Today I'm grateful for...

Bonnie!

Thank you, Bonnie, for all that you do for our community! You've helped so many blogs get up and running, and your Sunday Brunches have been such a wonderful resource for open and varied discussion about a subject dear to our hearts. I'm happy to be able to help celebrate you today!

Countdown to Casserole Time!

Hello, everyone! Less than 24 hours till the big dinner! I'm really excited, but dreading the morning a bit. LOTS of cooking to do. Tomorrow I'm making sweet potato casserole, corn casserole, cheese biscuits, and The Pioneer Woman's Bacon-Wrapped Jalapeno Thingies. Nick is making deviled eggs, and we're bringing a few 2 liter drinks. Now about the jalapenos - I am NOT a spicy food type person. AT ALL. Nick's not much for them either. But Mija blogged that she will be making them, and well, they sounded really good. So tonight I did a test run of about 15 of them, just to see if they would be worth bringing tomorrow. Oh. My. Goodness. They are FABULOUS! I made sure to hull them really well, and we got all the flavor with very little of the heat, although they can definitely be made hotter. But I give them an A+. Just make sure to wear gloves while seeding the peppers.

Anyway, today I'm thankful for:

Kay, who left me a comment with a new discount code for restaurant.com. I ended up not being able to get the gift certificates for my brother the last go around, so I was quick to take advantage of it today and his Christmas gift is purchased.

Getting three packages in the mail today - always fun! I got my Thanksgiving cards (LOVE them, although I wish I'd gotten them sooner. Still I can pass them out to family tomorrow). I also got 151 prints from Shutterfly, filler for the photo albums I bought Morgan and her cousin K. And I got The Blind Side.

Which leads me to the fact that we get to keep The Blind Side for ourselves. It was supposed to be for Nick's sister and her husband, but I found out today that they already have it (also grateful to find that out NOW rather than when they opened it). So I do have to come up with something else for them, but Nick and I have both been wanting to see it, so now we can!

Two of my facebook friends have had babies this week, and I'm very glad for both. One girl especially was having a hard pregnancy, and it's good to see her done with it.

I got to pick up my free photo collage from Walgreens tonight.

I got to spend a few hours with my friend A. It's not often that I get that opportunity, so when my parents offered to keep Morgan overnight and A invited me over, I jumped on the chance.

A has a little girl about 15 months older than Daisy, and she gave me some clothes and very cute toys for her tonight. We've gotten a lot of great toys from her over the last year, and I'm always grateful.

Anyway, lots to do tomorrow, so I'm off to bed!

Friends Award

“These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers.”

The Rules to accepting this award: “Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.”

Bethie honored me with this lovely award, and I'm happy to pass it on! As Bethie said, it's very hard to pick only eight, but here are my choices, with hopes that you all know there are many more of you that I love!

Grace of A Day in the Life

Bonnie of My Bottom Smarts

Hermione of Hermione's Heart

Dave and Cindy of His to Spank, His to Love

Iris of Through Iris' Eyes

Joannie of Joannie Writes About...

Natty of Natty's Spanking Blog

PK of New Beginnings

Not much going on...

Hey, guys. Kind of boring here lately. Let's see, what's going on in my life?

Ummmm....

Not much, it seems.

Work has been unpleasantly busy. Nick and I always know that a busy day for him is good (since he works on commission), and a busy day for me is bad (since I don't get paid by the number of calls I take).

We finally had enough money to get tires for Nick's bike, but we're still trying to come up with the money to actually get them mounted and balanced, so for now he's still driving the gas guzzler truck at $17 a day to get to work and back. I know, I know, mounting the tires on the bike would pay for itself in gas money, but not, unfortunately, in one paycheck, which is what we would need right now.

Only 35 days till my next vacation!

It turns out that the roughly $900 we were expecting from the court settlement was a "total sent so far" figure, not an amount that had gone astray somewhere. So we got $175 the other day (thus the new bike tires), and have no promise of anything more.

Morgan is doing really well in school this year.

The chaos in my house is taking on a life of its own. I have to clean!

My parents bought a used pontoon boat last week, so we got to spend a pretty fun day on it last Monday.

We've been doing a food program for a few months now where we purchase discounted groceries. If you've never heard of Angel Food Ministries, I highly recommend you check it out. It's a fantastic deal, anyone can do it, and I'm pretty excited about this month's menu!

And now Nick and I are off to help my brother and his girlfriend close the deal on a good used car for her. Have a great weekend!

All done

Well, I'm finally done being spanked for the whole car issue. Nick actually let me have a pass last night because my bottom was so tender. It was bruised from Saturday's paddling, and Sunday's left it pretty flaming red. But tonight he got the paddle back out and gave me my final 25 swats. Spankers, if you're looking for a good, inexpensive, relatively lightweight, yet very effective implement, the Cane-IAC Jr paddle is it. I can say with authority, it will get your point across. You can pick it up with or without holes, in maple or oak, or even in a very pretty pink for under $17.00. Plus, with Cane-IAC's new Dollars For Toys Program, the more you buy, the more you save. In fact, here in a few weeks when things settle down for us financially, Nick has given me permission to put my credit towards a pink one. They also have a very neat Misfit Toys section where you can purchase discontinued or slight imperfect (but still very high quality!) items at a discounted price. I've got my eye on a few goodies there too.

Speaking of finances, I would really appreciate it if those of you who pray could say a prayer for us. Back in November there was an incident where a neighbor girl stole a car and wrecked it in our front yard, totalling Nick's Suburban. When we went to court over it we won a judgement against her of $4100.00. She was supposed to get a job and send us (through the court) $400 a month. That was in January, and we've gotten all of $875. A few months ago her mom regained custody of her, and she moved to a nearby town and got a new job and a new parole officer. A couple of weeks ago Nick went to talk to our neighbor to see if he knew anything about why we're not getting the payments. This is the girl's uncle who, along with his wife (the girl's mom's sister) had custody of her at the time of the wreck. He called his mother-in-law (the girl's grandmother), and she said that they've sent about $900 in money orders payable to Nick to the courthouse in the town she now lives in, and they assumed they were being passed on.

So Nick has been trying to get in touch with the lady at the DA's office in our town for the last two weeks to find out where the money is, but he can't seem to get her to return his calls, and because the girl is a minor, they won't let us call her parole officer directly. $900 is a huge amount of money to us right now. Not only do we have to pay for my clutch, but the tires on his motorcycle (which he's had to ride every day since I've had his truck) are dangerously worn, plus we need to pay for Morgan's school books, and this trip to Texas is going to cost us some too. Despite Nick's sister's much appreciated generosity in paying for the plane tickets and hotel, we are still going to have to come up with money for a car rental as well as a wedding gift. We also have some family birthdays that have been put on the back burner. This last has been met with great understanding, but we still feel bad about not being able to come up with at least a small gift for each. On top of all of that, Nick is going to have to miss a day of work for the wedding, and our bills are all at the point where they need to be paid right now.

Anyway, I know that God has a plan and a provision for all this, and we would really appreciate your prayers.

Busy Life...

Hey, guys. Sorry for the long silence here. Life has just been crazy busy lately. Our vacation was great, beautiful weather. I have a few new toys to show you, although we've had zero time to try any of them out. I got this one while we were on vacation. It's more novelty than anything, because it's not very sturdy, but I thought it was cute:

Nick found this down by the lake at the cabin and immediately saw the possibilities:

Then I got this sticker when I went to a bike shop with Nick the other day:

But my very favorite new toys were waiting on me when we got back from the cabin - my new stuff from Cane-IAC! They sent me a new rattan cane (top), and well as a nylon cane (bottom) so that we can um, explore the finer differences between the two:

And they replaced our broken 1/4 inch paddle with a brand new 1/2 inch version. This one won't be cracking!

Their new paddles have cool new rubber grip handles that Nick really loves, as well as very cool new tags that you can put on your key chain if you'd like. I can't wait to try these out, and I just want to say again how highly I recommend this company!

Oops...

So it turns out that it was not, in fact, a nylon Ever Ready that Nick broke on my butt. It was actually a rattan Ever Ready. Me being such a cane novice, and the rattan being so nicely finished, I couldn't tell the difference. I got a rather shocked and impressed email from the Cane Master at Cane-IAC, and after I sent him some pictures, he was able to see that what I had was rattan. Nobody has ever reported that they've broken one of their nylon canes, and apparently I'm one of the very few who has managed to do it with a spanking new (hehe) rattan one. Anyway, he is very kindly sending me not only a replacement for the Rattan Ever Ready, but a Nylon Ever Ready too, so that Nick and I can ahem, study the differences between the two. He's also sending a 1/2 inch oak paddle to replace the 1/4 inch one that we broke. I just want to say again how incredibly awesome Cane-IAC has been to do business with, and I recommend them highly! Some of the products you see on their site (like the Patty Paddles) are the actual items you are purchasing, so you don't ever have to worry that you won't like the grain on the paddle or the handle on the cane you order - what you see is what you get, and that's a good thing. And there's always something new to see, because as they sell stock, new stuff gets added. Nick is pretty excited about the new stuff we have on the way, and dare I say...challenged. LOL! Happy spanking, guys...

A nice weekend

Yesterday and today was this year's marriage conference at our church. It was a really great experience, and I very much enjoyed this time with my husband. Last night we had a talk about the role spanking plays in our marriage, and I think I've finally gotten a pretty good handle on what my needs are in that regard. The other night Nick got out some of our Cane-IAC stuff and we played around for a bit with it. Everything was wonderful, but I just wasn't much in the mood to play, and we didn't go very far with it. Since then I've really been thinking about it, and I've realized that more often than not, spanking during sex is not really what I want and need.

Now this is not me announcing that I'm no longer a spanko, because that's definitely not the case. I've just finally come to grasp that spanking for me primarily meets a deep need for safety and discipline. And while nothing gets me going like the thought of being spanked, when it's not actually addressing an issue (whether punishment, warning, or just plain stress management), it kind of...trivializes it. I don't know if that's really the best way to put it, but it's like I need it to be a situation where he's meeting an actual need of mine, not just smacking my butt, for it to be fulfilling for me.

That doesn't mean that I don't sometimes love to be spanked in bed - I do. I guess I just need for it to have context. The best sexual spankings I've ever gotten have been after hard punishment spankings, when I'm feeling safe and loved and taken care of and feel the second spanking as a continuation of the first, with all the guilt feelings dealt with and out of the way.

I think I managed to communicate this to Nick, hopefully better than I seemed to have conveyed it here, and I think it was a generative conversation. Anyway, that's just the way I feel, the rest of you can feel free to have all the fun, sexy, context-free spankings you want. As for me, I think (hope maybe) there will be something a bit more serious in my near future.

In the cool new stuff category, Nick bought me this very cool shirt at the marriage conference.

And I've totally fallen in love with and highly recommend this website. I got my first orders today, and I'm very impressed! A friend emailed me the link, and I thought, well that's just too good to be true. But I did some research, and everything pointed to a very legitimate company. So with Nick's okay, I took a chance, and I was very pleased! I will definitely be a repeat customer!

Recommended Reading

I wanted to put up a post letting everyone know that my friend Joannie has just opened her own Joannie%20Writes%20Store'>spanking fiction store. Right now she just has one book up, but she'll be adding more very shortly. She's an amazing writer who's written for Bethany's Woodshed for years. The stuff she'll be putting up at her store will be available exclusively there. I've read tons of her short stories and always been very pleased, so I'm excited to have the opportunity to

Right now I'm in the middle of Last Chance, the book currently available, and I'm enthralled! It's a western, which has always been a genre close to my heart, and the characters really grab you. The heroines are sassy and smart, the heroes strong and determined, and the whole thing has me wanting to buy Nick a cowboy hat.

Go check her out!

Joannie Writes Store

Check out what Luna's doing for charity!

Seriously! Go look!

HERE

Paige Tyler Reader Survey

Our dear sweet Tigger has posted a Reader Survey link on her Paige Tyler author page. I recently purchased her novella "Spicing Up Her Marriage" and it was awesome! If you've read her work, go take the survey - she'd love to hear from you. If you've never had the pleasure, go check her out!

Thank you!

I want to say a HUGE thank you to padme, who interviewed me for her padme's interview series. She wrote some super sweet things about me, and I want to make it a point to reiterate what a wonderful blog she has. If you've never visited her and Master Anakin, stop by - I think you'll enjoy yourself!

The way it should've gone...

At Sue's suggestion I went and hunted down Pablo and Mija's version of the story I featured yesterday, and it was well worth it ! It went exactly like I thought the original should've! (And I really thought I already had the Treehouse already linked - I'll rectify that as soon as possible). Go read it!

Pablo and Mija's Little Miss Naughty

Very cool puzzle...

I was tickled pink to be the first clue in Bonnie's Spanko Blogger Crossword Puzzle. Go check out this very cool creation!

Name That Paddle Contest!

It's that time of year again! John of Leather Thorn Paddles is holding a "Name That Paddle" contest for his newest creation:







Visit the online store to view the complete rules, along with his other fine work. I got his Buster Paddle last year for Christmas, and it was my favorite gift! I was just as happy with his Brat Paddle.

Go take a whack (hehe) at naming his latest masterpiece and it could be yours!

Paige Tyler

Our dear friend Tigger writes novellas for Bethany's Woodshed, and she's just set up her own author's page. She's an amazing writer, and well worth reading. Go check her out!

Paige Tyler

Halloween's coming...

I recently wrote an article for South Coast Pleasure called The Joy of Role Play. South Coast has started carrying some gorgeous lingerie, not to mention some awesome fetish costumes, and they have one for almost every fantasy I wrote about! Go check them out!

Exactly!

Sometimes someone writes something SO apt, SO eloquent, SO perfect that you just want to scream, "Yes! That's exactly how I feel!" That's what I found in this post from Grace at A Day in the Life. Here's an excerpt, but go read the whole thing too!

"Usually if we have sex before a spanking, we tend to forget about the spanking. I had two different thoughts about this. On the one hand, I had waited for a long time to get a spanking. I really needed this. I was disappointed. On the other hand I was breathing a sigh of relief because as much as I needed this spanking, I didn't really want it. This is hard for me to understand. It's hard for me to put into words. It's complicated."

-Grace, A Day in the Life

Spanking Dr. Seuss Style...

I love, love, LOVE this post from Ruby Redd. Go read it!

The Young Riders

Today a friend mentioned something about the Pony Express, which brought to mind the late 80's/early 90's Western Drama "The Young Riders." So I did some online exploring.

This show first aired the year I turned 12, and it was hot-burning fuel for my budding sexuality. I wrote spanko story after spanko story, inserting myself into the dusty drama set in the Wild West in the 1860's. I still have most of them, although they're not the sort of material I would put on here (as I was a child when I wrote them, they're pretty much geared toward child spanking). That cast of rough and rugged men twice my age in a time when men were men and women were coddled, protected, and (according to John Wayne) spanked, fired my imagination like no other TV program before it or since.

To this day I love historical Westerns above all other spanking tales. For Wild West tales to warm your own blood, check out my friend Joannie.