Painted Ladies

My friend, @grantcobb1, is in town so it was time to schedule more time with the needles!  Last year in February, we were on @chimneyfallcat's birthday cruise and several of the Chimneys agreed to get DC flag tattoos (we drink sometimes).  Five of us went in tonight and four came out with new ink!  There are a few others that will be joining us soon and we'll be there to cheer them on.  Pictures of the other's DC Flags are forthcoming, but here we are hanging out at Tattoo Paradise during the process!

This is a 'just finished' shot of my arm.  I know artists hate to work on other people's stuff, but it was time to add new significance to the original stop smoking star from San Antonio.  It will never stop being what it was, but it now also represents "home."  After today, Grant has done and/or modified all of the art on my body.  I'm a happy chimney.

Calaveras

Michael is an enabler. I might be in trouble when I get home from San Antonio, but I earned this award for good behavior

More Ink

I don't know if it is truly addictive or if I just felt unbalanced with only one side of my back inked. Regardless, Grant sketched some daisies and started the outline! It will ultimately be in color and is intended as a celebration of my ladies. Both my Mother and my Daughter are huge Daisy fans.

If I am brave enough to follow through, the shoulder and upper right arm will be specifically dedicated to my baby girl. That part of it, if I do it, will not be revealed until it is finished.

Alert DC - Snow

"National Weather has issued a Snow Advisory for Wednesday from 6AM to 6PM for the District and surrounding jurisdictions. The accumulations are 1 to 2 inches of snow and the temperature high 35 and the low 28."

So...this certainly isn't Ohio. We wouldn't even notice 1 - 2 inches of snow in Ohio and in DC you get an emergency alert via SMS and email. Nice to know, yes; an emergency, no. I am, however, excited to see the first local snow. We had a momentary flury, but no actual snow yet. The only snow we've seen has been in the mountains en route to Pittsburgh a few weeks back.

Speaking of back, I'm finally pain free. It took 8 days. Now the tattoo is just itchy and dry. There is no amount of lotion in the world that can make it feel normal, but at least it doesn't hurt! Unless the pending storm shuts down the city, I am jumping back into the gym today before I lose my fitness motivation. We'll see how that goes.

Tattoo!

I was at Tattoo Paradise from 6:00 - 11:15 on Tuesday night. Grant did give me two short breaks, but it was mostly unpleasant I powered through the whole thing and was (am still) in major pain, but it is over!

My friend Erica would be proud of me. She'd make fun of the style, but she'd still respect it. Strangely enough, she gave me the strength to get this, and her family tragically experienced another death on Tuesday. Her sister's long term boyfriend and father of her children passed away unexpectedly. I feel for both Erica and Marla's kids as it's been a rough year for them. I just can't imagine it...

I took a couple days to post the full pic so I could show a few people in person before throwing it on the web. I'm fairly certain that Timmy hates it, but the feedback from friends has been overwhelmingly positive. They're probably just humoring me, but I'm tough now... Let me know what you think. You can also check out my ink at the link below.

Sneak Peak!

Tonight is the fill in. I decided to go with solid black in lieu of shading. It's coming along nicely but I'm bleeding and in wretched pain. Thankfully, Grant says he can finish it tonight.

Happy Holidays

Wow - Haven't posted in five months! I am getting ready to stop smoking again and this was quite therapeutic to write on here (to nobody) about it the last time. I figured it would be a great idea to start it back up! I've gotten serious about the tattoo, which coincidentally appears to be the last thing I blogged about. I would like to quit smoking on January 2, to coincide with the DC smoking ban. I am fairly decided that a tattoo would be a great way to commemorate this event and would give me something concrete to focus on. I settled on an artist through a recommendation from my military friend. I met with his guy, Tony, at Jinxproof in Georgetown. He seems really cool and understands what I want. It will be much in the style of my favorite tattoo artist, Stevie Moon, but Tony definitely has his own take on things. I need to schedule a two hour freehand drawing session on half of my back and then he'll make a template to mirror image it. The whole process will take several weeks and numerous visits of 2-4 hours to fill it in. I realize this is quite an ambitious undertaking, but again - will give me something to focus on and is definitely better than smoking! The tattoo could save my life! Of course the BF still says I should go for laser hair removal first. I barely have much to shave - I think I'll bypass the hair removal.

So here's a catch up since the last post.

1. Still Smoking (obviously as mentioned above)
2. Got a stress fracture in the hip - despite my doctor's specific demand to not even travel, I went to VA Beach over Labor Day weekend and collapsed in horrific pain after walking (yes walking) the first mile.
3. The 'surprise' was fantastic, but I ended up traveling for several weeks in a row before the vacation so I ended up revealing the secret about a month in advance. We had an amazing time in Greece. Made many new friends from all over the world! While I didn't live blog from Europe, I did go back and convert my written journal to vacation posts on here.
4. The promotion...nice story there...my boss left and it was never processed. The new director thought it was put in place so I missed it in the fall promo-equity cycle too. Rumor has it I'm actually being recommended for it with the next cycle in a few months - I'm over it.
5. Work is great - growing substantially and getting more responsibility. This means regular trips to NC which I am not looking forward to.
6. Christmas was amazing - spent time in OH & PA with friends and family. Five locations, four nights, fun times!
7. Mom is doing well...still seems depressed since her stroke.
8. Planning the next vacation in March! Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica, here we come!
9. Got a new car. The damn mini-hoo haa was in the shop 10 times in 11 months. Went with a little CUV - much better for the road trips and grocery getting. Still take the train to work though!

Funny how I can summarize five months in 9 short lines.

I googled inked bald gay

I don't have a tattoo, but would like one. Yesterday I googled inked, bald, gay to get some ideas since the baldy boys are sometimes appealing to me....Not surprised, but I came up with an English Skinhead site...not exactly what I had in mind as a model for a potential tattoo.

Anyway...just a thought for the day. I haven't written in quite some time. A bit of craziness has happened. I 'revealed' some of my weaknesses and secrets to the man. Wasn't easy, but made sense to do.

I am smoking 100% again

I am up to 10 miles in the marathon training

The super secret surprise is still a secret, despite my itching to reveal

Gotta run to work

Later