Answers!

You guys had some fun questions!

Ronnie asked: Who would you want to play the role of you in a movie?

That's a tough one for me. Maybe Emma Stone? Of course she would have to be playing a younger me, lol. But I really love her as an actress, how real and down to earth she is; I love Jennifer Lawrence for the same reason. Of course neither one of them looks like me.

Sunny Girl asked: You're always making or doing something crafty, what is your favorite?

I love this question! I love doing all kinds of crafty things, but I'd have to say sewing is my favorite. I'm far, far from an expert at it, but I do feel like I've come a long way from where I started. Kelly is due with a baby girl next month, and I made her some sweet little fancy skirts that I'm pretty proud of, along with some little baby shoes. It was my first foray into shoes, and while the first pair turned out pretty well, they really kicked my butt in the making. The second pair though was a much easier pattern. They went together like a dream, and they turned out so precious! I want to make a pair for every baby I see!

Anonymous asked: where in the world would you like to go most?

I would really love to go to Ireland, Great Britain, and many of the countries of continental Europe. I'm of Irish Heritage, so Ireland has been on my bucket list for a long time. The most beautiful place I've ever been is Hawaii, and Nick and I dream of going back there someday.

do you have a college degree? if so in what?

I do not. I did attend collage for a little while, but I didn't finish. Do I regret it? Not really, because I'm doing just what I'm meant to be doing right now, no college degree needed. I would love to take a few classes on things that interest me, but that will probably be down the road a few years.

what's your favorite movie of all time? 

The Notebook, hands down.

Princess asked: Do you have a spanking fantasy?

Most of my fantasies are pretty standard spanko fare - principal/student, boss/secretary, doctor/nurse. But in real life there are a few things I'd love to have happen someday. I think being made to stand in the corner would be an incredible turn-on for play. As part of a serious spanking (before, or during the middle of it) I think it would be very hard to submit to, especially if my attitude is not where it needs to be, and it would seriously ratchet up just how disciplined I feel by the end of it, which would probably be a good thing as far as achieving the intended effect of a punishment. Punishment spankings around here are no joke, and the last thing I feel before or during them is aroused. But when they are over and the pain has subsided, I'm often turned on after the fact by the feeling of being both taken care of and made to obey. I would really love, once the serious issue has been taken care of, to have Nick occasionally send me to the corner to "think about what I'd done" then spank me again, quite a long time, this time for play and ending in an orgasm for me.

Violet said: What is the worst job you ever had? What is the best change that has occurred in your life over the past year? What is your biggest pet peeve?

The worst job I ever had was probably a toss-up between the job I had when I got married, which was at a magazine distribution warehouse, and the last couple of years at my last job, in the customer service call center at a bank. The warehouse job was 20 miles from home and started at 6:00 in the morning. The warehouse was not air conditioned, and we actually had a girl pass out from the heat that summer. Add to that, I wasn't very good at it, and it was a pretty miserable few months. My last job I actually loved for the first few years. The pay was good, and they really took care of their employees. After the first six years or so though, there were some changes in management. Raises, which were once very regular, dropped to almost nothing, right as the cost of living shot up via gas and grocery prices. At the same time they greatly increased our workload. By the time I quit after 10 years on the job, morale was in the toilet. There was zero respect for the employees, and no job security either. Just before I left, a well respected department head who had been there for nearly thirty years was let go without warning because they decided they didn't want to pay her position any more. They combined her department with another (that really couldn't handle the extra workload), and when she came in on her day off to pick up something from her office, they told her she was fired and escorted her from the building without even letting her clean out her belongings. In my last three years there we lost 3 people from heart attacks and 1 from a stroke. One heart attack happened at the lady's desk, and the stroke happened in the parking lot. I started my maternity leave with Daisy three weeks before her birth because my blood pressure was through the roof and my doctor's office put me on bed rest. 

The best change that has occurred in my life in the last year...hmmm. There haven't really been any changes in the last year, but just over two years ago I had my sweet Jack, which has been one of the best changes ever!
As far as my biggest pet peeve, I confess to having a few - I'm kind of a grammar freak, I hate when people mispronounce things, and people who ride your bumper while driving make me nuts!

Thank you for all the questions - I had fun answering them! And of course it's still March, so keep 'em coming if you have them!

She's crafty...

The house is a mess, the kitchen table looks like a bomb went off on it, the children have eaten way too many Uncrustables in the last few days, and I've been threatened with a spanking more than once (which frankly would probably do me and Nick both good). It's officially craft show week around here. I've got tons of stuff left to make, and to top it off the head of the organization running the event decided just a few days ago that she won't allow me to sell my wire wrapped rings there because "there are already enough jewelry vendors". Nevermind that none of them are selling anything like these, or that I've got a pretty decent investment in time, materials, and displays for the several dozen I already had made before she made this sudden decision, or that they are a part of my shop, which is what I paid to have a booth for.

Anyway, at this point I'm working hard to fill out my inventory with other items, but I wanted to take a moment to post and share a few pictures of some of the things I am taking.

In other news, Jack is doing just fabulously well in his own bed! The first night he cried for about 15-20 minutes before he went to sleep, the next night it was about 10, then the next night 5. The next couple of nights he cried when I laid him down, but he was quiet by the time I got back to the living room. Now when I put him in his bed he turns right over on his side and snuggles down without a peep!

He's also pushing through his first molar (upper left), and he's started trying to walk. We've seen him toddle between the couch and the love seat at home (about 3 1/2 feet). My mom watched him in the nursery at church tonight, and when I went to get him after the service, she said "Why didn't you tell me he could walk?!"

"Well, he hasn't really been, just a couple of steps," I told her. "Well he walked all the way across the room a few minutes ago!" she said.

Last week Kate and Will randomly sent us a card in the mail. It said that they were at the mall and wondered if we needed anything for the kids, so they just got us a gift card so we could get whatever we needed. Inside was a $150 gift card to The Children's Place! Morgan and Daisy spent the night with my parents that night, so Nick and I took Jack and had dinner then hit the mall!

This is what I got:

It got us Easter outfits for both Jack and Daisy (and Daisy's goes perfect with lace Easter dress my mom already got for Morgan), as well as some much needed church clothes, shoes, and pajamas for Jack. Plus, because we spent $150, we got two free stuffed bunnies, which will go in their Easter baskets. Jack wore the straw fedora to church Sunday and some of the older ladies actually screamed when they saw him lol. 

Oh yeah, and it's my 8 year blogaversary today (er, yesterday technically)! It's also still Ask Me Anything March, so keep those questions coming!

AMA Post Three

This question comes from an anonymous reader:

Where did you meet Nick? Where was your first date?

Nick and I met when he started working at the grocery store where I worked. He was 17 and I was 18, and I really do remember the first time I saw him. He was wearing khaki pants, a white button down, and a tie. I myself was wearing an attractive blue and white striped polyester cashier's smock, but he swears he remembers the moment he first saw me and was instantly intrigued.

The truth is, we didn't start dating for a couple of years. He actually only worked there for a few months, but during that time we grew to be good friends. I have sweet memories of hanging out with him on my break while he played a new Metallica song for me, and we used to rock out every time he worked, listening to music in the computer room where it was my job to cash out the cashiers at the end of their shifts.  

After he moved on to another job, several months went by without me seeing him. Then one night he showed up at the store with a few of his friends. I remember just how he looked, sitting on the tailgate of his blue Chevy Blazer, wearing a plaid shirt, a pair of shorts, and a worn out ETSU cap, and I remember just how delighted I was to see him. I had recently lost some weight, and he told me how good I looked and enveloped me in a big hug.

From that point it seemed like we ended up in the same group a lot. One night a mutual friend invited me along on a group camping trip. It was less an actual camping trip than an all night ramble that took 15 or 20 of us all over the area, from a random field where we all just hung out together to a search for a haunted house to a group swim in the lake. Getting out of the lake, Nick and I huddled together in a towel, and it felt so good to have him wrap his arms around me. Sitting together in a friend's Jeep in the field, he told me he and some friends were planning on going to the mountains to swim in a few hours and asked me if I wanted to come with him. I said yes, and so our group trip turned into our first date. 

By the time we headed to the mountains I had been awake for around 30 hours, so the whole trip had something of a dream like quality to it. It's kind of funny - Kate went with us on that trip, but it was years before I remembered that detail. One thing that I've always remembered seems really insignificant, but it stuck out to me - We were listening to a CD we both liked, and I wanted to listen to a particular song, and he wanted to listen to a different one. At this point in my life I was pretty used to attention from guys, and I was also pretty used to getting my way. He was very polite about it, but he refused to skip the song he wanted to listen to to listen to mine first. I pouted a little bit, but truthfully it impressed me that he wasn't putting up with my crap.

Within a few weeks we were spending hours on the phone, and one night he asked me to officially start dating. Frankly he caught me off guard. It had only been within the last year or so that I had really blossomed and started attracting a lot of attention from guys. Unfortunately a lot of those guys were less interested in my personality and more interested in my newly slender body. Truthfully the confidence that gave me was shallow, and at the core I was still a deeply insecure girl. I automatically distrusted anyone who showed an apparent interest in me for me, unable to really believe that I was worth it if there was no fooling around involved. But I really cared for Nick (and in fact had already started falling in love although I couldn't see it then), so I agreed to start dating.

It was only about a week later, during a hot and heavy makeout session in a friend's basement that I knew I had to break up with him. I was so afraid that the precious thing we had was headed toward something cheap and meaningless, something unworthy of us and that would end up hurting him, and the thought terrified me. Breaking up with him was the hardest thing I'd ever done, but I really thought I was protecting him. 

That was at the end of summer. He was awfully hurt, and he withdrew from me. I missed him terribly, but I tried to move on, and I dated another guy for a little while. As it turned out though, Nick and I just couldn't quit each other. Nick was the first person who had ever kissed me with anything other than pure lust, and those kisses were food for my soul. We found ourselves stealing moments alone when we could, and that Christmas we kissed passionately under the mistletoe while his roommates stared with unabashed glee. It all seems terribly innocent now, but we were both virgins, (and I was determined to remain one until marriage), and the urgency in our embraces was heady and dangerous stuff to me.

By the beginning of the year the tension of the situation had run me ragged. During some of our many hours long phone conversations, I somehow found myself sharing my fascination with the idea of being spanked, and on New Year's Eve he gave me my first grown up spanking. This added another layer of seduction to it for me and left me reeling with how vulnerable I was with the need for him. I wanted him unbearably, but I just couldn't resign myself to the thought that I could be good for him. I believed myself to be too wild (ha!), and I just knew that I would hurt him if we started dating again. January 22, 1998, things came to a head for me. On my lunch break, I stopped to see our closest mutual friend - I'll call him Brad. I told him that I was going to have to pull away from Nick, that I felt like I was leading him along and that he couldn't handle our friendship any more. Brad's response absolutely knocked me flat. He told me straight out that I was the one that couldn't handle the friendship, that Nick knew just what he wanted, and I was the one who was scared. 

When I left his house (by the way, this is the same house I that I mentioned we'd like to buy), I was very irritated with him, but he'd given me a lot to think about. The rest of the night I prayed that God would show me how to let him down easy. What He showed me instead was how very devastated I would be if I never got to be close to Nick again, never got to hold or kiss him again. And I thought about every other guy I'd ever been interested in, and it was abruptly clear to me how very little it would affect me if I never saw any of them again. 

Late that night, Brad came in to buy cigarettes. Bursting with joy at the knowledge that this was really it, I'd finally realized who I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, I asked him where Nick was. Back in those days we spent almost every night at the Waffle House down the road, and he was there eating. I asked Brad if he could tell him to come down and see me. Brad was clearly hesitant, convinced I was about to break his heart, but he agreed to pass along my message. 

Almost as soon as he left, my manager came out and told me she didn't need me for the last hour of my shift and I could leave, an incredibly rare occurrence. She didn't have to tell me twice, and I bounced out the door and into my car, headed toward Waffle House and my destiny. Brad saw me walk in, and it was with a look of alarm that he watched me take Nick's hand and ask him to join me outside.

Once we were outside I literally pushed Nick up against the wall and demanded "You know what?" "What?" he asked, looking a little alarmed himself. "This not being able to keep our hands off each other stuff is going to have to stop!" "Um, okay, I - " "Because" I interrupted him "I'm not going to be able to control myself around you if we're going to be dating!" At that point my tongue was down his throat, and when I pulled back he looked like someone had just told him he'd won a lottery he didn't know he had a ticket for. When we walked back inside holding hands and grinning like idiots, Brad looked like you could have knocked him over with a feather. 

It only took us another 6 weeks to get engaged, and 5 months and 4 days after that fateful night we walked down the aisle. This June we will celebrate 15 years of marriage.

Anyway, I know that was really long and drawn out and encompassed a little more than just our first date, but it was fun to reminisce. :)

Thanks, Anonymous! I'm still open to questions!

AMA Question One

This was a comment I received on my last post. Thanks, kiwigirliegirl, and here's your answer!

hi, when did you first start living this lifestyle and how was it introduced?
hugs kiwi xx

We are currently in our 10th year of DD. I've been interested in spanking for literally as long as I can remember. I always thought I was weird for it though, so Nick was the first person I shared it with, and even then it took a boatload of courage. 

Let's just be honest, Nick thought it was a little strange. Neither one of us had a terribly extensive dating history before we got together, and he had frankly never heard of such a thing. Fortunately, he had an older, wiser roommate who was happy to tell him that he apparently had a wild one and he should keep me happy. Unfortunately, that took a little more than he was prepared for. With no real understanding myself of what I really needed/wanted, I latched on hard to his willingness to spank me for fun, and I became a little obsessed with it, so much so that he got kind of weirded out by it and stopped wanting to do it at all. That was just before we got married, and for the next few years spanking was a very sore point between us (no pun intended). It became a matter of real resentment for both of us, me because he didn't seem to want to do it, and him because he felt like I wasn't doing all the things I should as a wife so he didn't want to go out of his way to please me. Five and a half years into our marriage, something changed. I told the story in depth on one of my first few blog posts, so I'm going to copy it here. This is originally from March 14, 2005.

As I mentioned before, Nick and I are a little over a year into our DD journey. We're finally getting to the point (at least I am) where it's not foremost in our minds. 

Domestic Discipline was definitely not his idea. At the time, I didn't realize it was my idea either. I knew that spanking was a definite turn on for me, but I also knew that there was a piece of the puzzle missing. I just had no idea what it was. We've always had a good marriage. But every couple fights, and we seemed to have gotten to the point where we were doing more of it than we felt was normal for us. 

I'll admit, it was largely my fault. Nick doesn't ask a lot of me - a navigable living space, clean underwear and work clothes, basic respect. I was sadly lacking on all three. As far as the respect, it was certainly always there in my heart, but my mouth sometimes shot off a different message. There were factors at play that planted resentment in me and elicited the same response in him, and we both fell into the old "Fine! If you won't meet my needs, I won't meet yours" trap. Part of the problem was spanking itself. Nick was raised that you just don't hit a woman ever. Period. So even though he sometimes spanked me in bed, I could sense his discomfort with it, which made me pull away as well. I felt that spanking was a sexual need he just wasn't willing to meet, so why should I do the laundry if he couldn't do that one thing for me? He felt that if I wasn't going to do my part around the house (and believe me, he's always done his part), then why should he cater to my spanking fantasies? 

Last New Years Eve (Dec 31, 2003), we had a fight about some stupid thing that escalated into a lot of not so stupid things. We both yelled and cursed and said a lot of things that really needed to just finally be voiced. He yelled about how mad he got when I let the house go, and I yelled back that maybe he should just spank me for it instead of walking around fuming about it. That stopped us both for a minute. Who ever heard of a man actually spanking his wife like a naughty child? We certainly hadn't. But when the words came out of my mouth, it was like I suddenly had a clear view of a hidden need inside of myself. Nick warily agreed to give it a try, and I promised to try to not give him a reason to have to. 

I spent the next few days buried online. We'd gotten a computer not long before, after being without one for 3 years or so. I was on a mission. I needed to find out about myself, and one thing the internet taught me was that I wasn't the only spanko out there. I stumbled across http://www.vickiblue.com/ (this link now goes to a spanking fiction online book store, but at the time it went to a site with a database of DD articles. However, many of the articles I researched can now be found here.), and I found a name for what I wanted. I followed links and ran searches and printed off everything I could find about DD. 

A few days later I took Nick an inch thick binder of material. I had highlighted, crossed out, underlined, edited. I'd never put so much into a research paper. I showed him the binder, casually mentioned that there were some things he might find helpful if had a free moment with nothing more pressing to do, then fled. It would be months before I could sit in a lighted room with him and say the word spanking out loud. I'd spent too long thinking my needs were weird, and drawing the same conclusion from his discomfort with it sexually. He read bits and pieces, and tried to get beyond his suspicion that this was all sexual for me. And he decided to give me the benefit of the doubt. In the beginning there were several spankings a week, countless silly rules (made by me), and an overall feeling of contrivance. After all, he'd been married to me for 5 1/2 years. Why all of a sudden did I feel like I needed to be punished like a child? 

Eventually it got easier. I stopped feeling giddy every time I got spanked. He started noticing on his own when I needed discipline. He got better at making a lasting impression when he spanked. And we learned that sometimes a spanking without a "good reason" could reset my heart and ease my stress. Now we don't use a list with a point system like we did in the beginning. We can sit down together and have an honest, two-way discussion about what DD means to our marriage. We don't feel like we're playing a game anymore. Nick finally sees this, as I do, as something that we will keep for the rest of our marriage. 

Not long ago, after a spanking, Nick was looking at the paddle he'd used. It's actually a decorative boat oar, about 18 inches long and impossible to break. There's a fish painted on one side of it, and he commented that in 15 years we'll have probably worn all the paint off of it. I asked him if he thought we'd still be using DD 15 years from now, and he said he definitely did. I felt such safety in those words. DD has made us both better. I can see that Nick is more confident, and truthfully, so am I. I don't feel anymore like he'll get fed up enough to walk away from me. And he doesn't get fed up so much anymore. The house is usually pretty clean, we very rarely fight anymore, and sometimes I get spanked in a very good way. It has been such a journey to get to this point, where DD no longer feels like "something we do", but rather just feels like who we are. 

It's a good feeling.

By the way, that fish paddle I mentioned up there that was impossible to break? He eventually broke it during a spanking, although it did give us many years of faithful service. :)