M’s friend from the Philippines came to do tattoos for him and his friends. A few months ago, I had told M that I wanted to book the next time he came.

Well, it happened. In the beginning, I wanted to get a tattoo on my wrist of the Hong Kong skyline. Just line art with a heartbeat line and a little heart.

My plan was to combine these two ideas. Then there was the coverup of the tattoo I got when Monster was a baby. I was unhappy (lol) with the tattoo. B gave me “permission” to cover the tattoo. I had sent a photo of the old tattoo to the artist. B was worried because I had not collaborated with the artist. I really had no idea what I wanted to do to cover it up. I spent some time looking up possible ideas.

I had NO idea what to do. I started looking at flowers. I looked at the Hong Kong flower. I couldn’t find one I really liked in terms of tattooing.

Then I thought my two favorite flowers, lotus and daffodil. Lotus represents rebirth and daffodils represent strength. Lotus blossoms are from Asia, and daffodils are from the US.

I asked the artist to do a lotus and daffodil. He had no idea what a daffodil was. He had to look it up. LOL.

Here is where I took a huge risk. Like I would normally not do this. He said how about one lotus and 3 daffodils. I said great because I have 3 kids. One daffodil for each kid. I asked if he needed to draw it out first. He said, no. I’ll just start.

… And I let him.

I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe the incredible talent of this guy. I mean I had seen his work before. He has tattooed a couple of my friends. But to actually see this materialize before my eyes with minimal planning was just… unreal.

It took 6 hours to complete the tattoo. We took a couple breaks. M and A stayed with me for the whole time. He ended up finishing at about midnight. He wanted to do the other tattoo as well, but the last hour or so was pure torture.

Previous to that, I was falling asleep while he was tattooing my back.

I am so excited about the final tattoo. It turned out so much better than I thought even possible. I love it to much.