I have a curiosity question for you all... I notice that there have been a lot of mention of visits to art galleries on your blogs. 

Now, I have never been to an art gallery, so I'm wondering... um... well I'm wondering a lot of things actually.

Like, what do you wear?

What do you do?

When you walk in, what does the little person at the desk say or do?

Is there anything around the works of art saying anything about them? If so, what kinds of things do they tell you?

As a person who has never been to a gallery before, do any of you have any wise advice for me?

I found a post at Kathryn's site about what to look for as you look at art, and it looks really helpful. 

Just think, in a week or so I'll probably ask the same question about the theatre (as in for plays, not just to watch a movie lol) or the opera, or the other millions of things that I, a former hillbilly, haven't experienced yet in my adult life.  LOL

YOU ALL WILL NOT BELIEVE THIS!!!!!!

Stopped by a local thrift store today.  Was kinda in the shopping mood, and wanted something blue to wear... I own almost nothing blue, and it's my favorite color! Well, didn't find anything much that qualified.... but I DID find:

1 Gray schoolgirl skirt with thin light blue lines running through it
1 White fancy turtleneck (the kind with the little lines... *sigh* I suck at explainations)
1 Beige fancy turtleneck
1 CUTE brown suit jacket, it's shiny with flowers! And it FITS!!!! I think it might look REALLY cute with the beige turtleneck!
Many books:
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (Syncronicity Anyone?!)
Great Jewish Thinkers
The Frontier Jews - An Account of Jewish Pioneers and Settlers in Early America
Gallaudet Survival Guide to Signing
Star Trek Memories by William Shatner
5 Paperback Suspense/Thriller/Mystery/Espionage books
1 Paperback Sci-Fi
1 Western for my Dad
1 Mystery book (surprise for one of my blog readers!)

Total Cost: $3.88 (*squeeling "CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!"*)

Now I'm off to a gas station (large fountain Diet Coke & a Hostess Pie) and then to job #2!

I have reached 88% of my bandwidth, and I think it's calculated MONTHLY!!!!  So, I took all my pics and am hosting them at www.photobucket.com  So far it's working out well.

Here is one other pic I took last night & forgot to put online:
 

Here, do I look like a grown-up in that one?  Hahaha That's me, outside my car, wearing one of my new bandana-colored headbands.

I keep debating the idea of putting my blog on another site, like typepad... but I love a few of blogdrives features SOOOOO much. I love their e-mail notifications that people can subscribe to, and I love their tagboards.  

But, if this bandwidth thing doesn't work, I may have to take desperate measures, and move to another site.  *sigh*

Broken
Reaching Out
Cutting
Wanting Only
To Connect
To Hold
To Touch
Finding Only
Pain

Healing Comes
Wholeness
Reaching Out
Connecting
Touching
Caressing
Healing

*Written 1/11/06 after a deep "morning page"*
*Thinking about "until I allow myself to be healed, I have nothing meaningful to give to others.  Until my broken edges are healed, I can only hurt others when I try to reach out."*

Technorati Tags: Poetry Broken

I tried to take you all a pic of the car after it was clean, but it was too dark.  Anyway.... the car is CLEAN!!!! Well, on the inside at least.  It was getting dark & cold so I gave up, and didn't bother to wash the outside.  Maybe I'll do that tomorrow. 

Now I'm gonna get my apple pie, and reward myself before I start on the rest of my goals for tonight! :)

OMG you all, you should SEE it here.  It is the MIDDLE of JANUARY!  In INDIANA! And it's Soooooooooooo nice outside! It's unreal!

So, to celebrate the sunlight, I decided to clean out my car! and WHEW did it need it! So here are some pics of the scene:

This is my back seat, with all the board games I loaded into it a week or so before Christmas and haven't unloaded yet.

This is my front seat, the gathering place for all junk.  *sigh* I get depressed just thinking about it sometimes.

But as I was taking pics, look what I found:

Yes, it's a HOSTESS PIE!!! Specifically the one I bought Tuesday night and then lost.  Obviously God is rewarding me for cleaning out my car. 

It's a sign.

*nodding head wisely*

Today is another "blah" day. 

Stomach is rolling and churning and all that nastiness.  I think it needs a Hostess Pie.  (those are my newest obsessions!) Hahaha

Tonight is my ME night.  Well, I shouldn't exactly say that... it's more like my "Catching up from the other 6 days of insanity, but able to do it ALONE, (roomates at work!), uninterupted (oops, did I forget to turn the volume up on my phone?), and without leaving the house.  (I refuse to leave the house except MAYBE to get my pie or walk to the park for a few.)

So, my goals for tonight are:

I have got to get my dwelling clean before I loose any MORE sanity!  Clutter is driving me to insanity!
Laundry must be done.
Wrinkled clothes must be sprayed w/Wrinkle Release & hung in the closet
The cat is in a tude, she must be appeased.  Yesterday she attacked me!
Make one scrunchie of each yarn I have. 
Knit a little more on my scarf, take a pic so you all can be unimpressed.
Do my "morning" pages.

Was reading a post at Marilyns AW blog, (gosh, she's inspired TWO posts today... impressive!) and it got me to thinking. 

*quietly pushing up glasses and then folding hands to look wise*

The AW book describes blurts as basically being negative voices that come up to keep you from doing positive things. (well, okay, that's the JanaBanana digest condensed version... but whatever!)  This week we're supposed to be replacing our blurts with affirmations.  (positive statements... like if your blurt is "I am the supidest person ever." then your affirmation would be "I am very intelligent."

My biggest blurt at the moment is: "I'm plain."  I've always felt plain.  When I was in high school, i tried to make a look out of it.  Baggy t-shirts with crazy sayings, ugly cordoroy pants, hair straight down... We were kinda poor, so really there weren't that many looks available.. LOL but there were looks better than THAT look. 

Now, as an adult, I still feel plain.  I feel plain on the outside, but way more importantly I feel plain on the INSIDE.  I'm anal-retentive, my emotions are repressed while in public, I'm shy... just generally not too impressive of a person until I know you.  My Censor (the one saying the negative stuff) tells me that I'm plain, everything I do is plain, I can never be creative, or have friends, or look cute, or succeed in crazy hairdos... because I'm plain, and plain people can't do those things.  At best, they just look silly.

But after much pondering, I discovered that there are a LOT of things about me that are NOT plain in any way.  So, as a form of therapy, I'm making a list.

I'm not plain because:

I have cute sparkly hairthings.
I have two sweaters with sparkles in them.
I've learned to use glitter glue.
I'm making crazy colors of yarn into hairthings.
I love to travel.
I love foreign languages, foreign people, foreign cultures, foreign religions, foreign foods...
I'm not at all afraid to try new things.
I'm very dramatic in general, very expressive when I type or even when I talk, if I know you well enough to be comfortable.
Amish people consider me to be worldly in the way I act, the way I dress, and the things I do! Hahahaha
I love documentaries.
I love to drive, alone, to new places far away.  
I love to hike, alone, anyplace I can find.
I love nature, photography, and cemeteries.
My laugh is nuts, people tease me about it ALL the time.
Kids love me.
I love to make others laugh, tho it takes a while for people to "get" my sense of humor... perhaps because they don't expect such dry, dark, sarcasm from someone so small and cute?
I love foreign movies... not your snotty kind, but crazy wierd ones from India or Iran.

So as I'm describing myself to myself, i don't SOUND that plain? Hmmm... maybe I need to relax and let my outside reflect my inner exoticness? And get the courage to wear the more fashionable clothes that are sitting in my closet, cause I'm afraid to wear anything that umm... not plain?  LOL

I have decided not to split my AW posts into a seperate blog from this one.

Why? 

Mainly because life is not that easy compartmentalized (is that really a word?).  The things I'm learning through AW effect my real life as well.  The creative things I do (like SPT) let you all know me better.  Besides... if you all don't like those posts, you can skip them.  I won't mind.  I'll have the AW posts clearly labeled.

In other news...

I'm still sick, but not as bad.  The cough has gotten deep, less like a chain-smoker now and more like a lung is trying to come out.  LOL 

I tried to just go to bed last night but couldn't sleep til I'd done a page & a half of my "morning" pages.    Then went right to sleep :)

I tried to get up this morning and do them... wrote 2 sentences, while still laying in bed on my side... then decided I really needed that extra 30 minutes of sleep.  I'll finish the pages after work today.  :)

I'm wearing my new pink sweater today!!!!!! I'm hoping it doesn't shrink in the wash, it fit's just perfectly as it is.  I tried to crochet a scrunchie to wear with it today (though I'm not really a scrunchie person?), but I didn't get it finished.  The yarn I was working with was a really strange kind, very hard to work with.  It has a fluffy part and a thin part, twisted loosely together... hard to describe, but i think it'll look cute.  I might even make a scarf out of it!

Watched "Man on Fire" last night, and it was SOOOOOOOOO awesome!!!! Not family-friendly (unless you had one of those cuss-word filter thingys) but SOOOOOO cool!!!!!! I loved it, and I'll probably buy it soon.

Worked some more on knitting my first scarf.  I'll try to post a pic of my progress a couple of times a week.  

Bought 3 new yarns Saturday while shopping with my roomate.  We went to Jo-Ann fabrics (can we say OVERPRICED yarns?!), and I didn't buy any yarn there but their fabric was like 60% off!!! I plan to go back there, maybe tonight, with my new sweaters and buy some fabric to make skirts out of.  They had some OH so cute pinstripe material (pink, black, blue...), and some CRAZY colored tie-dies with sparkles!!!!  I think I'm in love.  Kinda hesitant to buy the fabric tho, because I almost NEVER get around to my sewing projects. 

Then we went to Walmart, and I bought yarn there... the afore-mentioned wierd yarn, a multi-colored pink fringed yarn, and a black & gray yarn.  Can't wait to make stuff from them!!!!

Well, lunch break is over, gotta go!!!!!