Five weeks ago, I passed a friend of mine in the hall.  I treasure this friend because she’s one of those laid back, Oklahoma women who looks you square in the eye when talking with you.  She rolls with the punches, she has an air of confidence and she gets cooler every year I know her.  She greeted me: “Hey, I’ve enjoyed reading your blog!  Who knows…you could be another Pioneer Woman!”

First of all, my friend just got even cooler because she had right then and there provided tangible evidence that someone other than my family members were reading our posts.  And second of all, who was the Pioneer Woman?  Two more weeks passed before I thought, “Oh yeah…I need to check out this Pioneer Woman blog.”  Or, should I have thought, “Sensation!?”  As soon as I pulled up her site late one evening I became hooked for so many reasons.  First, the Okie Factor was major.  Second, the context about which she wrote reminded me of multiple reasons I loved Oklahoma country life.  Her photography was wonderful, her food looked sinful, her children were darling, her husband was hunky and the sunsets across her pond were even redder than those I see when driving home.  Within an hour, The Pioneer Woman had wrapped her blog around my heart.

Before I closed out the site I noticed she had written a autobiographical series entitled “From Black Heels to Tractor Wheels (BHTW),” about her decision to ditch law school and marry an Oklahoma cattle rancher.  I didn’t even start those posts; I needed sleep.  Flash forward a few more weeks…

Earlier today I introduced you to my new love, the iPad.  Last night I began the BHTW series and seriously tested the battery, streaming/loading and sheer determination capacity of my new technological wonder.  I began the series at 7:45 p.m. and finished at 1:38 a.m.  I took a few breaks along the way.  At one point I cooked myself the worst dinner I’ve made in several years…but that’s a different story.  And, at several points during the evening my husband came into the living room and began talking to me.  He told me a story about his day, he asked me a few questions about something, and came in to tell me goodnight.

At no time during any of these interactions did my brain engage what he was saying.  I was thinking in my head, “Look intently into his eyes, nod and hurry him along so I can get back to the next entry in my beloved BHTW series.”  The Pioneer Woman was tightly wedged between me and my husband.  I was putting my relationship with her stories above him, and was so hooked I couldn’t even see it…I was in way too deep.  I just wanted answers to all the questions I had about “What might happen next!??” to the Pioneer Woman and her Marlboro Man.

6:04 a.m. was an unwelcome time for me this morning.  The alarm on my cell phone did its job and I took way to long to find the cancel button.  I usually get up early and blog if it’s my day to contribute.  “Tuesdays – TwosDays – Relationships…” I thought.  Meh.  I got ready for work,  ignored the post writing (read: avoided the relationships section by writing about my new iPad), had a few meetings, and took a very late lunch.  The first thing I did was call my husband:  “Hey there, I’d like to go out to dinner tonight.  Ludivine is opening and I want to eat their food.”

After he came to grips with the fact that he probably could NOT wear his khaki shorts and a sweatshirt, he agreed.  “I’ll call Rylee and tell her we’re going on a date.  And that she needs to manage dinner on her own,” he told me as he hung up.

I love my husband.  The Pioneer Woman was no longer between us.  She was somewhere in the room, but Mick and I were back to our interdependent state once again, standing side by side.  “P-Dub” (Pioneer Woman reference for herself) is no longer causing distance between us, or deafness and blindness on my part.

Okay, now for the serious stuff.  Triangles are tricky and very powerful dynamics.  They basically exist when something comes between, or diverts, a healthy relationship between two people.  The “third party” can be a person (any person – young or old), a thing…oh, say…like a blog, a substance being abused (drugs, alcohol, pornography, gambling, eating, etc.) or even something that might normally seem healthy – like a work out regimen.  If you can see three elements in your relationship, and in general two of them are close, two of them are distant, and two of them are conflicted, then you’re probably in a triangle.

So my thought for you today is to examine the close relationships in your life and see if there’s extra baggage in your important dyads (two person relationships) that needs to be trimmed.  If you find some, take that baggage and put it where it belongs.  We keep real luggage on the top shelf of our closet.  I put my marital baggage back at this address where it belongs: @   http://thepioneerwoman.com/

and…I’ll visit when I can.  But if Mick asks me a question, I’ll put my new iPad screen on blank and really listen.  He deserves it, and I’m pretty sure P-Dub wouldn’t want it any other way.

Good luck!