You know its a REAL bad day....

...When you suggest naming your mother's blood pressure, so we can simplify things when life gets particularly crazy and stressful.

And your older sister reccomends the name Barry.

And it sticks.

And everyone starts asking, "How's Barry?"

Tuesday, Wednesday, yesterday and today have all been that kind of day.

*dies*

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Hope you have a wonderful day!

I love you very much! : )

My Love Affair With Sharpies and Watercolors

I do indeed madly love both of the aforementioned art tools.

*Swoon*

They're just so fabulous!

And they were made for each other, I swear.

For instance:

What a magical and marvelous affect! Although my drawing AND painting skills leave much to be desired, this is my favorite painting I've done in a long time.

Anyway...

Sharpies and Watercolors are God's gift to teenage artists. I love and appreciate them like good friends. We have a fabulous relationship.

I hope every artist finds their Soul Mate of Color Tools.

I certainly found mine : ).

"It's hair today, gone tomorrow..."

Today, I got my first haircut in...what?...maybe a whole year!

I love my hair long and lustrous. I like thinking of myself as a Red-haired Rapunzel (its catchy, no?).

Alas, the evil that opresses hair everywhere had struck.

Two words:

SPLIT ENDS.

*horrified scream*

Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I decided it was time to part with an inch or two.

It was remarkably painless, and now, with a fresh start, I can grow it EVEN LONGER!!!!

Mwahahahahahahaha!!!!!

Before:

After:



Long live all the hair we will grow!

Lol.

GLORIOUS DAY!

Today has been pretty fabulous, weather-wise.

Its one of those nasty, horrible days that trick you into thinking spring has sprung.

Ha.

The forecast says SNOW on Monday, despite the fact that its in the 50's right now.

Anyway...it's a pretty marvelous thing when you wake up to BIRDS chirping outside your window for the first time in 2011!

Squee! REAL BIRDS!!! They would NOT shut up for the longest time this morning ha ha. But it was worth it. I got REALLY excited over those little guys, randomly enough.

Than, today, it turned out that Cicero was actually a genius (I was dubious, to say the least). He said several things about friendship that REALLY spoke to me. Here are two:

Amen, Cicero!

This has been a beautiful day, one truly glorious, staight from God, as our Valentine's day gift, I guess : ).

Rejoice! You are loved!

Happy Birthday, Joe!

In light of Valentine's day, i was a BAD big sister and forgot to get him a present, or even make a blog post about him.

Poor kid.

Anyway...

Happy 11th, little dude!

They say wisdom comes with age.

Apparently 11 years is not long enough to obtain wisdom.

Three days after his birthday, Joe goes, "There's this bar of soap in the bathroom right now that smells REALLY good! It smelled so good....I took a bite out of it!"

Say wha?

I replied, "JOE!! You did WHAT!? Which bar of soap was it!? The Dove bar!?"

"I dunno,"

"Was it oval shaped?"

"Yeah!"

"JOOOE!!! THAT IS NICE SOAP!!! DON'T EAT IT! WHY DID YOU EAT IT!?!?!?!!?"

"It smelled REALLY GOOD!"

And than, needing proof, I went up to the bathroom, and, lo and behold:



Yep. He did.

My mother said, "Joe, please tell me what you thought this was going to taste like!"

"I dunno...vanilla ice cream!"

And that is exactly why we love him.

Love is patient, love is kind...

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

LOVE!

Yay! A holiday all about L O V E!!! As a girl, I find this holiday absolutely fabulous!

I just want to say to some very important people three COMPLETELY overused words. So, to:
Dad
Mom
Biggest Sister
The Evil Soprano
Miss M&M
Joe Cool
Ladybug
Littlest Sister
Curious George
Winnie the Pooh
Squishy (lol)
Kit-Kat
My Cartoonist
All the TGs
Len-Oreo
Camille
Romeo (aka Hannah lol)
Extended family
Becca
Adam Young (I love this guy!!!)
And everyone who has ever touched my life in any way...

I LOVE YOU.

I wanted to share with you a song, just because I am big into music and a song can be very meaningful to me blah blah blah...

Anyway...

I decided on this one, even though it's by Rascal Flatts and Kat's gonna H A T E it, because it says EXACTLY everything I want to say, and I totally love it.

My Wish, Rascal Flatts

Thanks for being there for me, loving me, and just being AWESOME.

You have my love and my prayers : ).

Clare <3

Skype: Wow...I'M NOT AN IDIOT!

I Skyped for the very first time today!

Can I just say the 21st century is COOL?
So, I will admit I was convinced I would end up blowing up the computer (or WORSE...destroying the internet and facing the wrath of millions of Facebook addicts!!!). I feared MUCHLY that I would sit for hours trying to figure out how the dang sound worked. And let's not even get started on FINDING the person I was planning to talk to. I'm an incompetant loser...I anticipated humilating failure.

And, lo and behold, Skype does the work for you!!!

It patiently tells me all I need to know. It went something like...

Skype: Hello! Please test your sound, mic, and screen so you don't sit here all day sobbing with frustration!

Me: Oooh...big green buttons!
Skype: Yes. Press it, please. We need to see if the sound works!

Me: GAAAAAH!!!! IT DOESN'T!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Skype: Calm down, child! There is hope! Try one of those yonder options. Try again. Calm down. That's right, breathe.

Me: IT STILL DOESN'T WORK!!!!!
Skype: Try one more time, Rookie! Please, just relax! Any idiot can use me, I swear!

Me: IT STILL WON'T PLAY SOUND!!! I'M DOOOOOOOOMED!!!!

Skype: Oh, come, you hysterical redhead! Did you try plugging in some earbuds?
Me: Why should I!? Catherine didn't have to when SHE Skyped on this computer!!

Skype: Stop making excuses! Do you want it or not!?

Me: Fine. But it won't work. Look, see!? It didn't work!
Skype: Try. The. Other. OPTION. Than.

Me: HA!! Wooo! It works! I'm so smart!

Skype: *grumble*...Ok, FINE. Move on to testing your mic. Make some noise!

Me: Why? Oh...ok. AHHHH!
Skype: Did little green lines appear?
Me: What do you know...they did!

Skype: Your mic works! Your friends will be able to hear you!

Me: Sweet! What next?
Skype: Screen check. Does it work?

Me: Why, look at myself! *smoothes hair*

Skype: I'll take that as a yes. OK! Start Skyping!!!

Me: *sits and waits a little while...dicovers the Emoticons of Skype! Has too much fun. Friend gets on. Starts to chat. Is random, loud, and weird. The usual.*

So. Yeah. Skype is awesome : ).

A Little Bit of Self-Criticizing

I shouldn't be allowed to talk on the phone.

Mentally imbalanced redheads tend to say ridiculous things, especially when they're very tired.

I apologize to the two people who I randomly babbled my head off to yesterday.

There IS (and yes, I DO realize this!) such a thing as being TOO random.

Yeah.

The Thing About Being An Author...

Is that its incredibly personal.

If you aren't big into sharing your deepest innermost thoughts with others, or you don't want to lay bare your soul and all your insecurities to the world, take it from me: DON'T WRITE.

Because that's basically what you do when you write.

Stories don't come from some invisible force outside of you.

They come from your very SOUL.

Which means, to put it badly, briefly, and vaguely, that you basically share an important piece of yourself when you share your writing with others, and you become vulnerable...ESPECIALLY when people criticize what you write.

Some of my personal experiences:

I care more about my older sister's opinion of what i write than ANYONE else. Which...is a bum deal for me, because she can be hard, cruel, and brutally honest. But still, i need to know ANNA thinks its good! I don't know why...maybe her praise is the hardest to get? Whatever the reason, i want her to love what i write. Its getting less so over the years and as i write more, but still...i want her to say 'good job!'.

Worse, MUCH worse than a tough critic is a lousy critic, who LOVES you, or even likes you remotely, and therefore won't give you any honest, useful feedback.

"Oh, its great! Fabulous! I loved every page!" (Yeah, right. You didn't even READ the whole thing, you just are too nice to say it sucked. Thanks.)

And you aren't always your own worst critic, but a lot of the time, you can be a real downer.

"I stink! Nothing i write will EVER be any good! I quit! Goodbye, pens! Farewell, Microsoft Word! I hate you! You ate my soul!" (Followed by dramatic wailing and probably a lot of junk food.)

No, no, no, no, NO!

Well....let's make ONE thing perfectly clear:
NOT EVERYONE CAN WRITE BOOKS. NOT EVERYONE CAN WRITE A N Y T H I N G.

There. MAYBE, you just don't have the Muse of Writing.

Who cares, really?

But, if you DO, if you really, really, REALLY love writing, but you just hate WHAT you write, for heaven's sake DON'T GIVE UP YOU PANSY! Fight it out! Become better by DOING IT.

Yes, you will write stuff you want to BURN (trust me, DON'T THROW ANYTHING AWAY/DESTROY MERCIFULLY! You WILL regret it...from the smoldering ashes of horrendous literature can come some pretty magical things!), but that doesn't mean you will ALWAYS suck.

And THAT doesn't mean you will EVER get published!

So...why bother writing, if, like me, you were cursed with the Muse?
I don't know.

Its like breathing.

Do or die.

Which is why I write a lousy blog, practicing for the dream moment when I can actually do something worthwhile.

So, here's to the past 7 years of writing.

Its been a fabulous, heart wrenching, wonderful, frustrating, awesome, miserable, epic, stressful, cool and devastating nightmare of a ride : ).