Mist and Shadow, Cloud and Shade

Taylor and I stopped in Nashville overnight on the long drive back home, and upon returning I did my own thing for a couple days, trying to reacclimate to day-to-day life.  It's always hard, coming back from the beach.

I've had a few lovely after-dinner walks since coming back.  The sun is setting earlier and earlier now that Fall is approaching, making for some quite beautiful sunset views, and I passed a worksite with some manner of debris that looks like the escape pod that R2 and 3PO ride to Tatooine in A New Hope!

And as soon as I was getting back into the work flow, I had somebody cover one of my shifts so Mom and I could go get our tattoos!  We were planning on getting them in Florida, like how we did it last time, but we just didn't have enough time with the whole family being there and everything.  No worries, though, I did a little research and found a well-regarded tattoo shop here in St. Louis that welcomed walk-ins.

Mom got her compass rose needle on her wrist and I got my Lord of the Rings quote on my inner forearm!  I knew I wanted a Lord of the Rings quote for my third tattoo but it took me a while to pick one.  I wrote down several but always came back to this one line.  It's part of a song the Hobbits sing in the first book, but it becomes part of Pippin's song in the third movie.  I love how it's really image-driven, while also being about time.  To me it also fits well with my two other tattoos: line drawings of a wave and a couple plant sprigs with petals floating upwards.  Anyway, it is now all healed and I love it!

I've also done a bit of baking over the last couple weeks.  Taylor came over for a movie night and we decided a few homemade cookies would be a lovely treat in the middle of a movie viewing, so we made some delicious chocolate chip cookies before starting Amélie (2001), a quirky French love story that was up for several Oscars the year it came out.  Neither of us had seen it yet, and while it was a little strange, we both enjoyed it.

Now, when I was buying all the necessary items to make the cookies, I happened to be at Target.  And funny thing about Target's grocery section, they only offer eggs by the dozen.  So, after the one we used to make cookies, I had eleven more to use up in other ways.  I made a number of egg sandwiches for dinners, and had another round of baking!  This time I made pumpkin muffins.  I know it's a little early for Fall pumpkin items, but they just sounded so good!  And that they were.

(photos by e.hunt, and collected from blog.moviemaps)