iowagirl

I thought of this thread while I was getting worked on yesterday. All I'd've been able to post tho would be a bunch of fuck fuck fuckity fucks. ooo some of those spots *stung*! Sometimes it sucks to be a big girl and not make faces and just sit there and smile!

Re reading Duma Key/Stephen King. And on the last book in the Wrinkle in Time series by Madeline L'engle, and yeah it's for kids but Wrinkle in Time is one of my favorite books-didn't know there was more in the series! Lee Child has another Reacher book out so I need to get these finished and get to the library.

Thanks @SeeSea! Idn't he cute?? It's so hard to look at your back-I noticed this morning he has little highlights in his eyes. I hadn't really noticed that when Dominic had done all the outlining of this part of it last month, he had added leaves to the one that was already there. It's funny the things you don't see when it's just the outline, that you notice once all the color is in. I always feel so pretty when I leave there. Going there makes me wonder how heavily tattooed I will end up being-he does such a fabulous job, I about don't want to finish.

My frog looks so much better now! I got him originally in 1998 so he was 17...not sure how old that is in frog years but he's way cuter now. He even has freckles!! I let Dominic pick all the colors, and we discussed where we're going next w/the expansion-I told him he has free reign for design and colors and he was pretty stoked about that.

Wanted to revisit this again. For all my anxiety when I started this thread, it's actually worked out pretty well. I've been a lot more relaxed when I've gone in these times, especially b/c I felt such trust w/my artist at our first session. When I went in last month, he asked what I wanted to do to expand the piece. We'd talked about doing more flowers and adding wind on the left side, coming up to meet the water and flowers on the other side, but we'd not discussed specifics. I said I didn't know what to do w/it really, how much space to use, how it should move toward the center, or if it should be off center so more water/flowers on one side or more wind/flowers on one side etc. It took about 10 seconds to decide on a mum, b/c I don't have one yet but I have peonies and cherry blossoms. I told him just to do whatever he feels would be best, and he did and I'm loving it. It's bigger than what I thought I wanted and I love that too. He told me to think about colors for the frog redo and for the mum for this time coming up (sunday)--I emailed him a couple pictures for mum color and am leaving it pretty much up to him. It's pretty freeing now.

Day after tomorrow is color time for my mum and frog piece. Not sure how much will get done..and I guess it doesn't matter since it's all part of the bigger piece in progress.

bongsau, I'm sorry for the loss of your friend. Sounds like the community in blue lost a good member. We hear so much about the bad officers, and rarely do we hear of the good, and the good things they do on duty, and off duty. My husband is an officer. - - - Updated - - - Yikes CB! I hope you didn't lose much and that disorder is something controllable.

I survived a week long fishing vacation w/my husband, both kids, and my parents-and didn't fight w/my dad. That's some big shit.

I'd talk to the artist too. I've had four sessions, going back for another this weekend, and has been spread out for a year..a little over a year I think, since he's always so booked. He is doing area by area. For instance, whatever he can draw on and then get outlined in the 4 hour slot. Then the next time he did shading/color, the third time finished that entire "baby sleeve". When I was there last month, he drew on and then outlined an extension around the back of my shoulder. This weekend he'll work on color. Not sure what all will get done. But we just keep it up like that outline/color/color/outline/color/color until it's done. I told him it didn't make a shit to me how he wanted to do it-I said if he wanted to do all the outlining first, from baby sleeve, around the upper back and down the other baby sleeve, and then work on color for the whole thing that was fine w/me. He likes to do it this way.

Interesting. Mine are not done, and sometimes I think it looks funny when I lift my arms that all around my upper arm, my shoulder etc is done but not there. It hits about as close as you can possibly get. Buuut that really hurt and I am not sure doing more would be worth it-to me. And yeah, feet suck. I had mine done two years ago and there are spots fading due to wear. They were a cover up and now you can see more of the tattoo underneath.

I nursed my daughter until she was a year, b/c people said that was long enough, then my son until he was almost 3 b/c *I* said that was long enough. One year isn't that long. What I ate/drank went into my milk. You can drink when you are nursing up to a certain point, then you have to pump and dump, and it depends how long ago you drank. It's been over 5 years now so I don't remember-and I only did a pump/dump from drinking once, b/c it wasn't worth it to me. I had to pump/dump b/c of pain medication when I had my hernia fixed, a couple times, and that also wasn't worth it to me, so I just took Tylenol. I can't imagine wanting to be tattooed when I was nursing-and as a mother, I wouldn't want to take any chances. I don't recall dying my hair when nursing either. I thought there was a little blurb on the consent form about "I am not pg, breastfeeding, under the influence of alcohol or drugs" type thing? Maybe I am remembering wrong. And maybe it's different in other countries? - - - Updated - - - ETA: It really shouldn't be that big of a deal to refrain from getting a tattoo while nursing your child. That kinda goes part and parcel w/having a baby and needing to be adult enough to put someone else's needs in front of your own wants "just in case". Or are they trying to say that if'n you *have* tattoos you shouldn't breastfeed?? Is that where it's heading?

On vacation in the wilderness and have not so swift service so can't read either article. It just reminded me of the first time I sat for my current work, the artist and I were chatting and we talked about customers that want things they don't like to do, like white ink tattoos--he mentioned some things seem to go in spurts and he thought it was strange. At that time, over the few weeks he'd had several girls, beautiful girls, come in wanting facial tattoos. And not a little star or something, they wanted like half their face. It was separate times too, they weren't all in a group. He said they got huffy, when he tried to talk to them about their reasonings *why* they wanted it done. He's like "I tattoo for a living. That's what I *do*-and *I* don't have tattoos on my face." They all were very put out, very arrogant in their thinking that "well if someone won't hire me that's their loss, I don't need them". He wouldn't allow them to make appointments that day and told them they had to come back in a month or whatever, and they never did come back.

this last part on my upper back of shoulder was waaaay more itchy than the last work around my arm. Couple times it was the intense "bugs under the skin" like when you have a bad sunburn that is healing. I wore tank tops to work the last couple days of the school year, and the weather was finally nice so we spent most of the days outside-and every slight little breeze would wiggle the skin that peels up so I was constantly whipping my head around thinking a bug had landed on me. It was more bumpy/scabby this time too, which I thought was strange. Hopefully it'll be ok-I go back again in a couple weeks for more work on it.

I'd like a lady head-or two. A mermaid. More flowers. A sparrow or two.

27 more days before my next appt. Not sure when it will be after that-he's booked thru most of August now.

hahahaha that reminds me of my cousin, his first tattoo when he was 14 (also done in some guy's kitchen) and his mom took him b/c he wanted one sooo badly. My brother looked at it and said "jeez, how many Doritos did you have to give the guy for *that*?"

oh good heavens, how do you guys not laugh when people are being that dumb? I can understand some general ignorance from those that aren't tattooed or not around anyone who is (I get "did that hurt?" "yes" "well then why do you do it?" often)...but good night Irene those are some idiots. And an asshat thrown in for good measure w/his concern over hep c.

As I get farther along w/what I'm going w/my baby sleeves and across my upper back, I start to think ahead in the process and ponder where to go next. I'd been thinking to something traditional above my knees, sparrows or lady heads, or one of each. Then for whatever reason I wondered about doing them *on* the knees rather than above. I figured I'd ask those in the know what the pros/cons would be, I guess, for each of those placements. Are certain things, certain shapes or designs etc, better for one or the other?

Oh really? Ha, shows what I know about geography. Well, maybe it's a better option than I thought then. I can't copy/paste for whatever reason right now, but we the website for the shop we go to is bigbrainomaha.com There's a Spaghetti Works around the corner from the shop...maybe not a big deal to city folk but to us country meeces that have 4 places to choose from to eat in town, we feel like we're living high on the hog!

The only place I'm familiar w/is Omaha. My husband and I get ours at Big Brain in the Old Market part of Omaha. There's a ton of shops down there to browse thru, art and books and music, lots of places to eat and hang out outside. Henry Doorly Zoo is in Omaha and there are plenty of other things to do as well. I guess it depends on how far you want to travel? Chicago is probably closer to you.

thanks guys

I've been back to look at this 20 times now I think. What kind of style would this be called?

Mmmm so not really something we're doing this second, but it's set for this next month or so. We're hugely into landscaping, and always working/refining our yard. We were talking about taking out a small bed that we put inside our patio. I mentioned I would be find making a smaller one b/c it's kinda neat/unexpected inside the patio. We're hashing out ideas, placements etc, and my husband says "Well...maybe you want to make this your Star Trek bed." I stare at him and raise my eyebrows. He says "Didn't you say a couple years ago that you wanted to do that, you with your weirdness?" (he soooo isn't into ST) So I say "welllllll....but if I'm going to do that...I kinda feel it should be in the shape of the communicator..." He doesn't know what that is. I google it for him. "yeah, I can make that work" hahahaha YEAH! While I was going thru and writing down names of Star Trek related hosta plants, I casually mention..."did you know there are Stephen King, Dark Tower, Stand by Me, Dreamcatcher, and The Shining hostas?" JD glances over at me and says "well you know *that* bed is happening" hahahahaha yay!

I'm not getting rid of him-I love him. Just new color to freshen him up is all.

When it was getting closer to my appointment (yesterday), I had an uh oh moment and had to grab the calendar to make sure it wasn't going to be period time-whew, that's one more week. He's so fricken busy, I'd've had to suck it up and deal. It wouldn't have even crossed my mind but I had a mammogram done in March and thought I was going to pass out, whereas the ones I'd had before hadn't even registered on my pain scale-my coworker was the one who figured out it was b/c it was period time. What a difference!