Jananas

I’ve read a lot of books this year, with a good balance between fiction and general life improvement/business books. One of the biggest lessons is that sometimes you just need to make a decision and run with it. You could spend hours or weeks or months or years evaluating options and agonizing over whether you’ve made the perfect/right choice. Or you can cut out all that worry (and wasted energy). Make a decision and GO.

We’ve spent quite a bit of time over the last few weeks talking about wedding stuffs and planning things. People seem shocked that we’ve already done things like reserve our venue and our caterer. [really folks, I'm a planner here!].

1 – If we make a decision now, we don’t need to worry about needing to make a decision. I’m hoping that it will mean less stress over the next year and more time for us to enjoy life.

2 - I’m trying to get decisions made now so that we can go back to being our normal, non-wedding selves. I really, really don’t want the next year of my life to be all about the wedding. Its important, but I don’t want to lose myself or our relationship if that makes sense.

3 – We’re 5 hours away from where our reception is going to be held and we don’t have free time to make multiple trips to view places/taste food. So we put a little faith into the universe and just went with some things sight unseen. The way I figure, even if we find a place that we 100% love and had visited and was perfect, etc. things can still go wrong the day of.

Instead I’m going to spend all of that energy loving Jason and having adventures with him. Sounds like a pretty good plan to me.

The cat is out of the bag. Jason & I are engaged. It wasn’t really a surprise. We’ve been together for three years and have spent lots of time over the last while talking about weddings and equally fun things like immigration. Jason had even vocalized that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. (cue inner girl going Squeee!)

It was this weird in between space where we knew it was going to happen eventually, but I wasn’t able to be excited/start planning. Traditional gender roles would have us believe that as the woman I was supposed to just sit back and wait. And wait. And wait until someone else made a decision for me and for us. It was a position that made me feel powerless and weak and frustrated.

The only reason I felt that way though was because I’d allowed myself to discount a totally viable option. I bought into the limitations of traditional gender roles. I didn’t have to wait because I had the power to ask too.

So yes, I asked Jason to marry me. We were tucked into bed talking one evening and I just had to. The question was sitting in my mouth, taking up space and weighing me down. I knew that if I didn’t ask, I’d focus on it and drive myself crazy. So I asked and he said yes.

And because I’m me, I then asked if I could wear a ring that I adore. My father gave my mother this ring years and years ago. Its an opal surrounded by little diamonds. Its the only ring that I’ve ever liked wearing (this doesn’t mean that I’ll always wear it though because I’m really not a jewelry sort of girl) and in my head its always been a left hand ring finger sort of ring.

Now, for ring pron.

I’d wanted my arm pits to be tattooed for a while (as in years). I think that they are a strange combination between stealth and highly visible/unusual. Really, I wanted to be able to say that my armpits smell like roses. Except that I dislike the way tattooed roses look, so I went with daffodils instead.

We did the first one about a month ago. It healed up really well when you consider how much movement there is in the area and the fact that the two sides of fresh tattoo rubbed against one another when my arm was down. There are some minor touch ups and I’d like to add some more yellow to it, but I was so stoked.

Having it done sucked. The first two hours weren’t bad and the third hour was almost unbearable. I convinced myself that I could sit through 2 more minutes, just 2 more minutes for an entire hour. But it was done and now I could relax. Ha! Healing it was pretty brutal as well. I was so wiped out that I slept for 13 hours the next evening. Moving my arm, dressing, stretching all made it sore. And given that I’m right handed and this was my right armpit it meant that just about everything made it sore. Luckily I heal pretty fast, so the small layer of scab was off in 5 days. Then it was just waiting for the scar tissue to open up so that I could stretch fully again.

Last night I went back to get my second one done. I was pretty nervous because I knew what I was in for. Thankfully Jason came with me to hold my hand and provide moral support.

My artist also used new machines this time. They are neumas. They are super quiet, so I wasn’t fighting the stress of the sound of the machine as well as the pain of being tattooed.

I like this picture, because normally you don’t see people look quite so happy and full of smiles when they are getting their armpits tattooed. Yup, this is about how a I roll.

This is the final piece. The glare is from the last layer of ointment prior to being bandaged up. Its also still fairly red/pink because of irritation. We’ll grab photos of the healed piece in a few weeks for you so you can see the final result.

I can now proudly rock floral armpit tattoos. Its nice to have both done so that I feel balanced again. I really like these pieces. And I really like that most people don’t realize that I have them. Its like my own little joke that the world isn’t in on.

I turn 29 at the end of the month. Rather than gifts or a night of drunken debauchery, I’ve decided that I’d like to raise money for charity. Specifically, I’d like to raise enough money so that the Soi Dog Foundation * in Phuket, Thailand can spay/neuter one dog for every year I’ve been alive.

At $20 a dog x 29 years**, that means that I need to raise $580 in order to reach my goal. That could mean 29 friends each donating $20 or 58 friends each donating $10. Even $5 will make a difference.

RAISED SO FAR: $670, 115% of total // GOAL: $580 raised for Soi Dog by July 28th

Soi Dog deals with some of the worst cases of neglect and abuse in Thailand on a daily basis. Every dollar raised goes directly to help the dogs and your donation will have an immediate impact. The pictures below are of Goldie when he was first rescued and after the Soi Dog volunteers and staff had nursed him back to health.

Donate here (the Soi Dog website & PayPal info). Feel free to pass the message along, any help is greatly appreciated.

I’m doing this old school. I can only track my total if you let me know what you donated. So please comment, or send me an email to jana at jananas dot com, or a twitter message, or hit me up on facebook, or something. Individual donation amounts will not be published here unless you give me the okay to publish the info.

We adopted our dog Gucci from Soi Dog in December 2009. I also donate $20 a month to Sponsor Joy, one of the many dogs currently being cared for by Soi Dog.

* Soi Dog is an amazing organization. They started in 2002 and have spayed/neutered more than 28,000 animals since then. They purchased land where they built a permanent shelter (they house upwards of 200 adoptable dogs and more than 50 dogs that need permanent care). Gill, one of the founders, was voted Asian of the Year as a result of her hard work and dedication (so dedicated that she lost her legs as a result of an infection she contracted while rescuing a dog). Soi Dog’s relentless efforts have directly contributed to Phuket Island being declared the first Rabies free province in Thailand.

Basically, this rescue group is about as awesome and awe-inspiring as you can get. They have achieved a huge amount and made a real difference in reducing the suffering of local dog and cat populations. The amount of neglect and abuse suffered by these animals before Soi Dog stepped in to help is difficult to even comprehend – this is a great explanation of why they do it although I’ll warn you that the photos are graphic.

** The actual math is that if you donate $1 a day for a year you can help spay/neuter 24 animals. That works out to $15.21 to spay/neuter an animal. I’ve rounded up to $20 to cover PayPal fees, etc.

As most of you already know, I’m raising funds for Soi Dog Foundation for my birthday. I’m 40% of my way to my goal of $580 ($20 to spay/neuter a dog for each of my 29 years). [edit - goal more than met!]

Soi Dog deals with some of the worst cases of neglect and abuse seen in Thailand. They do it every day. Your donation will go directly to helping a dog like Glory (or some of the others pictured in the video clip below) get better and have a chance at a good life filled with love.

Please donate. Your contribution will make a difference.

I’m tracking my total by hand, so let me know if/how much you donated. Thanks!