It was a HUGE weekend for me, with so much good stuff happening. Friday was a weird day – I was jet lagged (just got home from ten days in Hawaii on Thursday – yes, yes, I know, you can hate me) and after receiving notice that a budget hadn’t been passed, I drug myself into the office to get my furlough notice. Even though a budget was signed around noon that day, I was already furloughed which ended up being a good thing as I ran errands and then went for drinks with a friend for her birthday.

Saturday I hit the gym as usual, then my best friend, Virginia, and I went for pedicures. We had plans to get matching tattoos on our feet that day and needed our toes to look pretty! A couple of hours later we were all smiles with our new inked feet!

Virginia found this tattoo a few months ago; this hearted anchor is a meaning for friendship:

Friendship guides us through the tough waters and shows us the right path in dark times. You are my anchor, my true friend.

Virginia and I have been friends for almost twenty years and she is, without a doubt, my anchor, my true best friend.

After we finished up our foot tattoos I sat back down to begin the work on my back piece.

She’s getting a tattoo, yeah she’s getting ink done…

Three hours later, I tapped out. I had hoped to get the entire outline completed but I had reached the point where it was just screaming pain and so I called it quits. My next appointment is in three weeks and we’ll finish the outline and begin the shading.

The next morning, after blissfully sleeping in and hopefully shaking the last of my jet lag, I heard a knock on the front door. I brought the package inside and was excited to find the author copies of my chapbook, The Violence Within!!

I can’t wait to share these poems with you. If you want a copy and are local (so I can hand-deliver it), please send $8 as a gift to me here. If I have to mail it to you, please send $10.50 as a gift to me here.