The Unveiling!

For the past year or so i've been wanting to get a portrait tattoo of my parents. However, I never had the money to do it. Well, finally the funds came and I found an awesome person to do it so hence, I have two new awesome tattoos. I wanted to completely suprise my parents and tell them nothing of it until I was able to show it to them, and today was finally that day.

On the weekend of July 4th, I got the first one which was the one of my dad. I am glad that he put my dad on top because the shape of his head really forms into my shoulder. They are on my right upper arm, by the way. This one took a bit over 3 hours to do and had some painful areas. However, the majority of it wasn't all the horrible. I never thought i'd be able to sit for a 3 hour tattoo, but I did it. When I know how awesome something is gonna be in the end, I can usually take the process, even if it is not the most comfortable. Pretty much the entire time, I read my People and US Weekly mags. They are the perfect mags to read because you dont have to be completely focused 24/7.

Exactly 1 month later on August 8th, I went to get my mom done. This tattoo was the most painful one i've ever experienced ( I feel as though I know a bit about tattoos now that I have 7). The lowest point of it came almost to my elbow which was not the most pleasant experience. The closer that you get to the bone, the more painful it feels. This one took the same amount of time as the other, and I am so happy with!!

It's so awesome to finally have my idea finished and now I have forever to look at it. It's obvious that i'll never not want it, because it's of my parents.

So today I got my family to come up so that I could do "the unveiling" , and finally see what they would do. I told them that I got a new tattoo and at first it didn't seem too happy, but then I showed them that it was them and they liked it. Mom asked if it was real (prolly because she was SO suprised that I did it). They really seemed to like it and I was glad since I did it even more for them than I did for myself. Mom even asked Nick when he was gonna get a tattoo of them on him. Haha!

I'm very happy with how the tats turned out and am kind of glad that my original idea didn't pan out. Originally, I wanted to get portraits of them from their younger days. I had a few photos of them in the 1970s that I was gonna go with, but because the photos were so small and didn't have enough detail, he couldn't do it. Thus, I ended up getting portraits of them now which I actually like better because that is how I know them.

So i'm gonna leave a few photos from the day and the tattoos up above!

So tired!

I remember when Saturdays used to be a day that I always looked forward to. A day that you basically were able to do nothing, when weekends actually mattered. When people talk about the weekend it feels as though I have no idea what they are talking about it's been that long since i've not worked weekends. In my life what Saturday means is money. It means that everyone that has "regular" jobs and "regular" hours will be coming to see me. The thought of having a 9 to 5 job excites me because I always end up getting put to work in the evening, even though I would rather be working in the morning. On a regular fully booked schedule for me, I am booked for 9 massages. That may sound like a lot, and it kind of is. However, this is the day that I make the most money because we're obviously the busiest. When I was in massage school the thought of doing 3 massages in a row was crazy! I can hardly believe that I can do 9 in one day. The good part is that i've for sure, built up an endurance to be able to work through them all, and when i've done them all if I had to I could do 1 or 2 more. But still...by the end of it all, I am SOOOO tired and am ready to go home, sit on the couch, and watch whatever netflix we have at the moment. And with that i'm off to eat some dinner (amir made veggie fried rice..yay!! )

i'm a married girl

I don't have much time at the moment but wanted to say that married life is fabulous...i have an awesome husband who is an AMAZING cook and I love very much! I'm a lucky lady

stormy nights

Last night was a bit scary for us people in the suburbs of Chicago. We had some fierce storms going on here... some of which turned into tornadoes. I had not much of an idea that there would be such a vicious storm, but when I had gone to the store earlier it looked a tiny bit dark...didn't think much of it though. I was watching some show on tv when all of a sudden the Chicago weather people came on saying there were some storms coming our way some of which some may be turning into tornadoes. Probably less than 5 minutes later the wind started picking up and the rain started coming down. The lightning was a lot more than what I really feel comfortable with. I made sure to have a flashlight in hand for the both of us JUST in case the power were to go out. Since things looked not so good outside we decided that the best place in the house to be would be the bathroom since there were no windows and it happens to be the most closed place in the apartment. So I loaded all the dogs in there and tried to get them to calm down a bit. Rufus was looking nervous, and melvin was shaking quite a bit. I tried petting them to calm them, but that wasn't working too good, so Amir gave them some old bones that were in the fridge that he had been meaning to give to them earlier in the week. As soon as they saw the bones they were happy and forgot about the storm for a bit. All of this was happening, while we had the tv on to keep ourselves updated on the storm situation. So we hear that there was a funnel cloud spotted in Carol Stream which freaked me out a bit because we LIVE in Carol Stream. Not cool!! It wasn't long after this that the lights flickered on and off a bit. I felt a little bit as though I was in a scary movie. My mind was going a little crazy while I was trying to keep it cool for Amir and the dogs..I know that when we have a little one around i'll totally have to keep calm in these kinds of situations because they most likely will be scared....SOO..I just pretended to be as strong as my parents' always seemed to me when I was young.

After they came on the tv saying that there was a funnel cloud, we never really heard anything more about it, which I took as a good thing because maybe it had disappeared. It wasn't much longer before they came on saying that the storm was moving on thank gosh!! It was moving more toward the city, however, the lightning was still pretty fierce but we were able to come out of the bathroom and move on with our night of watching our regular Monday night tv...Intervention.

Today I heard that there was an actual tornado in Bloomingdale which is less than 5 minutes from us!!!!!

Yay, we are alive to tell the story....haha....

Simple Things

The past 4 days have been so fabulous! Originally, I was planning on going to my 10 year high school reunion this weekend, however, that plan didn't quite surface. Basically nobody that I was actually friends with was going so I figured that I wouldn't go either and risk the fact of looking like I once again didn't quite fit in. Instead of that, Amir, me, and the dogs chose to go to Marseilles anyway, but to visit my parents and brother.

This past Tuesday was my birthday so the fam came up to hang out with me and then we went to eat at Olive Garden. From here, Nick decided to stay with us til we went to Marseilles on Saturday. It was nice to have him around again. Felt a little bit like the old Chicago times when we all used to be roommates. I do miss him, but it's good to be living our own lives again. Hopefully he figures out what he's doing with his life, but I know exactly where he's act because even now sometimes I feel like i'm still not really sure what the hell i'm doing. So, if you're reading this and you're in the film industry, my brother NEEDS work ASAP!

Anyway, so yesterday we drove down to my parents house to hang out with them. It was a pretty low key day. Played a little cards with my ma, ate some good homegrown food from their garden and did some much needed relaxing. While we were there Amir got the good ole Buick Riviera up and running again, after a much anticipated time. We had to park it there for the whole 2 years that we were living in Chicago so Camille was extremely happy to hear that we were taking her back home with us.

One thing that I had been wanting to do for several months now was drive into the hills of my hometown, if you can really call them that. haha. There is a farmer or group of farmers that have put some energy windmills up there and i've been obsessed with taking pictures of them for a long time. So finally we got to drive up there getting as close to them as possible and take some photos. I completely forgot how beautiful it is up there because the last time that I was probably up there was in high school when I know that I wouldn't have appreciated the land quite as much. I don't think that I would say that I want to live in the country, but it was such a good feeling out there. It really feels like you're in the midwest when you're out there.

Just not being at work is a good feeling in itself but it was nice to be able to see my family after a few months. Soon enough it will be back to the everyday grind of life. Hopefully my hands will hold up!

it's my birthday

I just wanted to say a quick something because it's the last hour of my 28th birthday. It still feels strange to be 28 because when I was in my teens and even my early twenties 28 seemed a bit old. The thing that really matters is that I don't feel old right? They say you're not old until you start feeling that way.

So the family came up today and we went to one of my favorite chains...Olive Garden. It was pretty nice actually. Had a nice pasta dish and was able to satisfy my need for some fabulous italian food. Before/after dinner we all hung out at our place...played a little cards...got a few gifts and was perfectly content. All in all, it was a nice day. My parent's left and my bro stayed here with us and will be here for the next few days which is pretty exciting, as we've not really seen too much of each other for several weeks.

It's funny to think when I was young my birthday was such a HUGE deal. I wanted to have many gifts, friends, cake, ice cream...pretty much I wanted the whole sha-bang. Now i'm completely happy hanging out with my family, maybe getting a few gifts and having some cake. Funny how things change in less than 10 years.

Hope everyone had a good July 29th!

PS: This was my first birthday as a married woman and it's pretty cool!

So after a looooong hiatus i am back. I am back as a newly married lady with a different name...Melissa Alexander. It sounds so official and i'm still getting used to it. Got married in May. May 24th, to be exact in Vegas at Caesars Palace. It was a lot of fun and I didnt want it to end. We had about 20 of our really good friends, and the day flew by. I know that everyone told me that, but it really did. The whole day and really the whole honeymoon too. After the wedding, Amir and I drove to San Francisco. It was amazing. I'd never driven out west like that and i'm so glad that we decided to drive instead of fly. It was so nice to be able to see the real west. So much desert and just open space. It was beautiful!! Got to take some amazing photos and they are on my flickr site. I could go on and on about San Francisco and how amazingly beautiful it was, but instead i'll stop here. I left with good memories and I still have visions of it almost everyday about how much I want to live there. From San Francisco we drove to Los Angeles, and I always love LA. Got to see some really good friends, do some much needed shopping, go to some farmers markets and just enjoy the California life. Oneday we really want to move there!!! Hopefully in the next few years we can pull that one off!

Now we're living the married life in the burbs of Chicago. Life's good, working A LOT at my new massage career. I like doing massage, not particularly the place though, but at least i'm getting experience. Think i'm gonna start marketing myself to get some at home business which is what i'd rather be doing anyway.

That's about all i've got for now. I'm gonna try and start writing a bit more regularly with some updates of just regular life. The dogs are good, family's good. Peace. Enjoy the photos !!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/melissajanke/