inked

A topic of constant discussion and disagreement whenever I go home is tattoos. 
I will preface this with the fact that I have 4 tattoos and don't plan on stopping any time soon.

A little background about my beautiful ink.
Upper left: these are the Greek letters alpha and omega which symbolically mean the beginning and the end. It is derived from Revelations 22:13 "He is the Alpha and the Omega. The first and the last. The beginning and the end."
Upper right: Lumos is the Harry Potter spell for light. one of my favorite all time quotes is from Dumbledore when he says "happiness can be found even at the darkest of times if one only remembers to turn on the light."
Bottom left: I got this after guiding my second sea kayak trip to the Apostle Islands. The symbol is Maori and a common kayaker symbol that represents safe travel across water. "Epo" is from a Maori song we would sing at camp that roughly translates to "we shall not be sad, we will only be happy, carry peace with you."
Bottom right: The newest installment. (also done in my handwriting!) On the Loose is a camp song we would sing at the end of every session and the lyrics have effected me unlike any other song. 

On the loose to climb a mountain

On the loose where I am free

On the loose to live my life

The way I think my life should be

For I've only got a moment

and a whole world yet to see

I'll be looking for tomorrow 

On the loose

Have you ever watched the sunrise

turn the sky completely red?

Have you slept beneath the moonbeam

stars and pine boughs over your head?

Do you sit and talk with friends

though a word is never said?

Then you're just like me, and you've been

On the loose

There's a trail that I'll be hiking

just to see where it might go.

Many places yet to visit,

many people yet to know

For in following my dreams,

I will live and I will grow

In a world that's waiting out there

On the loose

So in search of love and laughter 

I'll be traveling 'cross this land.

Never sure of where I'm going

cause I haven't any plan.

So in time when you are ready,

come and join me, take my hand

and together we'll share life out

On the loose

Side note: totally just got the goosebumps and a twinkle in my eye writing those lyrics.

ANYWAYS down to the meat of this post: tattoos!

The constant discussion with my mom is that now that I have blatantly visible tattoos and plan to get more not so discreet ink, that I will never really be professionally successful. Or that in 30 years when I start getting wrinkly and saggy, I will regret this warped ink on my not-so-elastic skin. I just have one word for all of that malarkey: FALSE 

This is wrong. Maybe I will never be a politician, with a body full of ink, and no I can't participate in Miss America because of my unconcealed artwork, but that isn't what I want. Someday, I will be owning my own camp, and if my tattoos scare you, I'm sorry that you don't appreciate how I choose to express myself.

And regret? I will never NEVER regret a single tattoo I get.

Tattoos are a way to document life. Each piece I've gotten, and each piece I get in the future tell a story. Getting each tattoo is like telling a story. The memories I have of choosing these tattoos and the memories I have of getting them is something I will have the rest of my life because they will be with me as long as I have my skin. And that is something I could never regret. 

Getting my most recent tat :) VIP studios, Duluth. Check em out! They're AMAZING

Yes, tattoos hurt.

Yes, they're expensive.

Yes, I am aware of how permanent they are.

No, I will never regret any of them.

I strongly believe that our body is the home for our souls, why not decorate the walls?

its going down, I'm yelling ... tinder?

Alright, so here's the deal. I'm obsessed with apps. I love that I can literally hold everything near and dear to me in a single device, my cell phone. I can make vines, I can listen to any song on Spotify, I can Crush Candy, I can sling Angry Birds, I can write reviews on guys like a yelp review via Lulu, AND I can swipe like or nope on every guy in a 100 mile radius of me. It blows my mind.


As an avid app user, I obviously downloaded Tinder the day I heard about it. It all started in Western Massachusetts where my co-counselors and I would use Tinder to meet counselors from other camps. Maybe even get a free drink or two on a night off. (not a bad gig.) I got back to Wisconsin, and Tinder flew into full force. Before I knew it, we were having Tinder parties. My housemates, our friends, and myself would sit in our living room and Tinder. For hours. Tinder became an addiction. Until the small town life finally got the best of us.

possibly the saddest screen to see.

That dreaded message would send us to bordem until finally more men were detected or you FINALLY matched with the cute guy and he messaged you.

Tinder has become the new hot or not leading to awkward encounters, terrible first dates, the random hook ups, and even 52 weddings. It has also lead to countless twitters and tumblrs including one of my favorites #tinderproblems these include those awkward pick up lines, those matches where you think "did I really swipe right on that?!" and the pictures that just make you go "huh..."

Because Tinder is always full of clever conversationalists, promising boyfriends, and numbers you save in your phone such as "tinder slut (insert number here)"

 If I am going to be honest with y'all, I've gone on a few tinder dates and even exchanged a few words with some of these "men." While the dates were, in general, nice, cute and sweet, lets just say, they never really ended well. Even after these date experiences, I still find myself on tinder way too often. I rarely talk to any of the poor souls I match with, and I really have no desire to ever meet or talk to half of them, yet there I sit almost every night before bed, swiping left or right, like or nope.

Does anyone else find themselves absolutely fascinated by tinder? or are you obsessed with a different app?

A Numbers Game

Today I read an article on Total Sorority Move, half expecting it to be, for lack of a better word, sex-filled. Which of course, it was, but I finished the article and felt like I could breathe. Before finishing this post, please go read this short and beautiful article real quick here.

Now that you've had the chance to read that, I'm going to talk. After battling an inner-self personal crisis as of lately, this article came up at the perfect time. As a college student, sex is part of our culture. Whether you're "doing it" or not, there is a stigma in our society either way. I feel I may be a little ballsy writing my first "real" blog post on an issue like sex in our society, but I was moved by the article and I can't not talk when something hits me on the inside like this.

Back to the article: We are surrounded by numbers. Whether its price tags, MPGs, how many Gs our phones get, the size on our clothes and the number of notches on our belt. But why do we have to slap a number on everything? The article talked about how there will never be the "right" number for us. As young women, we're told to be the "Madonna and the whore, the saint and the sinner." Its just not possible. Have too many notches? You're a whore. Don't have any? You're a prude. These labels are slapped on just as quickly as a number is added. It is complete kaka del torro  if you catch my drift. Luckily, women are starting to call out this double standard. Articles like this, on a major social media, like TSM
 or even music, like one of my favorite songs.

I like what Kacey is saying here, and this song came to mind the second I read that article, and her lyrics are a great reminder for all of us girls to keep in mind.

If you save yourself for marriage, you're a bore.
If you don't save yourself for marriage, you're a horrible person.
If you won't have a drink, then you're a prude.
But they'll call you a drunk as soon as you down the first one.
You're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't.
So you might as well just do whatever you want to
So make lots of noise, and kiss lots of boys.
Or kiss lots of girls, if that's something you're in to.

So, whether you're number is 0, 5, 15, or 50, you keep doing you. Slut shaming is appauling, and making women feel bad for exploring their sexuality, which might I add, is ENCOURAGED for men, is just outright absurd!

TSM made a really good point about our sexuality by quoting one of my all-time favorite shows: "The Office" Pam said, "It’s not about who you’ve been with. It’s about who you end up with. Sometimes the heart doesn’t know what it wants until it finds what it wants." all I have to say is, AMEN.