Tattoos are hot, modern day body art and fashion accessories. Tattoos have been around for ages and still are a cultural icon Everyone wears them, from the celebs to the everyday moms and dads. Ladies, especially, have become very aware of the appeal that a well placed tattoo can have lower back tattoos, small and secret little tattoos, flower tattoos and many more, are meant to surprise and please and decorate and so it does too, otherwise it wouldn’t have been that popular!

Tattoos dating back to the second millennium before Christ have been noted on mummies as body decoration. Tattooing has been an ongoing practice since about ten thousand years ago in Japan as evidence shows. Different ancient traditions and cultures have been identified by the types of tattoos that they made use of.

Tattoos have been a popular form of body art for thousands of years in Europe and Asia. With the spread of Christianity in Europe and the effort to convert tribal people with traditional cultures that involved ritual tattooing, to Western religions and cultures, the use of tattoos almost completely disappeared in Europe for a while, because it was considered a pagan practice. Europeans to see tattoos again after it had lost its popularity for so many years, were Captain Cook and his sailors when they visited the Marquesas Islands in the 18th Century. Captain Cook described the tattoos as markings and said that the Polynesians called it “Tataw”. The sailors who were on the journey with him reinstated the art in Europe, where it soon was reinstated as a popular form of body-art. Sailors, especially, were associated with tattoos At the time tattooing was a common custom outside of Europe and until today tattooing is a tradition amongst indigenous peoples around the world.

Tattoos’ Cultural Status Tattoos are mostly used to enhance the wearer but also have symbolic and traditional meanings that sometimes have nothing to do with adorning the wearer. The symbolism of tattoos differ in diverse cultures but mostly are symbols of status, religion, protection, fertility etc. In many tribal cultures the coming of age initiation process involves tattooing to mark the wearer as an adult and usually signifies that the wearer then has a certain sexual independence. Tattoos were also utilized, until recent times, by authorities to mark convicts and slaves. The holocaust victims of the Second World War were all bearers of tattoos that were used for identification purposes. Even animals were and still are tattooed for identification purposes, such as thoroughbred racehorses.

Today tattoos are mostly used for decorative or cosmetic purposes. In modern society tattoos still have meanings and there is a strong awareness of the cultural meanings of the different symbols, such as religious, magical, protective iconic, memorial, and of course the ever popular sentimental love and sex symbols. Mystical value is also given to certain animal, flower, insect and iconic symbols to symbolize the status of the wearer’s cultural mind-set. Tattoos are often used to signify that the wearer associates with particular cultural or religious groups. The armed forces banned tattooing for a long time, but tattooing was and still is practiced discreetly amongst soldiers and sailors to indicate battles fought, killings made, in memory of lost loved ones, etc. Military tattoos have gained popularity amongst non-military wearers as well and is established as a tattoo category by itself. Criminal gangs use identifying tattoos to symbolize their gang’s significance and reputation. Prisoners wear tattoos to indicate their social standing in prison.

A prisoner with a tear tattoo is to be feared, because it signifies that the wearer has killed some-one, with a tear tattoo for each killing. The association of tattoos with criminality and brutality have given them a negative connotation in many societies. Women who wear tattoos are sometimes labeled as people with low moral values and especially lower-back tattoos have been named “tramp-stamps”. In modern society, the connotation has worn thin, though, and it has become perfectly acceptable and a fashion accessory in modern western cultures for women to wear tattoos. Ethic groups and sub-cultures also use identifying tattoos as symbols for their beliefs. Icons with very explicit cultural meanings are sometimes misinterpreted and used for the decorative value, such as Chinese and Japanese symbols that are tattooed on uninformed Westerners. The aesthetical value of Eastern tattoos make them a very popular tattoo category. Tattoos are made by perforating the skin, or even allowing for a small cut to be made into the epidermis of the skin and then inserting pigments into the perforation or cut.

Enhancing the body with tattoos is a fine and difficult art and in modern times the professional tattooist will advise and make sure that the tattoo you get is an accessory that you will be happy with for the rest of your life.

It is a bad idea to have a tattoo done under pressure. Make sure that you know exactly what you want to have done, beforehand!

Tattoos might become an embarrassment if not done properly or professionally, therefore make sure that you know exactly how it should be done, where to put the tattoo, what size you want and if your homework is done properly you will have the perfect tattoo!

The pain factor is something that first timers are wary of, but although everybody has a different pain tolerance, it is not unbearable and most people come back for a second tattoo - in fact, it is said that tattooing is addictive!

Professional aftercare is very important to make sure a tattoo is safe, heals properly and stays as beautiful as it was from the start.

Every year hair style fashions change. If you had a crop last summer then you can bet your life that this winter the style should be long and straight; small wonder that many women reach a certain age and stick with the same hairstyle for years. Makeover shows are now big business and one of the things that can make a big difference to how you look, is a change of hairstyle.

Teenagers especially get caught up in the new season, new hairstyle madness. If the style has gone from short to long – no problem – just get hair extensions until your own hair starts to grow. One month you need to be blonde and the next you go fro a copper colour because redheads have all the fun. Hairstyles change like the wind and many women just go along with it.

Very occasionally some bright spark comes up with an idea for a style that no-one in their right mind would find attractive, but because it is fashionable, there will always be women who try anything once. Keeping ahead of current fashions in hair styling can be a real struggle, and is probably why many women just decide to give up the fight and stick with what they know.

  Fashion and changing perceptions over time, have influenced the endings of many a great story. From ancient time, the storyteller has always striven to enrapture, with tales of horror, intrigue, romance, and mystery. Romantic novels – where boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back again, love blooms, and they live happily ever after – still have a large audience. Love and desire have always been at the heart of human reactions. These stories are of course variations of the theme. In Shakespeare, we see many a boy meeting a girl, who may or may not be disguised as another boy, and through much intrigue, parental disapproval, and devious friendships, we could see the girl at the end of the story appearing to die from an overdose, and the boy committing suicide, desperate and distraught. Shakespeare’s brilliant story telling is often as relevant today as it was in the middle ages. In Victorian melodramas, dark deeds, polite and formal relationships, the heavy influence of the Church, and sexually repressed characters, often led to misunderstandings and miscommunications.

Novels of this era often ended with disappointments or at best enlightenment through a religious experience. Detective novels and mysteries of the first half of the 20th Century had complicated plots, twists and turns, class war differences, and brilliant minds in an age of little technology. These stories often ended with a long, detailed explanation in the last chapter, revealing the guilty party and why everyone else was eliminated. All the pieces of the jigsaw fell into place. And, sometimes the “butler did it!” As the 20th Century progressed, we saw the hard hitting, hard drinking, and no nonsense detective stories with strong sexual overtones. The language was tough, smart and clipped. The “good guys” usually won out in the end. As a novel evolves, the story, characters, beginning and ending can change many times. The author strives to keep the reader interested and uncertain of the outcome. Today’s novels could incorporate all or any of these past endings, but I believe the more modern approach has been to ask the audience to think. This means that many of today’s plays, movies, and books do not have neat, tidy endings.

To some audiences, this can be infuriating. However, others enjoy the experience of putting their own interpretation and ending to a story. In my novel, “Bear Any Burden,” I have gone for the more modern approach. While circulating my manuscript to many literary agents and receiving many rejections, I realized that some adjustments needed to be made. One particularly well-established New York literary agent called the ending of my manuscript “serendipitous.” Only a literary agent would use such a delightful word, so I set about making some changes. Accordingly, the end of my book now leaves many questions unanswered. Some say this should lead to a sequel. Maybe so. But the objective is to make the audience think about various possible outcomes for the characters, and not have a “cheesy” ending in which all the pieces of the puzzle fall into place. What do you think?

Is there something that you are so passionate about that you would do it no matter what? If so, have you ever thought about making it your life work?I want to share with you a quote from a great Australian talent, Rolf Harris. Here is what he said:

“Someone once said to me - first identify your obsession, then make it your profession and you will never do another day’s work.”

So, let me ask you again - have you ever considered making your passion your life work? Can you make the transition? You don’t have to make a “clean cut” from what you are doing now. Do it in stages - a little bit at a time. Set some goals for yourself.

I have known people who have quit their boring day jobs because they have been earning so much money “part-time” pursuing a passion. But they didn’t do it through luck or by being idle. Nobody gets rich between 9.00am and 5.00pm.

Identify the thing that you would do even if you would never get paid for it. That is your passion. Next, take some of that useless and unproductive “TV time” and work on that passion. You will find a way to make a profit from it if you put the time in and come up with an “angle.” When passion steps in procrastination, laziness, excuses and all the other negative traits walk out the door.

Millions of people earn money from their passion. Not co-incidentally they are also the happiest and wealthiest people on the planet. Why not join their ranks? Remember, the old cliche that “Rome was not built in a day.” Conversely, “inch by inch, it’s a cinch.”

Turn your passion into a profession and you will never have to “work” again.

It is easy to see that womens costumes this Halloween are more fun than ever before. Womens costumes are flirty and outrageous. You can wear some of the Presidential election costumes – appear as the potential Vice President Sarah Palin if you wish in a sexy costumes type of way – or even as Hillary Clinton who appears to be sitting out our Presidental elections with a bit of a sulk.

Then there are the classic Halloween costumes such as being a vampire or a witch, these are womens costumes you often see women picking. One of the fun things about choosing these Halloween costumes is that you can easily make these costumes sexy or low-key as you decide to. You can be shy or you can be a bold witch, it is your choice. But either choice you’ll be sure to have fun in this Halloween costumes.

Some women choose to go with the current season’s picks for costumes and then other women choose ideas that are more classic. Why not choose womens costumes like a hippie chick or a serial killer? Or be a doctor or a nurse? There are so many fun Halloween costumes available for women.