Today I finally got a tattoo commemorating the conception, birth and continuing existence of my daughter Taran Jack Manley.

The inspiration came from the spectacular lunar eclipse I witnessed on February 21, 2008—which is also when I got my first hint I might be pregnant. My last cycle had begun right before the full moon in January, And as my cycle is a fairly regular 26 days and I’m more likely to start early than late… Well, let’s just say that five days later I bought my first and only pregnancy test.

A quick explanation of the symbolism: the hare helps identify the red disk as the moo, but also happens to be our family’s totem animal. As for the four cloud birds —I happened to see the eclipse with clouds—they reference to the ol’ folk augury rhyme, “four is for birth.”

(Tattoo done by Matt Reed of TigerLily Tattoo, designed by me.)

Since I last posted to this journal:

• - I’ve posted 10 pages of Dicebox, the latest, page 11 of Part 9 : Out of a Molehill, having gone up today.
• -Patrick has posted 18 pages to the bring his epic Dicebox guest comic, “Don’t Look Back” to a whopping 52 pages (and it’s still not done).
• -Kip has added three chapters to City of Roses.
• -Taran mastered crawling and has started walking.
• -I took part in two group art shows.
• -I gave JennManleyLee.com a complete overhaul.
• -Lived through off-and-on house renovation and repair.
• -And did many other things I can’t talk about yet or are too boring to recount.

Next up, after opening the Store at jennmanleylee.com and fixing some broken things at dicebox.net, I plan to try to use this journal once a week. We’ll see how I do.

In other news, I’ve taken the Threadless plunge. My first t-shirt design is up in the scoring arena, click thumbnail below to view the full design.

If you are so inclined, please hie thee hence and give this design a score. Another one of mine should be appearing in a day or so on the Threadless site for scoring as well. Fun fact: these first two design aren’t actually the original idea I has for a Threadless t-shirt; I’m still tinkering with it.

First, there was an update to “Don’t Look Back” last week, I just neglected to post about it. (permalink)

And then there’s this week’s page; I could not have asked for a better page to end up in Taran’s scrapbook. (permalink)

The Kid isn’t here yet, but she will be before the weekend’s out–by hook or by crook–thanks to the wiles of medical science.

Like page three of Patrick’s Dicebox tale in all its retro-furturo glory. (permalink)

Really, I’m looking forward to Molly’s reaction in the next week’s page.