patience is a virtue...

...which I usually don't have, so I suppose I don't really have a right to ask anyone else to have any either. Nonetheless, I haven't had a chance to get my tattoo pics uploaded from my camera and I have a ton more pictures of what I was up to during my blogging break that I want to share with you, so bear with me for a couple more posts while I get these pictures out of my system.

Also, to clear up a couple things: 1) a couple of you asked how on earth I got my idea for the Pride and Prejudice and Zombie engagement party, more specifically how the hell I came up with the idea to combine the two. Well, it's not my idea! There was a best-selling book that came out last year:

In which a contemporary author took the original Pride and Prejudice story and then added in a zombie story in the background. He's also publishing this book later this year, which I am pretty damn excited about:

Now if only Abraham Lincoln could take out that emo little vampire punk Edward Cullen...hmmm... :)

So that's where I got the idea from, given that the bride Stacy loves Pride and Prejudice and the groom, Eric... loves zombies. So it was kind of a match made in...purgatory?

Other things you need to know: 2) Yes, the tattoo hurt. Tattoos hurt. It's what happens when someone puts a needle full of ink to your skin and then goes back and forth, back and forth, along the same lines, over.and over.and over again. Was it totally worth it? You betcha. I love the look, it only took about 40 minutes, the pain, for what it was, was completely tolerable because it was on my lower back, and it's healing nicely as I'm pampering it and putting lotion on it every hour.

Also, before I leave you with a bunch of photos of what I've been up to over the past couple weeks: 3) don't give your cat catnip five minutes before you go to bed. This doesn't really have anything to do with my post or my pictures, I just felt it was an important life-lesson to share with everyone. Tell your friends. It could save lives. Or, you know, valuable hours of sleep.

And finally: one of my favorite girls in the entire world wrote this post about how the two of us met and her thoughts on my tattoo. It made me cry. Lira, I love you so much.

Now behold: pictures.

This is what happens when you loan your roommate three rolls of toilet paper over the past few weeks and then he decides to pay you back all at once, video-game style. I walked into my bathroom and found this EXACT set-up. Lovely, eh?

Desperate times call for desperate measures... in a stress-induced freak out attack I decided that getting a pedicure would make me feel better. This is the second pedicure I've ever had in my entire life. It totally worked.

These are some pictures I took at The Huntington Library and Gardens. I know, you're thinking, Where are the freakin' gardens? but I'm posting those later this week with a fun little tool that makes nature pictures look AWESOME. Yes, that required all caps.

Falcon!

Very Secret Garden-esque!

Benni, STAY ON THE PATH!!

We be real cool.

Ellesmere's illustrated Canterbury Tales!! I'm such a fan-girl of Chaucer.

I love this curmudgeon. He's one of my favorite poets of ever.

Buddhist temple in Whittier! Did you know it was there? I didn't!

The more levels there are, the harder it is for evil spirits to get in.

View from the top.

Happy Buddha is....happy.

View over-looking downtown Whittier.

K, so them's my first batch of pics. I will do another post of nature pictures in the next day or so, and then it's all about the tattoo, I promise!

Happy Monday!