t-minus 35 days and counting

Not quite 48 hours post-tattoo...

Is it possible to have a crush on one of your appendages?

Exactly five weeks until it's finished, and I'm as giddy as a school girl.

Tattoo #3

Some people see their body as a temple and feel they should not taint it.  Other people, like me, see their body as a temple and choose to decorate the canvas with art.  And sadly, there are people who don't see their body as anything at all.  I feel bad for them.

The idea for this tattoo came to me when my husband gave me a necklace back in 2004 (exactly like the plaque below).  I always thought it would be a great tattoo, but waited six years for money, time, and to be sure I still wanted it.  The shape and layout are perfect for the upper arm.  Ian White (Black 13 Tattoo Parlor) took the two pictures  (below) and created this beautiful piece.  I'm ecstatic with the results.  He changed the scrollwork to a tree which would probably be the length of my whole arm if you straightened it out. We have one more session in February to finish it off.

The artwork represents the three phases of Woman--Maiden, Mother, and Crone.  (Scroll about halfway down for the individual explanations)

The tattoos I have, as well as the future ones, are for me-not the rest of the world.  I do want to share them, because they are beautiful and part of me. Until tattoos are accepted in the workplace, I'll keep mine covered.  I understand the stereotypes and don't want to scare any of my older patients.  But outside of work, I'll show them with pride.

You better bring it, 2011.

With the exception of a few rare treats--Scotland, Bonnaroo, SIWC--and the daily entertainment of my children, 2010 sucked ass.  I welcome 2011 with open arms...I promise not to strangle it.

Happy Fucking New Year.

'Cause Santa Clause is watchin' you...He's everywhere! He's everywhere!

Re-the blog title...I couldn't think of a wittier one, and that Ray Steven's song has been stuck in my head for the last few days.

Anyhow.  I took a much needed week-long break from writing following the exhausting month that was November.  I read FREEDOM by Jonathan Franzen (excellent read, btw),  NIGHT STAR by Alyson Noel (her series is fading as well as her storytelling, I was seriously let down by this, the fourth book in her Immortals Series),  and IMMORTAL SEA by Virginia Kantra (the fourth in her Children of the Sea series, great book, highly enjoyed it).

I still feel the strong pull of my enormous TBR pile, but I think I'll hold off until I feel my own WiP is flowing easily.  So far today, I've gotten around 250 words, and I think I can double that, maybe triple it, by the end of the day.

My personal goal (in writing and reading) is to write 500-1000 words every day until this rewrite is finished.  Then I can start on the editing process, which should be interesting since I've never done that before.  I'd like to read one or two books each week.  Diana Gabaldon has said many times that a writer should write and read as much as they can.  I'll try to do that, but the NaNo pace is definitely Not Compatible with my life.  Three kids and a full time job just don't allow it.

Until next time...

NaNo Day 10

I finished up last night with just over 16k words.  I've found that writing at work is way to distracting to try and keep up with 1667 words per day (and have half decent writing).  Yet, at home I don't have the time to get down more than 2k per day.  Can't seem to get ahead.

We're all on the rear end of a cold, so that's not helping.  But I'm a thousand words ahead of schedule, so I must be doing something right.

Off to start my writing, as soon as the coffee finishes brewing.

NaNo Day 5

Standing at around 8,000 words, but today is sluggish.  Don't know if it's because I've been up every day before 5 a.m. or if my fire is dwindling.  I think it's the former...I hope.  We've all been posting snips, almost daily over at the Compuserve Writer's Forum.  And now we have a Wall of Shame thread going to keep us procrastinators moving. Hoping to get a few thousand words ahead this weekend to buffer the Thanksgiving trip.

NaNo update

Day three of NaNoWriMo:  I'm still alive.   I'm gonna try to get a few more words down before bed, but right now my word count is at 5,063.  I'm just gonna copy & paste my previous post from the Compuserve Forum's NaNo thread and get back to writing.....


Posted earlier this evening:  "Tuesday, I had all three kids at home since school was out for parent teacher conferences, and my husband was in his classes for the majority of the day, but I still logged in a little over 1800 words.
Went to bed last night at 11pm, husband snoring. Moved to couch, where husband woke me up at 3:30 am not believing my line about his snoring, lol. Had the alarm set on my phone for 5am, but the 2 y/o woke up just before it went off.
Got her back to sleep.
Started coffee [twice, after forgetting to add the water to the reservoir] and got 382 words before I had to take the oldest to school and head into work on my day off for a research study proposal meeting [which ended up lasting three hours]. I'm sitting on 1690 for today, most of that was done between 12 noon and 5pm [with a little arguing over "not fair" amounts of homework and two toddlers fighting over a yo-yo].
Maybe tonight I'll get a little sleep before the alarm goes off in the morning."