"not all the changes are visible"

On Friday Light, Abundance and I all got in a car and drove to the other end of the state so that I could get a tattoo on the outside of my left arm. I'm not great at visual language, so the artist needed to pry my vision out of me and Light and Abundance definitely helped. Some part of me still worries about being a difficult client and feels like I should just like the first thing I'm presented with.

I am so glad I didn't.  The tiger-striped kitty and the teacup with steam were a beautiful piece of art, but didn't actually speak to me.  Now I have a teacup with leaves on it, surrounded by blackberries and brambles with a sparrow perched above it.  It's exquisite, to the point where I'm worried about how it's going to age.  The majority of the rest of my tattoos are solid black, and so the outlines grow fuzzy with age, but the images remain legible.  But I ordered "sunsleeves" from coolibar, and I'll get even more fanatical about avoiding the evil daystar and all will be well. 

We went to Home Depot today, part of my holiday presents is going to be a dishwasher, and all of the labor involved in coordinating skilled and licensed professionals to install it.  And Home Depot takes me down rabbit holes of paint colors and backsplashes and tile, until I'm both inspired and completely defeated by what feels like a lack of aesthetic in my home.   Unless I'm aiming for something along the lines of Country Chic Ruined by Pets, or The Result of Not Being Able To Have Nice Things.  (I was going to say Late Modern Cat Hair, but there's nothing here even near Late Modern, it's just a furniture style I can mostly identify).

I made some mistakes when we moved here and we made some good choices. (I actually tried to say we made some mistakes and good choices, but somehow that's not what it feels like).  Removing the beige upstairs carpet, big win, putting more counterspace in the kitchen, I think a win.  Blue-gray Icestone as a countertop material, not at all a win.  I need something either unstainable or in a palate that makes stains a lot harder to notice.  But maybe I'll end up with a dishwasher.  Maybe installing a dishwasher won't be this snowball that turns into an avalanche and leaves me without a kitchen for months on end. 

Next time: write about the interesting book about adoption I read.