Today, I've got my spread for the DOCUMENTED LIFE art challenge of Acrylic Paint and the prompt of Cry Me A River. Here's what I made:
"Let the waters rise and hide the tears I've cried for that bad man."
The words on the page are from this song (except I changed it from 'woman' to 'bad man') by Justin Townes Earl, "Let The Waters Rise" :
I just love him...he can do no wrong in my eyes!
I used acrylics on the sweeping/ombre brush stoke bits and the tags, but watercolor for the eye and the leaky tears.
I am kinda excited about the eye because, while it's pretty simple, I think I got it to look a little more 3D than I usually do...so YAY! I love it when I notice that my hard work has started to pay off!
Along those lines...the 'hard work paying off' lines, I mean...I want to invite you over to check out my new blog endeavor, NOSTALGIC CAKE. Before you freak out and start to panic, I'm still going to keep up with this blog (at least as well as I have been lately...which is not very unfortunately..I've been caught up in a little side project that I'm not quite ready to share just yet).
So, why start a new blog then?
As you may know, I've had a big life change recently. When that happened, basically all my stuff minus art supplies, clothes, and a few childhood memorabilia-type things stayed at the house while I...evacuated it. It's worked out fine thus far, because I'm staying with my mom for the time being and she lets me use her stuff...horay! But in a relatively short amount of time (6-10 months...ish), I'm going to have to find my own place to live.
You may have heard me mentioning *read complaining* about the fact that I am really having a hard time with this transition period I'm in. I've been feeling uncomfortably unsettled and disordered...and I realized that I should be able to do something about it...and then I realized...of course I can do something about it.
A while back on this blog, I mentioned how I had bought three pieces of furniture (and my mom was going to refurbish them for me, so they were at her house and I actually have a desk and two dressers in addition to my clothes and art stuff). I really love these pieces! I mentioned that, one day, I'd like to have a home where no matter where I looked, my eyes would land on something that brought me that same kind of joy. I want my house to declare who I am as a person...and I've realized that, even though I may not have the actual house yet, I can slowly start gathering the objects to fill it...and not just to fill it, but to make it into the place I dream about.
And so Nostalgic Cake was born...a place where I could keep tabs on my slowly growing inventory of joyfulness, and, of course, share it with the amazing friends who have been rooting for me all along!
Today I've got a spread for my DOCUMENTED LIFE journal. The art challenge was watercolors and the prompt was "It's water under the bridge."
Here's what I made:
"All your dreams are on their way...
...see how they shine?"
The words are from the song "Bridge Over Troubled Water", and here's my favorite version, sung by Johnny Cash and Fiona Apple:
I love how this painting came out...not perfect...but still right.
I've been noticing that I add black outlines to a lot of my work, especially watercolors...I think of that as an illustrative style...many people do it...and I love how it looks!
But I've been noticing, especially recently, in old children's books, images like this:
I feel like this picture asks a lot of questions...why are the pigs wet? Why are they sitting on top of that wood crate? Who leaves a wood crate that close to a lake...that can't be good for the boards... Why does the fish care...smug little jerk? How did he manage to catch two pigs in the same net? How does he plan to carry them home...look at his muscles...those pigs are almost as big as him...he better have leashes... Why is his mustache growing upside down? (I actually think that might be an open mouth, not an upside down mustache, but once you see it, you can't un-see it..)
No black outlines...I've noticed this style before, but it wasn't until recently that I thought of it in relation to my art. And I thought...HOW DO THEY BLOODY DO THAT?
So this spread was my first attempt at making this non-outlined style of art...and my thoughts on this afterward are that either a) I need WAY much more patience in order to create those crisp lines without using black pen or b) there's some kind of special secret technique that makes this style a million times easier once you know it...
But, despite all that, I still like my painting... I think that the imprecise edges in has make it look hazy and ethereal...like in a dream...which is (after I realized I couldn't get the crisp lines!) the effect I was going for. :)
So, my b-day was a couple weeks ago (May 19 to be exact), and I got some awesome things from two of my beautiful friends:
First, from Boo, an awesome doodled cake card:
I love this! I will always remember how Boo once told me she couldn't draw and how ever since then, she's been proving herself wrong! :) I love it, Boo!
And then from my Pamikins, I got this assortment of goodies:
I can't wait to use all these goodies!
And a close-up:
These are Wallpaper samples! I love that textured gold one all the way to the right...it's my favorite one (although the rose one she used to make the card with is right up there too!)...I can't wait to make something special with it!
Thank you ladies for remembering me! I love you both! <3<3<3
And lastly, I've got a picture of Frida...because I get fussed at if I don't! :)
Ain't she cute?!?
This is what Frida does when I go outside to smoke...sits and stares at me...I think my mom probably trained her to do this in order to add one more person to the list of guilt trippers nagging me to stop...
Then again, she does the same thing when I go to the bathroom (sits outside the door and waits for me), and no matter how much I get nagged about that, it's not gonna stop! (Haha!)
She does the same thing when I go to work in the morning as in the picture above...sits by the door and stares at me till I'm gone...like a little kid watching their parent leave for work. Don't leave, Mom! She doesn't sit there all day, but the fact that she waits till I start pulling down the road before she goes on about her business is more than a little heart melting...
I am always a little uncomfortable with her displays of unconditional love, loyalty, and devotion...I don't quite know what to do with it and always feel more than a little unworthy of it! And yet, despite that, she persists in her determined, sometimes belligerent, ways of showing me affection. To the point where I've often wished that humans could see each other with dog eyes because I know it would end all the bad stuff that goes on in the world. But, for now I will have to settle for Frida...always staring up at me with her loving goo goo eyes, loyal to me for reasons I can't understand.
For me, what this prompt brought into focus was the thought to guard my heart. I've worked really hard to let myself be open and vulnerable, but there comes a point when one might go too far. Too much of a good thing and all that. I've realized I need to put a few walls back up. It's important when one follows one's heart to take your brain as well.
Love those triangles.
Sometimes people are just not what you need them to be...they're just not good people when it comes to you. They take advantage of kindness...they use you...
"Suddenly...it hit me." My custom element for this spread are sticky labels that I've used to wipe my left-over paints on since I've been here at moms...they are pretty nifty and an easy way to get some color on the page.
It suddenly hit me that being my friend is a privilege, not a right. I don't have to stand for someone taking advantage of me or doing me wrong...I don't have to deal with that crap!
This spread for JOURNAL 52 sums it up nicely, I think:
"You rule your own life."
You rule your own life. I rule mine. You rule yours. What an epiphany!
This was for the 'Cards' prompt, and I used a queen card as the base for this...the queen of hearts actually...hence the no arms. But Queenie McArmless here reminds me that I have power over my heart and my life...I'm not lost to the whims of either.
It's up to each of us individually to decide what we are willing to deal with and what we are not...what we find acceptable and what we take exception to. I don't get to tell you. You don't get to tell me. ...I mean, you can try, but I'll stick my fingers in my ears and start humming and ignore you, so there! :)
Sometimes I am both amazed and frustrated by how long it takes me to really 'get' things.
I mean, I would never think of telling another person how they should live their life...and yet, it's taken me all this time to realize that they shouldn't be doing it to me either. I would never intentionally take advantage of another person, and yet, it's only now that I see it's not fair for someone to do it to me...
At least I've finally learned it I suppose...I just hope that, if there are any more blazing epiphanies to be had, I'll be a quicker study in the future.
"I choose the rooms that I live in with care."
-Leonard Cohen
I got the lyrics on the page from a song by Leonard Cohen called "Tonight Will Be Fine". Here's a hauntingly beautiful version by Teddy Thompson:
Sigh. Glorious.
This is my perfect place.
So last post, I mentioned about the fact that I've been thinking of having my own space for a while...well, the house in the spread above is my perfect place...PERFECT!
You see, ever since my sister bought her house in Bristol (Tennessee...not the England-y one) several years ago, I have noticed this same glorious house every time I drive past it...and now that I live in Bristol, I find I drive past it quite a lot. You can see the house HERE. So not only is this my favorite house ever, which I love more than I can say for reasons I can't even name, this awesome house is for sale. For sale for a price that is...not realistic for me in this lifetime...
But when I tell you that this house is my soul mate, you must believe it...it is my PERFECT house. Normally, I wouldn't be attracted to something so permanent...despite the fact that a house was bought while I was married. I didn't want that house...or any house...
But this glorious house is different. It calls my name. I can see myself living in that house with Frida and going about my daily life with glee... Having a huge studio on the top floor, having guest rooms galore, being able to take Frida down those front steps directly to a sidewalk for a quite neighborhood walk...a nice little fenced in back yard and even a separately fenced formal garden on one side of the house. ...Old fashioned plants everywhere (at one point this place had well manicured landscaping, but now it's grown up a little) that are calling out to me to tend them... *insert frantic and disappointed sobs here*
I have tried convincing myself to let it go...saying all the negatives and how unrealistic it is that I should ever get to live in that house...no money, too much space for just one person (and one dog), who's going to clean it, too far from work, do you want to have to shovel that driveway/salt those steps, etc...
I felt very clever in how I made my border...hehe! That clever feeling is a rarity and I'm enjoying it!
You see that cool girl with the snazzy hair and shades, rocking her fancy dress and sweet tea while she waters unseen flowers? Oh yeah, that's me...
"For once in your life, dream big."
All my life, I've been a realist...feet planted to the ground...ambition was not in my vocabulary...why dream about something that will never happen...pessimistic.
But, you know what, that's boring.
What does it hurt if I have my big dream? What's wrong with having a crazy goal that you'll probably never achieve? Who's gonna tell me I can't think about what I want?
I've never been an ambitious person, because I was always taught that ambition was not for me...I had other things to worry about...it was enough to have the bare minimum in life and be grateful for it.
But nobody gets to tell me that anymore.
I can save money. I can have as much space as I want; it's not too much! I'll clean it and keep it clean. I've driven farther for work before. I'll shovel the driveway and salt the steps the few times it snows. I don't need to worry. I'd be fine.
So if I want to dream of my perfect house and slowly, slowly, slowly work towards it, I will.
In fact, I'm going to go do some dreaming right now...
Today I've got my spread for the DOCUMENTED LIFE prompt from February 14 to share with you. The theme for February was "Layers You Will Love", the art challenge was "Cover Up Good Stuff", and the journal prompt was "Going Undercover".
Here's what I made:
"The hardest thing you will ever have to do is to let yourself feel alive."
I got the words for today's spread from this song "Time to Leave" by Melissa Ferrick:
I used lyrics from this song in another spread recently, but these ones are so good, I figured it'd be alright...
Do you see the theme in the images?
When I thought about the prompt "Going Undercover", images of people shrinking back into themselves came to mind...of people hiding...all kinds of negative connotations.
For me, this spread is about the things that hold us back from being "alive"...from being our true selves.
On the left hand page, there's the girl who's constantly looking to someone else for the answers. Then there's the girl who's always looking back on the past with regret (although I do love that artwork, she looks so melancholy). And at the bottom, the girl who's always longing for what she can't have (Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth...one of my absolute favorite pieces ever). On the right page, there's the girl who's constantly finding something else to do so that she can ignore what needs to be done. And then the little girl hiding herself away because she's afraid. And lastly, there's the girl in the swing...she's got it all figured out: to be exactly who and what she wants to be.
I think sometimes we (or I) make things harder than they have to be...we over-complicate what should be simple. Like the song alludes to, it takes time and making up our own mind to see things clearly.
It's not easy...it should be, but it's not.
For me, I think that's why it takes us being...not brave (or not only brave)...but fed up...to be so sick of something that it's literally a knee-jerk reaction to have to make it change. And then the challenge is to not let those nagging doubts or bad habits creep back in and push us back into our little holes.
We only get one go round in this life...I don't want to spend any more time shrinking back or covering up. I am working on being the girl on the swing, boldly being whatever it comes to my mind to be.
I thought you might like to see a process post today...it's kinda been a while since I've done one.
This spread is for my Documented Life journal for the Art Challenge "When Not To Stop" and the prompt "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough! (Ooh)" and is the first in the February (yep, that far behind!) theme of "Layers You Will Love"
I have to admit that layering does not come very naturally to me...it tends to require drying time...and that, in turn, requires patience...which is not my forte...
I think that's why I always turn to a MINDY LACEFIELD inspired girl when I am prompted to do layers. She talks about how her art is inspired by child-like freedom...doing what feels right, even though it may be technically 'wrong' artistically...like not waiting for that first layer to dry before you add more...that's right up my alley! And here's what happened:
I started out with Aquamarkers on an un-gessoed page...added a crap ton of water to try to get them to blend...which didn't really happen, as you can see...FINE THEN, BE THAT WAY!
Instead of waiting for it to dry, I started spreading on some acrylic paint with a pallet knife over the sopping wet Aquamarker.
It looked a little flat, so I decided to add more paint, still with the pallet knife, but this time with the sharp edge instead of the broad, spreading way I had done previously...much better now, I think...more interesting to look at...more energetic...
Next, I challenged myself to paint the girl solely with my fingers. I started out with the basic shape of the girl in a neutral color.
I started defining areas of her face and body with a few more layers of paint...
I kept having issues with her nose shape and there are several boring pictures I left out that were just me getting aggravated at noses in general....
I finally picked one and went with it...more colors, shading and highlights at this point...
I evened her out and gave her some pearls...blue pearls because she has that slightly sad introspective annoyed look on her face...
"I have a very strong feeling that the opposite of love is not hate - it's apathy. It's not giving a damn." -Lou Buscaglia
Sometimes I have a quote in mind before I start. Other times, like for this spread, one will present itself after the fact...the art will tell me what it is my heart's brain was trying to say and I can find the just-right quote pretty easily.
I hope you liked the step-by-step today...my mom says this girl is kinda scary looking, but she does have some harsh things to say, so she couldn't be all cutesy-froo-froo...she's lived a hard life this gal...she's jaded and bitter... But admitting there's a problem is the first step towards solving it, and this little lady knows something's not quite right...
And now, for my sweet friend Twinkletoes, here's a couple pictures of Frida:
I caught her on my bed...she's never been on it before, and she doesn't know if she's allowed...she is literally not moving anything except her eyes (waiting to see if I'm going to fuss at her!)...for so long I decided to grab my camera and snap a picture...
Once I snapped the first pic, I started laughing at just how long she had stayed so still...and that's when I got this picture...it's the "Yay! She laughed, I'm not in trouble!" picture.... I just had her to the vet the other weekend, and she'd gained 12 pounds in a month! She was a fluffy 41 pounds (at 4 months old). She's such a gentle giant though...her brother, which is my sister's dog, is 54 pounds at the same age...and a maniac in my opinion... I'll have to try to get some pics from where I take Frida walking at, Steele Creek Park...it's really pretty and serene and there's a lake and all...it's awesome!
And, on that note, I'm off to get ready for work...in a super speedy way because I've only got about 10 minutes before I have to go...five minute shower for me today! But I got the important things done, and that's what counts, right? :)
I'm slowly but surely working my way through all the prompts I've missed during the craziness so far this year... I'm trying, you know...I'm trying.
The first thing I've got to show you today is for week 6 (back in February) of JOURNAL 52, the prompt being "Windows":
"Losing love is like a window in your heart, everybody sees you're blown apart."
-Paul Simon
It's from the fantastic song "Graceland" by Paul Simon:
That song has some great lyrics, and I'll probably return to grab more of them in the future...
Then there's the DOCUMENED LIFE prompt (from the last week of January) "What Lies Beneath?", with the art challenge of "Under Paper" and here's what I ended up with:
"Flowers grow in all kinds of dirt."
Not one of my favorite pieces (me and painting flowers just don't get along for some reason!), but the sentiment's true!
And finally, there's week 7 of JOURNAL 52, which had the prompt of "Valentines" and here's what I made:
"I'm amorous but out of reach."
I'm not sure about this one...it actually looks much better in person, the lines aren't so noticeable and the colors are a little different looking as well...but on camera...well, it looks like this...meh...I don't know...
I got the line from this song, "Valentine" by Fiona Apple:
And used this painting by Raphaelle Peale as an inspiration:
"Still Life With Peach"
And that's a couple more towards catching up!
I've actually got more to share with you, it's just a matter of getting the blog posts typed up...which is time consuming if I write in my usual way...hence the super condensed version today. But next time, I've got one with pictures that show the progress of the page, and coming up really soon, I'll share a piece that I am super proud of! So just bear with me...I'm still trying to get the new balance of life down and I'm just not there yet. But soon, I think...I know I've got a lot of lovely people rooting for me. <3
I've been adjusting (more on that later) and I actually managed to do a couple of art journal pages, so I thought I'd share them with you...as proof that I'm not dead and all that...
The first page is for JOURNAL 52...week 5...the television prompt, posted way back in January...yes, I am that behind...shame of shames!
"You spent half your life trying to turn the other half around." -Kathleen Edwards
What does that page have to do with TV you ask? The words are from this song by Kathleen Edwards, called "Six O'Clock News":
I am not a TV watcher by nature...even when I do, I've got to do something else while I watch...and I wasn't really feeling the TV prompt...until I remembered that song and the line "You spent half your life trying to turn the other half around." Which I really like and had more to do with where I'm at right now than any other TV related thing, so I just went with it.
And then there's the DOCUMENTED LIFE spread...also from way back in January...I feel so behind! (Probably because I AM THAT BEHIND!) The Art Challenge for this spread was "writing" and the Journal Prompt was "words with friends" and here's what I came up with:
You can't see it very much, but I used writing as my beginning layer...it only shows through in a few places.
I got the words on this page from this song, "Time to Leave" by Melissa Ferrick:
And I think they are some wise words indeed:
"You can't fix anyone else, babe."
"Being a friend means knowing when it's time to leave"
Aside from getting a little art journaling in, KAT MCNALLY'S APRIL MOON (still time to join!) has started, and I've been pondering the prompts in my head...she's got such a knack for helping you get to the meat of things, instead of just fluttering on the surface...she just asks the right questions, I guess.
Kat's Reverb14 prompts last year had a very profound affect on me. In fact, they are part of the answer to the first April Moon prompt:
"That's when I knew that this chapter of my life had ended. And now I was free to..."
The thought of leaving my husband is something that had occurred to me many times...but there was always a reason not to...me talking myself out of it with one thing or another. Because it's wasn't something to do lightly. So I stayed and things just kept piling up and piling up and I stayed and things piled. And for years of my life, I waited and hoped things would change. But they didn't change. And so I decided that maybe if I changed, then it would be an inspiration to others and then they would change too. But that's not what happened.
There was a point last year, during Reverb14, where I was sitting there typing my answer to one of the prompts and I thought to myself 'I don't want to live this life'. I was so, so tired of trying and trying and having nothing to show for it. I'd worked hard to make things better...but I was the only one who was changing...everything around me stayed very much the same...despite my needing it to be otherwise...despite my pleas for something/anything to be different.
And something in me just snapped...I knew that nothing was ever going to change. I knew that I was always going to live this same sad existence every day and have that for my life. And I knew that I did not want to live that life forever. There had been so much opportunity for things to have ended differently between my husband (Andy) and myself, but Andy was comfortable with the way things were...he didn't want anything to be different, and he didn't seem to care very much about what I wanted. This is not different from the entirety of my marriage...the difference is that I was not ok with it anymore, and I was not willing to keep trying. He made his choice, and I'm not mad about it...I just wasn't going to let him make my choices anymore. I needed things to be different and I wasn't going to be the only one compromising any more. One person can't hold up the world.
And so I left, and I've been staying with my mom since January. And in some ways, I feel in transition still...not settled...because this is not the end of the line for me...I will get my own place eventually and have my own space and take care of myself completely by myself...and so as I sit here and type away on mom's computer, in mom's house, I feel like a bit of a transient.
But the thing is, I know now that I am free to do things differently. That I won't always have this feeling of unrest...that I will find a place to put down roots. I don't have to do the same things I've always done. I can make another choice. I can forge my own path. And I'm working on it.
And that leads me to the second prompt for April Moon:
"Knowing what I know now, I would tell my ten-years-ago self:"
Not to damn wait.
Ten years ago, I was a year and a half into my marriage, and had pretty well already started to have doubts about it. Instead of listening to my gut, I listened to other people. People, who despite having the best of intentions, didn't really have the right to decide what I should do. I chose to listen to them, and I lost a lot of time and opportunities.
I would tell my former self to get it together...pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get to it. Nobody in life is going to hand you what you want, and you don't get anything by sitting there wishing for it. If you want it, go work for it. Don't let anybody tell you who you are and don't let anybody guilt you into being something that you don't want to be.
I'd tell her the same thing I am telling myself today: Figure out what it is that you want and go get it. Knuckle down, quit your whining and make things happen. You don't get to blame anyone else ever again. Whatever you end up with, good or bad, is because of your actions or lack of them, so whatever choice you make, you better be ready to make it work.
And on that forceful note, I'm done for today...
I'll leave you with some cuteness...Frida the adorable (and growing like a weed) puppy dog:
Had to trick her with treats next to the camera so as to get her to stay still...
...the paw on the leg is the last ditch effort at patience...half a second after I snapped this pic, she jumped up, head-butted me and stole the treat...
This week's DOCUMENTED LIFE art challenge was The Color Wheel and the prompt was this quote from Georgia O'Keefe: "I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way..."
Let me just tell you, me and this spread fought really hard with each other, and either the spread won or it was a draw.... I just couldn't get inspired! Don't get me wrong, I think the prompt and art challenge were GREAT...but for some reason, no matter how hard I racked my brain, I wasn't getting it!
I ended up putting color on the page, thinking something would come to me once I did that:
I did actually really like the left page...the cool colors were really neat...but that left page...ugh...it just wasn't sitting right with me...
NOPE! Still nothing...
Finally, I just scrolled around on an O'Keefe Pinterest search and found another quote of hers that I really liked:
"I have already settled it for myself, so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free." -Georgia O'Keefe
I just thought this quote was a good reminder to be true to your own vision...whether in art or in life.
I suppose it might be odd to some, especially because we all love to be praised for a job well done, but I really agree with the idea of not letting ourselves be affected by flattery in the same way that we wouldn't want to be too affected by criticism. Just like everything else in life, I think it's wise to take praise in moderation.
I'm not saying it's a bad thing to be taken note of when we deserve it...it thrills me to the core when that happens to me!
Praise is kind of like a drug though...the more you get, the more you want...and that can lead to a problem because you can find yourself doing things you don't actually want to do or that you don't enjoy doing just for the pat on the back you'll get.
It's why I love O'Keefe's quote so much...the idea of 'settling it for yourself' so that YOU are pleased and free to do what YOU like and enjoy...that appeals to me so much! What an excellent way to be able to live happily.
I love my dogs very much, but I'm not like them...I don't need that pat on the back to know I did right.
So THAT'S WHY I didn't like you right page...
In the end, after looking at this spread for a good while, I finally realized what it was that kept throwing me off.
I should have flip flopped the colors on the right page...so the yellow and orange would be to the far right and the pink and red towards the middle...then it would have a pattern that progressed from the darkest to the lightest colors and my brain would have been much happier! It would have been like the colors were leading you to the next page!
Of course, I see that the way I did it now is also a pattern, with the darker colors on the outside and the lighter ones within, but I know I would have liked it better the other way...so that's why this is my OK O'Keefe spread and not my fantastic O'Keefe spread. (On the positive side, OK O'Keefe is sort of word play, and I do enjoy that!)
Oh well, you live and you learn, right?
Luckily for me, there's always more paper and more opportunities to settle things for myself!
For DOCUMENTED LIFE this week, the art challenge was Gesso, and the prompt was: "The beginning is always today." -Mary Shelley
In keeping with my inadvertent wild kingdom theme, here's what I made:
A not-to-slimy snail!
I really liked that Mary Shelley quote, and I'll probably use the actual quote on some other journal page. It brought to mind the fact that every day is a fresh start and a chance to do things differently...it's never too late for that and you never have to wait, you can just begin...
"It all starts here." I used a tutorial I found on Pinterest to draw my snail. You can find it on my board called "Draw".
I was thinking about that quote as I made my snail's shell. I liked the way it spirals out bigger and bigger.
I was thinking about how beginnings can be like that as well. You start off slowly with something little and you gradually build on it and build on it and, over time, you find you're not at the beginning anymore...in fact, you're very far away from where you first started!
It's important to start from your heart!
At the center of my snail's shell is a little heart. I think that must be where all things truly begin to take shape.
If you'd have asked me in the past, I would have said everything starts in your mind. You form an idea and plan and dream and all that and that's the start.
But I think I was wrong. I think that it's all just an illusion at that point. It's not quite real.
It's only when your heart gets involved in something that it has a proper start, because it goes from being a dream to something else...something you know you have to accomplish. Sure, your brain is involved as well (hopefully anyway!), but it's not till your brain connects with your heart that you really start to create something.
I think that's the point where I'm at now...where my brain and my heart have finally connected and I know, both mentally and deep down inside, what it is I need to do. It's a wonderful and slightly scary feeling and I'm interested to see where it takes me!
