One of My Favorites - Shania Twain

When people ask me who my favorite musical artist is, I usually tell them Taylor Swift. However, if you know me well, you know my real favorite is Shania Twain. She's been my favorite since I heard her songs off The Woman In Me album when I was seven years old. By the time her Come On Over album came out when I was nine, I was obsessed with her music. Of course, I loved her Up album that came out in 2002, which I think was totally more pop than country. It is amazing!

I can't pin-point what drew me to like her music in the first place. Most of her songs are about love or heartache, and I certainly don't have any personal experience to relate to the songs; however, I can lose myself in her music. Her songs take me back in time and remind me of my childhood. A life before Crohn's. A life before responsibility. Somehow it allows me see how much I've grown up. Sure, my parents only allowed me to listen to country and Christian music while growing up. Perhaps Shania's music seemed a little rebellious compared to what I was used to hearing and I've always been a rebel at heart.  I would jump for hours, by myself and sometimes with my sisters and friend Brittany, on the trampoline in the backyard while playing Shania's cassette tapes in my pink stereo. I listened to the cassettes so often that I could fast forward a song perfectly to play the next song at the beginning... My pink stereo didn't have a skip button.

I was obsessed! I was 10 or 11 years old in this picture.

The first concert I ever went to was Shania Twain's Come On Over Tour on September 19th, 1998. I remember getting to the box office early to buy tickets with my mom. At ten years old, her concert was bigger than life! I guarantee that I sang along with every word.  Flash forward to 2013, I spent more than I should have to fly out to Las Vegas to enjoy her You're Still The One show in a third row seat at Caesars Palace. I had high expectations and she blew it right out of the water. The show was unbelievably captivating. It was such fun to re-live her hit songs live, the very songs that I grew up with. I read her autobiography and to know what she has been through in her life, she is a light of inspiration. Her courage is something I admire.

This morning I purchased tickets during the presale for Shania Twain's Rock This Country Tour in Jacksonville on Wednesday, July 15th, 2015. She's claiming this will be her farewell tour and I didn't want to miss one last opportunity to see her preform live! I'm super excited!!!!

Watch her video that inspired my leopard print photo above: http://youtu.be/mqFLXayD6e8