I'll be on the bus, Wil

Frosty the Dancing Snowman

It wouldn't be Christmas without Mom's flasher, stripper Frosty.



There are more Christmas pictures and video to come.

I might be blogging again. Maybe. I dunno. We'll see how ambitious I get.

Happy (late) Birthday To Me!

Last month I turned ::coughcoughcough::. ;)

In addition to that, it was a very busy month. We had parties and BBQs and concerts and fishing every weekend! On my actual birthday, May 17, we attended Ed and Vanessa's surprise wedding.

So, I ended up not doing anything special for my birthday. No dinner out. No party for me. But, that didn't bother me at all. I wasn't really feeling the urge to celebrate this one anyway.

But then I thought, I should do something special for myself. Make this birthday a good one, one I will want to remember.

So, John and I got tattoos together!

Sound like a spur of the moment thing? Nope. We've been talking about it for a long time. And I decided that this was a perfect way for me to get over my birthday annoyance.

So, last month, we headed over to Iron Brush Tattoo. John has 3 previous tattoos that were done by the amazing tattoo artist, Tyson Schaffert, owner of Iron Brush. So we both wanted our new ones to be done by him.

Well, due to the fact that Tyson is an amazing artist, he is very much in demand. So, the next appointment he had available was June 11. Oh well, no tattoo for me on my birthday, I'll have to wait a month.

And the wait was totally worth it, don't you agree?

My new tattoo - on my left ankle. It goes all the way around .


John's new tattoo - on his left forearm.


Notice the similarity?

Yup, they both have the same celtic knot symbol as the basis, but done how we each wanted it to look.

John wanted a metallic look. He drew it up himself in blues and yellows. Tyson recommended the black background, to really make it pop. When it was done, John came out to show it to me. I think he was upset about how I looked when I saw it. I liked it, really, I did! But, I said, where'd the red come from? John told me that in the middle of doing it, the idea to add the red just popped into Tyson's head. He asked John what he thought and John told him to go for it. And of course, it came out awesome, because Tyson is awesome.

For mine, I had a picture of a tree of life tattoo, to show the kind of realistic branches that I liked. And I had the basic celtic knot symbol. Not being as artistic as John, the design was all in my head. I described what I wanted to Tyson, and he drew it up for me. When he showed his drawing to me, all I could say was WOW! It was better than anything I had pictured. He added the leaves, I hadn't even thought about those. He said he'd done wood before, but not tree branches like this. If that's true, I'd say this is crazy good for his first time!

And yes, it hurt. I limped around for a few days. We're both slathering on the Lubriderm. And now the hellish itching stage has begun.

And just to make an already exciting day even better - on the way home, the tornado sirens went off! Yay!

But no matter. I am now sporting a beautiful piece of original Tyson art.

It's a celebration of my birthday, a representation of my Irish heritage, and a symbol of the love that John and I share. And I will wear it proudly forever.

Wil Wheaton is my Hero

Ms. Pac-Man, ghost chompin'
Originally uploaded by WilWheaton.

Read what Wil said and be enlightened.

Efficiency

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

I think I'm full

I have a love-hate relationship with RSS feeds.

RSS is a great invention. I love not having to jump all over the web to read the blogs and news and cartoons that I like. RSS is one-stop-shopping for information junkies like me.

And I'm always finding new feeds to add to my Bloglines. Some I come upon by accident. The intertubes are full of serendipity. Some I find out about from blogs I'm already following. Some come from friends and colleagues. It's a never ending process.

And that's the problem. There's just too many great feeds out there. And I NEED to follow them all!

But keeping up with them all is pretty much impossible. I actually have two Bloglines account - one for work-related feeds and one for personal feeds. If I had them all in one account, I'd probably lose my mind trying to read everything all day long. So to try and stay slightly sane, I only read the work feeds at work and the personal ones at home.

Is it really helping though? A quick glance thru both of my Bloglines says no. Lots and lots of unread items. I may have to do a wipe - mark everything read and start clean.

But can I do it? What if I miss something important?? What will I do???

BAM BAM!

I've been doing this Book a Month Challenge since January. And it's been going well. At least, the reading part. The reviewing and blogging part...not so much.

So, you're going to get a twofer today - two BAM reviews in one! Are you totally thrilled? I thought so.

First up is my BAM for February, for the Heart theme - The Ghatti's Tale: Book One: Finders-Seekers, by Gayle Greeno.

I've always been a scifi/fantasy fan, and this book has a little of both. Mostly fantasy at the time of the story, but scifi in the past. Colonists from earth came to the planet Methuen over 200 years ago. Most of their technology has been mysteriously destroyed over the years. Now, they live as the natives, and have developed a new native ability.

There is also a race of large cats native to Methuen, called ghatti, who can speak telepathically to humans, if they choose to bond with them. I wish I could talk to my cats, in any way at all. Would make my life so much easier.

Anyway, telepathic humans and ghatti are being murdered. One pair of Bondmates, a woman Doyce, and her ghatta Khar'pern, have been chosen to find out who is doing this and why. Doyce has a special interest in the murders because her intended fiance has become one of the victims.

I was thoroughly engrossed in this story and the characters. This is the first book in a three book series. And now I need to find the other two books, because I have to know what happens next!

The BAM theme for March was Craft. I choose a book related to my chosen craft, librarianship - Seneca Falls Inheritance, by Miriam Grace Monfredo. Now, I have to come clean here - I have read this book before. But it was over 10 years ago. And when the Craft theme was announced, it popped right into my head as the perfect book. So, I gave in and re-read it.

The feminist in me loves this book for the independent Glynis Tryon, helping organize the first Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls. The fact that Glynis is a librarian doesn't hurt either. She's a smart, stubborn, educated woman struggling to solve a woman's murder in her small town. The New Yorker in me feels very much at home in Seneca Falls, a city I have actually visited myself.

Even 10 years later, I still find this book both educational and entertaining. I have 3 of the sequels to this book, too. Wonder if I have time to read them before April's BAM?