How to say it

I've been thinking about lettering tattoos lately. They're one of the most popular types of tattoo to get, and I understand the appeal. Words are powerful, powerful things, and the words you choose to have tattooed on your body are a strong statement about who you are.

I wonder the mindset of those who get lettering. I wonder, are they getting a belief tattooed? A wish? A goal? Are they getting who they are or is it who they want to be that they're getting tattooed on themselves?

Braaaaaains (two awesome tattoos)

The end of the summer is the beginning of the slow season in the tattoo world. It seems counter intuitive, one would imagine that with the return of the college students business would go up, but for some reason that's not the case. The positive aspect of this drop in business, though, is that when someone comes in, a lot of the time they want a custom tattoo, not just a piece of flash (not that there's anything wrong with those!)

Breakfast Bonanza! Or, how much bacon can one family eat?

After a good deal of interesting family dynamics in action, we were invited to the folks' for a big family breakfast this morning. Grandmother and Uncle David had arrived Friday evening so they could attend a cousin's wedding on Saturday. My Sister-In-Law's mom was coming, and my cousin Lisa and her husband were expected to come as well. It was a Big Deal, and in spite of two weeks of weirdness, when the invitation was extended yesterday, my desire to see my Grandmother trumped anything else, so I said we'd attend. (We being Big Eddie, Jasper, and myself, as the big boys wouldn't be home from Omaha at 8:00am).

The food was plentiful. Oh, what a feast was prepared--a sausage, cheese, egg, and hashbrown breakfast casserole, cinnamon rolls, fresh berries and cantaloupe, pancakes (your choice of plain, chocolate chip, or blueberry), and ever so much bacon. I think they said they cooked three packages of bacon. That's three pounds, and there were only two pieces remaining by the time we left.

Calming Down

We made it home around 2:00pm, much gratitude to my brother for rescuing us. I don't recall the last time I've been so carsick. I was smushed up with my knees under my chin the whole way home, since Big Eddie and my brother are both so tall that they have to ride with their seats all the way back. I am not a short lady, and I am prone to motion sickness anyway, so riding in the backseat of a low-slung Subaru zipping down the interstate was not a recipe for awesomeness. But then, even swings and merry-go-rounds make me nauseous, so what do I know! We made it back, and Big Eddie did get to go in to work today, so at least we have been able to maintain that normalcy.

The big boys are spending the night with Grandma Laura in LaVista. This afternoon they went up to visit her (Laura's) sister at her new house. It's a big beautiful place on an acreage, with fields and trees and an orchard, and all kinds of places for little boys to run around and explore. When I spoke with Laura this evening, she told me that they were wonderfully well behaved, that they ate well (except for the Kalamata olives, and really, I can't blame them for not eating those), and that they even picked and ate Concord grapes right off the vine. Oh, how I wish I could have seen that!

Mister Jasper and I spent the afternoon being...not so productive. We napped and napped until dinner time, but I was so exhausted (in the brain, mostly) that it only did us good. Big Eddie will be home soon, and then we can sit down and try to figure out what to do next.

Day Trip from Hell

Here's something fun! What started as a quick trip up to Omaha to drop the boys off at Grandma's has turned into a huge mess. The head gasket on the van blew right as we pulled off the interstate. The van was overheating and white smoke was billowing, it was a tense trip into LaVista. We made it to the house, and discovered that the oil was soapy frothy, and that there was oil in the coolant. So we are currently waiting for my brother to come here to take Big Eddie, Jasper, and myself back home.
This is not how I pictured today going--an inane statement, I know, but I'm pretty upset right now. Mainly with myself, because coming up here was my idea, Grandma said she'd come down and pick the boys up but nooooo, I had to be headstrong and push ahead with my own plans. Now we have no vehicle, Big Eddie's missing work, and I feel rotten for orchestrating this whole mess.

What a day.