Gretchen Got A Cat Or We Got A Cat

You have a kid she really wants a pet.  What do you do?  Dogs are really out for us since I don’t think we are home enough and fish are no fun so I caved and let her have a cat.

I was extremely resistant on the get a cat front mostly because you know what they say about women and cats.   I don’t want to become  a crazy cat lady.  At first it’s just one cat then next thing you know there is too many to count.  Suddenly all your t-shirts have pictures of cats on them, your pants are covered in cat hair and you spend your nights pinning funny cat memes while eating ice cream out of a carton.  I’m really hoping that’s not how it all goes down.

Gretchen named her Sparkle Glitter Fab.  We have had her about two months now and it all seems to be going well.

Gretchen made the cat a jacket.

Run The Mile You Are In

Since I was running all the time I wanted to get a running related tattoo.  Who doesn’t right? I’m also obsessed with quotes, especially anything running or exercise related.  I just had to pick the right one to be tatted on me for the rest of my life.  I have a bunch of favorites but wanted something more positive than dark.  Running related but that would mean something for the all of my non running life as well.

Run the mile you are in(from David Willey, editor in chief of Runner’s World) was one of my favs and also short enough to make a nice tattoo.  Be present with the mile you are running because you’re done with the ones behind you and the miles in front of you won’t happen till this one right here does.  It’s important to enjoy where you are at in life  even if at the time it seems really hard to see anything good about it.  Enjoy the pain because that’s what is going to make you a better, stronger  runner and person.  Besides sometimes pain is fun and owning where you are at in running and life makes everything easier to deal with.

As for where to put the tattoo.  I had a rose tat on my left shoulder from when I was 20 and did lots of  idiotic things.  Just walked into a tattoo parlor and said that looks cool.  It did not look cool. Point being I wanted it covered up.  Now I know some people (hi mom) might not think the way to deal with a small ugly but faded tattoo would be to cover it up with a much larger fresh new tattoo but I think it was the perfect solution.

I did my research as in I took a poll from all my FB friends on tattoo artists.  Looked at all the suggestions and settled on Luke Whitmire at Glory Bound Tattoos in Blue Springs.  Picked because I thought his work I saw online reflected the kind of all round look I wanted even though I wasn’t really sure what that was at the time.  Also he did not have a six month wait. Waiting is not my favorite.

I made a pintrest board of lettering styles I liked along with the quote I wanted.  Took it to him and mentioned I liked trails and trees.  What you see above is basically what he came up with other than I thought the original trees he drew looked more like west coast trees than Missouri trees.  I told him I would like the trees to look more Midwest and he nailed it.  I don’t really know what the going rates are for tattoos but thought the cost was totally reasonable, I would have paid more.  I’m really happy with how it turned out and you can’t see the old tattoo underneath it at all. 

Anyone else have a running or exercise related tattoo?  If not what kind of tattoo would you get if you had to?