tattoo

And After Orientation…

We had lunch at Chili’s, discussed everything we learned, and then we went to Tattoos By Lou where I acquired Oliver.

He is my memorial tattoo. Plus, I love owls and that they represent wisdom and knowledge. The cherry blossoms symbolizes those that I’ve lost in my life. They represent life and death as a symbol of “the cycle of life, death and rebirth, on the one hand, and of productive and reproductive powers, on the other” throughout the history of Japan. [source]

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Religious Thoughts from a Non-Religious Jew Girl

To the person that found me by searching “Jewish girl tattoo craft blog,” I think I love you. Seriously I am greatly amused by that strange mix of keywords.

Hipstamatic [tattoo] love | BeccaBlogs.comI actually believe that my new job will help a lot with my Jewish identity. I don’t really have one, if that makes sense. Sure I was raised, bat mitzvahed, confirmed, and volunteered in my family synagogue, but currently I feel no pull to Judaism. And I don’t think I’m alone in that. It seems many of similar aged friends are not drawn to religion. I have several atheist friends, as well. Religion is a funny thing. Who knows.

It never really mattered to me to marry a Jewish man. In fact, my ex-fiance pretty much turned me off dating Jewish guys, so I guess there’s that. 😉 I always knew that, by definition, my birthed children would be Jewish. Now that we are planning on adoption and he is not Jewish (nor religious), my thoughts are thrown for a loop. We have discussed it, but didn’t come to a definitive conclusion. When you adopt older than infant children, I’m thinking you need to respect their religion. I could be wrong though..

But back to my job helping my Jewish identity. Obviously working for a Hebrew school, I will be exposed to much more religion than I’ve been exposed to in the last decade or so. Even during the trial run working there on my days off, I have noticed a change. I am conscious of the food I bring there (no ham, no cheese on my deli sandwiches), the way I dress (covering all my tattoos to the point of buying boots for my 3 ankle ink and wearing a chunky watch for the above wrist ink), less cursing (OK, well I’m around kids so that’s a given), and, well, I’m sure there is more.

I’m looking forward to the other changes in myself. By the time this posts, I’ll have been at the Hebrew Academy for hours. Don’t I wish I was still warm in my bed? Yep!

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25 Things About Me

I used to be very big on Livejournal. Once, a few months back, I used a blog printing website (LJBook.com) to create a book of all my posts and, that book? It was over 7,000 posts and 4500 pages. Now, keep in mind that I was very active between 2003 and 2008.

But I digress.

I was digging around to find some of my earliest knitting projects posted on LJ and not on Ravelry, and I found one of those “25 Things About Me” lists from January 2009. After reading though it, not a whole lot has changed. It’s posted below with the updates in green.

1. I grew up in the “country” of Miami. There were no sidewalks, no street lamps, and a bunch of horses around the corner. Oh, and the smallest lot in the area was 1 acre.

2. I learned to knit in a bar. By a half drunk girl. <3 Now I’m obsessed with knitting! Seriously love it. However, I have knitting ADD and rarely finish a project before starting a new one (or 3)

3. On that note, I collect yarn for it’s softness and colors. No clue what’ll ever be made with about 2/3’s of my yarn stash. But at least I did finally start organizing it all. (It’s in several bins by yarn weight. I’m actually starting to list about a dozen for sale that I likely won’t ever use.)

4. I am horribly terrified of spiders, rats and, to a lesser degree, snakes.

5. When I was about 12, my “job” was to feed the hundreds of birds that we owned. Did it all the way through high school.

6. Die hard Gator fan. Die Hard. Even though I’m currently enrolled and paying an arm and leg for my MBA at ECU, my love for the Gators vastly outweighs my love for the Pirates. (sorry ECUers!) (Scratch that, graduated May 2010)

7. I tend to start watching shows a season or 2 after they start and then watch every single episode. Like LOST, I got into it 3 episodes to the end of season 4. Then proceeded to watch every episode in a matter of weeks to catch up. (Yup, just did this with both Drop Dead Diva and Secret Life of the American Teenager. Oh, and Firefly. And Doctor Who. And Torchwood.)

8. I have a personal vendetta against Ben Affleck. He got Jennifer Garner pregnant and ruined my favorite show (at the time) – Alias. (I fully admit that this is weird, even for me.)

9. I will watch everything J.J. Abrams produced or will produce. By far my favorite producer/ director/ writer. (And bonus, he tries to always cast Greg Grunberg in everything he does! Love him!)

10. I want to have lots and lots of babies. And have a list of names that I love. Now to find names I love that overlap with names Steve loves. (uhh yeah, still have that list, but the overlapping list is far far shorter. Blah.)

11. I was engaged right out of college. My feelings for him paled in comparison to the person I truly loved when I was in college. We’re talking head over heels love as compared to lukewarm love. And we never even dated, that’s the sad part. (He and I are both married now, obviously to different people, but seeing his wedding pics was a bit bittersweet.)

12. I’d basically given up on online dating when I met Steve. I had no idea how things would end up even though I did know there was something special and different about him on our 1st date.

13. I proposed.

14. My parents have 25+ dogs and I can name them all… but only when I’m there and looking at them. And yes, the majority of them look exactly alike except for a few markings. (They’re down to about 20 now… I think. I honestly don’t know bc they’re never all out at the same time.)

15. I have 5 tattoos and counting, but not a single one is anywhere that will be affected by being pregnant or nursing my kids. 3 on my ankles, 1 on my neck and 1 on my hip. (7 now! The other 2 are on the collar bone and on the left wrist.)

16. I was raised in a Reform Jewish synagogue and had a Jewish education until the 10th grade. I have been celebrating Christmas with Jen’s family since I was 16-17 years old and can never even remember when the Jewish holidays are.. let alone observe them. Jen or my mom has to tell me.

17. Stars are my favorite shape and 12 my favorite number. (Other favorite numbers are 843 and 42, with the latter being 1/3 of my latest tattoo.)

18. One of my tattoo’s is a seemingly random cluster of 37 stars – 3 different shapes/ sizes. There is nothing random as I drew it in Photoshop very deliberately with a specific design in mind. Also, the 4th and smallest stars were left off as they’d have been nothing but a needle prick.

19. I taught myself web design when I was a freshman at UF. I didn’t like my dorm roommate very much and spent all my free time in CIS Lab (the computer lab) tearing apart websites to figure out how they’re made.

20. The majority of my friends in college were made on IRC back when the internet was safe – yes, there was a time when it was safe! We all met up in #uf and had reunions in Gainesville for years afterwards. Many of them I’ve found again thanks to FB!

21. By that token, I got online in 1994

22. When I finish my MBA (May 2010) I will be able to manage at IT department, and also know what they’re talking about since I’ll have been coding websites for almost exactly half my life. (At my age, that’s a feat!) (Will be able, err, am able… yet still unemployed by MBA standards. Grr.)

23. I’m a label whore when it comes to my purses. I own Coach, Lucky Brand, loads of Vera Bradley and a knock off Kate Spade. (While I do have a few Coach bags and tons of Vera Bradley’s, my favorite is a no name faux leather bag from Kohl’s.)

24. I’d love, more then anything, to learn more about my dad’s mother Clara. My brothers and I didn’t find out she’d even existed until a few years ago and it was unbelievably weird and freaky to find out that his step-mother wasn’t his real mom. It was also somewhat of a relief since she always treated me like I was the most horrible person ever. BTW, Clara died when my dad was very very young before he was moved to Florida from Chicago. (I still don’t know very much, though I do know her maiden name. However, that’s about where my knowledge ends. :()

25. I am the only bridge of communication between my parents and brothers and my dad’s step-mom’s family. My “cousins” are awesome even if the parental/ grandparental generations don’t get along.

*wow. that was really difficult to come up with.*

Clearly I haven’t changed all that much in the last 2.5 years.

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Wedding tattoo… Finally!

Hipstamatic [tattoo] love | BeccaBlogs.com EDIT: It was brought to my attention that I will need to cover this up for jobs and, of course, interviews. Yes, I already knew that. But does anyone have any suggestions for what to use? I’m talking stragically placed bracelets or even make-up. Thanks!
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On Saturday, I got my 7th tattoo. It took me 7 months and 4 days to get my wedding ink. No, I’m not one of those people that has my hubby’s name inked on me; I don’t believe in that stuff. Call me superstitious. The only names I’d ever remotely consider are those of my children.

But anyhow, countless versions of the same general idea later, and it’s finally inked. I knew I wanted to incorporate love and our wedding date. I knew I wanted something not entirely obvious. I knew I wanted it on my left wrist.

And I’m pretty sure I succeeded as several folks have asked what it means since I got it.

So what does it mean, you ask?

First off, the Hebrew is the word for love: ahava. This came pretty late in the design game.. Like in the last few months. I checked, double checked and whatever the word for hundreds of times checked for the proper Hebrew letters. C’mon, we’ve all heard the horror stories of getting another language on your body with the incorrect spelling or meaning. I downloaded Hebrew fonts, drew it everywhere, drew it all over my hand, and love every version of it. Done deal.

The 42 is actually our wedding date. No, I swear I’m not insane! It is the numerical equivalent of the binary 00101010. Or 0+0+32+0+8+0+2+0. it is also the answer to love, life and everything in the universe. I know you’ve seen me reference that several times on here. Like here. And here.

So what d’ya think… not so obvious a meaning? 😉

Now why such a visible place like my left wrist? Believe it or not, it’s pretty easy to keep hidden if you hold your arm the right way. But the location is because when I’m in a bad mood, I always sit with my head in my hands, and predominantly my left hand. I wanted to always have a clear and visible reminder of why I’m doing what I’m doing and the help to get out of my slump and move forward. My husband and partner. My best friend. My family. My life. We are in this together and now I have an ever present push to stay positive about everything we’re working towards.

And it doesn’t hurt that the final version of ahava was the one he drew out for me at dinner last week. He was trying to mimic the letters of my Hebrew name tattoo that Stacey drew for me so many years ago.

So far, it is my favorite ink full of such amazing meaning. Are you inked? Are they sentimental and mushy-gushy like like one? Would you ever get (or do you have) someone’s name inked on you? Do tell!

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March 30 TMW Post

Disclaimer: For all y’all not following my wedding planning antics over on TweetMyWedding Tuesdays, I’ll try to remember to post them all here.  Unfortunately I’ve been seriously lagging at that and so there’s going to be in flux… apologies!
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Tweet: i think, cuz i’m wearing sneakers to it, that i need to knit some cute ruffled socks for my wedding. got a good pattern for me?

Tweet: i decided to knit another pair of these as i absolutely love them. but in an orange &/or blue color: http://bit.ly/byaykZ #wedding #socks

I am a knitting fool. With so much time remaining until our wedding, I feel like I need to keep busy with wedding-related tasks. At least The Fiancé likes that idea better than baby-related tasks – namely reminding him that we need to have babies soon. But anyhow, with as simple as The Wedding is, I occupy my time with other projects that take a long time… like the veil that took 5 months to knit.

Our move to Miami is in less than 3 weeks and, at this point, I am avoiding ordering anything. Granted, this is mostly due to the fact that I should be spending my time packing up our apartment or writing the 2 papers due next Friday or completing my take home midterms. But give me 5 free minutes and I am browsing Zappos or David’s Bridal or Light In The Box or The Unique Sheep and coveting all the pretties. Am I the only one with an online shopping addiction? I highly doubt it. =)

I am currently avoiding travel sites and trying to convince myself that waiting a few more months will make airfare drop. It’s not really working, but at least I am avoiding the sites.

Tweet: it amuses me to NO end that everything in my @zappos favorites costs $42. 42= binary of 10.10.10 & the next tattoo i will get. #geek

Speaking of shopping, this one literally had me giggling uncontrollably for about 5 minutes. I am a self-professed geek and lover of Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. OK, so what? If you’re a H2G2 fan, you know that 42 is “the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.” Have I mentioned that I am easily amused? As I recently learned in my networking class, calculating out 101010 in binary really does add up to 42. I also recently learned that the total number of spots on 2 dice (die?) adds up to 42.

And because I love numbers so much…
In 8 days, I will no longer be a YMCA employee.
In 19 days, I will no longer call North Carolina home.
In 37 days, I will be an MBA graduate.
In 194 days, I will be a Mrs.

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New Ink!

No, it’s not really wedding related, but Steve and I spent the day together yesterday and, at his suggestion, we hit up a tattoo shop. I, of course, have had 2 in mind that I really wanted: a rising phoenix for graduation and the star and 42 for our wedding. The wedding one will be after the wedding of course!

So I got my rising phoenix. On my collarbone. I love the hell out of it and where it’s located… but the healing process will be a total pain! Yes, it is where my bra strap lies. Wanna see it??

Steve took photographic liberties with my blackberry camera. Without further ado, here they are:

the layout of the stencil

cleaning… something?

making sure he gets it done correctly

it’s done!
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