These are a few of my favorite things... I really enjoy having a playlist that is great to shuffle and play for a long stretch.  I didn't do a formal bday45playlist this year, but I did take extra time to add to this playlist that I listen to often.

I often find songs that go along with these nicely by browsing Apple Music (worth every penny to me) and see the related artists. Sometimes it's songs on tv shows or commercials that seem to fit - in fact, that's how I first found Ruelle - Until We Go Down was the theme song on The Shannara Chronicles, and even though I didn't watch more than the first season, it was a great jumping-off point for me to start looking for others like this.

Music brings me joy, even when the times are hard, and I'm grateful for that!

Creating a birthday playlist is always a fun part of celebrating.  We turn it on during my birthday extravaganza, where we go out driving to various stores and restaurants. It's had the same two songs to start with for a while, amping me up as we leave, and it gets me excited and happy.

I pick songs that I love and new songs and songs that have captured my attention in the previous year. This year, Hamilton and Gilmore Girls and Nashville all were big influences to me, so they are represented. It was Buffy's 20th Anniversary just lately, so there's a few OMWF musical tracks.  I got some great geeky bands here at the end of the list.  I also try to make it not too heavy on songs that E doesn't like, so the less-country sounding songs from Nashville, and not too much of any one artist.

It was a good mix!

• Ready to Go (US Mix), Republica, 1996
• Are You Happy Now?, Michelle Branch, 2003
• Let Me Go, Avril Lavigne feat. Chad Kroeger, 2013
• Hopeless Romantic, Michelle Branch, 2017
• All of Me (feat. Clare Bowen & Sam Palladio), Nashville Cast, 2017
• Leave the Pieces, The Wreckers, 2006

Every year, I like to go on a drive with shopping on my birthday. This year, illness struck our house at just the wrong time and it got postponed. So I'm finally getting ready to go again and had to set up my playlist to go along with. My bday mixes generally take some of my favorites and a few extra tracks I buy from my wishlist.

I had been meaning to get The Doubleclick's previous album I didn't have. They are such a fun duo, from Portland and I've seen them 3 times now in person. So Lasers and Feelings was added to the mix, and I put the other songs I have in the list in case we ended up with extra time, as sometimes happens when we get in traffic! I've just kickstarted'd their next one, President Snake, so I'll be continuing to enjoy their new silly geeky fun songs in the near future.

the first song is always..."

• 1 - Ready to Go (US Mix) - Republica
• 2 - Are You Happy Now? - Michelle Branch
• 3 - Cherry Lips - Garbage. originally from the Krissy birthday mix from my dear friend Rina.
• 4 - Fighter - Christina Aguilera
• 5 - I Knew You Were Trouble - Taylor Swift
• 6 - Loud Music - Michelle Branch. NEW! - a Michelle song I didn't have? sweet!
• 7 - Let Me Go - Avril Lavigne feat. Chad Kroeger
• 8 - There for You - Flyleaf. NEW!
• 9 - This is How It Goes - Aimee Mann
• 10 - Breathe (2 AM) - Anna Nalick
• 11 - Tomorrow Is Gonna Be Better - Joshua Radin
• 12 - Hello Seattle (Remix) - Owl City
• 13 - In My Veins (feat. Erin McCarley) - Andrew Belle
• 14 - A Drop In the Ocean - Ron Pope. NEW! originally heard on Vampire Diaries
• 15 - Come Back Down (feat. Sara Bareilles) - Greg Laswell
• 16 - Possession - Sarah McLachlan
• 17 - You Killed Romeo (feat. Steve Burton) - Jonathan Jackson + Enation. NEW! Steve wrote this, and it's been on my radar for a while.
• 18 - Somebody Help Me (Theme from "Tru Calling") - Full Blown Rose
• 19 - What You Don't Know - Jonatha Brooke
• 20 - Miss Invisible - Marié Digby. NEW!
• 21 - Gone Away - Lucy Schwartz
• 22 - Life in Letters - Lucy Schwartz. NEW!
• 23 - Beauty In Walking Away - Marié Digby
• 24 - Fire - Ingrid Michaelson
• 25 - Love Beside Me - Sarah McLachlan
• 26 - Into the Fire - Thirteen Senses. NEW!
• 27 - Down - Mat Kearney. NEW!

I've been a collector of Christmas albums over the year. I have a special affinity for Christian Christmas albums that feature my favorite artists or a good combination of traditional and original songs. Here is my current list in case you need ideas, listed from newest to oldest!

I am generally a slow adopter when it comes to music. But when something resonates with me, I love finding similar artists and songs to add to my life. Sometimes, this exploration comes through pandora suggesting songs to me, as this new genre did.

I've always loved minor key songs, there are old posts in my blog dedicated to this finding. If you ask my husband, that makes for whiny chick music, and I'm okay with that :D

my iTunes window :)

But a dance beat? that's new. dubstep. take some awesome female voices, minor key, add awesome base and some techie sounds or remixy noises... it's workin' for me! Okay and variations on those themes, they don't all have all of those things :)

I deduced yesterday that perhaps I'm enjoying these songs hat make me want to dance BECAUSE I have more energy and they are energizing. sweet!

Here's what I have so far:

• Fortune Days by The Glitch Mob
• Cracks (Ft. Belle Humble) (Flux Pavillion Remix) by Freestylers
• Hayling by FC Kahuna
• I Need Your heart (Ft. Kai) by Adventure Club
• Crave You (Adventure Club Remix) by Flight Facilities
• I Remember by deadmau5
• Runnin' by Cutline
• Sail by AWOLNATION
• ... my pandora dub station has some of the other songs I've thumbs up'd :)
• and a few older ones that seemed to match: Radioactive by Imagine Dragons, Too Close by Alex Clare, and 6 Underground by Sneaker Pimps (from The Saint)

got any recommendations?

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letting you in on some of my hopes and dreams and queuing it up in bite size chunks! If I had a podcast, these would be some of the things I shared ;)

next up, to watch: I just finished a complete re-watch of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I still have one season of Angel to go. Before next season, I'd like to get caught back up on the end of last season's Bones. And the next big thing I want to dig into with Eric is Supernatural. I still need to own Avengers so I can watch the specials!

next up, to read: We are slowly making our way through the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett (now on Soul Music, #16). I'm reading a wide variety of Health and Cookbooks from the library. And my next personal fiction listen will be Divergent by Veronica Roth. my goodreads profile

next up, podcasts: While the last few months have been super full, I've let the list of podcasts I was listening/watching get neglected. I'm working through back episodes of several of my favorites finally - I think I made it through 4 different shows this week that I really wanted to see the whole while-I-was-gone collection! There are others I'm going to have to declare podcast bankruptcy and mark as read and start from now!

next up, to knit: I've been collecting yarn and patterns to knit once I got closer to my goal weight. There are 6 contenders for the next sweater/top to cast on. All of these are in my stash, it's just time to figure out which is going to be the best one to have to wear next. And beyond that, there are the socks on the needles, a skein that needs to be turned into socks or a shawl for my anniversary trip. I also have several designs that need knitting/reknitting/test knitting, and a few things I set aside for a little while. my ravelry queue

pattern+yarn contenders 1

patterns+yarn contenders 2

next up, in the house: I'm doing a lot of deep cleaning. There are several closets that need a complete overhaul and several trips to goodwill. I need to determine what to do with the handknits that are too large for me. And I need to put a bunch of my stash up on ravelry as available to destash. I hope to "renovate" a drawer area to utilize for spices to free up another area of my countertop for useful tasks.

next up, in life: my anniversary is coming up soon :) Further out, I need to determine what the holiday season will look like and begin planning. My business will flourish, in the future. And I will keep working on my health very closely.

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For the last handful of years, I've been creating a special playlist to celebrate my birthday. Some of the tracks are things from my existing collection that I love, and others are a set of items that were just purchased.

What was I influenced by in the last year? Well, my friend Jen is always a great influence, sharing her amazing love of new bands and interesting new albums from messages online and videos and bands she is seeing. Examples like The Lumineers, Of Monsters and Men, and her longer reaching exposure from previous years like Automatic Loveletter and Taylor Swift. I've spent more time browsing Pandora this last year, and that found me a bunch of related music. So by playing artists like Sara Bareillis led me to Ingrid Michaelson and Lana Del Rey. Of course, TV shows are influential to me, although I don't think I watched quite as many shows with amazing music this year as I was bookmarking last year. Andrew Belle and The Script, Ross Copperman and Civil Twilight - all were introduced to me because of TV shows. Country artists who lean more towards the pop-side also gave me cause to keep looking for more people like what was shown on Nashville: I bought the whole Missy Higgins album on sale, as well as the older The Band Perry. I also found Ashley Monroe and Pistol Annies, with more Carrie Underwood.

What is your favorite track for this year?

Following in the footsteps of my last few birthdays, I put together a playlist to play on my birthday extravaganza - fancy way of saying "out-for-the-day-with-E" :)

I divided them up into the original list and then the extras I didn't make it to, with definitions of why each was included. WHAT FUN! I did get to use an iTunes gift card from Christmas, and had a pretty huge wishlist on iTunes waiting for me... I also had the added enhancement of @astoldbyjen (as told by jen) Glee tracks :)

I hope you find some music inspiration in my choices!

• in your iTunes menu, under Advanced, click "Turn on Home Sharing"; sign in to your iTunes account, and "Create Home Share"
  
• on your iPhone, go to Settings.  Scroll down and tap iPod; under "Home Sharing" put your iTunes account username/password.

• go to the iPod app, and click More, then Shared (it's a little house with a music note).  Select your computer name, and it will connect to that library.  Now you can pick any item that's on your computer and play them over the iPhone speakers.

• in your iTunes preferences, click on the Sharing tab.  Check the "Share my library on my local network" and you can pick all or some of your music.
• on your iPhone, download the "Remote" app from the App Store.  (It's created by Apple Inc. when you search)
• To use: in iTunes, start some music or podcast playing.  Open the Remote app on your iPhone.  Notice it connects to your music library and you can pause, go through tracks, change the volume, etc.  Also, if you don't have music playing yet, you can start a song or playlist directly!

We played a new game this evening, World Without End. It was really fun. To add to my enjoyment, the songs that came up on my randomized "livingroom" play list were super. Here's what we heard (newest at the end):