Delayed Birthday Weekend

My birthday was last month, and I had a great time doing sister crafts with Nebalee. The following weekend, Jay and I went to a fancy dinner date in Denver, at a restaurant I'd been eyeballing for a year. Overall, I had a great 54th birthday, and didn't give it a second thought.

This past Saturday, though, I realized that I was getting a second birthday weekend. My present from Jay was to finish my circus tattoo, and my present from the Bionic Cowgirl was a one-day stained glass class. Yipee! I get birthday, round two!

All of my tattoos, of which there are many, are of things that I love. While I was hesitant to get my first pop culture tattoo, once I jumped in, I went all in. Over the past couple of years, I've added many things that I love and want to remember. Pop culture-wise: Supernatural, John Wick, The Walking Dead. Mom-kid tattoos: Belle reading from Beauty and the Beast, and Toad from Frog and Toad. Birthiversary tattoos: Conch shell (Key West), sea turtle (Costa Rica), Aztec firebird (Cancun), dolphin (Marco Island). Everything else I love in life: Estes and Skeeter on out on the trails; peace, love, and pew; book dragon, with books depicting each of the kids' (and the Gremlin's) birth years; my Aztec warrior.

I was lacking a circus tattoo, but struggled with finding one that really spoke to me. Jay and our tattoo artist, the Infamous Katie, collaborated to come up with the perfect one. I had the outline done a few months ago, so for my birthday, Jay offered to pay for me to finish it. I jumped at the opportunity.

They incorporated me into it,
not some random pic from the 'net.

My love of lyra and sling is incorporated,
and she brought in colors from my other tattoos
so I'm kind of matchy-matchy.

Jay also had some tattoo work done on Saturday. "Katie Dates" have become one of our favorite dates. We go hang out for a few hours with the Infamous Katie, who has become like a little sister to us, then we go grab something to eat. This time, since Jay had plans with his sibs after our Katie Date, we just hit Dairy Queen for an ice cream. I don't know about anyone else, but I am ravenous after a tattoo session, even if I eat before. 

On Sunday, Mom and I headed to the class she'd signed us up for. I love learning new things, and have taken a few one-day "taster" classes. They are great, because they give you a good introduction to a skill or a craft that I might be interested in, but without all of the expense involved in buying all of the equipment upfront. A couple of years ago, Jay and I took a welding class, which was a blast! This year, Nebalee and I took a glass fusion class; Mom and I took a soap making class (I still have several bars of "monkey fart" scented soap left); and Jay and I took a writing class. These one day classes can quickly become addictive. :)

The class I'd chosen for my birthday was a honeycomb stained glass class. I'd been eyeballing it since the beginning of the year, so when Mom asked what I wanted to take, this was it. The class was small, which I love, only six students, and we didn't have to do any glass cutting. The instructor had done that bit of prep work for us, for which I'm thankful.

We talked a little bit about the process, then jumped right into choosing our glass and laying out our projects.

Mom's

Mine

It was amazing to me to look around the classroom and see all of the different ways each of us chose to lay out our six pieces of glass. I'm not super creative, so I went with the layout that most closely mirrored the example on the wall. I did choose to add the round pieces as a bit of embellishment, but the reason for that is silly. When adding foil to the glass, it's fairly straightforward on pieces with straight edges, but when adding foil to the round pieces you get to shake each of them up in a little round container. It looked like a lot of fun, so I decided I wanted to do that, too. <grin>

Adding the foil.

After we wrapped everything in foil, and I got a giggle out of shaking up the container with the round bits, we started in on the soldering. Now, believe me when I tell you that just because I used to solder really well in high school, when I learned to do it on electronic components, doesn't mean I can solder well forty years later. Holy cow, I suck at soldering stained glass. Instead of a nice, tiny dot just to make a connection between a component and the motherboard, it takes a lot of solder with a big, unwieldy soldering iron to put the stained glass together. Both the Bionic Cowgirl and I struggled with this.

We are used to fine-tip irons,
these heavy flat-tipped ones were
hard for both of us to use.

Such ugly joints. I welded better than
this, and that's saying something!

Eventually, I quit dicking around with trying to make my solder nice and smooth and decided "it's good enough for who it's for". The finished products look pretty good, as long as you look at them from a distance.

My honeycomb found a place in one of Whimsy's big windows, and I'm not sure where Mom's is going to end up, but this was such a fun class. I'm not super creative, but I think I could really enjoy following some stained glass patterns in future. 

Update 8/20/25: Mom and I both found a place for our respective honeycombs and got pictures. They look so good in their new homes!

In Whimsy's east window.

Mom's is in the Lodge's kitchen window.

Jay's GISH projects

I wasn't the only GISHer in the house this year. I talked Jay into joining with me, even though neither of us had any idea what to expect. We didn't with NaNoWriMo either, and we are both still involved with our WriMos several years later and plan on doing NaNo again this year.

Jay is by far the most creative and artistic of the two of us. While the animal-based GISH challenges were right up my alley, the artistic ones were custom-made for him. I knew immediately which challenges I wanted to do, but Jay took some time to choose his. The first one that jumped out at him was the Bee Bar.

Jay has a unique ability to imagine something and then bring it to life, so I knew his Bee Bar would turn out beautifully.

We took it to the CSU flower gardens in an effort to entice the bees to have a drink at the bar. We moved it around to a couple of places until we were happy with it (the pole pictured above was not the final placement of the bar).

With the success of the first task, Jay went back to the list to find another one. When I decide to do something, I am usually all in, whereas Jay tends weight the pros and cons and be more choosy. I saw the Stormtrooper task and knew that it was perfect for Jay, so when he told me that he was going to do it, I was thrilled.

Final submission photo

Yes, that is a Stormtrooper riding a snowboard at the X-Games. Right in Jay's wheelhouse. Took two seconds, seeing as how we have plenty of action figures around.

Speaking of action figures, they played a prominent role in his third and final GISH task:

See, this kind of task is where I get literal. I read this and thought, "well, that can't be done, we don't have a food truck!" Jay read it and said, "we have everything I need for this task". His brain amazes me.

Final submission photo

Every single item used in his last task was something we had in the house. His ability to look around and see objects that are not at all related and turn them into something cohesive astounds me.

30 Days of Memories: Day 16

Well, I've officially made it more than halfway through my self-imposed 30 days. I'm still thankful I didn't specify 30 successive days. :)

I swore I'd never get married again. In fact, I was pretty content with the idea of just being a crazy horse lady, but Ashinator worried about me. (I think the boys did, too, but she was much more vocal about it.)

I threw a temper tantrum that eventually led to me meeting Jay and a few weeks later we were engaged. Compared to the whirlwind courtship, our engagement was really long - exactly eleven months. We got engaged on June 14 and married on May 14. We celebrated our sixth anniversary this year, which doesn't seem like that big a milestone, but for someone who swore off a relationship, it's pretty big.

I was married the first time right at seven years, though we were separated for six months before the divorce was final, and my other serious relationship was about five and a half years, making my marriage to Jay my longest relationship. We've got a long way to go to match my Great-Grandparent's sixty years, but I think we've got a good start. I mean, we're 1/10th of the way there!

It's a Double Duty Day!

Mother's Day AND Jay's Birthday.

I'm at a loss as to what to get the Bionic Cowgirl, so I'll just have to share one of my favorite most recent pictures of her. (I did figure out a gift for her for Mother's Day ... eventually.)

Skeeter does love her Grandma.

Mom was introducing Skeeter to the joys of massage.  She learning bits here and there from Compass and Skeeter is a willing practice subject.  Mom's also teaching Skeets to allow her to use her body for stability as Mom climbs up and down of the black tub.

Skeeter pretty quickly figured out that if she helped Grandma up onto the black tub, she'd get a nice back rub out of the deal.  Could be a handy tool in the future.

Jay's birthday falls on Mother's Day this year, so he'll get a joint Mother's Day/birthday celebration on Monday.  I wanted to get him a Justin Dunn sidepull bridle, but the one he (we) want hasn't been released by Weaver Leather yet.  It was supposed to hit the stores in April, but we're still waiting.  I panicked about his birthday present - I had made up my mind that I was going to get him that bridle, so when May rolled around and it still hadn't been released, I had to go back to the drawing board.

I found the second-best birthday present ever and ordered it.  Unfortunately, it won't arrive until June 23 according to the shipping record.  It says it shipped on May 5, but won't arrive until the end of June?  It must be on a slow boat from China or something.

It is a pretty cool gift, if I do say so myself. I have no idea where we're going to put this present, but I know it will make him smile.

Millennium Falcon lamp

Five Already?!

I can't believe that Jay and I have been married five years.  Where has the time gone?

On one hand, I can't believe it's only been five years, and on the other, I can't believe it's already five years.

From day one, we knew we were meant to be together, so when I look back, the only five years is surprising to me.  Our lives have melded so well it seems like we've spend our whole lives together.  We even have shared, but separate, experiences that adds to the Twilight Zone feeling that we've been together forever.

How can we have shared, but separate, experiences?  It's almost eerie.  One such experience was our trip to Italy.  Same week, same year, opposite direction.  We started in Rome and ended up in Venice.  His family started in Venice and ended up in Rome.  There were times that we were within a day or so of each other. 

We've been to the same concerts - at the same time - and didn't know each other.  I worked a motorcycle rally that he was a participant in - didn't even see each other - at least not enough to make an impact.  It's crazy, isn't it, how things in our lives are timed to work out at just the right moment?

It's almost enough to give you goosebumps if you spent too much time thinking about all of our "near misses".

I don't claim to know the "why" of the timing of us finally meeting, other than it was the right time, and for that, I'm eternally grateful.  My life has changed drastically for the better since we met.

Happy Anniversary, Sexy Man.  Love you to the moon and back.

We're Officially a Writing Family!

Back in August, I published my first book.  It was a long time in coming, as the stories contained in it spanned nine years.  I was overwhelmed to hold my book in my hand when it arrived in the mail.  I thought nothing could ever come close to that feeling of accomplishment and pride in my work.

But then, Jay finished his children's book.  When I finally got my hands on his proof copy and got to look at the vibrant colors in the illustrations and run my fingers over the characters I have loved for almost five years, well, that feeling was even more profound than when I held my own book.

I watched Jay bring his characters to life and to finally get to hold the book in my hand - it has to be similar to holding a newborn after watching your spouse go through pregnancy and labor.  I couldn't stop picking it up and flipping through it.

If you have small children, you have to buy his book, not because my hubby wrote it, but because it's just so beautiful.  In most children's books, the artwork supports the story, but in Jay's book, the story supports the artwork.





You can find it on Amazon now or Barnes and Noble in a couple of days.

It's Easy to Make Me Happy

I hear my kids groaning right now.

But, really, it is easy to make me happy.

Sometimes.

Last night was one of those nights that made me happy.  Jay and I went out to dinner just because.

I had a margarita with dinner...so good. I was celebrating long distance with Aunt Crazy and Mrs Mom.  They had birthdays this week and so I thought it would only be fair to raise a drink in their names.  I'm such a good friend that way.

After dinner, Jay suggested we go for gelato.  Basically, without even thinking about it, we recreated our first date ;)

I ordered my usual wildberry and raspberry gelato and Jay ordered some bizarre combination - pumpkin and blueberry.  There's no accounting for taste sometimes, chef or not.

Jay's guy dished up his gelato in no time, but I was getting impatient because my guy was taking forfreakingever.  So not kidding.  I mean, how the hell hard is it to slap the gelato into the bowl?  Half on one side, half on the other, stick the biscuit in and hand that bitch across.  Not difficult at all.

I might have muttered something along those lines to Jay and then I took a look at what my guy was doing.

He was making me a rose.  I shit you not.  A gelato rose!

The picture didn't do it justice.
In fact, the pictures make it look like girl parts.

I kind of felt bad for being so snarky, even if it was under my breath, because that silly gelato rose had me smiling all night.

Congrats!

Congratulations to my fabulous hubby for completing his degree! 

He already had a degree in Culinary Arts, but has now earned his Bachelor of Arts in Graphic Design.  He graduated from an accelerated program, which means he's been going to school non-stop since June, 2009.  A four-year degree in thirty-eight months is great, but grueling.  He started school two weeks after we got married, so in addition to adjusting to a new family, he added in the stress of school.  It wasn't easy and I know at times he wanted to just be done with the whole thing, but he persevered and made it through.

Congrats, Jay*, I love you and I'm super proud of you.

*He "outted" his real name in his post on The GunDivas. 

**Anyone need a graphic artist?  I happen to know an amazing one :)