Winter is Coming...

Winter is Coming - April 1st!

Phone Photo Fun Mondays - 01.30.12

It's Monday, so that means it's time for my weekly photo dump and link-up!

Tiger's been quite affectionate these days, which is strange for her... but I don't mind her curling up by feet in bed or on the couch!

I decided to buy a swimsuit early this year as last year I waited til almost summer when they were on clearance and had a hard time find anything that fit well and still looked acceptable on me. I figured this year I *needed* to splurge a little and get something for this summer as Jay's going to be quite active and it would be a good idea to take him swimming or play in a kiddie pool with him in the backyard. I found this mix and match suit at Target - tankini top is by Converse, swim short bottoms are by Merona. Old Navy online has a blue tankini top I like as well so I think I might pick that up as well so I have 2, once my local Old Navy gets their swimwear in.

He was napping with daddy, but woke up while daddy was still asleep and decided to keep snuggling.

I bought a few new nail polishes this week, including a Sally Hansen Insta-Dry top coat as I realized I didn't have one! I got NYC's In a New York Minute polish in Prince Street (purple) and Fashion Ave Fuchsia.

This is the Fashion Ave Fuchsia with the top coat

All my current nail polish collection. Kinda sad considering in Jr. High I swear I had like 30 bottles ranging from dark darks to super bright lime greens!

The bruise on the side of my knee... doesn't look any better than last week and still no clue what I did!

She happened to yawn as I took the picture and the flash went off too, lol... she looks completely vicious here!

She was sitting on the stairs with paws on 1, legs on another, as she watched Jay walk around, lol... she's sooo confused by him walking!

I got another batch of Get Glue stickers and turned them into magnets, adding onto the collection on the side of our fridge. Most of the good ones in this batch were Game of Thrones ones!

And since I was showing off magnets, here's the front of our fridge!

Tired of Jay getting into the books on the bottom 2 shelves of each bookshelf, we decided to box some up and move others around, putting his toys on the bottom ones... this is how it looks cleaned up. I got to sleep in the next morning while hubby was home and yeah... by the time I got up it was completely trashed, but it's nice not having to chase him away from the books!

I bought MORE nail polish at the end of the week (I blame some of you! LOL). This is NYC's In a New York Minute in Chinatown and Pure Ice's Purple Reign. I'm thinking these are my 2 favorite nail polish brands - they're cheap, but fun!

Purple Reign with the Sally Hansen top coat

Jay watching Thomas and Friends on Sprout. He's such a typical little boy and only almost 1 year old! 2 of his favorite shows are about a superhero that teaches spelling and reading (Super Why) and Thomas the Train and Friends, lol... kinda amuses me!

How men and women see colors

This image (or one similar to it) has been making the rounds around the internet this past week... it's funny though because it's so true!

 

I can speak from experience when I call a certain color by its name and the response I get from hubby is "What? You mean the {insert generic color name here}?" Yep, it's happened!

My 1st Ever Post

Bored, I got to wondering if I could find the 1st blog I ever made back in my freshman year of college, and sure enough... it still exists!

A friend had an online diary/journal and I decided to make one of my own on Diaryland.com. Eventually I made a Livejournal and hung out there for years, making long rambling detailed posts of my day or posting meme after meme, quiz result after quiz result... but then everyone jumped on Myspace and I continued blogging over there before posting regular "notes" on Facebook and then creating this baby here in late 2009.


Anyway, here's my 1st post ever (with the names shortened to their initials):

2003-03-26 - 1:20 a.m.

"today is the greatest... day ive ever known..." in the words of billy corgan... but yea, today was awesome! nothing could have ruined my day. 1st, i only went to one class (journalism) and we got out early cuz it was just a review for the test on thursday. L. and i went to room sign up and we got the room we wanted - suite, no bathroom - and we're roomin together too. then i drove to target and bought the new LiNkiN PArK cd "METEORA" - one of the best CD's ever! after journalism E. came up and we ate dinner together and then later that night we went to the papa roach/nonpoint concert at otto's. that was an awesome concert. D. couldnt go at the last min so B. sold his ticket to his buddy K.. L. and P. went w/ us also. die tryin and reach 454 were the opening bands... they were okay and nonpoint was okay live... during papa roach i got to be about 3 ppl from the stage/barriers, coby dick (the lead singer of papa roach) crowd surfed over my head and later he almost touched my hand... and i got half of his water bottle dumped on me... it was great. i ran into goose and mav (my next door neighbors) goose caught a drumstick... B. caught a free cd from reach454... but yea, today was awesome..."

I was quite the rocker chick back then! And as usual, I rambled on and on... yeah, that hasn't changed! And OMG, lack of paragraphs and capitalization... yes, I went through a phase where I thought it was cool not to capitalize the 1st letter of a sentence and there was time where I was intent on making it "my thing" where I would be known for not capitalizing my "i"'s... oh dear, young college self...

But be glad I'm not still making daily posts similar to this one that my college roommate once humorously posted on her Livejournal, mimicking me:

"Yesterday I woke up at 10:53. I took exactly 25 steps to the bathroom and peed. Then I realized I had morning breath so I brushed my teeth. Then I looked in the mirror and realized I had a fro and I should straighten it, so I did."

Yeah... she hit it pretty spot on! LOL....

Hard to believe it's been almost 9 years ago since I joined the blogworld!

Do you remember your 1st post or your 1st blog? How have you changed since then?

Boob Tube Babble 01.27.12

It seems most of my shows came back for a week or 2, post-Christmas hiatus, and now they're gone again for a week! What gives?!

So... since there were no new episodes of Glee, New Girl or The Office this week, Community and Walking Dead are on mid-season hiatus, and Game of Thrones doesn't return til April, the only show I watched this week (aside from PBS and Sprout programming or reruns on TBS of Seinfeld and The Office) was ABC's Once Upon a Time.

This week Mary Margret and David do their best to avoid each other, however their paths keep crossing no matter how much they try. Meanwhile, in fantasy-land flashbacks, we learn more backstory about Mary Margret and David's counterparts Snow White and Prince Charming, eventually seeing how Snow White came to live with the Seven Dwarves. It was quite sad!

Also, thoughts on who the stranger is supposed to be? So we learned that it's a typewriter he's toting around... but I had Jay babbling on with his toys in the room while the conversation with him and Emma was going on so maybe I missed it... is he supposed to be the narrator/author of the storybook? Is that what they implied?

This episode needed more Robert Carlyle too, as Mr. Gold or Rumpelstiltskin... either one. His presence was missed as he only appeared in 1 short scene!

What did you watch this week?

Book Review: A Game of Thrones

So... I did it.

I *finally* finished book 1 in the Song of Ice and Fire books: A Game of Thrones.

I started late last summer/early fall but just haven't had the time to work through all 800+ pages of it. Fortunately the chapters averaged about 10 pages, so it was easy to read a chapter or 2 and put it down if I needed. But my goal was to finish the book before season 2 of the show starts on April 1, however I also wanted to at least read book 1 in the Hunger Games trilogy before the movie comes out in March and I didn't want to start Hunger Games while still reading Game of Thrones cuz I hate reading multiple books at once. So that meant I had to finish Game of Thrones first.

I think I read about 200 pages the other day just to finish it, but it did start getting good as it got to the end, much like the last few episodes of the show had you on the edge of your seat as so much was happening!

Anyways, it was long and took a bit to get into it (although having watched the show, I already knew what to expect).

The show did keep pretty close to the book though - I only noticed a few slight changes and minor things that were omitted in the show, however HBO did add in a lot of gratuitous sex scenes (specifically, there's a long, graphic lesbian sex scene in the show that happens while Littlefinger is monologuing that doesn't happen in the book!). I really didn't like how cold Catelyn Stark is to Jon in the book though - on the show she didn't seem to be nearly as harsh or hateful to him as she is in the book, it made me sad for Jon! I'm kind of torn between the Starks (especially Arya and Jon Snow) and Daenerys Targaryen - I like them both! One thing I didn't make the connection of on the show was that the Lord Commander of the Night Watch at the Wall is the father of Daenerys' exiled knight guide Ser Jorah Mormont! It clicked when Jon mentions Jorah to the Lord Commander near the end of the book - doh!

After having read the book, I kinda wanna go back and re-watch season 1 of the show now, just to see what other minor things I may have missed!

I'm looking forward to finding out what becomes of Arya (if/how she escapes the city and if she ever gets reunited with her family), what they end up doing with Jaime Lannister, I already know a little bit of who claims the throne next (hubby told me that for some reason I forget) but am curious as to how and what becomes of Joffery... and Sansa, if she ever quits being stupid.

But 1st... I need to read at least The Hunger Games, and most likely Catching Fire and Mockingjay (which I already ordered off Amazon for a decent price!).

If you like fantasy books and don't mind a medieval-like settings with kings and queens, lords and ladies, dwarves, giants, zombies and the like with some sex and violence thrown in, be sure to check out this book! It's got the quite the twists and turns in it!

What have you read lately?

A recent dream, or rather, a nightmare!

It's no secret that I have really trippy dreams when I sleep.

They say you have weird dreams when you're pregnant... well, I've been having really weird dreams for as long as I can remember (and I dream in color quite often too - apparently that's supposed to mean something...?). At one point I even had an entire blog devoted to keep tract of my weird-ass dreams, but I kinda gave up on that as half the time I forgot about it (oops!).

Anyways, while taking a longer nap the other day when hubby was around to watch Jay, I had another really weird dream that actually made me quite upset, and you'll see why!

I dreamed that we were down in Dallas again, visiting my old college roommate like we did back in October 2010, only instead of being 5-6months pregnant Jay was a newborn. My college roommate also had had a baby who was just slightly older than Jay.

We went out to some straight-up southern bar and grill type place one evening, after 9pm or so, so it was past the babies' bedtime. But my old roommate said that was fine, they had childcare at this place we were going to. She told me to go take care of getting our coats checked while she got the babies squared away for us.

I check the coats in and go to rendezvous with her and I learn that this place's form of childcare is swaddling and then securely locking each baby into its own small locker!

NOT acceptable for
storing babies!

Horrified, and hearing Jay screaming and freaking out, as it was dark in there, he doesn't like being swaddled, not mention he's never been in a space like that, I go to get him out, however my roommate couldn't remember the correct locker combination! So we go to the "childcare" desk and they won't give her the combination as she's not the mother and they won't give it to me as I wasn't there when he was checked in! They tell me I have to come back the next day when the general manager is in to take it up with her!

I was furious and freaking out, spending the night and day the next day waiting for the woman to show up. We ended up having to have dinner there too before she showed up.

Explaining the situation to her, she eventually used a master key to open the lock on the back so I could get him out, however it had been nearly 24 hours since he last ate, his diaper was sopping went, and he was clearly traumatized as he was just staring off in space at first, having cried himself out! He was barely breathing and took a good minute or two to come to and be okay.

Livid, I proceeded to bitch at the manager and how I would be contacting child services regarding this supposed "childcare" they offered to patrons and the way we were treated. She snootily replied that she didn't know how they run things up in Illinois, but down there, in good ol' Texas, there was nothing wrong and that my child was fine - all the babies freak out at first until they get used to it!

Yeah, that didn't help any...

Needless to say, I'm glad my dream had a happy ending with Jay being okay instead of dying of starvation/dehydration at the hands of these business morons! I would have woken up crying if that happened! But still, I was pretty mad when I woke up!

Glad to know it was only a dream (albeit more like a nightmare!).

Have you had any strange dreams lately?

A butterfly for Jay

If you follow me on Twitter or read my Phone Photo Fun Monday post this week then you know last Saturday after I work I finally went and got my tats done.

The blue one the guy ended up just redoing as it had faded so much and he didn't think his co-worker who originally did it did the picture we had justice, so he went back over the entire thing, adding in the detail the other guy originally left out (which I was fine with, but this guy seemed to really want to do it right, so I was like okay, whatever).

And then we added the little green one for Jay.

And yes, I got green instead of a reddish-orangey color like I had mentioned in my tattoo link-up post last week. I thought about it when I went to make a dummy image to take with me and... when I think colors, I don't really associate red with Jay and orange didn't look right next to the blue. When I think of a color for Jay, green looks really good on him. So I decided to go with a bright green, and I love it!

I went to the same company I got my 1st done at a few years ago, only at their newer location (I don't even think the old location is open, or if it is, they don't really promote it anymore), which I was hesitant to go to as when I stopped in there years ago to get my cartilage piercing changed before my wedding (when I got it pierced down in my college town, the guy used a blue hoop, which I didn't want in wedding pictures and wanted more of a silver hoop or a CZ stud so it didn't look odd) I had a really bad experience with the guy I dealt with - what should have taken 5 minutes took like 20 because he kept running outside to talk on his phone every 2 seconds and then when he switched the rings out for me, my piercing started oozing which it had never done before. But I had a coupon I received in the mail where I could get a $50 gift certificate towards a tattoo for just $25 (a similar deal we had used when I got my 1st tat), so I figured I'd check in there, as the guy that did my 1st one is based out of that location now also.

Well, he wasn't in, but the guy that was said he had 10 years more experience on the other guy. He gave a pretty good deal on it too - I only ended up paying about $25 more out of pocket than what I originally paid for my 1st one and this was for the rework on the 1st and adding in the 2nd.

As he was getting the colors ready, I noticed he had the Game of Thrones books (aka Song of Ice and Fire series) on his shelf and struck up a conversation with him about the books and the show. I guess he said he read them all after seeing the show, but still had them there as another guy in the shop wanted to read them.

He put his iPhone on for background music too - the 1st track coming up was "Jack Sparrow" by Lonely Island... took every bit of me not bust out laughing and singing along, as I needed to sit still! Iron Maiden's "Run to the Hills" (which is one of my favorite Maiden songs!) came on too.

It only took about an hour and didn't sting nearly as bad as I recall it did the 1st time. He said he's being doing it so long he's got a pretty gentle technique - last time I was squeezing hubby's hand when it started stinging, but this time I just sat on my hands and yeah... it stung, but not as much as I remember.

It's been stinging every few hours the last few days as it heals (basically when it gets too dry and I need to get it wet and put some ointment/moisturizer on it). But it's still looking good! I was little concerned that the green wasn't green enough, like you could still see some fleshy color in it, but he assured me that once it heals up it'll look fine and if I wasn't happy with it in a week or so just to call and setup a time when he's there to come-in and he'll do a touch-up on it for free (he said his touch-ups are always free, which is good to know in the future!). So I guess we'll see!

I've been putting A&D ointment on it - a girl I once met, said she rubbed Vaseline over her tats daily to keep the colors looking vibrant. She had had hers for years and the color was so bright and vibrant it looked like it was only a week or so old, that's how well it had kept it up! I really want to try and keep the color in mine looking vibrant and I read online that A&D ointment is really good for tats, so since we have several tubes lying around here thanks to Jay I figured I'd borrow one that wasn't getting used. Hopefully this works!

Phone Photo Fun Mondays - 01.23.12

Just got home from work, got Little Man to bed and my mom left recently (as she comes over for a bit to watch Jay during the time hubby leaves for work, before I get home)... which means it's time for me to post...

I didn't take too many photos this week... oops!

Oh well!

Can't really tell to well what's going on here - I took this one stopped while driving as I was waiting to exit my parent's neighborhood after dropping off Jay, heading to work. There's a sign up there for no left turns, which also is facing for cars coming from the right (heading left). There's a median there so duh, don't turn left. Growing up, it's always pissed me off when people ignore these signs as there's no left turn there and all your dumbass is doing is holding up traffic! The biggest culprits are old people, but in this case it was a younger girl/woman. It's like, are you incapable of reading traffic signs? Do you want to screw up your car by turning over a median??? Ugh... drives me nuts!

Once again, Jay made an obstacle course out of our basement stairs, throwing stuff at the cat (I took video too!). I moved all the blocks downstairs to his new play area (see last week's post) after he did this all weekend, as it was getting annoying.

So my right knee was bothering me for a better part of the week and I couldn't figure out why or what I had done to it. Then I noticed this nice looking bruise on the side while in the shower! It looks even darker today... still no clue what I did but it's feeling better now than it did a few days ago!

If you follow me on Twitter then you know Saturday after I work I finally went and got my tats done. I'll do a full post soon, but yeah - here's how they look!

Hubby's working on editing one of his novels he's had in progress (this one's more medieval fantasy) as the story kinda changed direction on him as he was writing it and required the 1st handful of chapters he wrote to be reworked. He was typing in the family room here, but setup shop on the kitchen table the other night as he's tired of Jay constantly trying to grab at the laptop when he's working, lol...

Boob Tube Babble 01.20.12

I've been meaning to join this link-up for awhile but always forget until I'm reading all you guys' posts Friday afternoon/evening and yeah... by then it's too late since I don't normally have time on Friday to get on the computer.

This week I watched:

Napoleon Dynamite

Once Upon a Time

Glee

New Girl

The Office

How I Met Your Mother

Gossip Girl

Napoleon Dynamite
This is a brand new animated series based off the cult classic film from my college days and the original main cast is all back - it's the latest addition to Fox's Animation Domination Sunday night line-up. The pilot was alright, focusing on Kip dating a girl he met online who fell for Napoleon instead after they met, but the 2nd episode they showed... it was soooo much funnier than the pilot! One of their teachers has this robot match up the students in the class - Summer gets stuck with Pedro (much to Pedro's delight!), Napoleon gets matched with an Asian foreign exchange student (much to Deb's dismay) who wields a samurai sword and schools Napoleon in martial arts, and Deb gets paired up with Summer's preppy boyfriend Don. It was pretty funny and the dialogue was hilarious ("Thanks for taking me to Mexico, Pedro!" "...that was my house."). I'll probably try to remember watch - the movie was me and my roommate's favorite in college, I have no idea how we didn't wear out the DVD as we watched it soooo many times we could even quote it while drunk (we did watch it while drunk, many many times, lol...)

Once Upon a Time
This week focused on Hansel and Gretel, but what I LOVED was seeing Nicholas Lea play their dad! I've mentioned it a bit in the past here, but when I was in 5th/6th grade I was a HUGE X-Files fan and renegade/rogue agent Alex Krycek was my FAVORITE character and since those days I've made an effort to watch as much of Nicholas Lea's work as I can (ie: the movies The Raffle and Vertical Limit, shows like Once a Thief and Kyle XY... I have V queued too, just haven't gotten to it yet...). So yeah, when I heard on Twitter he was in this week's episode I couldn't wait to watch it! Gotta say, for being in his mid-40s, he still looks as good as he did 15-20 years ago when I first laid eyes on him!

Glee

I just live tweeted this one last night while catching up on it. Loved the Grease "Summer Lovin'" number at the beginning - that was cute. Becky's crush on Artie was pretty cute too... Sue's 1 liners are still pretty hilarious but WHY is she suddenly being nice and helpful to everyone?? Seems a bit out of character... I'm confused! It was a fun episode, but I miss the drama that's been going on. Oh and Sam needs to get over Mercedes and just move on - I can't really see them together and I like Mercedes with her current beau.

New Girl
Schmidt's birthday party bus... not the funniest episode, but I like they finally brought the Douchebag Jar back! It was hilarious in the 1st episode but has been absent ever since... was nice to see it again!

The Office
Pool Party! They need to get Andy and Erin back together already - those 2 are perfect for each other. Pam needs to come back from maternity leave, it's weird not having her and Jim pulling pranks on Dwight all the time. And I'm still not a fan of James Spader (Robert California) on the show... he just... I don't know. I don't like him.

Since we rejoined Netflix last week, we started catching up on some TV series we hadn't seen before, including How I Met Your Mother. I've caught a few episodes here and there while channel surfing but not enough to really get into the whole storyline of the show. So we started with episode 1 and got through the 1st 5 in one night. The club episode was hilarious! And I LOVED how the 3 geeks from Freaks and Geeks are waiting in line to get in the club while Jason Segal walks right in (he played one of the freaks on the show).

I also started watching Gossip Girl. After hearing a ton of you talk about it on Twitter each week, I was interested in checking it out, but we didn't have Netflix at the time so it had to wait. But now we do! I got through the 1st 4 episodes the other night... definitely drama-filled! I still don't understand how these kids get served alcohol in public places though... like hotel bars and in limos (around these here parts there's a strict no alcohol clause for limos if minors are riding in the back with everyone!)... don't people check IDs or worry about getting their liquor licenses revoked???

So yeah, that's what I watched this week.
What have you watched?

A Jay update!

So I just realized I haven't done a Jay update in a while and well, quite a bit has happened the last few weeks!

We're alllllll done with baby food! Which is HUGE!

We buy em in big cartons, Jay loves
Goldfish so much!

We're finishing up the last of his rice cereal and switching him to oatmeal. For lunch he gets some whole grain Goldfish crackers with chicken nuggets and ranch or meat (like turkey or Hebrew National hotdogs - something that can be a finger food) plus fruit (usually Mott's All Natural No Sugar Added applesauce). Then for dinner he usually eats a bit of whatever we're having plus some fruit and Goldfish crackers (as an appetizer while we get his plate ready and cooled down). Then he usually gets a warm bottle of milk before bed.

And yes, milk - not formula! He's drinking whole milk now! It was actually a pretty easy transition, I put in his cereal one more and mixed a bit in with his formula throughout the day... within a day or 2 he was drinking just the milk, no formula. We go through a gallon a week it seems, but it's still cheaper than formula!

He's finally gotten down fingerfoods, but we have to monitor when him when he's feeding himself cuz he likes to just take a handful of food and shove it all in his mouth at once and then wonders why he's choking on it when he can't swallow it all at once /facepalm

We've also transitioned to a sippy for lunch and dinner and he seems to be doing fine with it.

He's taken a few more steps when it comes to walking alone, but he still prefers to crawl... maybe in the next 2 weeks, before his 1st birthday...

Speaking of which... I can't believe that's just 2 weeks from tomorrow! Where has the time gone?!

Most of the prep for his birthday is done - got his cake ordered, invites were sent out earlier this week, decorations and presents are bought or made, birthday onesie is here, photo albums put together... all I have left really is to finish up his baby book, buy the party favors (which I'm waiting til a few days before so I have the final kid head count), buy the food and make the punch! Should be a fun time - I'll definitely post pics!

Bedtime has been a bit of a struggle lately... unless he passes out while drinking his bedtime bottle, he'll stay up and play or do whatever in his crib for a good hour or so after his bedtime... which is already 11pm! Drives me nuts hearing him play over there when I'm trying to have my "me" time at night. And it's not like he has a lot of toys in his crib - he has a music box thing crib toy and My Pal Scout and a stuffed Eeyore. How is that keeping him up?! And he doesn't nap that close to bedtime either... hopefully this is just a phase.

He did have a bit of a growth spurt this week - he's been taking really long naps in the afternoon (2-4hrs!) and well, today I put his 6-9mo pants on him and they were above his ankles. Time to bust out the 12mo pants!

"Gimme cookie, please!!! Nom Nom Nom!!"

Jay gave me a few good laughs yesterday. He likes to play with Tiger... by throwing his toys at her when she's sitting on the steps to the basement. Now we have a gate mounted into the wall, so he can't fall down them, but he can get his arm and some of his smaller toys through the rails and yeah... he thinks it's hilarious to throw his toys at her and today she was completely instigating it too, buy jumping around, dodging them, etc. It was pretty funny, although he made an obstacle course out of my stairs...

Then I go to change him after naptime and I find one of his Cookie Monster doll's plastic cookies sticking out the top of his diaper, underneath the onesie he had on and his flannel around the house pants! I keep telling hubby I swear he pulls those cookies out of his butt, as whenever we're looking for them to play with the Cookie Monster doll (he talks and asks you to feed the cookies to him) we can't find them, but whenever Jay is playing alone, they magically appear! This just proves my theory - he really does pull them out of his diaper!

We returned to storytime at the library last night. It started up again last week but due to the mass amount of snow we got last Thursday, we decided it would just be better to stay in and avoid traveling since some of the roads were still a mess. Jay was a little stinker and a flirt though! 2 little girls joined us tonight, and the one that was 9 months old was quite taken with Jay, even trying to chase after him at a few points! It was pretty funny! He also managed to get his shoes off and then made quite a scene when I tried to get them back on at the end of storytime so we could go home... he also threw a fit when I made him put his coat on too (it was 7 degrees out, not wearing a coat or shoes was NOT an option!). He was all over the place at storytime though - one of the other moms asked if he's always this active, to which I told her yep, pretty much. Jay likes to go, go, go! Instead of practicing the different sounds (the volunteer has a bag of letters we call sounds, like M is Mmm, O is ahhh, P is puh, B is buh, etc) Jay found matching ones (the O's) and was carting them around our little section of the library, lol... he was quite proud of himself for finding matching ones, lol...

And that's my Jay update!

Yes, I have ink

For some reason I thought this link-up was on Thursday, so I didn't get my post made in advance like I was

planning on... oops!

Anyways, linking up a bit past midnight (but it's still Tuesday somewhere, right?) since I can't get on during the day...

Recently Raven showed off some her tats and decided it would be fun to do a link-up for everyone to show of theirs!

I personally have never had anything against tats and as far as religious reasoning for not getting them... well, as most people cite the verse in Leviticus, they often leave out that it also says in the same passage that men shouldn't shave their faces or women braid their hair... can't pick and choose people! I'm of the belief that as Christians, when Jesus came and died for us and rose again, he created the New Covenant which kind of made a lot of the old Jewish laws/rules in the Old Testament null and void.

Not to mention I know plenty of Christians - some very involved in their churches even - who have them and love them.

I even recall once reading in one of my dad's Christtian men's health magazines about a Christian surfer who had a really neat and elaborate crucifixion scene tattooed on his back. Given him being active in a surfer crowd, his shirt was off a lot and his back exposed and his tattoo was a great discussion piece and witnessing tool to his non-Christian surfer friends. Because of his tat, he shared his faith with many of them and some even came to believe as well. I thought that was pretty cool.

My parents, being very traditional and conservative, would not allow it and so as long as they paid my college tuition I had to abide by what few rules they still had for me. Hubby's not crazy about them and doesn't see the point, but for my 24th birthday he presented me with a gift certificate to one of the top tattoo shops here in town with the only stipulation that I had a few weeks, until after our wedding, to get it done. Being nervous about getting one, I put it off for like a month til we had a free afternoon and he took me.

And that was when I realized Metallica's "The Day That Never Comes" is a REALLY long song that seems to go on forever (or at least it made getting my tat feel like it was taking forever as it was playing on the radio when I was getting it done, lol...).

So I got my 1st tat back in October 2008 - it's a blue butterfly with black trim and details on the back of my right shoulder. I felt at the time it signified the "new" adult me, as I had just finished college the year before, bought my 1st car by myself, took on a "real" job, got married and we were supporting ourselves. My new, "adult" life.

And a little fun fact - the guy that did my ink - he broke the Guiness World Record for longest tattoo session a few years back. So I guess I have that little claim to fame!

Honestly, I think people who get them without thinking them through are dumb (no offense!) - for example, my youngest brother-in-law, being the rebel that he tries to be, went and got himself 2 tats recently - the one on his arm is a Celtic-looking cross (which okay, Celtic stuff looks kinda cool, and it's a cross... not too bad, I'll admit), but the 2nd... he has an Irish flag on the left side of his chest. My husband's family is like .0000000000001% Irish - if anything, their predominantly Swedish, German and Jewish. Not Irish. He said he was "representing" his Irish heritage, yet, the punchline of "I thought you were Irish?" comes up often when you ask him anything that's common knowledge Irish and he has no idea what you're talking about! And no, he wasn't drunk when he got it - we made sure to ask that, looking for some excuse for such an absurd tattoo! Seriously people - tattoos are pretty permanent (unless you have a lot of money to get them lasered off), so it's wise to think a bit before getting one done and ask yourself if what you get is going to look really stupid when you're old and be something you too think is stupid and regret when you're older and your tastes change. That's why I choose the butterfly - black and blue are my favorite colors and well, butterflies represent change and new beginnings, a meaning and symbol that's timeless really.

And another thought, think hard about where you're getting your tat - again, they're permanent. Do you really want a tacky tramp stamp the rest of your life? Or do you plan on ever having kids? Who knows, you probably will gain weight at some point in your life... so make sure that where you're getting that tat is somewhere that isn't going to stretch much if your body does get bigger. Also, if you might ever have to work a professional job, be sure that normal clothing can cover your tat as many jobs don't allow visible tats as part of their dress code. I went with the back of my shoulder as well, how often in your adult life does the skin on your shoulders stretch? Not often. Plus it can be covered for jobs if need be, but it's there and visible other times. I've thought about getting an ankle band but I'm not 100% on that one just yet - not so sure about what type of band I want, nor am I 100% sure I want an ankle band for the rest of my life.

I also decided that for each kid we have, I'd like to get a smaller, different colored butterfly to go with my "mama" butterfly to represent each one of my babies.

I  haven't gotten Jay's yet, however I'm thinking maybe this weekend since I'll have time to go after work without having to worry about who's watching Jay. I plan on his being just like mine, only with an orange/red butterfly with the black trim. I also want to get mine touched up, as the color isn't nearly as vibrant as it originally was and since I'm adding to it, I kinda want the colors to be the same vibrancy.

I hear a lot of people ask if tats hurt - honestly, I believe it depends on where you get it done and what exactly you're having done.

Like I hear foot tats are pretty painful as your foot is pretty much all bone and having a needle hit your bone like that can be pretty painful! Only part of my butterfly is over my shoulderbone, so I did get to experience that a little, however, for me, the outlining part didn't hurt so much - the shading... that stung a bit and I made sure to grip onto hubby's hand or the back of the chair for that part!

Hopefully I'll have Jay's butterfly on me this weekend if I don't chicken out (for some reason I'm nervous, but not really sure why!) I think it's just the anticipation of it, even though I've known for awhile that I AM getting it done eventually, so since I have the money now, why not?

Phone Photo Fun Mondays - 01.16.12

 

Apparently this weekly link-up has changed a bit in name, but it's still the same Monday post where I show you the photos I took on my phone this week!

Jay had fun "playing" and making a mess in mommy's kitchen one morning, including moving his high chair across the room!

 We *finally* had our 1st "real" snowfall of the winter season last Thursday and it finally seems like winter around here! Of course we had to take Jay out in his 1st real snow, as he was just a newborn last year when there was snow and we only took him to and from the car via his carrier in it.

All bundled up to go outside - he wasn't happy... until we got out in the cold and realized why he was bundled up, lol...

"What is this??"

Playing around

"This is kinda fun!"

Posing with mommy

Napping with daddy after our fun time in the snow

Maybe a little hard to see, but somehow hubby got his laptop screen orientation sideways, lol...

In these next ones, there's a few before and after photos - my dad is doing some minor home improvement projects around the house for us as he's between jobs and running out of things to do around their home to keep busy and well, he's better at that stuff than hubby and I so I figured why not? This week he installed some bifold doors to section off our laundry room area and I moved my craft area so that Jay can have a play corner in our basement.

Laundry area before

...and after! With doors to keep Jay (and Tiger) out of that back area of the basement.

My former craft area (new craft area is in the previous photo)

The beginnings of Jay's play area. We built his bookshelf and pieced together 6 of the 8 playmats he got for Christmas (which he was SOOOO excited to get, lol...). I'd say it's a pretty good start!

So I'm working on making a variation of this balloon wreath that Undomesticated Chica shared on her blog last week for Jay's upcoming 1st birthday party (can't believe that's almost here!!!) and I came across this in the bag of balloons I was using - 2 balloons melded together! Doh!