Mmmm...I sure do love my husband! I got my weekly spanking yesterday (okay, so it was from last week, but we get to it when we can!). He used a new-ish bath brush, and boy did it sting! We've actually had the brush for a long time, but it went into my trunk after I bought it, and stayed there for a very long time. Eventually we cleaned out my car and it ended up in the garage, and it stayed there until just very recently when we cleaned it out too, so this was the first time he ever used it. I think he likes it! I got about 75 licks, and they were nothing to sneeze at; but it wasn't a punishment, so it wasn't full force by any means. It was enough to leave me feeling toasty and well loved, and I'm just so very glad that this is a regular part of our lives again!
Life is going well. Money is very tight, but God is providing. Actually, we're getting our income tax refund back soon, and Nick has promised to buy me a digital SLR camera. This is something I've wanted for a very long time. My sister-in-law is kind of a photobug too, and we've talked for several years about someday starting photography business together. She's done a few weddings and engagements, but she doesn't enjoy the photo editing part of the job, which I love. Hopefully as summer comes we'll be able to book a few weddings together and maybe start to establish a client list. I'd love to be able to do something to bring in some income with weekend work, and photography is something I really, really enjoy!
Anyway, I'm off to bed - hope you guys have a great weekend!
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
A Perfect Angel
I've been good. Very good. Practically an angel, really. Fortunately my dear husband hasn't let that stop him from spanking me! We didn't get to get to it till Saturday. We spent a nice long time talking about my goals for the house, and Nick was very sweet in telling me how proud of me he was for the job I've done in keeping the house clean. He also told me that he did not feel that I deserved a spanking, but that he understood that I needed it to keep my head on straight. He only gave me 25 swats with the AngelBrat Paddle, but he made them count, and it was just what I needed. I think I'll go see if there's anything I can do for him...
Friday, January 15, 2010
More Blessings!
So my last post was about an answered prayer. And that was pretty neat. But it was peanuts compared to what God has done for us now! Nick's check was pretty small this week compared to what it usually is. For one thing, there was a holiday on there. Now that's good for most people, but for Nick it means that instead of them making the 10-15 commission hours they would usually have for that day, his teams gets $40 each. That takes a pretty good chunk out of the check. On top of that, we had several days of snow last week, and very few people were bringing their cars in for service which cut down on their commission even more. What it came down to was that we were around $700 short of what we needed for the bills, groceries, and necessities.
Okay, $700 is not a huge big deal for a lot of people, but in my house, that's a big chunk of money, and there was just nowhere for us to get it. So I spent a few minutes praying about it, telling God how much we needed His help, and then I did my best to let it go and not worry. A little while later I logged onto our bank account to see what had cleared and where we were with our balance, and I about fell out of my chair. Instead of the roughly $30 I expected to see in there, our balance was over $700! I looked at the activity, and saw that my former company had deposited $692. Okay, this couldn't be right - I had just quit, and since I had been on maternity leave for months beforehand, it's not like I had a last paycheck coming, right? And surely as soon as we spent it they would realize their mistake and take it right back out.
Fast forward a few hours - I called employee services to see what was going on. It turns out that when you quit, you get to get paid for any unused sick time. Mine reset for the year on my hire date anniversary, less than three weeks before I quit, so I got paid for the full yearly allowance!
I never in a million years would have thought about that being the policy. And it's really a sweet irony after all the stress I went through over the past year trying to juggle my sick time with my doctor's visits throughout my pregnancy. In fact, the last couple of visits I had before I went out on bed rest were unpaid for me because I had run out of all sick time and merit time.
Anyway, I just had to tell you guys what an amazing God I have!
Actually, there have been a couple of other neat blessings this week too. Last school year Morgan won a Wii during a school fundraiser. All three of us are big fans of all the Mario Brothers games, and we were pretty excited to hear about the new Super Mario Bros. Wii. However, with a $50 price tag, we weren't counting on getting it any time soon. Of course a video game is by no means a necessity, so it wasn't like we were suffering without it, but we really wanted to play it.
Well, going back to my job again - for certain anniversaries (5 years, 10 years, 15 years, etc.) the company would award you reward points that you could then redeem for prizes. Just before I quit, I got my 10 year anniversary points, and they were just enough to get a $50 Best Buy gift card. It came in the mail a few days ago, and Nick went yesterday and used it to get our game! All we had to pay was the tax, and we've had SO much fun with it!
Another cool thing: Morgan got a $20 gift card for Christmas to Justice from Nick's sister. Then Nick's other sister gave me a coupon for $15 off a $40 purchase at Justice, so if we put $5 with the coupon and the gift card, then she could get $40 worth of stuff. Morgan has been begging me to take her to spend it since Christmas, but I hadn't really had a good opportunity until today. Today I took her by the mall after I picked her up from school, and it turned out that the Justice there was going to be closing soon and everything in the store was 40-50% off the lowest marked price! I let her take her time, and she tried on half the store. In the end I paid about $17 out of pocket, but she got $115 worth of clothes and accessories. And on my way out of the mall Bath and Body Works had two types of foaming body wash for 90% off! One of them was even one if Nick's favorite scents, and I got 5 bottles for $1.20 each! All in all we got $175 worth of stuff for less than $25!
Okay, enough about my awesome shopping trip. :) We haven't forgotten about our weekly spanking. Last night Nick and I tried out the Wii game after we got Morgan to bed (we didn't tell her about it until today, because we knew we'd never get her in bed last night if she knew!). By the time we were done it was very late and Nick had to work today. Tonight we just could not get the baby to sleep, and Nick has to work again in the morning, so we're going to do our very best to get to it tomorrow night.
Anyway, I'm off to bed!
Okay, $700 is not a huge big deal for a lot of people, but in my house, that's a big chunk of money, and there was just nowhere for us to get it. So I spent a few minutes praying about it, telling God how much we needed His help, and then I did my best to let it go and not worry. A little while later I logged onto our bank account to see what had cleared and where we were with our balance, and I about fell out of my chair. Instead of the roughly $30 I expected to see in there, our balance was over $700! I looked at the activity, and saw that my former company had deposited $692. Okay, this couldn't be right - I had just quit, and since I had been on maternity leave for months beforehand, it's not like I had a last paycheck coming, right? And surely as soon as we spent it they would realize their mistake and take it right back out.
Fast forward a few hours - I called employee services to see what was going on. It turns out that when you quit, you get to get paid for any unused sick time. Mine reset for the year on my hire date anniversary, less than three weeks before I quit, so I got paid for the full yearly allowance!
I never in a million years would have thought about that being the policy. And it's really a sweet irony after all the stress I went through over the past year trying to juggle my sick time with my doctor's visits throughout my pregnancy. In fact, the last couple of visits I had before I went out on bed rest were unpaid for me because I had run out of all sick time and merit time.
Anyway, I just had to tell you guys what an amazing God I have!
Actually, there have been a couple of other neat blessings this week too. Last school year Morgan won a Wii during a school fundraiser. All three of us are big fans of all the Mario Brothers games, and we were pretty excited to hear about the new Super Mario Bros. Wii. However, with a $50 price tag, we weren't counting on getting it any time soon. Of course a video game is by no means a necessity, so it wasn't like we were suffering without it, but we really wanted to play it.
Well, going back to my job again - for certain anniversaries (5 years, 10 years, 15 years, etc.) the company would award you reward points that you could then redeem for prizes. Just before I quit, I got my 10 year anniversary points, and they were just enough to get a $50 Best Buy gift card. It came in the mail a few days ago, and Nick went yesterday and used it to get our game! All we had to pay was the tax, and we've had SO much fun with it!
Another cool thing: Morgan got a $20 gift card for Christmas to Justice from Nick's sister. Then Nick's other sister gave me a coupon for $15 off a $40 purchase at Justice, so if we put $5 with the coupon and the gift card, then she could get $40 worth of stuff. Morgan has been begging me to take her to spend it since Christmas, but I hadn't really had a good opportunity until today. Today I took her by the mall after I picked her up from school, and it turned out that the Justice there was going to be closing soon and everything in the store was 40-50% off the lowest marked price! I let her take her time, and she tried on half the store. In the end I paid about $17 out of pocket, but she got $115 worth of clothes and accessories. And on my way out of the mall Bath and Body Works had two types of foaming body wash for 90% off! One of them was even one if Nick's favorite scents, and I got 5 bottles for $1.20 each! All in all we got $175 worth of stuff for less than $25!
Okay, enough about my awesome shopping trip. :) We haven't forgotten about our weekly spanking. Last night Nick and I tried out the Wii game after we got Morgan to bed (we didn't tell her about it until today, because we knew we'd never get her in bed last night if she knew!). By the time we were done it was very late and Nick had to work today. Tonight we just could not get the baby to sleep, and Nick has to work again in the morning, so we're going to do our very best to get to it tomorrow night.
Anyway, I'm off to bed!
Thursday, January 14, 2010
New Routines and Answered Prayers
Whew, this has been a busy week! We finally got to have our weekly spanking session on Sunday night. Nick spent some time before the spanking going over the things he expects of me now that I've quit my job. I had asked him to give it some thought, so he came up with a list of chores.
It's all pretty basic housework stuff, but it feels good to have some guidelines. So all week I've done my best to keep things orderly, and so far it's going well. It's definitely a full day though between nursing and laundry.
The spanking was pretty lenient compared to most that I get, a bit under 100 swats with the Polynesian paddle, but an effective way to put a point on his lecture.
What has been really neat has been watching the way God is already providing for us. Every time we've needed money it's come from somewhere unexpected. Just today for example: we needed about $20 to cover some things in the bank account. I had literally no money to put in there, and no prospects for getting any. Okay, back up a couple of weeks - we hadn't used our printer for some time just because I was usually at work when I needed to print anything. Well, a couple of weeks ago I pulled it out and dusted it off and found that it needed new ink. So we bit the bullet and spent the $40 on new ink cartridges...only to find out that there's a fatal (non-fixable) error in the printer's brain somewhere. HP told me it would just have to be replaced, and since our model was discontinued three years ago, we would have to upgrade. Okay, so now we had no printer and $40 worth of useless, nonreturnable ink.
Then my mom called today. Turns out that her printer (while a different model) uses the same cartridges, and she wanted to buy them from me. Since they hadn't been used at all she insisted on giving me the full $40 for them, and she brought it by today. Before she called I had spent a minute praying about it (Okay, God, we need about $20. I don't have it, Nick doesn't have it, so it will have to come from You.) Then I sent Nick a text telling him we needed $20 in the bank if any came his way, so it was pretty neat to get to text him again a little while later telling him God had provided twice what we needed! Now I just need a new printer. :)
Anyway, Nick has fallen asleep on the couch, so I'm off to try to get him into bed. 'Night all!
It's all pretty basic housework stuff, but it feels good to have some guidelines. So all week I've done my best to keep things orderly, and so far it's going well. It's definitely a full day though between nursing and laundry.
The spanking was pretty lenient compared to most that I get, a bit under 100 swats with the Polynesian paddle, but an effective way to put a point on his lecture.
What has been really neat has been watching the way God is already providing for us. Every time we've needed money it's come from somewhere unexpected. Just today for example: we needed about $20 to cover some things in the bank account. I had literally no money to put in there, and no prospects for getting any. Okay, back up a couple of weeks - we hadn't used our printer for some time just because I was usually at work when I needed to print anything. Well, a couple of weeks ago I pulled it out and dusted it off and found that it needed new ink. So we bit the bullet and spent the $40 on new ink cartridges...only to find out that there's a fatal (non-fixable) error in the printer's brain somewhere. HP told me it would just have to be replaced, and since our model was discontinued three years ago, we would have to upgrade. Okay, so now we had no printer and $40 worth of useless, nonreturnable ink.
Then my mom called today. Turns out that her printer (while a different model) uses the same cartridges, and she wanted to buy them from me. Since they hadn't been used at all she insisted on giving me the full $40 for them, and she brought it by today. Before she called I had spent a minute praying about it (Okay, God, we need about $20. I don't have it, Nick doesn't have it, so it will have to come from You.) Then I sent Nick a text telling him we needed $20 in the bank if any came his way, so it was pretty neat to get to text him again a little while later telling him God had provided twice what we needed! Now I just need a new printer. :)
Anyway, Nick has fallen asleep on the couch, so I'm off to try to get him into bed. 'Night all!
Thursday, January 07, 2010
A New Era
Today was a very big day for me. While Morgan was in school, Nick drove me and the baby down to my place of employment where I packed up my desk, said my goodbyes, and turned in my badge. Yep - I quit my job today! For the first time since half my lifetime ago I am unemployed. Or at least not part of the paid workforce. It was a huge step for me on an emotional level. After all, my ten year anniversary at the company was just before Christmas. That's far longer than I worked at any other place, and while there have certainly been stressful aspects of it, it was overall a pretty good place to work. There are a lot of people there I consider my friends, and I know that despite our best intentions, there will be a number of them I will never see or talk to again. It was harder than I thought it would be to clean out my desk. I had actually taken a couple of boxes home with me before I went out on my maternity leave, but there was still a ton of stuff, and a surprising amount of it has fond memories attached.
Will I miss the repetitive nature of the work or putting up with rude and petulant customers? Definitely not! And I certainly won't miss the ridiculous micro-management. Everything was closely regulated, from the number of calls you took to the amount of time spent on each call to the amount of time you spent doing paperwork to the amount of time you spent in the bathroom. It was really enough to drive you crazy! But...the facilities were nice, and the pay was decent, and the building was safe, and the coffee was free, and the coworkers were (for the most part) great. I was sitting on my butt in an ergonomically friendly chair in a comfortable room, and if management sometimes left me feeling harassed, at least I wasn't feeling harassed while doing something with hot tar for minimum wage.
But all of that aside, this was a scary step for me just because this is a huge leap of faith for both of us. However, we have talked and prayed and talked and prayed, and this is absolutely what we feel that God was telling us to do, so we did it. Now it's up to Him to provide, and that is something He has shown us He would do multiple times over the last couple of months when I was without a paycheck. Being a stay at home mom has long been the desire of my heart, and I am bursting with gratitude that He has granted it.
On another subject - normally I would have been spanked tonight, but it's been postponed until tomorrow. I got very little sleep last night, and my poor husband spent most of this evening outside in the snow pouring hot water over the solid block of ice filling and encasing our heating unit. We were both pretty worn out, so we'll get to it tomorrow night.
Anyway, I'm off to bed. 'Night all!
Will I miss the repetitive nature of the work or putting up with rude and petulant customers? Definitely not! And I certainly won't miss the ridiculous micro-management. Everything was closely regulated, from the number of calls you took to the amount of time spent on each call to the amount of time you spent doing paperwork to the amount of time you spent in the bathroom. It was really enough to drive you crazy! But...the facilities were nice, and the pay was decent, and the building was safe, and the coffee was free, and the coworkers were (for the most part) great. I was sitting on my butt in an ergonomically friendly chair in a comfortable room, and if management sometimes left me feeling harassed, at least I wasn't feeling harassed while doing something with hot tar for minimum wage.
But all of that aside, this was a scary step for me just because this is a huge leap of faith for both of us. However, we have talked and prayed and talked and prayed, and this is absolutely what we feel that God was telling us to do, so we did it. Now it's up to Him to provide, and that is something He has shown us He would do multiple times over the last couple of months when I was without a paycheck. Being a stay at home mom has long been the desire of my heart, and I am bursting with gratitude that He has granted it.
On another subject - normally I would have been spanked tonight, but it's been postponed until tomorrow. I got very little sleep last night, and my poor husband spent most of this evening outside in the snow pouring hot water over the solid block of ice filling and encasing our heating unit. We were both pretty worn out, so we'll get to it tomorrow night.
Anyway, I'm off to bed. 'Night all!
Saturday, January 02, 2010
Starting the New Year off (sort of) right
Well, we started the New Year off right. Sort of. We got the spanking part right. Somewhere just over 100 hard swats with the AngelBrat Paddle shortly after the ball dropped left me feeling toasty and submissive heading into 2010. Unfortunately a very small person interrupted our after spanking play by waking up and loudly demanding my attention. And our niece spent the night with Morgan last night, so we didn't have much privacy then either. I'm really hoping we can spend some alone time tonight!
This morning I'm up bright and early doing some laundry before Morgan and her cousin wake up and craziness ensues. I hope everyone has a blessed 2010!
This morning I'm up bright and early doing some laundry before Morgan and her cousin wake up and craziness ensues. I hope everyone has a blessed 2010!
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