The Birthday Party Crashers or "Well that was awkward."

Thursday in the mail we got a little blue envelope addressed to Morgan. She was thrilled of course (at age six it's not likely you're getting bills), and I figured it was maybe a card from her teacher since school starts this week. What was actually inside was an invitation to a birthday pool party for today at 4:00.

The strange thing was that I didn't recognize the name of the child, her mother, or the party's address. There was an RSVP number, but I was reluctant to call and tell this woman that I didn't know who she was. I asked my mom (who is the bookkeeper at Morgan's school) if the girl was a student there, but she wasn't. I asked Nick if the little girl belonged to any of his friends, and I asked a friend in the children's ministry at our church if she knew her or her parents. No one knew these people.

Yesterday afternoon when I stepped out to let the dog out the lady hosting the party called to find out if Morgan had gotten her invitation. I stepped back in just as the answering machine was rewinding. The message included both my name as well as Morgan's, and she said that there was a problem with the mail, some of the invitations had been delayed, and she hoped that Morgan could be there. She also asked me to call her back. I called her right back but got her voice mail.

Several hours later she called me back, and I confessed that I didn't recognize her name. She seemed quite put out, but she recovered nicely and told me that her daughter is in Morgan's Sunday School class. Once she was on the phone I felt like it would be rude to decline the invitation (especially since I'd apparently offended her and Morgan was begging to go).

So today we went out and bought a birthday gift and showed up at this pool party. When we got there, there was a rather awkward moment when Morgan and the birthday girl met face to face. The girl whispered something in her mother's ear and then plainly said, "I don't remember her!"

Within a few minutes it became apparent that Morgan was indeed in the girl's Sunday School class - at the church we left almost two years ago. We'd seriously never met any of these people in our lives. Ironically enough the girl's aunt and uncle attend the church we actually belong to now, although we'd never met them either (it's a pretty big church).

As it turned out Morgan (who can make friends with a fence post) had a great time, and we all had a laugh about it. Nick especially is still chuckling over it. Next time though, he can answer the mystery invitation!

Maybe...

So I really need a spanking. Not a good girl spanking either. Not necessarily a punishment, more of a "You'd better remember who's boss, young lady, and you're going to feel this for three days!" type spanking.

Nick, it seems, needs some head.

Maybe we can work something out...

For Anonymous (and my other Safari surfers)

Spanking Forums
Joannie and Friends
In Manum Viri
Growing Together Through Domestic Discipline Dynamics
The Spanking Den
The Vanilla Spanking Forum
Discipline and Love
TheBrat's Place for Spanking
Southern California Spanked Wives and Girlfriends Club
DDEW
Margot's Room
Domestic Discipline and HOH Relationships
Spankspot
Spanking Implement Resources
Leather Thorn Paddles
The London Tanners
The Vermont Country Store
Adam and Gillians
Other Great Blogs (non spanking)
Inside the Mind of Gloria Brame
Trying to Soar
My Tasty Space
Other Random Sites I like to Play On
FlyLady
Saving Dinner
Strange Cosmos
Airtoons
Acme Licence Maker
Atom Films

My Interview...

I did an interview several weeks ago for BlogInterviewer.com, and it was added to their site today. You can check me out there, as well as vote for my blog, and evry comment you leave enters you for a random drawing prize!

Forums

I've filled out the forum list some on the right, and since I did such a mass housekeeping with the blog links I thought I should mention why. First of all, I still visit all of my blogging friends - my decision to remove the links was made to avoid being specific about which sites I felt needed to be removed, and I've had my heart filled to bursting with the awesome support so many of you have shown me. I originally left up all the forums I had listed because I feel like they are great places to interact with other people in DD relationships. When Nick and I began to practice DD, the help I found on various forums was invaluable. I don't actively participate on any of them anymore just because I don't have time, but I have some very dear friends on some of them. If you're new at this, or need a place to discuss DD with like-minded people, a forum can be just the ticket, and you'll find that for the most part they're pretty porn free.

Meet Pancho!

Gratitude...Wednesday

I just have to tell you guys how very good God has been to us today!

First of all, the whole lost pet saga actually got worse yesterday (yes, this story gets better). Besides the dog that disappeared a few months ago (and the one that disappeared on Monday), Morgan has had a turtle since we went to the beach last year. Now she's been very diligent with Franklin the turtle, feeding him daily, talking to him, etc...

Nick actually fed him on Sunday because he had to add some water to his aquarium. Monday, in all the uproar over the dog, Morgan forgot to feed him, which is not a huge big deal for just one day. Well yesterday she went to feed him and...he was gone. Just not there at all. We searched all around, certain he'd somehow miraculously climbed out of his aquarium (a mind-boggling feat in itself) and fallen to his untimely death. Two pets gone in two days!

Understandably, Nick and I were kind of down last night. Between all the pain Morgan was going through over the pets and a very tight budget lately and for the foreseeable future, things were feeling kind of bleak.

But today...well, today was one big blessing! To start with, today was the kick-off of a new sales program at my job. Sales is not a huge part of my position, but there are some opportunities to supplement your paycheck a little. With the new program they've increased commission on those sales by 33%.

Nick also had a phenomenal day commission-wise at work.

When we came home from work today, Franklin was hanging out in Morgan's floor, quite alive.


Then I opened our car insurance bill to find that our monthly premium for the next year has gone down by $38.00.

And best of all, a friend who knew we were looking for another puppy for Morgan sent me a message telling me to call her mom about one she was looking for a home for. It turns out the mom breeds Chihuahuas. She sells the puppies for between $300 and $500, and she's going to give Morgan one for free!

Happy Gratitude Tuesday Wednesday!

Now that I have it in writing..

How evil are you?

Changes

First of all, very sad news on the puppy front. When I got home today to take her to get her shots, she had gotten out of the fence. Nick and I both searched for hours, but we couldn't find her. Morgan, understandably is pretty upset.

Second of all, there are going to be some changes on the blog, namely the links and the artwork. This has been a difficult decision, and a very personal one, but basically it comes down to the fact that some of the sites I've linked have become a conflict with my faith. I don't make it a secret that I'm a Christian, but I've not had a very good testimony on here all the time. Because I refuse to point out this blog or that, for the time being at least I'm removing all the links except the links to DD forums, implement resources, and literature sites. I'll also be removing some of the more graphic artwork I've posted.

I know this won't be a popular decision, in part because I've always made it a point to promote new blogs, but I feel like this is something I have to do. I know that I'll lose a lot of hits, because understandably a lot of people will de-link me too, but I didn't start this blog to generate hits. That said, I'm very grateful for every hit that I've had, and I hate that this will inevitably offend some people. Please don't email me asking me to re-add your link, because I won't. Also, please don't take it personally.

I've made a tremendous number of friends through the blog, Grace, Paul, Carye, Eva, Bonnie, Ceeci, Reesa, Paige, Joannie, Tanya, Kallisto, Bethie, Cindy, Dave, PaulH, just to name a very, very few. This is by no means an all-inclusive list. I don't want to lose any of you, and I hope that I can continue to be friends with all of you. I ask you to all please respect my decision, even if you don't understand it.

God has been very good to me, and I owe it to Him to live a life that shows Him to others. I know that I'm far from perfect at that, but this is a message He's made clear to me, and I won't ignore it.

Update

Hello, everyone. Sorry for the lack of posting around here lately. It's been a busy rest of the week. Thursday when I came home Nick was a bit sick, so we just kind of hung out.

Friday he decided to tackle some lawn chores. Unfortunately during the execution of said chores he nearly executed one of his fingers! He was trimming a bush by the porch with his electric hedge trimmer when the cord drifted into the path of the blade. He reached forward to swipe it away and got his finger caught! It was an awful cut - very, very deep, right down the end of his finger, through the nail and all. Being the manly man that he is, he couldn't be persuaded to go to the ER, but I did get my brother (a surgical tech) to come by and force him to stop doing the yard work!

Yesterday we went to the hospital to see my papaw, who seems to be doing pretty well, although he's still a bit confused and is having some speech difficulty. Afterwards we went to see The Simpson's Movie, which was pretty funny, although probably not worth the $23.00 it took for the three of us.

A few days ago I got up the courage to tell Nick I needed a spanking just because, although that hasn't happened yet. Of course with his injured finger he needs some time to recover, so I'm good with that.

We've both started on a weight loss plan, and I'm down about 8 pounds. This is one that worked well for both of us before - unfortunately we didn't really make a lifestyle change afterwards, so the weight came back on, but this time we'll be more prepared.

Last of all, Morgan got a new puppy today. A couple of months ago the dog we had disappeared. I have a sneaking suspicion that the neighbors took her, for reasons I won't go into here. Anyway, she's been absolutely heartbroken since, so when we came across a man giving puppies away for free today, we decided to take one. She's half black lab and half German shepherd, and she's the sweetest, most docile dog I've ever seen. Morgan is on top of the world.

Gratitude Wednesday

I'd like to thank you all very much for your thoughts and prayers. They removed my grandfather's clot this morning, and they think everything went well. The truly fortunate part was that they didn't have to really open him up to get it.

Eighteen years ago he had a bad car accident and suffered some pretty severe head injuries. At the time he had to have two shunts put in his head to drain the fluid from his brain. For months afterwards he was like he was yesterday, child-like and confused; eventually though, he returned to his old self. This morning they were able to un-clamp the original shunts and drain the clot and the fluid through them. They have great hope that he'll make a full recovery. Thank you all again for your thoughts and prayers!

Gratitude Tuesday

Today has been very stressful, but there are still things to be thankful for, as well as things I'd really appreciate your thoughts and prayers on still.

First of all, my mom called me to come home early from work today and get Morgan because they'd rushed my papaw to the hospital in an ambulance. They thought he'd had a stroke. When I first talked to my mom after she'd had a chance to see the doctors it looked like that's what had happened, and that there was extensive, permanent damage. He wasn't exactly a vegetable, but he was very bewildered and didn't seem to recognize anyone, and they seemed to think it would always be like that.

I talked to her again a short while ago, and the news seems to be a bit better. Now they believe he didn't have a stroke at all, but rather has a clot putting pressure on his brain and causing bleeding there. They will go in tomorrow to try to remove the clot, and hopefully he'll eventually return to his full faculties. It's still very serious, but definitely more hopeful than they thought at first.

The second issue today concerned my dad. Yesterday when I picked Morgan up he'd had some sort of allergic reaction to something (we still don't know to what). He'd broken out in huge welts all over his body and was having difficulty breathing. My mom gave him a histamine, and it seemed to help the swelling in his throat, but by this afternoon he was even worse. The welts had become incredibly painful, and he was dealing with this on top of the arm he broke a couple of weeks ago.

He went to the emergency room today when they went in with my papaw. They gave him a shot of steroids, and he's doing a lot better now. We just don't know what to avoid since we're not sure what the trigger was.

The third thing that has my heart heavy concerns a friend I mentioned in this post. I talked to her yesterday and, after a run of genetic tests, she has a definite diagnosis of Friedreich's Ataxia. This is devastating news for anyone, but most especially a 28 year old mother with two kids under five. My friend has always been healthy and athletic, never having to slow down for anything, and suddenly she has to worry about things like whether she'll be able to make it up the stairs.

Anyway, there are a lot of needs right now, but a lot of blessings too. Happy Gratitude Tuesday...

Swiped from Eva

My name: Tracy

Childhood ambition: to be a mommy

Fondest memory: my wedding day/the day Morgan was born

Soundtrack: Whatever's on my iPod

Retreat: Cabin at the lake

Wildest dream: Winning the lottery and making my family's lives very easy.

Proudest moment: Buying our house

Biggest challenge: housework

Alarm clock: not my friend

Perfect Day: Shopping, sex, spanking and snuggles!

First job: Grocery store

Indulgence: Books

Last purchase: Panties

Favorite movie for the moment: Madea's Family Reunion

Inspiration: Nick behind me with a big paddle. Oh wait, that's motivation...

My life: Amazing

My card: Visa

Update on links

It's time to add some more links! I've come across a bunch for you:

Link to Me!

I've been playing around with the idea of a Button link for my blog, and I finally came up with one. You can find the HTML to add my button to your site just below my sidebar if you'd like to put it up (and thank you very much if you do!). I've also put together some code if you'd like to put up a button to Joannie's spanking fiction store, and below is the code to add it to your site too.

AngelBrat's Blog

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

...And carry a big stick.

I got thoroughly spanked today when I got home from work. The house has been a real issue lately, and especially the laundry, and Nick told me last night that I had one coming. All day long I thought about it, and by the time I got home my brain was in "well this is just silly" mode.

So I tried to talk him out of it. I tried the "I've seen the error of my ways and a spanking would just be extraneous" argument. I tried the "I'm almost thirty and I'm too old for a spanking" argument. I tried the "We're all adults here" argument (a slightly different version of the "I'm too old" argument. I tried the plain old "No" argument.

Strangely none of them worked. In fact, they may have hurried the whole thing up in arriving. He took me to the garage (the scene of the crime laundry-wise) and pointed out a number of reasons why he would be blistering my bottom. Then he picked up a very big stick. I'm talking a two foot long 2x2. Now before anyone gasps in horror, he did not beat me half to death with this thing. He didn't even pull down my pants. But he did spank me very hard. And 50 licks turned into a few over 70 when I decided to move.

So the end result is that I have a very sore bottom and a renewed commitment to the domestic arts, and he has a new toy to spank me with. The stick in question was actually part of an old couch that we had to dismantle to get out of the house a couple of weeks ago and which is still sitting in pieces in the garage (one of the aforementioned reasons for the whipping). He's going to sand it down and smooth the edges so that it can be used on my bare bottom in the future.

And in the future, at least the immediate future, he's going to a lot quicker to spank when he sees me slacking. This is at my request, because I've just gotten to the point where I'm not even seeing the messes around me. So I can expect to be spanked without a lot of second chances until I get in the habit of preventing the disorder instead of fixing it when he gets mad enough to bring it up. As much as I dread bad girl spankings, it's really a relief to know that I'm going to feel those fences close around me for a while.

Dollar Tree goodies...

So I went to the Dollar Tree today, and I found a couple of must-haves. First of all I came across this paddle ball set. Okay, now I know it's totally cheesy and not nearly sturdy enough to make an effective implement, but how could I pass up something called a "Franken Spanker"?

Then I found this cat toy. It's a flexible rod wrapped in felt, and it originally had a string of felt fish attached. It seems like it will make a very nice mini-cane - just so long as he doesn't take off the felt!

Oh my...

I know, I know - three posts in one day...hell has not frozen over. But I had to mention this post from Grace, especially since Blogger has refused to let me leave a comment for her there. Holy cow! Bossman is very creative, and he can just hang out right where he is. We need no such crazy ideas at my house!

Needs...

Hello, everyone. I'm so glad it's Friday! I'd appreciate your thoughts and prayers in a couple of matters. First of all, my dad's surgery was yesterday, and while he came through it fine, there turned out to be a lot more damage than we had thought. His elbow was basically shattered, to the point that they just had to take out three pieces of bone the couldn't put back together, and he also broke one of the bones in his forearm, which for some reason wasn't apparent from the x-ray. They had to support it with a metal strip, and he'll be out of work for a bit. It's his dominant arm, and they think he'll only regain about 75% functionality in it.

Second of all, things have been pretty precarious at my company of late. A lot of people in different departments have lost their jobs due to downsizing, although no one in my area yet. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I interviewed for a position in a different department a month ago. They've still not made a decision, and I'm still very interested in the job, but with recent layoffs it seems like it might be a bit shaky. I just don't want to get an offer, take it, and then get let go in a month. Of course I've not had an offer, so it's not really an issue at this point, but I'm still ready to do something other than what I'm doing now, although I definitely want to stay with the company. Our insurance is there, not to mention the vacation, sick time, and stock I have after 7 years.

Lastly, and this is really vague, but I'm got kind of an undefined worry about Nick's sister Kelly and her new husband Grant. They're both very sweet, trusting people, not to mention young (20 and 21), and when my mom talked to them today Grant mentioned an older couple they'd met who seem a little over-interested in them. Now when I say older, I don't mean elderly, I mean in their forties, and the man kind of made Grant uneasy. My mom warned them to be cautious about letting themselves get into a vulnerable position, and I'm sure they'll be careful, but you always hear about beautful young newlyweds with their lives before them who go on vacation and disappear forever.

It sounds silly, I know, but they're so far from home and in a situation where they have plenty of reason to get wrapped up in each other and maybe not be as aware of their surroundings as they should be.

Anyway, I have nothing on the spanking front to report, although I could use a good one to get my butt in gear with this house after all the distraction of the wedding. Maybe soon...

And in the meantime, here are some new links for you!

A Young Lady's Diary

 

Bare Bottom Spanking Blog

Chloe Elise's Spanking Adventures

chris likes spankings!!

Confessions of a Spankee

Cookie's Spanking Stories

Just Another Submissive

little braT with sharp teeth

Master's gift

Well that's not SO bad...

71%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

Found at PK's.

Happy Birthday Eva!!!

I hope you get the best birthday spanking ever!

Another link update...

More new links, guys!

Bare Bottom Spanking Blog

Chloe Elise's Spanking Adventures

chris likes spankings!!

Confessions of a Spankee

Cookie's Spanking Stories

Check out what Luna's doing for charity!

Seriously! Go look!

HERE