The home stretch....

...only 3 more days to go until Silence in the Blogosphere!

Because someone asked on 43Things about my tattoo, I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone (altho' I hate violent metaphors) and post my reply here:

On Memorial Day 2003, I had a miscarriage (interestingly, all my kids were 'born' on some sort of holiday - Ahren was May Day; Sean was Thanksgiving Day and now Angelina was Memorial Day). That summer I was going to be going to San Fransisco to attend the International LLL Conference along with some of my closest friends. I knew that it would be difficult attending the conference with thousands of pregnant mamas and little babies all swaddled up in their cute little slings, nursing away happily, so I decided that I wanted to do something that I wouldn't have been able to do if I was pregnant. I'd been wanting to get a tatoo, but couldn't decide between a kokopelli or a swirl design. The kokopelli would be kinda cool, because he's a little fertility muse and that seems appropriate for me - (considering I've only ever had unprotected sex three times in my life - okay I know, TMI, but it does make me thankful that I wasn't reckless in my youth.) But I was always drawn to the Spiral Goddess and I love how if you trace a spiral one way, you go in, and the opposite way you go out - kinda like the inward journey and also growing out and learning, expanding, etc.

While hanging out with my friends, two friends from the UK brought gifts for us, and one of them was a clay pendant with a spiral imprinted in it. That seemed like the Universe telling me to go with the spiral. Another friend of mine, had also decided to get a tattoo as well. So one night a bunch of us (I think there were 10 of us), went to get a taxi, and the doorman said that since there were so many of us, for $8 each we could get a 'house car' that would do the round trip. We were like, sure! Man were we surprised when we saw the 'house car' pull up - it was a white stretch limo! So we all piled in and headed over to Spirits of the Flesh (the tattoo parlor). Way cool! So we go into the place and tell the fella what we wanted to have done. At first he was a little freaked out by all these women (very mom-type women) in the place and he was all, like, "no, pictures" by the end of the outing, he was posing with us for pictures and let us each get some close "during" photos.

So in the end, I got a spiral design (taken directly from the clay necklace) on my left outer ankle in a dark purple. If I had it to do over again, I would have gone with black. The color and design that it is makes it look like it is done with ball point pen, I also someday would like to get the design made bolder - less like a pen drawing. I would also someday like to get it incorporated into something like an anklet. But I would need the right inspiration. Overall, I do like it - because of what it means to me, and really I don't care what anyone thinks about it. Honestly, one of the best things about it was that my closest friends were with me and that will always mean a lot to me.

FWIW, Pete totally hates it. He didn't speak to me for a couple of days after I got home. It will probably forever be a bone of contention between us. But hey, it's my body and it's not unhealthy or otherwise harmful. Most of my family (both sides) were pretty shocked - a guess it was a bit of nick in the Good Girl Armour, which is not necessarily a bad thing.