Before I explain the photo here… I have to explain the obsession…

When I was 7, my parents had taken my sister and I to the local game preserve. This was back when kids were still allowed to pet animals and you didn’t need hand sanitizer… We had gone into the petting area and I fell for this lovely llama they had. I was petting him a long time and when I turned to walk over to another animal, I felt a head bump me in the back. It was the llama! I had no food, so I assumed that he just wanted more love. So I pet him some more and again, when I turned away, I got bumped in the back. Everywhere I walked, he followed me! It got so bad, my mother had to open the gate so I could run through and she slammed it shut behind me. If not, he’d have followed me all over the whole preserve!

Yesterday, while running errands, I saw this random llama in town… Not something you see every day! Turns out the library was reading a kids’ book about llamas for story time, so these local guys brought their llama for the kids to meet. I had to stop! I went right up to him, was petting him, put my arm around him and got this selfie (that I cropped myself out of)… Seems I still have a way with llamas after all these years! And it turns out I know the people who brought him, so I can go visit Gabe (that’s his name) whenever I feel like it to get my llama fix!

So… I have some weird obsessions aside from llamas…

Pens are a huge one… When I go to any store that has pens, I literally have to walk through the pen aisle or I just don’t feel right. And any pen I find that tickles my fancy, I feel this uncontrollable urge to buy it. I’ve swiped pens from people, banks… If someone is using a pen I like, I’ll go on and on about how cool a pen it is until they (usually) give in and offer to give it to me. That’s horrible; I shouldn’t do that. But for some reason, I do. The funkier the pen, the more I feel I need it.

I also have an obsession with sailboats… I’m not sure why. I think I must have been a sailor in a past life or something…

There’s just something so calm and serene about sailboats whether you’re watching them or sailing on them. They’re beautiful! I have so many sailboat objects in my house, even a charm for a necklace. I add them to my paintings a lot as well. And I’ve loved the song “Sailing” since it first came out.

I also love the ocean… I love the sound of the waves, the feel of the salt in the breeze, the feel of the sand between my toes on the beach… There’s nothing better than going for a twilight stroll through the surf to make you feel relaxed and tranquil.

I also have a bad obsession with house plants and outdoor plants…

I grew up in a very rural area. It was so rural, in fact, that we had a rural drive number for an address until I became an adult. The land we lived on was once all farmland owned by my great grandparents. Their house was owned by my great aunt, my grandmother had a home on the land and so did we. We had small patches of woods and a creek running through the property. And a lot of wildlife! I loved where I grew up.

My family wasn’t exactly normal…

My great aunt used to take in birds with broken wings, set them with popsicle sticks and first aid tape until they healed and she released them. My uncles used to bring home all sorts of wildlife, including a baby possum they caught. It hung by its tail from the waistline in my grandmother’s cellar until she told them to get rid of it, haha! It does explain why I had done similar things… In high school, I even took care of a newborn mouse, left behind by the mother, and fed it warm milk every few hours with an eyedropper. My mother wasn’t happy about that. She was terrified of mice and snakes.

In any case… My great aunt was a whiz with plants. Every year, she planted a huge garden (which got smaller as the years went by and her arthritis got worse). She grew everything at one point. Corn, tomatoes, potatoes, all varieties of beans and lettuce, carrots, radishes, beets, peas, broccoli, cauliflower, cucumbers, watermelon, cantaloupe, zucchini, pumpkins and other squashes… She’d also plant tall flowers in the garden as well as around the house. My sister, mother and I helped all summer long. And in the evenings, we would go pick buckets full of wild black raspberries in June and red ones in July. My mother and grandmother also loved to plant flowers and had flowering plants. My grandmother had a huge lilac bush (my favorite flower) that was amazing!

Thankfully, I inherited the green thumb…

I have crazy rosebushes (see one of my previous entries) in the front and back, a lilac bush, azalea… And I can’t seem to stop myself from buying new houseplants every time I find a new one that I think is beautiful and would look great in my house. No matter where I’ve lived, I’ve always had to surround myself with plants and flowering plants. I grew up surrounded by nature and it seems some things never change. I still love nature and just try and stop me from digging in the dirt…