25 is the number of times I questioned my sanity in a given hour on that particular day.  I was being conservative...

After I finished doing this spread, I realized that what I should have counted was the various art related things that happen in my week...like how many faces did I make, how many different pages I completed, or how many different colors/media I used.  But it's all over now, and here we are...  Maybe one day in the distant future, when I've grown as a person, I will have the patience and memory to keep tabs on that info...but it is not today for sure! :)

The prompt for JOURNAL 52 (J52) this week was "Gratitude-include something you are thankful for on your page."  There was actually a similar prompt for DLP a little while ago, which you can see HERE.  

I think I've mentioned it before, but I have a hard time with the word 'gratitude'.  It's one of my many foibles, I'm sure, but there's just something about that word that sets my teeth on edge.  I suppose genuine gratitude isn't the problem for me...that's a good thing.  But for some reason, when I hear the word, it makes me think of lazy people.  (SO NOT saying that truly gratitudinous people are lazy)  The word just reminds me of people who sit back and wait for things to happen instead of getting up and working towards good things for themselves...and then when something does just happen by chance to them, they say 'oh, I'm so grateful to the cosmic space turtle who made this happen'.    I honestly don't know why my brain chooses to associate those two things, but it does.  Maybe I feel like real gratitude can only be achieved through hard work.  Like when your parents told you as a kid...if anyone was raised like me..."You'll appreciate it more if you have to work for it."

I've noticed that I say I'm glad about things a lot.  I imagine it's my substitute word for gratitude.  I'm grateful when all my hard work pays off...I'm glad when something out of my control happens.  As in, I'm grateful that I got a raise at work (cause I TOTALLY deserve it), but I'm glad it's gonna be fall soon (no personal control over that).  I don't know...all I can say is I told you I was weird...

At any rate, I came up with something I am both glad about and grateful for to use in this week's J52 page:

"A good long laugh"
I really liked this as a sketch, but when I went over it in pen, there was an incident with the eyebrows...
Maybe it adds to the comedy of the page...the eyebrow situation...yeesh...

There is just something to be said for a really good belly laugh.

The older I get, the harder it is for me to get that real deal, from the heart, eyes watering laugh.  I must have become more cynical or something.  I'll give things a little chuckle, and that's the end of it.  The weird thing is I laugh all the time...well giggle.  I hate to say it, but I tend to be a giggler.   But it's been a while since I REALLY went all in on a laugh.

I'm good at getting other people to laugh though, and I suppose that's better than laughing myself.  I made someone laugh so hard this week that he had to crouch down against a wall because he couldn't breathe and tears were streaming down his face.  I am a merciless clown!

I think my problem is I get bored easily.  I like to figure people out, but when I do, a lot of the thrill is gone.  (How horrible does this make me sound?  Really stinking horrible...)  I think I've been around the people I know now for so long they have no good comedy for me anymore.  I know what these people are going to say, down to the point where I can mimic them word for word.  I know it's my problem...there's not anything wrong with the people in my life...I like them quite a lot!  It's just...frustrating at times.

I recently came back into contact with someone who hasn't spoken to for a long time.  This person was at one point, very important to me, but there was a rift in our friendship.  I really enjoy this person, because he says things I don't expect.  That's a rare commodity for me!  I think I've always been attracted to people who are...outside the norm.  I find people on the fringes of life to be very interesting.  I like people who challenge my thinking...who surprise me and keep surprising me.  I've been laughing a lot since coming back into contact with this person.  It's been nice.

I'm trying to remember to temper myself.  It's another one of my personal quirks...that when I'm in, I'm all in.  The past doesn't matter.  The future doesn't matter.  The only thing that matters is how I feel right now.  The problem is that the past HAS happened.  The future, whatever it may be, WILL happen...and the past repeats itself so very often.  I'm guilty of forgetting all that once I've gotten my interest peaked.  

I don't like being fooled, and I especially don't want to be fooled twice.  But I want to believe that people are capable of change...especially in this instance...  The crap part for me is that I know I'm an all or nothing kind of girl.  It's just no use in telling me not to get too attached...I have never yet been able to follow through on that advice.  

What do you think?  Do people change?  Should I give this re-budding friendship another go or just cut it off before I get carried away?  Any words of wisdom for a girl in need?

New Eyes and the Glad Game

Late to the game again!  Tsk, tsk!  I am wagging my finger at myself in disgust!  I have been distracted by the day-to-days yet again, and I have no good reason.  Plenty of excuses...but no good reason...

One semi-decent excuse is getting caught up in the free tutorial videos over at the DERWENT WEBSITE.  Thanks to Michelle from INSPIRATION EVERYWHERE for the heads up about those...  As a side note, I just love the name of her blog!

Derwent also has a 'kids' related portion of their site called FLIP! and it has some video tutorials as well.  I really like looking at things geared towards children, because of how well they break the information down.  Sometimes videos directed at adults assume you know things that you actually don't, whereas those that were made "for kids" give you much more basic-but-thorough instruction...plus, they tend to be more concise, probably because kids aren't known for having great attention spans.  I have to say, when I first started out making art, my art maven/older sister told me that was the case and I...disregarded...that information for a while.  Huge error on my part!  I admit my wrongness wholeheartedly!

I'm going to share some of the art I made so far with the Derwent tutorials in a later post, but today, I have my Journal 52 (J52) and Documented Life Project (DLP) art for last week.

For J52, the prompt was "Travel", and you can read more about it HERE.  This is what I made:

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."
-Proust

I am pretty excited over that wide-eyed girl...I think she goes so well with the quote...it makes me ridiculously happy...  I really enjoy it when you find just the right words for your project!

FYI, in case it's ever a question on Jeopardy, I didn't start out with the plan of having a black background...there was an incident involving a crumb from a black oil pastel that was stuck to my hand...  And since there was little hope of removing the mark it made on the page, and because I wanted to stick with water-soluble media on this page, I just pulled out my black Neocolor II and went for black.  Luckily, I had a white ink pad that was still surprisingly juicy after several years of never being touched...and it all worked out well in the end!

The other thing I have to share is my DLP spread, which you can find out more info about HERE.  The prompt was to "Write what you are grateful for each day this week." and here's my list:

"Come on Pollyanna...Let's play the glad game."

I started out feeling a little "Meh..." about this spread, but the more I look at it, the more I like it. I don't think it looks very me...I must have been channeling someone else's muse that day or something!  The colors in the background are not my usual fare.  I used a set of cheap tube watercolors that I don't pull out very often.  I think they will be making a much more regular appearance on my studio desk, because I find them to be quite interesting colors...  Of course, the best laid plans of mice and men and all that...so it's possible you will never see them again, so perhaps we should take a moment to enjoy them while we can! :)  

Yesterday, I noticed I've been having an unintentional run of purple in my DLP journal...it even made an appearance in this spread!  Not that there's anything wrong with purple, but it's kind of odd for me to have a marathon of it without planning to, right?

See that little heart at the top of the left page?  My husband, the lovely stink that he is, found that in the parking lot of his job and brought it home to me!  Now some women would be thoroughly disturbed at the fact that their husband brought home 'trash' from a parking lot...but as artists, I think we all know what a sweet gesture that was!  Add to that the fact that my husband is mildly afraid of germs, and you see what a grand gesture it actually was.  I'll have to add that to my list for the Glad Game!  A Glad Game bonus, if you will...

What about you?  Do you have something glad to share?  I'd love to hear about it!

A Piece of Work And A Work of Art

This week's prompt for Documented Life was "Make a list of the things that make you YOU." (You can read more about DL HERE.)

One of the things that make me ME is the fact that I am not a natural list maker.  Seriously.  It took me FOREVER to come up with my list of attributes.  But I finally ended up with some good ones:

"I am a piece of work and a work of art.".

Just for the record, that poor girl's face looks seriously wonky...but her head is supposed to be tilted.  So if you tilt your head to the left just a little, she's not quite as wonky looking...still a little wonky, but much less Quasimodo than she seems to be at first glance...see:

Not quite so deformed now, am I?

Also, as a personal pat on the back to myself, I would just like to say HOORAY for the nose on this girl. I think I made her look like somebody punched her in the face or something...that was an accident...I just wanted to try to use some different colors for the shadows...I think it works on the forehead area, but her eyes look a little bruised... So, as a whole, she's just ok, but I am super mega ultra happy with that nose.

Nasal perfection.

So anyway, back to the dreaded list... 

 Here's what I think makes me the person I am:

General hilarity (obviously... haha)

Gappy Teeth (one day I'll have to post a picture of them, but trust me, once you see them, you'll never be able to think of me without thinking of my glorious gappy teeth)

Insightful

Artist 

Randomness

Going Off On Tangents

Look For Motives

Practical Dreamer (that counts as one thing)

Questioner

Aware

Flux (The only thing that never changes is the fact that everything changes.)

Constant Learner

Music Connoisseur

Literary Genius (hahaha...that's in my dream world, but it still counts!)

Deep Digger (I like to know what's beyond the surface of things...)

Firm Believer in Practice (it doesn't make perfect, but it makes us better than we were before)

Awkward Segways (Not the scooter thingies...I mean the transition between topics thing...)

Foreteller of Trends (I swear this one is true...if I start liking something today, a few months from now, you will start seeing it EVERYWHERE...I need to figure out how to make money from this fact...)

Wordy (I know, you have a hard time believing this one...*eye roll*)

Understanding

Things that make me the person that I am...

One thing that really stood out to me as I was reading over my list of me things was how I don't think that I included any negative things.  This is a HUGE difference from the what I would have thought of myself in the past.  I know I'm not perfect, but I can actually see the good stuff in me now.  I've come a long way, baby!  

"I know who you are."

I just wanted to point out some art related coolness going on in this spread.  I've been cutting my own stencils out of Fun Foam.  I'm so excited by this technique it's not even funny!  In the picture above, the green square in the background are from a foam stencil I cut myself.  The blue squares are from stamping with the fat end of a makeup wedge and the pink lines are from the thin edge of the same wedge!  I also cut my signature Red Clover design from some foam; you can see it stenciled in white in the picture...it's BIG ..I love it!

Do we share any similar qualities?

The blue rectangles on this page are also a stencil I cut...it was supposed to be a brick pattern...I think I am going to make another one with thinner 'grout' lines...but I do like this one too...not what I intended it to be, but a happy accident nevertheless...  

The foam stencil cutting is making it's way toward becoming a little side obsession of mine...

What about you?  What are some of the things that make you YOU?  Do we share any qualities?  Or are we different (and complimentary) as night and day?  Do you have any new artistic obsessions of late?

Ten

For more info, click Here

Today's KIOS prompt is 

Tell Us 10 Things About You.

So, here we go...

I love words.  I don't read as much as I used to, but reading and writing were my first loves.  I even have a poetry blog, which I haven't updated in a LONG time.  (I'm a binge poet...nothing, nothing, nothing and then a solid month of writing.)  I used to write poetry to work through emotional stuff, but I think my art journals are filling that void now.  Like I said, I haven't put up anything new for a while, but you can, if you are so inclined, read my poetry HERE.  ...some of them are not too shabby!  

I have a ridiculous fear of space aliens.  The worst part is that I don't even think they're real.  But I am freaked out by them to an insane degree.  I'm not scared of snakes, spiders, axe murderers...you know, things that exist in reality and could, in theory, actually hurt/kill me...but show me a picture of a little green man and I am so unnerved about the whole thing that I will make the dog follow me around the house for a week straight (for protection purposes...).  I understand that this is a completely irrational fear, but I am nevertheless getting the heebie jeebies just talking about them.

I've talked a lot about my love for and collection of random weird things, but I also have a deep love of plates and dishes and the like.  I think I inherited this love from my grandma, who had a huge amount of mismatched dishes in her cabinets.  When I find a cool plate, I HAVE to buy it!  None of my dishes match, and I hope they never do!

Semi-related to number 3, one of my most prized possessions is an old green crock pot that was my mom's... (she might want to have it back, but it ain't gonna happen!)  It's been used to hold wood spoons and spatulas and whisks since before I was born, and that's the place of honor it holds in my house as well.  If my house ever catches fire, that crock pot would be what I grabbed on my way out the door.

My family moved a lot when I was growing up.  If need be (and you could entertain my husband for while I was doing it...he'd just get in the way), I could have my entire house full of stuff packed up and be on the road in one day.  I used to take pride in the fact that everything I owned except my bed could fit into three Rubbermaid totes.  Since I've gotten married, that's no longer true (because my husband is the king of all hoarders...and to a lesser extent because I have discovered art supplies...), but I could still pack up and leave in 24 hours or less.

I haven't bought clothes in about three years.  And if we're talking major clothing purchases, we could add at least another three years to that.  I hate going shopping (for anything except art supplies) and I always feel like buying clothes is wasting money.  Although I'm going to have to cave in and do it soon...I'm more than a little threadbare, and no one wants me to become a nudist.  They'd frown on that at work for sure.

I have two tattoos, a turtle on my back and rats around my ankle.  The turtle is for my mom (that's what she's called me ever since I was a little kid) and the rats are for my husband (Rat was his nickname when I met him...although I never called him that...I call him, among other things, Stink Face.  It is a term of endearment in my house.)  People always think the rats are some variation of Dead Head Bears, maybe because they are each a different color...but that is in no way true.  I just wanted a bunch of bright colors.  Also in relation to tattoos, I would get more of them if it weren't for my husband, who says two is more than enough.  (But I bet I end up with at least one more...eventually.)

I hate sauerkraut.  I don't even want to be near it, that's how much I hate it.  If I can smell it or if a piece gets on my skin (the rest of my family loves it and I would have to wash dishes sometimes when they made it...ugh...), I start dry heaving.  I hate it so much that if I was starving and it came down to eating sauerkraut or maggots, I would eat the maggots.  I'm not joking.  I wouldn't even have to think twice.  

I don't like/know how to respond when people compliment me about my looks, specifically in person.  Honestly, I find myself waiting for the punch line when someone compliments me.  And it makes me feel super awkward.  You'd think it would be easy to just accept a compliment with a 'Thank you!' and be on my way...but it's not for me.  I don't think I'm a hideous beast monster or anything, but I'm also realistic about my looks...and I'd much rather be complimented about something I have control over, like the fact that I am hilarious or smart or kind or that my shirt is cool.  Aside from making sure there's no food smeared on my face and no boogers are hanging out of my nose, I have very little control over my face...so when someone compliments me, I just pretend they're saying "Good job at showering today."  ...because I can totally say thank you to that...

You probably know this one by now, but I love art.  I love my art journals.  I cherish my art supplies.  I honestly think that art has, in some ways, saved my life.  

I don't show my emotions.  For a long time, I was convinced I didn't even have them.  If you've ever known someone who is bipolar, you know that their mood will swing from one extreme to another.  I used to be like that, except for I was always on the upswing...always happy...to a disturbing degree.  You'd think that it's a good thing to always be happy, but there are times in life that you should feel sadness or anger or love even.  I didn't.  I understood those things in theory, but didn't feel them myself.  

One day, I met a man who made me feel love very strongly...something that I had not felt before...instead of just feigning it, I actually felt it.  Not going into too much detail, I got to have him in my life for several years, and then he killed himself.  When that happened, I was crushed.  That's a normal reaction.  But for me, because I didn't have experience dealing with sadness, it was more than even being crushed.  The only thing that I can try to compare it to is a roller coaster with a very large drop.  One minute you're at the peak, and the next minute you are hurtling downward so fast and then you get to a point where you level out and the ride's over.  But in my case, I couldn't stop the going downhill part...I crashed right through the ground and kept going down, down, down.  When he died, it was like everything that had ever happened to me in my life, all the things that I never felt emotion about before, suddenly filled my brain.  I don't think that the people around me knew the extent of what was happening.  They knew it was bad of course, but not how bad it really was.  

I had so much going on internally that I didn't know how to cope with.  Things would circle around and around in my head and I didn't know how to make them stop.  Looking back, I was probably on the road to going crazy...and not the fun kind of crazy.  I couldn't separate the death of my friend, which was bad enough on it's own, from childhood abuse, or from arguments that had happened years before, or from feelings of rejection and worthlessness, or even from happy things like love and other good things that I never fully understood.  I was a mess, and I felt like I couldn't even let myself show it to anyone, let alone ask for help.

And that's when I discovered art...or art as it applied to me.  

And, slowly, I learned that I could put each thought in my head onto paper, and it actually let my brain have some peace.  I could look at each thing individually and analyze it, understand it, work through it.  Art let me breathe again.

And so my art might not be the most beautiful or the most impressive or the most technically correct out there...but it's important to me.  

In the beginning, it was a way to have a space to work things out.  It still is.  But I also found out along the way that art is fun.  I got better at making 'pretty' things too...cause trust me, there were a whole lot of extremely ugly pages that happened (there still are sometimes!)  I practice every day, both at making better art, and at dealing with emotions in a healthy, (my version of) normal way.

So when you look at the bunny below, know that he is just a meaningless bunny...

...but that he's also the product of a lot of personal growth and a sign of better mental health...he's a bit of a celebration rabbit, I suppose, and a bit of a life saver.

Recovering Girl

Oh, my darling peoples, I don't know what I'd do without you.  Your kind words never fail to make me feel better.  I love you all for taking the time to leave comments, most especially when I'm feeling tender (like I have been lately).  Your good words are helping me get through my rough patches and I wish I could express just how much that means to me...much more than even a blabber mouth like me can say.

To be truthful, I'm still feeling tender.  Someone at work today asked if I was feeling ok because I was so pale.  I love my emotions (at last), but they seem to be taking a toll on me.  I am really looking forward to Thanksgiving because I'll get a four-day weekend...I'm so, so ready for a four-day weekend.  I plan to sleep...and possibly make homemade sugar cookies with colorful icing...and then eat all of said sugar cookies by myself...but I'm also lazy, so maybe just the sleep part will prevail.  Sleep and art...yeah, that sounds like a winner...

I made another page in my Gregg journal.  At first I thought it was another depressing one...but I was staring at it for a while this morning and decided that it's actually more encouraging than I first gave it credit for:

She's more than just an injured girl.

I realized that there are a lot of things in this spread that look hopeful to me...subconscious hope is happening.  I realized that I painted the background green...green is my favorite color...I wouldn't put so much blatant green into something sad, because green is a happy color for me.  Then the flowers...stylized flowers in full bloom...another happy thing for me.  And even though the poor girl has some kind of brain injury, it's being treated.  She doesn't have some horrible, gaping wound (I don't know that I could draw a horrible, gaping wound...even if I wanted to...), she's starting to heal.

Looking at this recovering girl, I started thinking about all the things in my life I'm happy about.  I blame Deborah Weber for making me remember to be glad about good things...she's spending the month doing an abecedarium (which is a big word for an alphabetical list...I love big words...) on different aspects of gratitude.  You can read her blog HERE.  

While I mentally fight with myself about using the word "gratitude" (it's a long story), I have no qualms about taking the time to think about things in my life that I feel happy to experience.  Since I've felt so negative lately, I thought maybe it would be good to share a few of the positives too...gotta make sure to keep the balance, right?

Today's happy thoughts:

• Sugar cookies with colorful icing...ok, delicious cookies in general...
• which leads me to delicious food in general...Sunday, my husband and I made Oven Stew...I'm glad about Oven Stew...I'd be even more glad if there had been left-overs...but I digress...
• Big, fancy words...
• I'm glad to have art and other creative things in my life...that's an every single day glad thing for me.
• I'm happy to have met wonderful and supportive people who share my love of creative things.
• I'm glad to have the internet...which is really a creative tool for me...it gives me inspiration from others, lets me find out how to do things (tutorials/patterns), lets me veg out when I need to...let's me share my art and my words with people who care about the same things...people who make me feel special...I really love the internet...
• I'm glad to have four-day weekends...especially now that I have a job that actually pays me for them!
• I'm really happy that some stranger left a really great dog at my house for no reason...Fusco (or as he is affectionately known now Fuss-butt) is too awesome...I'll never understand why they left him, but I'll always be happy that they did.
• I'm happy about milk.  I don't know what it is with me recently, but I've been drinking milk like nobody's business.  I swear I could drink my weight in milk every day if I didn't restrain myself...right now I'm going through a gallon every two-three days.  I don't know why I want it so bad, but egads, am I happy about milk right now.
• I'm happy I've felt truly loved by good people, in the past and currently.
• I'm happy about music...that's another every day happy thing...
• I'm glad I've got my brain...it's weird and random, completely fun and completely terrifying...(occasionally those two things at the same time!)...I like that I don't always think how other people think.

That's not the whole list, but it's a good start for sure...I guess another thing I should add to the list is that I'm happy I have so many things to be genuinely happy about....yes, I really am GENUINELY happy about milk right now!  Despite the fact that I'm tender and sad and angry, I can still see so many positives.  It's not all doom and gloom.  Sure there's some mushy stuff rolling around in my brain, but it's got a lot of competition from bright, shiny, fantastic things, little things and big things too.  

What about you?  What are you happy to have in your life today?

Playing with dolls and ICAD 8, 9, and 10

One of the groups I'm in on Facebook is having a swap using a template from Stampington.com.  You can find the template HERE, or go to Stampington's site, which has a bunch of other templates, tutorials and free projects to try...I'm definitely going to be visiting that site again soon!

So anyway, here's what I made with the template:

I used modeling paste for the hair, so it has some texture even though you can't see it.  The arm is articulated, thanks to the little paper fastener thingie.  The wing is Angelina film, which is iridescent, (although it doesn't come through well in the photo) and stamped with Stazon.  And paint (acrylic and watercolor), pen, scrapbook paper, and lace are the other ingredients.

I get to swap with my most favoritest Boo in the whole wide world!  I hope she likes it!

And then here's my ICAD's for the past couple days, all on 3x5 cards: 

June 8, the prompt was "city or map", and I did this with an XS Pitt Pen.  The line is from the Johnny Cash song "The Ballad of Barbara" below.

June 9, the prompt was "sun".  This is water soluble crayolas, gelatos, and watercolor.

And today, June 10, the prompt was "list of favorites".  I'm not a list person, so I just had to wing it.  The list is 'favorites today'.  And it says:

1. This French Violet color paint (it's Valspar and the picture doesn't do it justice...the color is a really beautiful purply grey, and I like it quite a bit...my mom gave me the paint)
2. Art jounaling...yeah, that's an every single day favorite, duh!  I haven't had much time in my art journals for the past few days and I am detoxing or something!  I hope I can get some time with them after work tonight!
3. White space in journals...I do love the amazing layered backgrounds that are popular right now, but there's something about white space in journals that just does it for me!
4. My new haircut...yeah, I said goodbye to a good 4-5 inches, and it feels SO much better...I swear to goodness, I could shave my head bald and I'd be so happy about it.  But sadly, I have a bulbous head and bald is just not going to be a good look for me...so I settled for shorter than it was...
5. Summer storms...the kind that leave it cooler than it was before the storm started anyway...I don't want any of that humidity crap afterwards!  
6. Reusing file folders...I did the art doll above on a manilla file folder, and I have about 10,000 more file folders.  I am happy to be able to put them to use, even if it's just one at a time!
7. Line drawings...  I love simple line drawings, even though I am always adding in detail on my own things.  A well done line drawing is HARD to do, (at least to me) but gorgeous!
8. Chocolate milk...seriously, I could drink a bathtub full of chocolate milk and still not be sick of it...I have a problem...
9. buckeye brownie cake!!!  I stopped at a diner yesterday because I just wanted to get out of the house and got a philly cheese steak and a piece of this cake...  Oh.My.Goodness.  I am not even a cake person, and this stuff made rainbows shoot out of my mouth!  It was SO delicious!
10. Sad songs...I am currently listening to Trio, which is Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, and Linda Rondstadt.  I love the songs on this album (and Trio 2, also gorgeous)...it was one of the first CDs I ever bought, and I wore it out.  Now I'm listening to it on Spotify, contemplating a quick Amazon purchace...