DO. THE. THING!

Well this is backdated a few hours, because well.. it just is.

ANYWAY - Look ya'll, it's a NEW year, so that means new things, for everyone! (Apparently today was a busy day; I'll get to that.)

Rewind to Christmas day, when an add popped up on Instagram from a tattoo artist in Cincinnati. That turned into me emailing from the car, and a short string of correspondence that then lead booking an appointment the next week.

Just. DO. THE. THING, right?!

ready to go do the thing! 

And so I did the thing! I emailed him three concept pictures, two of which were pulled out of the Pinterest black hole, and one was of his own work, because I needed his brand of line work and detail to be part of this.

Fast forward to now (well, last night, technically), when I walked into GUTS in Price Hill, where I'd hang out for the next five hours. Oh, and GUTS stands for Get Up Tattoo Society. GUTS :).

goodbye naked arm!

stencil on

FINISHED!

♥♥♥♥

The obvious MVP of the night here was Austin, for giving me the first large tattoo I'll have.. and for having the lightest hand I've ever experienced during a tattoo. The other MVP's were the handful of people who made themselves available to talk me out of my pre-chair nerves and hold conversation with me throughout that 5-hour session: You guys are the best.

But just before 11:30, we wrapped up work.. and Ta-Daaaaa!

phase one is done! 

The fact that I got there at 6pm was most definitely a good thing; I would've been there for 13 hours probably, if I'd been allowed, and my arm would've been wrapped entirely when I walked out. Oh well - gives me a good reason to go back!

While I was there, Britta was in Chicago getting her septum pierced!

septum!

Brandi was getting a bunch of hair cut off...

(she's pretty either way, duh!)

So naturally, I'm now mulling over piercings and drastic haircuts, in addition to the design for the next phase of my sleeve. I'm open to suggestions!

Cheers to all of us and all of you who are doing new things to start this year!

xo | cms

PRE.. Pre-Valentine's Day | #ChopChop!

Ladies & gents, if you're big into this, then you need no reminder that Valentine's Day is a mere 3 days out. I'm not one to get overworked about it all, but I must admit I do love when my best friends send me creepy valentine's cards: 

thank you, ali. 

^ Don't worry, she called it creepy before I'd even opened the email. There's nothing quite like a valentines wish from the detergent bear. Haha. Thank you, best!

Here's what I won't protest for Valentine's Day:

amiright? 

^^ Uh huh. Skip the flowers and jewelry. Skip the expensive anythings. Just... give me some good, local food and lie through your teeth as I devour it like a wild animal that I'm still pretty. Hahaha. Is that too much to ask?!

Seriously though, I treated myself to a little something of my own, and got my hair trimmed up for the first time in months. I also gave in to their sales tactics, and walked out with a $40 bottle of hair magic. Well, I dunno if it will actually do magic, but for $40 I am hoping for its sake that it does. Just sayin'.

$40, holla. haha

Super exciting stuff, I know, folks.

We'll try again tomorrow ;).

xo | cmd

OMBRÉ!

Ombré hair is a thing these days. I've never been one to jump on the trend wagon, but for months now, I've told myself that it's time for an overhaul on this mop I call hair.

I needed it cut.
And, since I'm already there, I figured I would get something snazzy added on to it.

However, the last time I entrusted my mane to the hands of a salon professional, I dontated 17 inches of my hair [voluntarily] and came out with a shoulder length Asian school girl hairdo [the not voluntary part]. No good. NO. GOOD.

So it was with extreme trepidation that I reached out to Samantha, who is married to one of my first and greatest friends all the way back to my freshman year at college. I've seen her work multiple times on Facebook, and felt I could trust her.

So I went for it. Today was the day I sat at Salon Beck and had the best haircut experience I've ever had! (:

THANK YOU, SAMANTHA!!!!

Time for before & afters! (:

before & after

before & after

I owe all of this to Samantha.. thank you for doing such an amazing job!!!

love this gal!

I completely understand now how anyone's hair stylist can become a social outlet and sounding board, especially for those women [& men] who go on a regular basis. I will certainly be visiting again, but for the time being, I'm loving the new subtly-done hair & can't thank her enough (:

To celebrate overcoming my salon anxiety, Rob & I had a little impromptu date night.

mango tree

I love this guy. I'm home now and stuffed to the gills with sushi & fried rice, but just looking at that picture makes me a little hungry [again]. Haha. Weird, I know.

Anyway, we're home, we're cozying up for the night, and I'm a happy girl.
I've said it before & I'll say it again - life. is. GOOD!

xo | cmd

SSSSSSSSICK DAY :(



lessons learned.

Last night did not equal sleep. Instead, it was a stretch of hours spent tossing, turning and sweating. I phased out at one point for a few minutes, and awoke so soaked in sweat that for a moment, I honestly thought I'd wet the bed [I did not, haha.. ]

Needless to say, I was in no condition to go to work today. I couldn't even wrangle my head and vision into a place to drive Sydni to Mindi's until nearly noon. Even then, while the day itself was sunny and very tolerable to a normal person, I embarked to and from Milford dressed just shy of a blizzard. Oh, the joys of being sick.

On the lighter side of life, Sydni has hit the little-girl-landmark of giving herself a haircut for the first time. I couldn't help but laugh, because I see the pictures my mom has shown me of myself when I thought I had salon skills in the bag at age 4, too.

nice.

Fast forward to the rest of the day; I've literally done nothing of any real value, other than try to sleep and stay hydrated. I knew I needed to eat, but the very thought of food made me nauseous. Carrots and ginger ale is not a diet I would recommend, unless you're either pregnant or in my case, apparently intolerant to chai tea blends. Then, carrots and ginger ale sound like the best things ever, and you'll eat an entire bag of baby carrots and not have to feel bad about binge eating. I guess that's a good silver lining.

Poor Rob got home tonight, dinner supplies in hand, and took to the grill to make dinner for us. My body went ahead and slept right through that entire experience, including the eating part. Luckily for me, he is forgiving, and even set my plate up for tomorrow's lunch in the fridge. Double the brownie points for that guy.

Today, I'm counting my blessings for my otherwise resilient health; I'm not the person who chronically visits the doctor with head-to-toe ailments, so I'm grateful for that. It only means that when I do get sick, I'm useless.

Here's hoping that I won't be so useless tomorrow.
Sleep is a poor man's remedy; I'm about to be as frugal as this night will let me.

xo | cmd

Operation Pack Up & Eat Fried Green Beans ;)

Hello, rainy day in Illinois... Here we were hoping for half decent weather to get the bike out for a sping, but of course it had to be a dreary day. On the flip side of that, I realized by the end of today that we were meant to be confined to the house; Rob and I made some major headway in getting things packed up and sorted through at his place in preparation for the move.

But first things first, it was time for a haircut for Rob today, so before breakfast we stopped by and got that all taken care of...


holiday haircut lineup (:

From there, it was out to breakfast and then back to the house for what became a day of digging through boxes, furniture and all that other miscellaneous stuffffff that seems to materialize only when you're trying to pack up and move somewhere. We wound up with a giant truckload of drop off for Goodwill, and braved the steady rain to do it.

dreary drop offs at goodwill

I orchestrated my visit this weekend in sync of course with when my favorite staffmember of Bindy's would be working; my sweet Santa friend Alicia and basically the entire cast of Bindy's was on hand tonight for their Christmas party, and there really weren't any dull moments (:

alicia!!! ♥

we'll call it... Christmas spirt... vegas bomb style...

best friend.... && i love him so.

And that's that! I'm here through Christmas Day, so until then, we are tackling the oh-so-enjoyable task of staging Rob's belongings for their big road trip to Ohio. I'm happy to say that tomorrow morning I'll finish the last load of laundry here; at that point every single thing he owns will be clean. At the same time. Holy... record first. Hehe.

But for now, lights out. G'Nite!

xo | cmd

Mav's Birthday | New Haircut | Pups in OTR!

So.. first,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMY!!! 

happy birthday, mav!! [even though you're not really mav anymore.. still!]

As a way to ease into a flashback Friday, here's some fond memories I had handy of Amy [& girl we're both LUCKY I couldn't get into the hard-copy collection haha]

Just a few, to celebrate this awesome girl!

one of my favorites.. mvhs circa 2003, senior year!
me. allison. amy. jena [r.i.p]

of course.. some high school dances.. whhhoa... haha

keepin' it classy for britt's bachelorette party (:

columbus runs with hilary & kylie

arley's wedding reception!

amy's wedding!!
dani. steph. amy. britt. shanda. me. nikki. arley

So... HAPPY BIIIIIIRTHDAY, MAV!!!


hope it's the best one, yet!

Oh....
... aaaaaaaaaand...
I finally cut my hair last night. I meant to mention it yesterday, but honestly I just forgot. So yeah..

before .. right before .. and after! 8" gone..

^ I think I'm still going to venture a little shorter, but I'll be consulting a professional when that time comes.. and really I'm okay taking it a little slow, too. (:

To round off the night, I ventured out with Nader & Keith into our usual stomping ground of OTR; I'm glad we did - It must've been dog night down there!

late night dogs of otr! (:

I have more pictures of the dogs than I do of my friends, but we did manage to take one or two.. haha. But hey, it's never too late to celebrate a way-belated birthday for Keith, either [which, btw, happy wayyy-belated!].

we wish we were hipsters... haha... :|
w/ keith & nader | otr, cincinnati, oh

It was one of those nights, that warranted a post-festivities stop off at Shanghai Mama's before heading home.. really though, it wasn't bad at all.

To say I'm spent is an understatement.
To say this is backdated isn't... (:

xo | cmd

To Chop or Not to Chop?!

Oh, hello...  

july 2013

Dilemma: I've been at war with myself for the past two months [at least] now, over whether or not to make the leap of cutting my hair. Honestly, I've never had this much trepidation over having short hair.. and I had to stop and wonder why that was...

Oh yeah, that's right. Two things!
1] The last time, I donated 13 inches of my hair. I shattered my collarbone into 10 pieces the following weekend and had to deal with the task of managing short hair.. with one arm.
& 2] When I did donate it then, I went to one of Cincinnati's best-known salons and came out with a bob that looked more like the shoulder-length-with-bangs do I had when I was 7. Not quite the edge I was hoping for... yeesh.

yeeeeup. short hair + newly-installed metal plate + 10 screws. awe-some. >:|

MMkay, bad timing. Since then, I've been overly-cautious about losing massive lengths at one time, which is an absolutely stupid thing to fear, I know.

That being said, the collarbone incident was over three years ago now, so I think I'm finally in the market for a new haircut.. and if I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it.

Thanks to the input from a few folks, here are some of the top contender styles [as of now.. I'm fickle, so for all I know, next week I'll be shopping for extensions. Who. Knows.].  Anyway... here:

For a much shorter, slightly conservative look:

If I'm thinking more bob-ish, but not too drastic [& the gal on the left has texture very similar to mine, if not a little straighter, naturally].. I almost picture the straightened version of the left picture as something like that on the right [two different people]:

Slightly more daring, I can't deny considering singer Kina Grannis.. because I love her, with long or short hair. She also has hair texture not unlike mine if I don't touch it with a straightener or a dryer...:  

Of course if I was really feeling like going polar opposites, I could always do one of those and throw in an undercut [not undershaved, sorry] side, just for kicks [something I could still conceal, if need be] .. Of course, this fascination could also be that I just think Rosario Dawson is classically-gorgeous, as well. Who knows:

Lastly, I'm looking to my cousin for some encouragement; she just chopped her hair a few weeks back and while she.. looks... stunning in that particular cut, my hair would never agree with that so I'll be adding my own twist, of course. It is inspiring, motivating and encouraging though. Haha.

my too-beautiful cousin & her new do

*Sigh. I still wish I didn't feel so apprehensive about it, but I now know a few gals who I'd actually trust to the task and so that will be where I start, if I'm brave enough. The issues I have with my Spanipino [dad was Spanish {Madrid!} & Mom was Filipino {Cebuana}]

First world problems, I know.
#spanipinoproblems, more like it.

For now, I'm taking this to the streets of facebook; We'll see if I can find some solid advice from any of my friends who do this, yenno, for a living. (:

xo | cmd

Snips of a Saturday

I've not yet become gutsy enough to go through with as drastic a change as I did a couple years back. the last time I donated my hair, I gave 14 inches of my mane and was left with the expected short hair - only problem was that I wasn' t thrilled in the least with the execution by the stylist versus what I'd requested. It was a cute bob look, but certainly not my style. I was going to be much more conservative this time around, if nothing else than to at least test out the stylist.

I had the recommendation from Cathie for her current stylist, and while Cathie keeps her hair much shorter than mine, it always looks great, especially right after a visit to the salon. I thought I'd give it a whirl. 

6 inches.. see ya later :)

hunger games!

I love it, so far, even though it is exactly as conservative as I thought it would be. I'm still conflicted a bit on whether or not I really even want short hair at this point, so this for the time being at least gives me the liberty of options while dropping those dead split ends. Pretty silly when the stylist holds up a measured 6-inch chunk of hair she's just snipped, when in looking at it now, it still seems long. Haha. I'm satisfied, and I will definitely be making a trip back to see the gal who did this when I'm due up for a snip again. Not a bad way to start the day! 

my doodlebug ♥

I made a stop off at Target after the 8:30AM hair appointment to grab some groceries, and ended up also walking out with a copy of The Hunger Games. Don't judge me, haha. I am completely excited for Mo coming by to watch this with me. 

Back home, it didn't take long for us to decide we would head right back out the door for some breakfast at Cracker Barrel. Sydni loves this place especially for its artistic provisions; I don't know why it is, but she spends more time coloring and doodling when we're here than any other restaurant it seems. Today she even bragged about her left-handedness. Great. haha. 

Back at home, Sydni and I went down for a short snooze while the boys took off for a run; Eric's got an Ironman coming up next weekend, for which he's been training since about this time last year. Pretty impressive, I'd say. It's too bad we won't be able to go and watch him race, but there's no doubt he'll do an awesome job and have some good stories from it all.

The boys headed off to drop Eric at the airport a few minutes ago; I hear Sydni starting to wake up in her room, so I .. am.. outta here :)

xo | cmd