a cautionary tattoo tale

i've been thinking lately about the many, many foolish choices i made in my early twenties. there was an abundance and i made them all with the reckless abandon that only the young fool does. i had been fairly careful about my choices up to that point in time with only a slight swerve into the fast-moving naughty lane before my twentieth birthday.

i look pretty normal here, don't i?
but underneath that calm exterior lay the makings of a party girl.

but when i turned twenty, i decided that i was done with the good and i was headed as quick as i could find it, into the bad. i boycotted church and started swearing excessively. i dated men who weren't future husband material and cut and dyed my hair into unacceptable colors and styles.

one of the things i decided i needed to try was body art. i got my belly button pierced and then passed out when i stood up. fortunately, the 18 year old guy who'd clamped and stabbed my navel knew enough to slide me gently down the counter where i'd flopped like a boneless jellyfish and then give me a coke when i woke up.

i got my tongue pierced a few months later, which wasn't particularly smart since it was only a few days before thanksgiving. my tongue swelled up and left me with a lisp that was hard to hide when speaking with people, like my grandma. and i couldn't indulge in anything but cranberry sauce because chewing was pretty much out of the question. i decided to take that piercing out after one night when i was making out with a guy who suddenly pulled away from my face, reached into his mouth and pulled the ball from the top of my tongue barbell off his tongue and handed it to me.

piercings though, are just beginner stuff. they're removable and can be denied once you get tired of them. tattoos though, hold a whole different realm of stupid possibilities. don't get me wrong, i like tattoos a lot. i like the artistic aspect and the way they can mark a significant event in your life.

however, the way i went about getting tattoos wasn't artistic or significant. i decided all of a sudden, to find the name of a tattoo shop in the yellow pages and then go there. i went alone and didn't give any prior thought to what was going to be put permanently on my skin. i picked some flowers out of a book. they were boring and poorly done, but they live on my ankle for anyone to see when the weather is warm.

having a tattoo made me feel like a tough guy. like i was part of the cool kids' club, even though my ink was meaningless and tacky. i decided about a year later to get another one. i was determined to do better on my second round in the tattoo chair and i chose to put it in a location where it wouldn't be visible so often. i picked my lower stomach.

obviously, for a woman, that's a bad choice of body real estate, even if you're young and thin and can't imagine ever having kids. twenty year olds know nothing.

you see that smiling face and belly shirt? yeah, that was me, happy and stupid and about to show off my sneaky stomach tattoo. please disregard the huge beeper in my pocket.

i did my best to clean up these pics so you can make out what that ridiculous mousey looked like when it was fresh and new. you can see how perfectly it fit under my bikini bottom so that it always stayed hidden.

that was fine and dandy for a while, but a few years later, i got pregnant. and once i was pregnant, all hell broke lose with that tattoo. it ceased to be a cute little mousey and instead stretched out into something alarming and grotesque.

i actually got brave enough to take a picture of it tonight. a few months ago, i never would have considered it, but i've lost 48 lbs to date and i can see it now, so i am once again aware of its existence regularly. being thinner though, hasn't helped it to become any less ugly.

as i was taking the pictures, i kept thinking they were blurry. then i realized that the photo was perfectly clear, it's just that now it looks like an underwater sewer rat. or a jacked up elephant.

so let this be a cautionary tale for anyone considering a tattoo. be very careful about the location of your potential ink. if you don't have a good reason and location for it, then forget it and go get something pierced instead.

sum-sum-summertime

as every school year draws to a close, i picture something slow and easy and calm just ahead of me. i imagine sleeping late each morning. having brunch, reading books, lazing about endlessly on couches. it seems as though i'll have all the time in the world for catching up on all the things i love to do that i don't have time for during the school year.

yet somehow, every summer i'm surprised at how it doesn't happen quite like that. our first week of summer vacation was spent catching up on all the things i should have done in the previous months. like grooming the cats, thoroughly cleaning bathrooms, mending or altering the pile of things that were too big, missing buttons or whatever. i was running errands that had been neglected, such as finally getting my car registered in this state, since we've been here for a year now.

our second week was spent going to the pool as frequently as possible. i know, i know, that's not a task to be avoided, but a blessing to be cherished and i'm very happy to have the chance to go to the pool. but i thought i was going to spend my summer writing a book. and maybe i still will, but so far, the writing hasn't been happening very much.

instead, i've been taking care of life and people and cats. and going to parks, working on my tan. and discovering that i love yoga. that's pretty shocking to me because i never would have imagined that yoga was something i would ever want to embrace and yet, here i am, doing an hour every day and thoroughly enjoying it.

i hope your summer is going well (if you've already begun it). i hope it's more relaxing than mine, but if not, i hope you get a little tan and make some great memories and get to do some things you like that don't involve cooking, cleaning or laundry.

this is the mini-waterpark only 8 minutes from our house where we get to spend our days.

don't you just want to jump right in and start splashing?

her face makes my heart happy.

life is good, even if i'm not asleep on my couch.

what a view.

who's in charge around here?

as a child, i was always in a hurry to be an adult. i was the kid who couldn't get grown fast enough. i didn't mind responsibility. i ate responsibility as a healthy after-school snack! i was babysitting my infant sister when i was ten. i was the one who rushed to wash my hands and hurry to the table when my mom yelled that dinner was ready. i always changed the toilet paper roll without being reminded. i was the kid who, when mom said, "can someone help me with this?" i helped, while my siblings acted like they didn't hear her.

when i was nineteen, i got a job as a nanny for three little kids. my boss trusted me to get them up and ready and out the door for school on time every morning. i potty-trained the youngest one. i did the laundry and cooked food. i grocery shopped for the whole family and had access to the family checkbook where i was free to forge her signature any time there was an expense i needed her to pay.

never once did it even cross my mind to doubt myself. i never questioned whether i was responsible enough to handle the job. i just did it. and for the most part, i did it well.

but when i was twenty-three, i was working in a retail clothing store and i got promoted to assistant manager. suddenly, i was in charge in a store where i'd been working as a sales associate. i had my own set of keys and the combination to the safe. i carried large amounts of money to the bank and opened and closed the store daily.

it was while i was working there that i suddenly started feeling like maybe i wasn't up to the task. i would sometimes look around and wonder who was in charge.

one night, my friend/co-worker was standing behind the register with me and when there were no customers in the store, she whipped up her shirt and showed me her fresh, new boobs she'd just had done. my eyes widened and i started looking around, wondering why the manager on duty was allowing such shenanigans in the store during business hours. then i realized that I was the manager. why was i letting her do that? it was hard to be the one to shut down the fun. to enforce the dress code and to never leave early, even if there was a really good movie playing across the road in five minutes. i didn't necessarily want to deal with the angry customers who wanted to speak to the person in charge. i felt like i was playing charades and i was acting out the role of manager, but my turn was almost up and then someone else would take over.

i had a repeat of that same strange feeling when brooke was born. when i was home with her by myself for the whole day and she was so tiny and vulnerable, i'd sometimes look at her and wonder how i could possibly be trusted to keep her safe. i'd wonder who was in charge around here. where's my supervisor? are there hidden cameras watching to make sure i get things right? when is my mom going to show up and establish some rules around this joint?

sometimes i still wonder where the grown-ups are. because maybe i'm not quite ready to grow up yet. i think i want a popsicle. and a nap.

dead birds and hungry snakes

tonight, we were visiting my parents. we were having a good time, about to serve dinner, when my dad noticed a dead bird on the ground below the big window out back.

knowing my child like i do, i immediately called brooke to come outside and check the bird out. she ran out, checked for blood or goo and then picked it up and thoroughly investigated it. she spread out the wings, opened and closed the beak, rubbed its belly.

then she headed further out into the yard to find a place to set it. a place where it wouldn't get stepped on or picked up by the dog. we were heading for a hole where a stump was ripped out recently when i spotted a snake on the edge of the hole.  brooke climbed a tree with branches overlooking the snake so she could get a good look. i ran in for the rest of the family so they could enjoy our slithering discovery.

turns out, it was a copperhead, so it had to be.... um... separated from its head. with a shovel.

when i asked brooke later where she'd decided to leave her dead bird, she told me that when she climbed the tree, she took the bird carcass up with her. she inspected the snake and determined that there were no obvious lumps, so it probably hadn't eaten recently. she then threw the bird at the snake in hopes that she'd get to watch it swallow it whole. too bad snakey lost his head before he got his easy meal.

brookie

sunday, brooke got baptized at church. she's been wanting to do this for a few months and finally got the chance. however, once the moment arrived, she got pretty nervous and almost changed her mind. i guess the hundreds of people and big cameras surrounding her, as well as the strangers smiling at her from around the edges of the dunking pool became a little too much.

but she hung in there, clinging to my side with tears in her eyes until the last possible second and then went in like a champ. she said that she loved Jesus and wanted to be baptized to show that.

i love this picture of brooke hanging on my dad.

on a different and unrelated brooke note, yesterday she was super annoyed by school. it was hard and she had no patience for the shenanigans of her math and spelling assignments. i found this note written on the top of her spelling page. and i had to laugh because "screw" is one of her spelling words and she used it correctly in a sentence.

i'm such a proud mama!

nervous

i've been writing my whole life. i started out writing love notes to my mom and dad. i filled up diaries in elementary school to document my every thought, feeling, or irritation. i wrote letters to all my friends as well as pen pals i picked up around the world. i've had a pen in my hand since i developed enough fine motor skills to make letters look like anything legible.

i've always been a reader too. books, magazines, newspapers, letters, notes, recipes, graffiti. i can't fall asleep at night without reading. i start reading from the moment i wake up in the morning and in one way or another, i keep it up until i fall asleep at night.

i've always suspected that one day i'd write a book of my own, but i was rarely willing to whisper that dream out loud for fear of being mocked. i guess i always thought that people who said they were going to write a book were like those folks who said they were going to make it big in hollywood one day. or be recording artists. or sports.... guys. what do you call people who play sports? i never watch so i don't keep up with those things.

but lately, i can't fight the feeling that there's a book trying to escape from my brain. it's like there's a swirl of words and ideas and possibilities that won't leave me alone and won't let me rest. it has to be written.

i don't know if it'll ever get published or if anyone will ever read it, i just know that i can't wait any longer. i can hardly even go about my daily routine of schooling brooke and cooking and doing the other stuff that fills up my days because i'm so distracted.

i've read other bloggers who wrote posts like this. then they disappeared. it felt like the post of death to a blog. i hope that's not the case here, but i think i understand it now. it's not really a choice so much as a necessity for the writer. oh my gosh, i almost just suggested that i'm a writer. that's a class of people that i don't fit into because i'm not one of those cool kids. but write i must. thank goodness summer vacation is just a few weeks away or i think my brain would explode.

i'm feeling all vulnerable and nervous and excited. like i just opened up my guts and showed them to you. for me, telling embarrassing stories about myself is no big deal, but sharing an honest feeling out loud makes me want to cry.

holy crap. what am i doing?

standing room only clothes

i've had to give entirely too much thought to clothing lately. and i'm finding that i'm not really a fan of clothes. i mean, i don't prefer nudity, but i like to not think about clothes almost at all. if i could wear stretchy pants and a baggy t-shirt and no bra all the time, i'd be quite satisfied with that.

alas, dressing like that looks like crap and makes your body look even blobbier than it already is. as i've been losing weight (36 lbs so far) i've been shrinking out of all my clothes. for a while i could wear belts to compensate, but i'm down two sizes now and i just need new clothes. i've not become any wealthier as i've become skinnier though, so new clothes aren't really in the budget. what's a girl to do? she heads to goodwill. and thankfully there's one fairly close to my house that's filled with the beautiful castoffs of our rich neighbors.

i'm having to remember as i shop that there are different types of clothing. there are standing pants and sitting pants. standing shirts and sitting shirts. there are even standing/sitting bras. the standing pants are the ones that look fine when you're standing up. they feel acceptable, but God forbid you wear them on a day when you're going to spend most of your day seated. those things work like a tourniquet for your waistline and will just about cut you in half, especially if you've eaten recently. they're great though for a day at the mall or a park where you'll be mainly in an upright position and shunning food. these are the pants you want to be photographed wearing.

standing shirts are close fitting and show the outline of your body which emphasizes how you actually do have a waist that dips in between your bust and hips. however, you don't want to be caught sitting down in one of these shirts because, well, because it shows the outline of your body. and when sitting down, everything in your middle condenses, causing things to bulge about in a very unflattering way. it hugs lumps and dispels any possible question as to whether or not you might be pregnant. because pregnant bellies don't have multiple rolls like you do. these shirts are best worn while standing up and with your hands on your hips. sitting shirts are more forgiving and can even be paired with standing pants as long as proper care is taken when seated to make sure that the shirt is flowing outward adequately so as not to get caught in any fat cracks.

bras are another one of those dumb clothing items that have standing/sitting preferences. underwires are better while standing, while something without a wire is better when you'll be seated for most of the hours that you're wearing it. those pesky wires can be quite disagreeable when they're poking you in the ribs or armpit, but they sure do make the girls look young and perky if you're standing up.

i hope there aren't any cameras in the dressing rooms that i frequent because it probably looks like i'm engaged in a game of musical chairs with myself as i try things on. for every item that i slip into, i position myself in front of the mirror and then do a stand up - sit down routine while watching each garment closely to see how it behaves. this is truly a challenge when there's no seat in the changing room. i have to do an imitation sit-down and try to hold myself in that squatty position for long enough to get a good look at how the clothing is hugging my bits. i've got to be careful not to purchase too many of those standing room only garments or i'll never be able to sit down again. or at least not until i lose some more weight and they get re-purposed from standing to sitting clothes.