Ok, browsing Myspace today I once again found the page for the tattoo place I went to....The Pulse.  And finally checked out their photos.  And guess what?

Two pictures of my lovely red lotus and a picture of lib's tattoo as well.  I'm thrilled. 
I think this is the best picture I've seen yet, it really shows the colors (especially the aqua on the petal edges, meant to look like water reflecting off the lotus).  I'll try to refrain from posting any more pictures of my tattoo.  At least for now.

From hubby..."You look good wearing nothing but your tattoo." 

See peoples, this is why I've kept him for 20 years.  He still compliments me and makes me feel special, beautiful and loved.  I'm so lucky.

SO...I'm lazy.  That's well established.  If you want to enable my laziness (and make me happy) send me your birthday and don't make me hunt for it.  If you do I promise I'll put it on my calendar and remember it next time it rolls around.  Enable Me!  (obscure Venture Brothers reference)

My tattoo is healing well.  Starting to get kinda flaky but I understand that's better than a big hard scab.  

I'm trying to live the reason behind my tattoo...making amends where I can and letting go of past hurts and insecurities.  It's not easy and I'll probably slip.  But I'm trying and I have a built in reminder now to help.  I WILL write more about the actual experience of getting the tattoo.  Soon.

I found out some distressing news about another of my medications.  I don't "preach" about it much any more, but I live and die by my Armour thyroid medicine, literally.  It's an older medication and not one popular with doctors because the drug reps don't give them kickbacks for prescribing it like the reps for Synthroid do.  But when I started taking it several years ago I went from surviving to living, just as I went from barely alive to surviving when I was first put on Synthroid.  I will NOT go without it, even if I have to doctor shop or order from Canada to get it.  Or worse.  Whatever it takes.

So I was very unhappy to learn that Armour recently underwent a reformulation.  This was not announced and if it had been I believe I'd have heard about it, I keep up with news about thyroid treatment and Armour in particular.  It seems that quite a few patients have not done well with this new formula.  Everything from allergic type reactions to symptoms of low thyroid cropping back up and TSH levels going up.  

Guess what?  A lot of what I was blaming on my bp meds, are also symptoms I suffer when my thyroid is off.  Moodiness, depression (the only time I was ever depressed enough to feel like I needed treatment was before I started treatment for my thyroid), crying, fibromyalgia flareup, swollen feet and hands, fatigue, high blood pressure (again, once I started treatment for my thyroid I was able to come off the bp meds previously), fast heart rate etc.  

When I first read the news about the change to Armour, I literally wept.  It wasn't my fault.  I wasn't crazy.  Well, I'm crazy, but not that kind of crazy.  I had hope that I could be myself again.  I wanted to talk to the pharmacist today and see if I could substitute one of the other natural thyroid meds for Armour without a new prescription.  But after being off work for 2 days and having not 1 but 3 top priorities for the day, I just ran out of time.  I was at work until nearly 6:30 and by the time I left I was too tired to care.  I'll talk to him tomorrow and if I can't make the substitution I'll call the doctor.  *sigh*  I dread it.  I'll have to go in and explain why Armour saved my life and why I now want to stop taking it.  *facepalm*  I can do it.  I know I can.  I can get the documentation and I'm convincing when I need to be.  But it's exhausting to think about.

All right.  Enough babbling.  Warehouse 13 is off and my butt is numb from sitting still for 2 hours.  Gotta move around and try to get myself ready to go to bed.  

Well, I did it.  I got a tattoo.  It hurt some of the time, felt good others.  It hurts more walking than I expected and each tiny touch is agony.  I like it.

The artist (Craig at The Pulse east of Athens) said the yellow in the center would show up better after it healed.  I had to get a couple of pics now though, before it scabbed over and got gross looking.  After it does heal I'll put up a couple more. 

I'll write more later.  I am getting picked up at 7:30 in the morning to go to a family reunion so I'm going to try to get some sleep.

( tattoo pictures )

A good friend, wykdwolffie, has been practicing his photoshop skills and shooped a couple of my pictures. These are my favorites but I think my most favorite is the first one...it's so cool.

I'm enjoying the (very) brief quiet before the storm.  Two coworkers are gone to lunch, boss is incommunicado and in probably 45 minutes all hell is going to break loose. 

We are doing a major system upgrade today and the system is "supposed" to come back up in about 45 minutes.  When it does there is a fair bit of maintenance that has to be done before we let users back on.  The battle will be keeping the fuckers off the system, not doing the maintenance.

I am braced for a long day but at least this one isn't on my head.  I didn't coordinate any of it so if something got missed or not done (or done wrong)...not.  my.  fault.  Yeah, I'm still struggling with some serious issues about work    :(

One last random note.  One of the LJ groups I belong to yielded me a new icon, see above.  Behind the cut is the picture I sent topknot_forever and the picture she drew for me.  How awesome is that????

( Pictures! )

I'm not a "party" person.  By any means.  And I'm not comfortable being the center of attention when it's a bunch of people.  But.  Yeah.  I was feeling pretty unloved Tuesday.  Nobody in my department said boo to me until lunch time and didn't bother to mention that, oh by the way, we are going to take you out for your birthday next week when all of us are here.  Not until almost 3 when the boss was on her way out the door.  And I also didn't get a card or balloons, the usual fare for birthday girls.  We usually skip the balloons for guys.  I don't like a big deal made of it, but I was a little hurt to be honest.  Mid afternoon somebody produced a giant chocolate chip cookie with my name and the guy who's birthday was Saturday on it.  I guess that's something.  It just kinda made me hate everybody a little more...I've been struggling with some things at work and this didn't help.

At least my family loves me.  Over the weekend we had company from Birmingham and Sunday they bought us all lunch and brought a birthday cake.  Chocolate with chocolate frosting...yum!  Then Tuesday evening my parents had us out for dinner and they had me a cake.  I'm going to take some of the cake to work tomorrow.  On the one hand, I didn't really want to share with the coworkers.  But I don't want to let it go to waste and the boss is gone.  I know.  I'm a bitch.

Yesterday they were doing a silver jewelry sale at work and I bought myself a bracelet.  I guess that's my birthday gift to myself.  After work I bought a few groceries and got the new James Bond flick.  Me and hubby watched it last night.  I'll take that over a party anyway...an intimate evening with someone special. 

I just thought it was unbearably adorable.

So yeah, this is mostly an excuse to post another picture and talk about my ring again.  ( Feel free to skip if you don't want to know the why of the ring. )