Okay I don’t have an ending to that sentence. Heh.

Biker Dude, our daughter and I went to get tattoos together last night. Our daughter wanted a new one since last winter and wanted us to go with her and get tats also, so we agreed. I’ve already got a few and so does Biker Dude, so why not? I had originally wanted to get a skull tattoo (y’all know I have this thing for skulls, right? :giggle: ). But in the end, I just didn’t find one I loved enough to have permanent ink on my skin. Fortunately, the fabulous Shannon Stacey and I were talking yesterday morning and she gave me a really good idea, so I modified it a bit and went with it. I decided to incporate something about my writing career, and this is what the tattoo artist and I came up with:

I love it. It’s on the inner side of my left wrist and it’s the first tattoo I have that I can actually see. Most of the others I have are all placed on my back or shoulder so I can never see them. Wheee!

Biker Dude’s tattoo:

The skull is the new one. The one above it is an older one. I love how it turned out!

And our daughter’s tattoo:

Hers turned out so pretty!

We had a lot of fun doing this. Weird family bonding, huh? :giggle:

Philandering husband and SC Governor Mark Sandford has been front and center in the news this past week, acknowledging having an affair with an Argentinian woman, and now admits to even more discretions. Oh but those didn’t ‘cross the line’. Um…right.

Anyway, I don’t want to give the dickhead anymore press than he’s already gotten. I was thinking about this, and about relationships, because hey, I spend the majority of every day writing about relationships, about the push/pull between a couple, and how they manage to find common ground and despite obstacles thrown at them, fall in love.

But then I got to thinking…okay, let’s inject some real life into this whole relationship thing. Everyone views relationships differently. Certainly every couple I’ve written handles their relationship differently, and they’re fictional people. it stands to reason real life people all see things differently too.

So I got to thinking about the kind of woman who would forgive a man for infidelity. You know there are women out there who would. Now whether that’s because they have low self esteem or depend on the man for their way of life or because infidelity in itself isn’t the dealbreaker in the relationship, I don’t know. But I’ve seen plenty of women take their men back after they’ve cheated on them. Me? I wouldn’t be so inclined to do so. But that’s me.

The #1 thing I insist upon is trust. Without it–the relationship is finished. You break trust with your partner one time, and you’re done. How will you ever trust that person again? They can say…hey, trust me. But can you ever believe anything they say is true? How do you know that every word they say to you isn’t a lie? So for me…trust is the dealbreaker in a relationship. I can forgive a lot of things…but you break my trust and it’s over.

So I’m curious about the rest of you. What are your dealbreakers in a relationship? What would you be willing to tolerate, and what would be the one thing that you would never forgive?

Oh, and for the record, my husband is an incredibly honorable man and I trust him 100% with my heart and with my life. :heart:

I know I haven’t been blogging regularly lately.

Here’s why:

Buddy, our lab, had surgery on his leg two weeks ago. This is the 4th time. He had multiple ACL surgeries but was still limping so the doc wanted to be sure one of the bands hadn’t come loose. Plus our daughter works at the vet’s office during her summers off from college, and they love both her and Buddy. Anyway, he just has arthritis so nothing can really be done for him. Problem is the wound abscessed and we’ve been dealing with infection and antibiotics and he’s in the house and an 85 lb dog in my house along with my son’s dog and my 2 little dogs and well…you can just imagine. Here he is…like a moat I have to cross over to get from the kitchen to the dining room:

And then my son brought his dog with him on this visit. Freedom is part German Shepherd, part…well he doesn’t really know. And she’s very afraid of people (She was a shelter dog). But she’s warmed up nicely to all of us, and our dogs. And she’s taken over my sofa, just like my dogs do:

I just want y’all to know that between Buddy and Freedom, I’ve swept up enough dog hair to knit an entire new dog. And I didn’t even include pics of Sam and Lucy, our other dogs. Or #1 son’s two dogs he dumped in our backyard SAturday so they’d be out of his house while they had my granddaughter’s birthday. For awhile there I felt like Animal Planet. For awhile on Saturday we had 8 dogs. Thank God we live on an acre and a half, huh?

So yeah, my granddaughter had a birthday. So of course there was a party:

Pool party. Lots of kids. Thankfully not at my house. :giggle: My baby girl is 6 now.

#2 son (and his dog) were supposed to leave to drive back to California Sunday morning. Except Saturday night we went out to dinner. Biker Dude and I took the bike, and he followed behind in his car. On the way bike, Biker Dude spotted a deer about to dart out in front of us. Fortunately the deer changed its mind. Thankfully. Deer vs Motorcycle is never pretty. But then we didn’t see my son’s car lights behind us so we turned around and found him pulled over on the side of the road. Yeah…the deer darted out into the road anyway and my son hit it:

Needless to say, he didn’t leave Sunday. He needs to get at least a few repairs done to make the car driveable cross country.

And that’s why I haven’t been blogging much. Oh and I’m trying to write a book amidst all this madness. Send chocolate. Or tequila :giggle: