The 12 Things in my Life that Reading/Writing Gave to me

Tis the season for cold winter weather and holiday cheer. I'm feeling particularly in the holiday spirit tonight because snow decided to make an appearance. Yea! I might be in the minority but that makes me happy. So I call for CHRISTMAS THEMED BLOG POSTS! Yes!

So I would like to talk about the 12 things in my life that reading and writing gave to me, minus the partridge in a pear tree:

12 thousand new friends
I have made so many new friends just through the shared love of writing. Whether you're in real life or here in the Internet life I appreciate you guys so much for inspiring me and keeping my creative fire burning.

11 hundred lost pencils
I promise, it's like every time I turn around I can't find a pencil. Even if I was just using it then it would be gone in two seconds. I'll blame it on a tiny pencil thief.

10 hurting fingers
From typing to writing and back to typing these fingers keep moving and they can get a little tired. I've mentioned that I write by hand before. That wore my hand out this past month especially.

9 ways to procrastinate (at least)
I can find any reason to drop what I'm doing and read a book. And when I start reading I can spend forever in the pages no matter what has to be done. Is it wrong that I find that fantastic?

8 half empty journals
Probably more than that really. I like finding journals from when I was a kid and seeing what it was that I thought was so important back then. They were never full though, always had a bunch of empty pages sitting at the back.

7 days of 'vacation' a week
Have you ever heard someone say something about escaping into a book? How you can go anywhere when you have something to read? That's true. I lose track of time when I'm in a good book and even when I'm writing. I'm not thinking about anything that's going on in real life, just what's in my own made up world.

6 dollars of library fines
Unfortunately that's not a grand total. That's more like a bi-monthly thing. I told you I have problems with procrastination...

5 GOLD PLOT BUNNIES!!
If you do NaNoWriMo then you know what I'm talking about. OK, so I don't know if they're really gold and I don't believe there are only 5. When I get those creative juices flowing it's like plots populate my brain like bunnies reproducing. It's fantastic and horrible all at the same time. How am I suppose to write all these ideas at once!?

4 favorite snack foods
Chips, hot chocolate, tea, and candy. Anything hand held. Enough said.

3 hurting body parts
Most recently it has become my wrist. I may have carpal tunnel. Yea... Then when I'm staying up late reading or writing I usually get a headache and that's followed by a stomach ache. No fun.

2 sore eyes
Reading for a long amount of time can be really bad on my eyes and usually leads to one of the three things before. Not to mention looking at a computer screen for just as long when I'm typing something up.

And a binder full of short stories
The binder I have full of my stories from years ago till recently is one of the things that I love the most. It not only shows just how much work I've put into what is now going to be my career but a reminder of how I have so much fun with it. Most of the stories that I have in there is from before I ever thought of writing as a career. I see those and I remember why I do what I do.

What's a few of your twelve things that writing has given you?