Happy Friday!

It's Friday! It's Friday!

Today I'm thankful for:

Morgan's overnight play date which unexpectedly went from her best friend spending the night here to both of them spending the night with my parents.

Today's piece of cheesecake, which was Godiva chocolate!

That today is payday!

Fruit Roll-ups (honestly, I'm going to get away from the food).

Daisy, who is 13 months old today.

The Picaboo photobook I got in the mail today. I had a coupon to get it for just the shipping, and it's going to make a great Christmas gift for my parents.

Hair dye. I truly do not cherish my gray, and I can't wait to get it colored next Wednesday.

Happy Friday!

A yummy day of thanks...

Today I'm thankful for:


The yummy lunch I got to have today with an old friend from high school.


The bag of GINORMOUS marshmallows I found at Wal-Mart tonight.


The frozen Coke I'm drinking right now. Mmmmmm!


The adorable outfit Daisy was wearing today. Nick's sister sent it for her birthday.

The Cheesecake Factory Cheesecake I got at Sam's today.

Hmmmm...most of these seem to have to do with food. I'd better have a piece of cheesecake and give this some thought...

Old friends

Hope you guys have had a great Wednesday!

Today I'm thankful for:

The old classmate who contacted me late last night to set up a photo session for next week.

The friend whose dad used to do photography work on the side. She told me tonight that she has some of his old lighting and background equipment for me for the fabulous price of free!

The great church service we had tonight.

The sweet time Nick spent with Morgan this evening building a model log cabin for her extra credit project at school.

Happy Hump Day!

Mixing bowls and ballots

Today I'm thankful for number of different things.

I'm thankful for my mom giving me a couple of mixing bowls. In the past week both of my most used bowls have gotten broken. When I mentioned to her that I would love to get a couple of cheap ones for Christmas she said that she actually had two extras that she needed to get rid of because she didn't use them and needed the space. They were exactly the size of the two I lost.

I'm thankful that I was able to exercise my right to vote, and that my mom watched the kids for us so Nick and I could go together to do that.

I'm thankful for that my brother James made it to Texas okay. He's a surgical tech and he's just taken a 13 week traveling post. Ironically his apartment for the duration is only about a half hour from Nick's sister's house, something else I'm thankful for. It's nice that he knows someone locally who can help him navigate things like toll roads and other new-to-him phenomena.

I'm thankful that Daisy seems to be very much on the mend from her cold.

Good night, all!

Plenty to be thankful for!

I've found myself wanting to complain a lot the last few days - I'm tired, we don't have enough money to pay the bills, my laundry is overwhelming, the baby and I have both been sick, I still haven't gotten that birthday spanking (which is turning into a desperate need by this time!), blah, blah, blah...

BUT, here's the thing. Despite all of that, my life is incredibly blessed. I have innumerable blessings, showered on me by a God full of grace. And so this month, I'm going to stop giving voice to my ingratitude and start concentrating on what I'm thankful for! To start with:

I'm thankful that the cold Daisy and I have shared seems to have both skipped Nick and Morgan and be on it's way out the door for both of us.

I'm thankful that my photography business has brought in $380 in the last month.

I'm thankful that Morgan made the AB Honor Roll this quarter.

I'm thankful that I've found enough coupons and good deals that I've been able to buy 3 nice Christmas gifts and 4 nice birthday gifts for less than $34 total.

I'm thankful that in this time with no health insurance I can still take Daisy to the Health Department to get her immunizations at no charge.

I'm thankful that I finally get to be a stay at home mom.

I'm thankful that our new church home is such a fantastic place and is so very full of the Spirit.

And right now I'm thankful that I get to go crawl in bed and snuggle my sleeping husband!

Welcome, Everyone!

It was so good to hear from everyone for Love Our Lurkers Day! Old friends and new, I welcome you all! I apologize for not being able to answer individual comments - this has been a crazy weekend! Yesterday I had to take Morgan to school (Nick usually does, but he got up late), take Daisy for her 1 year check-up (she had to have SEVEN immunizations, poor baby!), pick Morgan back up at 12:40 (it was a half day of school for some unexplained reason), go pay some bills, head to the grocery store, pick up some lunch for me and the kids, then head to church for a wedding I was shooting! Today I had another shoot, and the baby has felt bad all day because of the shots yesterday, so I'm just now getting a chance to breathe. But anyway, I did want to say thank you all for popping in - I'm so glad to know you!

Love Our Lurkers Day!

Hello! Hello! I'm just popping in between editing photos, so I can't stay, but I will be back to read comments, and I want to meet YOU! Yes, you - the one over there reading but never commenting. That was me once upon a time (heck, if I'm honest, I rarely comment now, but that's due to a serious lack of time rather than shyness). But I did finally take the step one day of stepping (anonymously) into the bloglight, and I made SO many awesome friends, some of whom I now know in real life (at least facebook real life). It makes my day when I get a comment or an email from one of you letting me know you're reading, and it really, really makes it when I find out that something I posted helped someone! So if you want to share your story or just say hi, comment away!

Another year gone by

Hi, all. I know I've not posted for a bit, but I've been BUSY! We had Daisy's birthday party on her birthday (the 5th), and it was a great success. She got lots of pretty clothes and plenty of toys that have kept her absolutely fascinated ever since. She's growing so fast - I can't believe it's been a year since I had her! She took about 6 steps last night which is the most she's ever walked at once. To be honest I had expected her to walk sooner since Morgan walked at 10 months, but she's likely my last baby, so I'm happy to keep her small as long as I can!

My photography business has picked up some. I had a newborn shoot last Tuesday and a couple's one year anniversary shoot on Saturday, and I have my first paid wedding this Friday. I'll also be doing a friend's family pictures on Saturday, but I don't expect to get paid for that one.

Sunday was my birthday. Much to my surprise, Nick arranged a birthday party for me! This was a pretty big deal for me, because I haven't had a birthday party since I was seven. My younger brother James' birthday is the day before mine, so it was a struggle for my parents just to pay for gifts for two, let alone throw a double party! Anyway, let me backtrack just a minute:

My photo shoot for Saturday was originally scheduled for last Monday, the 11th. I called the girl a few days beforehand to confirm and she said that she needed to postpone it 5 days. Okay, no big deal, we had no plans as far as I knew, and Nick was off and could watch the kids. Fast forward a few days and I'm telling Nick all this for the second time and it suddenly sinks in for him what I'm saying.

"THIS Saturday? You have a photo shoot THIS Saturday?" It turned out that he had been on the phone all day with family and friends and our local fruit and berry farm making arrangements for us to have a picnic/party there on Saturday. My actual birthday was Sunday, but they were having some kind of festival that day. I had mentioned wanting to go apple picking sometime a few days earlier, so he was trying to factor that in. Once I knew what was happening, we talked it over and decided to just do a cookout at the lake instead.

We have a favorite spot we like to go to in the state park around the lake. It's this big stone gazebo with picnic tables, grills, restrooms, and a huge outdoor fireplace. We decided to get there early because it's first come, first serve, and this spot is hugely popular. Nick bought everything we needed for breakfast and lunch, and we got there at 9 AM. Nick makes this amazing breakfast scramble with hash browns, eggs, cheddar cheese, onions, peppers, bacon, and sausage. You slather a tortilla with sour cream then spread the filling on top, roll it up into a burrito and have the best breakfast ever! He usually only makes it when we go camping, but I really love it, and it was soooo good on a crisp fall morning!


I got to take some really neat pictures of a very brave deer that wandered through and let Morgan and me follow it for a rather long time. I also got some neat shots of some fishermen on the weir dam and a kayaker on the lake. Around noon family and friends started showing up, and we had hot dogs, chips, chili, potato salad, etc for lunch, followed by birthday cake and ice cream. My in-laws bought me a microwave (ours went completely dead a couple of days earlier), my mom and dad gave me a journal and some money (actually the money was a couple of weeks ago, but it ended up going for bills - boo!), Robert and Faith got me a Target gift card (yay!), and Kelly and Grant got me some Thanksgiving dishes. I also got a card in the mail from Kate today with a $25 Visa gift card that I took to Bath and Body Works and went crazy with. Funny thing about that - it was a Vanilla Visa card. I'd never heard of them before, but it made me smile. Oh, and the photo shoot that day wasn't until the late afternoon, so it didn't get in the way after all!

Anyway, there was no birthday spanking, although it was discussed and put on the schedule for sometime this week. I may be jinxing myself by posting that, but here's hoping. Anyway, that's what I've been up to - how about you guys?

Well that's one way to start a conversation...

Oh my. Last night Nick and I had some semi-alone time (Morgan spent the night with my mom, and the baby was asleep for the night), and it definitely didn't go how I expected. I was expecting some playful intimacy, and there was most certainly some of that. But before we got to that, Nick told me that I'd had a pretty poor attitude lately and it was time for him to "get out a big stick" and devote some attention to my butt. I was caught off guard to say the least since I had pretty much decided that DD and all that goes with it was a fond memory. He opened the toy chest and pulled out the Naughty Stick we got a few months ago from Cane-IAC. Now by this time I had already lost my panties in anticipation of gentler pursuits, so I was completely without protection, and Nick was intent on making up for lost time.

I'd like to say I took it with dignity and grace, but in truth I flopped around like a fish and yelled like someone was stabbing me. It went on for what seemed like forever, but what was probably somewhere around 400-500 swats. And despite knowing how much I needed (and in the overall picture wanted) it I wasn't exactly obedient about staying still. What I very much appreciated once it was over was the fact that he didn't let me dictate when it was over. After it was done we connected in sweeter ways, and when we were ready for sleep it was with me curled up in his arms.

The really amazing thing was that he had not read my blog, so he really did initiate this on his own. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers - I feel so very loved all around.

Thank you

I just want to say thank you to the wonderful people who have commented here or emailed me directly in the last few days. It touches my heart deeply to have such amazing readers who care so much about me and are so quick to offer sympathy, advice, and prayers. You guys are awesome!

Rambling

Hi, guys. Not too much to post about, just felt like rambling. The other day I had myself almost convinced that it was a good time to have a talk with Nick about spanking and DD and what his leadership means to me. I figured that with him dealing with an injured back right now, it would automatically take the onus off of him to actually act on such a conversation with any kind of immediacy, and it would keep the whole thing pretty low pressure. Then I realized that all it would do would be to add stress to his whole recovery, and that's the last thing I want.

I've really been praying about it, because this is a serious thing for me. These are real needs, and if Nick won't or can't meet them, then they'll just go unmet, because I'm certainly not taking them to someone else. But that of course is not ideal. It's not a good marriage for either of us if one of us is constantly hungering. And that leads me as always to wonder if I just shouldn't "be this way." Not that it's wrong in itself to be someone who wants to have a DD marriage - just that maybe it's wrong for me. But if that's the case, I don't know how to fix me. And please understand that I'm only talking about me and my situation. The last thing I want anyone to take from this blog is the idea that spankos need to be "fixed." I just think that for me - well, shouldn't I fit with the person God chose for me to marry?

The thing is, I'm no good at knowing just exactly what I'm supposed to do. I'm always afraid that I'm going to mistake my own desires for God's leading. So I'm leaving things just as they are. The ball is in God's court now, and if this is truly supposed to be a part of our marriage, then the next conversation we have about it will be initiated by Nick. And if that never comes, then I have to trust God to mold my needs and desires to what they need to be. Now if I can just keep my mouth shut...

Just life.

Gosh, I feel like I don't have much to post about here these days. Life has been pretty good. God has really been amazing providing for us financially the last couple of weeks.

This past Monday Nick randomly twisted his back when he leaned over to tie his shoe, and it just sent him to his knees in pain. There was no way he could even drive, let alone go to work that day, and I was freaking out worried about how we were going to pay for treatment. I called my mom and asked if she would care to come take Morgan to school while I stayed with him, and she agreed. When she got back home, she called and suggested a chiropractor she knew of who had been known to work out payment plans for patients who needed it. We don't have insurance and are still trying to pay off the bills from where I had Daisy, so I told her she could go ahead call the guy and see what he could do.

Much to my surprise she called back 10 minutes later with great news. Not only did the doctor agree to a payment plan, he also agreed to a ridiculously low fee for the treatment ($50 for x-rays, $40 for the visit, and $20 for adjustments), and she had scheduled Nick an appointment for that afternoon. We took him in and the doctor was just awesome. Unfortunately it turns out that Nick has a disc injury, and he's had to have several adjustments this week. The good news is that it seems to have helped him tremendously, and the price is right.

One thing we were really worried about was making up for the missed day of work on his paycheck. Thursday night my brother (our pastor) unexpectedly called and asked if he could stop by. He came over and dropped off an envelope with enough cash in it to more than make up for the shortage. The church benevolence committee had, without us asking or even mentioning the need, decided to gift us with the money. My brother let them know that he did not want to influence the vote since he's family, so this was done completely without his input, something I was very glad of so that there's no question of impropriety. Anyway, we were just overwhelmed with the gesture, and the money definitely came in handy!

Daisy will be a year old on October 5, and we'll be having a small birthday party for her in the church's fellowship hall. My mom and mother-in-law have taken care of almost all the arrangements for it, and I'm so excited that we get to do it!

That's all the happy news I have. In other news, I'm feeling pretty discouraged about the possibility of DD being resumed. It just doesn't seem to be on the table. And I can feel myself drawing inward. I can recognize the struggle for what it is, but I don't know what to do about it. Communication is just not an option here. It's been communicated into the ground, and there's just no benefit to it. The irony here is that every time over the years the I've told him I was willing to let it go, he's assured me he was still on board with continuing. This time I had managed to tell him that I wanted to start the weekly spankings and things were going well with it (I thought). Then he just...stopped. No fight, no warning, no indication that he was done with it, but it does seem to be the case. And I feel abandoned, and hurt, and at the same time unsurprised and like this is only what I had coming. Perhaps this is finally it.

The Marriage Bed

In my last post I mentioned a website called The Marriage Bed. The name references Hebrews 13:4:

Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.

To me the meaning of this verse is pretty clear-cut: God gave us sex, to be enjoyed within the bounds of marriage, and there is no sex act we can do within the bounds of marriage that He considers sin. A lot of Christians will tell you that they feel that anything other than plain vanilla vaginal intercourse is wrong, even if it's with your spouse. I just can't buy that. God does not make it hard for us to tell whether or not something is a sin. I feel that if it's wrong for a husband and wife to engage in oral sex, anal sex, kinky sex, whatever, then He would have said so. Now a lot of people take the verses in the Bible that speak of homosexuality and say that it defines anal sex as an unnatural act. I can see where they get that, but I don't agree. I think that the "unnatural act" part of it applies specifically to homosexual relations. I don't think that God dictates what sexual positions are okay between a husband and wife. I think that "the marriage bed is undefiled" pretty much says it all.

Let me say here that I am not interested in having a debate with anyone on homosexuality. There are plenty of places you can go to discuss that, and you're welcome to visit those sites, but we're not going to do it here. My whole reason for this post is to discuss The Marriage Bed's stance on DD.

If you will read the page there, you will see that the authors have spent some time "studying" DD, and they feel that they have a good understanding of it. Unfortunately they are handicapped by a few assumptions that they can't seem to get past. I'd like to list and address them individually.

1. They believe that all DDers see DD as the right path for everyone and condemn those who disagree.
I have yet to meet the DD couple that states that DD is right for everyone. I'm sure they're out there, because there's always someone who thinks their way for doing everything is best, but the attitude is far from pervasive.

2. They believe that most or all Christians who practice DD believe that it's mandated by God's Word.
Okay, I obviously can't speak for all Christians, but I can certainly speak for myself. I believe very strongly in Ephesians 5:22-24 which states:
"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing."

BUT, in no way do I believe that this is God telling husbands and wives that a domestic discipline relationship is required. I do not see anywhere in the Bible where a DD relationship is prohibited, but I also do not believe that it is required.

3. They believe that it treats women as dumber or less capable than men.
Okay, have you met most of the female DD bloggers out here? These are some of the smartest, most capable, most well-rounded, most cherished women I know! And it's because they are smart and capable that they have a full grasp of what it means to trust their husbands with their needs, and what it means to give their submission as a gift.

4. They believe that DDers categorically deny that the lifestyle has anything to do with their sexuality and that if it did have anything to do with sex it would just be plain old BDSM.
In my experience, most DD couples consist of at least one person who has a sexual desire for spanking. That does not mean that there's no other facet of DD. There are lots of things that can speak to your sexuality without being primarily about sex. For instance, a lot of women are very turned on when they see their husbands being good fathers. It turns me on to see Nick working outdoors. Most women find a sense of humor very sexy. Basically, I guess I'm saying that it's not necessarily all or nothing, and I don't know of too many DD couples who follow that line of thought.

5. They believe that DD cannot be legitimate if the wife was the one who requested it. In other words, if she wanted it, it must just be a game to her.
Okay, sure, there are plenty of women out there topping from the bottom. I'm not going to deny that happens, because it does. I've been guilty of it myself, although it's not an effective way to make DD happen for you. But I notice they don't claim that a husband can't be a real leader as God intends if his wife encourages him in that. In fact, there are plenty of Christian websites out there telling you how to foster your husband's leadership skills. It's not a sin to desire a husband who will lead, and initiating that change in your marriage does not mean that he can't be a valid leader, even if that leadership manifests itself in DD.

6. They also express concern with the fact that spanking seems to be the discipline of choice in most circumstances, and they seem to feel that this makes the whole thing too sexual.
My response to this is...WHO CARES? Who cares if the dynamic in the relationship you have with your spouse involves sex? If it works for you and your spouse and it doesn't go against God's word, then why is it anybody's business just how sexual it is? If you're both okay with spanking being involved, why the heck should it make a difference to anyone else in the world?
Anyway, a reader emailed me the other day for my thoughts on that particular page of The Marriage Bed, and I wanted to address it in a bit more depth than I had time to do in my email response. I do want to say that I find most of the other aspects on the site to be well thought out and Biblically founded. It's only their take on DD that I take exception to.

Secret Sunburns

I subscribe to an email list called The Generous Wife, and I get a daily email on how to be, well, a generous wife. Now I want to put a disclaimer out there - the author of this list is also one of the authors of The Marriage Bed. I think The Marriage Bed has a lot of great advice, but one thing I strongly disagree with is their stance on DD. This post is not about my views on that, so I will go into it on another post. Anyway, the husband of the lady who writes the Generous Wife posts has a companion list entitled The Generous Husband. Occasionally she will share one of his posts, as she did today, and I found it particularly relevant to my relationship with Nick:
Calamine Anyone?
Filed under: dealing with self — The Generous Wife @ 1:30 am
My husband did a lovely post yesterday that I want to pass on to y'all. It's a very helpful concept when you find yourself clueless over your husband's (or your own) behavior.


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Imagine I had a bad sunburn, but wore a shirt so you could not see it. If you came up and hugged me (I’m from Texas, everyone hugs) it would hurt – probably a lot. Now imagine if rather than hugging me, you slapped me on the back – very hard. That would hurt even more.

In the first instance, you have no intention to hurt me – in fact, you intended to bless me. In the second instance what you did was not nice, and would have hurt had I not been sunburned, but my pain would be far greater than what you intended.

What if I reacted in each situation without telling you I was sunburned? In the first case you would think I was crazy, in the second you would think I was a big baby making way too much out of something minor.

The same kind of things happens in marriages all the time, except that the sunburn is wounds of the heart and mind, wounds that can never be seen. What’s more, we tend to either not know or not care that our wounds are not the norm – we expect the world to see the wounds and treat us accordingly, or we think the entire world is similarly wounded and thus similarly sensitive.

So, your wife has one of these hidden sunburns, and you do something you think is nice, like a hug. She reacts with hurt or anger, and you have no idea why. She can’t or won’t explain. Or, you slap her on the back and she goes off on you, telling you how mean and horrible you are. You can see that it might have been a bit much, but her reaction is so over-the-top that you feel wronged by her. It’s clear to you she is unreasonable and can’t be talked to, and you pull back.

You can avoid a lot of trouble by learning see the wounds in yourself that your bride is hitting. Help her to understand, or at least be aware of, your injuries so that she can try to avoid them while you work to get them healed. Additionally, when your bride over reacts, don’t chalk it up to her hormones or just being irrational – try to figure out if you are hitting an internal sunburn.


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Be generous! Lori
Nick and I have been arguing a lot lately. And when we've not been arguing, we've been closed off from each other, wary of getting too close. And this email made me realize that we've both had some "hidden sunburns" that have been affecting the way we've been reacting to each other.

Nick has recently started rebuilding a 1958 Ford Fairlane. Now we don't have the extra money in our budget right now for such a project, so he took out a small, low interest loan through his job to pay for the car and part of the remodel. The guy who's selling it to him is not in a hurry for the money, but still, he needs to be paid. The problem was that the Friday the loan check came in, his paycheck was very, very short due to his manager forgetting to credit him with a week's vacation pay from when we were in Texas. So the extra money had to go for bills. Then last week when the correction from the last pay period came in, the whole check was less than we had expected due to some short days and a missing day for the Labor Day holiday. (At his job, they get a flat $40 for holidays as opposed to the $200+ they would usually earn that day). So basically, the loan for his car got eaten up by life's circumstances. And this is where the fighting came in.

I saw him as being completely unreasonable because he was blaming me for the shortage, even though I didn't run out and blow the money - I just paid the bills that had to be paid (you know, utilities, mortgage, phone bill, etc).What I wasn't really looking at was how very disappointed he was over the fact that after working as hard as he could and making every effort to make arrangements to cover the price of the car, it just wasn't happening right now.

Added to that, he and several of his friends (including the guy selling him the car) had plans to take the Fairlane and another guy's old Buick to a car show a few hours away this weekend. Unfortunately the Fairlane needs more work than there's time or money for to get it drivable by then, and that was a bitter pill for him to swallow. Plus we had made sitting arrangements for Morgan, and Daisy and I were going to make the trip with him. Now it will be just him going and sharing a ride and a hotel room with the other guys because we don't have the gas money to drive my car down or the money to pay for a separate room.

All of this has been filtered through some struggles he's having because money has been understandably tight since we went to one income. My personal belief is that I'm doing what God wants me to do in staying home with the kids. What he's thinking is "We don't have money to pay the bills because she's not working." Meanwhile I'm thinking "Hey, if you're so stressed about money, maybe you should not do things like take on a project car."

That said, I am willing to go back to work if that's what Nick wants, but it's not as simple as just going back to my old job. If I go back to the bank right now, it puts Morgan without a ride home from school, and Daisy in full time day care. In the summer it will get even more expensive because we'll have to pay for care for Morgan full time as well. Unfortunately my mom's health has declined to the point that it's just not an option for her to babysit like she did while I was working.

If I get a part time job somewhere at nights so that we don't have to have child care, it will not only have Nick and I never seeing each other, but all of his free time is going to go away completely as he'll be watching the kids while I work, so he wouldn't be rebuilding a car anyway. And that's not an ideal situation for him either. He knows in his heart that at this point in our lives we're just going to have to live a scaled back lifestyle for the good of our family, but I do understand that it's difficult to have to work so very hard and never see a dime of it, and that's been coloring his reactions and level of disappointment and blame.

As for my sunburn - well, I confess to fostering some hurt over the complete disappearance of DD over the last few months. I've tried to be reasonable and understand that he's probably not consciously neglecting it. But when we argued the other day about my decision to pay the bills without running it by him first and he started with "You say you want me to be in charge, but..." I wanted to scream. I've been so angry lately, finding myself wanting to purposely not do the things I know need to be done around the house (indeed, the things I intentionally signed up for when I became a stay at home mom) just because it seems obvious that he's not interested in showing any form of appreciation or leadership no matter what I do.

Adding to my frustration was the fact that he decided to buy this car without ever discussing it with me. His viewpoint? "You're not working, so it's none of your business what I do with MY money." Okay, I can even see where that's coming from, but I still expect us to be a team. And if he's not going to get my input, then at the least I expect to not be blamed when the plans he made without me don't come to fruition. And if he insists on taking all the freedom of decision that comes with being head of the household, then he also needs to take on the responsibility of meeting the needs of the household (and wife!) he is the head of.

And I might be right in all of that. But none of this is productive. I have to do what I need to do regardless of whether or not I feel like he's doing his part. My obligation is to be the wife God leads me to be, and I can't base that on what Nick's doing. His job as my husband is between him and God, and I have to stop worrying about it. I can't say "Well I'm not going be the wife he needs until he's the husband I need." That doesn't help anyone. And we did get some hurts resolved a few days ago after we took the time to step back from our anger. I don't want to portray Nick as a jerk here, because he's not, and we've both been at fault. I do realize that he's taken on a lot in becoming the sole breadwinner (other than my still very small photography business), and that comes with a lot of stress.

Anyway, the email really gave me a different perspective on things, and I wanted to share. Sorry this has not been much of a fun blog lately, and I hope you are all doing well.

For Ronnie :)

http://cgi.ebay.com/2-Champ-Model-Official-JoKari-Paddles-W-orig-Box-/120615187332?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c1539b384

Okay, perhaps I'm taking this too far...

...but I really like these!

Spanky-Dinks

A couple of days ago I introduced Morgan to the wonder of Shrinky-Dinks. If you're not familiar with the product (Nick wasn't), it's a special kind of plastic that comes in sheets which can be decorated, then placed in the oven to shrink into a permanent design that is 1/3 of it's original size and 9 times thicker. We made a few keychains and other random things, one of which was a name tag for Morgan's backpack. Today she came home from school with a page of orders from her classmates. :)

Now you know that anything I can put my own spin on, I will, so of course I had to make a few personal ones for me. These are not my own designs, just images I found online and traced onto the plastic. The celtic heart is actually a tracing of my tattoo, and I also made Nick a keychain with the same verse on it. The Ephesians verse one is now adorning my own keys. :) As for the others, they're just for fun. I plan on eventually doing a set with a different implement on each so that they can be used as some sort of game tokens. Anyway, that's been my preoccupation for the last couple of days. :)

Gosh, I seem to have fallen off the face of the earth, haven't I? I can't believe it's been so long since I posted! Let's see...what's been going on?

The biggest thing is that we just got back from a week in Texas with Nick's sister K and her family, and it was ah-MAZ-ing! We spent most of the week at their house near Houston, then drove out to their lake house near Austin for the last part of the week. We had a blast, and Daisy got to take her first trip to the beach when we visited Galveston on Monday. K has a little boy 4 months older than Daisy and a daughter 16 months older than Morgan, so there was fun had by all.

Morgan starts the 4th grade tomorrow - how did that happen?! Actually the first day was this past Friday (weird, right?), but we didn't get back from Texas till today, so she'll start tomorrow. It seems like just yesterday she was crawling around like Daisy (who's just about walking herself!) and now she's a great big fourth grader!

Oh, this was pretty exciting for me - I booked my very first ever full price, person-who-doesn't-know-me-otherwise-and-just-likes-my-work photography client! Yipee! I'm professional!

What else? Hmmm...not much. The blog hasn't much lived up to its premise lately, and I don't know when or if that will change. Obviously the weekly sessions have gone away, although I'm not sure exactly why, but I guess it's just part of the normal ebb and flow.

Anyway, how have you guys been?

Busy, busy

Gosh, I can't believe it's been so long since I posted! It's been a really busy couple of weeks. First of all, I've had a little bit of photography work to keep me occupied, which has been nice. Then last week we unexpectedly got to go up to the cabin. We go every year for our anniversary, but this year Nick's sister was in from Texas that week, and his cousin got married the day of our actual anniversary. Something was vaguely mentioned about maybe last week being good for it a couple of months ago, but as far as we knew it was never set in stone. Then Nick's grandmother called him week before last on Thursday to confirm that we would be going up there the next day and letting us know we could have it all week. The irony is that this is the first year she's let us have it for an entire week, and Nick hadn't scheduled any time off at all. He wasn't too hopeful when he asked at work if it was too late to request to take a week's vacation the next week, but God worked it out that no one had happened to ask off, and they let him take it.

It was a wonderful week - we just relaxed and played a lot of Scrabble, watched a couple of movies, and let Daisy have her first experience with the lake (which she LOVED). My parents and one of my brothers came up on Monday and brought us dinner, and on Thursday Nick's youngest sister came up and spent the day with us, and her husband joined us for dinner after he got off work.

Yesterday was a very special day for our family. My youngest brother was ordained as a minister by the church we grew up in. This morning, the church he's been serving at for the last month voted to call him as their permanent pastor. At only 22 years old, this is such a humbling thing, and as you can imagine, our family is very proud of him.

Anyway, that's been my life for the last couple of weeks. How's yours been?

You know your house is messy when...

...the implement you get spanked with is decided by what your husband can get to! Okay, okay, that makes it sound worse than it is. Although it is kind of messy. Sort of. Maybe very. What happened is that I agreed to participate in my friend A's yard sale this coming Saturday. Now that's not a bad thing - it's actually a very, very good thing. It means I'm getting rid of a bunch of clutter and maybe even making a little bit of money. But for now it also means that I have loads of shoes and purses for the sale piled up on the chest at the foot of our bed. The chest with all the paddles in it. And yes, there's some stuff piled up downstairs too, which is why last night Nick ran out of patience with my excuses and decided to just spank me for the mess and get me motivated to get it priced and out the door to at least the garage. But when we finally got some time alone, and he went to reach for a paddle, he found them all, well, out of reach.

So he reached instead for his new leather mechanic's belt. A mechanic's belt does not have a traditional buckle, which can scratch the paint on a car when the mechanic is leaned over the hood. Instead it has two metal prongs that pop into the holes in the belt where a buckle would normally fasten. What this meant for me was that he was able to fasten the prongs so that the belt was held folded completely in half. Normally the belt is one of my favorite implements, but last night it really, really hurt! I lost count of the licks, but I think it was somewhere around 50. Maybe it was because I only had my panties for protection, or maybe it was because I wasn't expecting a spanking right then, but it really had me struggling to stay put. I have to say though, I needed it very much, and it was a relief to get it done.

Let's see, what else? Oh, we got our new phones and they are the best phones E-VAH! Okay, they're not iphones, which we really wanted, but they really are terrific, and we're both really pleased with them.

Oh, Nick and I have started doing a nightly devotional together, which has been wonderful, and I'm so very proud of him for doing it with me. We're reading our way through the Bible, but we're also going through this book, which is a companion to the Fireproof movie we saw on my 30th birthday. We're just a week into it, but so far it's really good.

Anyway, that's our life these days. How are you guys?

Happy (late) Independence Day!

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July! Ours was very nice. We slept in yesterday morning, then went to visit a different church in the evening. My younger brother Robert was called to the ministry a few years ago, and he was the youth pastor for four years for the church we grew up in. He's recently been looked at to become the pastor of the church we visited last night. They've not made a final decision, but they've asked him to act as pastor for the month of July, at the end of which they will vote to bring him on full time or not. Of course we want the outcome to follow God's will, but this would be an amazing opportunity if he gets it - he's only 22 years old. I have to say that he's truly a wonderful preacher, and despite the natural skepticism I started out with listening to my baby brother, he always touches my heart when I hear his sermons. By the way, this is the brother who recently discovered my blog.

Anyway, after church, we went out to eat with a group from the church, including Robert and his wife Faith, as well as Nick's sister Kelly her husband Grant, who were also visiting. After dinner we went to a friend's spectacular fireworks display, then finally headed home and hit the hay. We did, however, manage to squeeze in a few minutes alone time before we went to sleep. :)

 

This afternoon my parents held a family cookout, and a wonderful time was had by all! Daisy was 9 months old today, and I just can't believe how fast the time has flown!

 

In other news, we got to order new cell phones today! Nick's poor phone has been on its last leg for a few months now, and mine has been showing signs of following suit. My internet home page has refused to work for months, and my gmail stopped downloading as well. This time we ordered HTC Arias, and I am SO excited about trying the Android platform!

 

Let's see, what else? Spanking? Nope, none of that lately, but life has been busy, so perhaps that's it. I hope so anyway.

Oh, we get to go to Texas next month to visit Nick's sister Kate and brother-in-law Will who live there! And guess what - they're flying us in! Hooray! No 2 day car trip with a 10 month old and a 9 year old! We're pretty excited about it. It was a wonderful vacation last year, truly relaxing. The only hard part about it was the drive there and back, so it will be just perfect this year!

Anyway, I hope everyone's having a wonderful summer!

Busy, busy week

What a crazy busy week! Nick's sister Kate and her kids came in on Monday, and her husband joined them on Friday. We let them get settled in Monday night, but Tuesday we went to visit. Her little boy Maddox turned one earlier this month, and he's into everything! He and Daisy really liked each other, although we really had to watch him to make sure he wasn't too rough with her. Morgan and Kate's daughter Kit spent the night with Nick and Kate's other sister Kelly and her husband Grant.

Wednesday Kate had plans to take Kelly, Grant, Morgan, Kit, and Maddox to a local theme park, and she invited me and Daisy to go too. She paid for everyone's tickets as well as pretty much everything else that day, and at the end of the day she even purchased season passes for me and Morgan so that we can go for the rest of the year! It was an incredibly generous gesture, and I'm really excited about it. Nick and I visited this theme park on our honeymoon, and we bought season passes every year for a number of years. The last few years it's not been in the budget, so this was a special gift for us. Daisy is still young enough to get in free, so all we need to do is get Nick a pass now. Even better, Kelly has a connection to get us a one day pass for free, and that can be put toward Nick's season pass and cut the price by more than half. Morgan spent that night with my in-laws, which is where Kate and her kids were staying.

Thursday Nick was off, so we got to spend the day together. We went and got my hair cut and colored, then went to have lunch with Kelly and Grant. Kate had taken Morgan, Kit, and Maddox to the family lake cabin with Nick's grandparents, and Morgan got a pretty bad sunburn. She and I are both very fair skinned, and I'm pretty religious about making sure she has on sunscreen at the lake. Unfortunately they weren't as careful about making sure she was covered, and it really upset me to see her in so much pain. We all went to Kelly and Grant's house to hang out for a while, and when Kate left to go back to her parents' house with Kit and Maddox, she took Morgan with her to spend the night again. But about 11:00 we got a call to come pick her up. She just felt so bad from the sunburn and was really missing us, so she slept at home that night.

Friday was Kate's birthday. We all had dinner together after Nick got home from work, then Kate had to run to the airport to pick up her husband Will. We all decided to go to a drive-in movie afterwards. It was a double feature, and we saw Toy Story 3 and The A-Team. Morgan stayed the night with my in-laws again.

Saturday was our 12th anniversary, and honestly we didn't do a whole lot for it. Money was an issue, but we also had Nick's cousin's wedding that evening, so we just kind of relaxed and got in a long nap together. The wedding was beautiful although very hot and humid since it was held outside. But it was at a Civil War home that's listed on the historical registry, which was really neat, and I'd love to go back and do a photo shoot there. It was also Nick's aunt and uncle's (the parents of the bride) wedding anniversary, as well as Nick's great grandparents' anniversary, something we didn't know when we got married ourselves. Morgan was spending the night with our in-laws one last time, so Nick and I went and had dinner together. Daisy really didn't want to go to sleep when we got home, but eventually I got her down and Nick and I were able to spend some time loving each other.

You'd think that with all this time with Morgan away from home we'd have gotten to our weekly spanking, but honestly we were both so worn out by the end of every day that it was all we could do to make it to bed! Hopefully we'll be able to get to it this week.

Kate and Will took Maddox back to Texas with them today, although Kit ended up staying here with her dad's parents. Her dad is supposed to have her during the summer. Unfortunately he's not much of a father, and he didn't bother to make arrangements for that until today. In fact, he actually lives a couple of hours away and won't be coming to get her for another couple of days. Kate had already bought a plane ticket back home for Kit because she hadn't heard anything from her ex, so it was pretty emotional for her to have to say goodbye to her daughter for the rest of the summer on such short notice.

Anyway, that's been my crazy week - how's yours been?

Miscellanea

Hi, everyone. I hope all the dads out there had a great Father's Day. We went out to eat at one of Nick's favorite restaurants for it today, which is a rare treat for us these days. Then we went to visit his grandparents and his dad and stepmom, then my parents. Daisy learned to wave yesterday and she was stealing hearts all around. :)

I got my weekly spanking last night. Nick pulled out a couple of implements he had really barely tried before. They were both from Cane-iac. The first he'd never really used because I've always been afraid of whippy implements. The second had seen little use because it was one of Cane-iac's old thinner paddles, and we have several of their thicker paddles he started using and kept going back to.

The whippy implement is a black delrin 5 strand cane and is still available from Cane-iac. The second is a stinger oak paddle. This one is a 1/4 inch thick and is no longer sold, but they do have a 1/2 inch thick version. Anyway, this spanking was not exactly a full blown punishment, but it was definitely more than maintenance. Some of our friends came over last night while Nick was at his buddy's house, and they were still there when he got back. I had been running errands and didn't have much time between the time I got home and the time our friends showed up, but I spent what time I had straightening up. Unfortunately the house started at such a point that I really didn't have time to get it to what he considers acceptable for company. It wasn't terribly messy, but I needed to sweep and load the dishwasher, and the kitchen table was kind of cluttered. One thing that he has asked of me since I started staying home was to make sure that the common areas stay pretty close to finished. He also had a few things to say about some of the things left in my car, an ongoing pet peeve of his.

Once I had the girls in bed he had me follow him upstairs and lay on the bed on my stomach. He lectured me a bit about the things he was upset about, then gave me the spanking. He let me keep my jeans on, but both implements were definitely still felt. He started out with the paddle, then moved to the cane, giving me 50 licks with each. I managed to stay still for the whole thing, something I was rather proud of. Then he told me to take off my pants and panties. I found that rather alarming, but I obeyed, and it turned out that his intentions were more pleasant than another spanking. That was a huge relief, because I don't think I would have done as well staying put with my pants down, especially with the delrin cane. That thing is small but mean! Anyway, the rest of the evening was wonderful, and I so needed him to call me on the things I was slacking on.

 

In other news, Nick's sister Kate, niece Kit, and  nephew Maddox will be flying in from Texas tomorrow, and her husband Will will join them Friday. They're coming in for Nick's first cousin's wedding this Saturday, and it will be wonderful to see them! Anyway, I'm off to bed. 'Night all!

Busy week!

Gosh it's been busy around here! Nick spent just about every night last week at my parents' house working on their car for them, and the kids and I went with him most of the time. We got some good swimming and visiting time in, and we discovered that Daisy LOVES the pool!

We also spent a little time over at his buddy D's house where Nick helped work on more cars and I visited with D's wife. She's also trying to break into photography, and she has the same camera I do, so we always have fun picking each other's brains for ideas. One neat thing that happened was that D was at work in his boss's office and noticed that his boss's screen saver was a slide show of his grandkids' pictures. When D looked a little closer he noticed my business name across the bottom of them! Yay! My business cards came in, and I've been spreading them around like crazy, so hopefully I'll be able to pick up a few more clients soon.

We finally got our garage door fixed, which is a relief. And the guy came today to do the weather stripping on our doors, which was the last thing that had to be done for the inspection on our new HVAC unit financing.

Morgan found a baby bird today, and she's trying to nurse it along. It actually fell out of its nest twice, and the mama bird won't have anything to do with it, so I gave Morgan permission to do her best with it. It likely won't make it, which will be a hurdle I know, but I just couldn't tell her no. It was such an ugly little thing when she found it, but we went to Wal-Mart and bought some live bait, and it seems to have fluffed up and gained some strength, so who knows?



God has really provided for us this week with lots of side work for Nick. Not only did my parents give him some money for working on their car, but my brother and sister-in-law and Nick's sister and brother-in-law also had him do some. And today he was able to do some for a guy I went to school with!

Saturday we got to go out to eat with Nick's family and go up to the cabin. There are several June birthdays in the family, and they always have a birthday party for them up there. We had actually planned to skip the restaurant part and just go to the party at the cabin due to money, but Nick's grandparents decided to pay for our meal as a gift for our anniversary, so we got to go after all. This was Daisy's first visit to the cabin, and she was the star of the show. :) Sadly we won't get to spend our usual June vacation week there again this year. For years we've stayed up there for a few days around our anniversary because that's where we spent our honeymoon, but last year we were visiting his sister in Texas that week. This year we can't because Nick's cousin is getting married on our anniversary, so we have to be in town for the wedding, and a few days prior she'll be using the cabin for her bachelorette party. Unfortunately the next time that Nick can use his vacation time and the cabin will be available is in August, but maybe we can take a long weekend up there some time before then.

Speaking of our anniversary, it's in only 11 days - we'll be married for 12 years! It's been such a wonderful journey so far, and I can't wait to spend the next 12 years and beyond with my amazing husband!

Oh yeah, I got a spanking tonight! :) I have to admit, I was a little worried that since my brother found the blog Nick would feel too weird about it. And after we were too busy to get to it on Thursday, I got a little more worried! But tonight he made time for it, and it was just exactly what I needed! We got out the Inflatable Position Master I just reviewed, and Nick had me bend over it. He'd already had me get him the snake paddle and bamboo baton I also just reviewed, and he spanked HARD! He gave me 5 or 10 good whacks with each, then announced that the product review was over and we were going to get down to business. He started to take down my pants, but I managed to convince him to let me keep them up, and boy was I glad! The bamboo baton had some serious thud to it, which honestly kind of surprised me. After 20 or so with it he picked back up the snake paddle, and it felt like he was spanking me with everything he had. If he had been using something wood I would have had some serious bruises, but as it was leather it just left me very, very red. It's hard to describe, but it's like each swat just radiated out over my whole bottom, and it was only being over the position master that kept me in place. I'm not sure how many I got, but it was probably close to 100. The thing is, even though it really did hurt quite a bit, I think I could have kept going for quite a bit longer. The main reason I was glad we stopped when we did was because it was pretty loud as paddles go, and I was afraid we would wake the kids. Some time when at least Morgan is spending the night with my parents I'd like to try it again and see how long I can go.

When he was done it was my turn to take care of him, and I did that by spending some serious face time with a certain part of him that always appreciates the attention. :) Thank you so much, sweetheart, for loving me so perfectly!

Well this is weird...

Okay, so tonight I got a text from my brother Robert. It was asking if I knew that setting up a facebook account for my blog would send suggestions for that account to my facebook friends. Well, yes, I knew that, but I assumed he meant my photography blog. A few texts later it becomes clear that he means this blog. Awkward! Here's the thing - I do have a facebook account for this blog (or at least I did until tonight, when I promptly deleted it!), but I can't figure out where the cross reference was. There were no mutual friends (I definitely didn't friend it with my vanilla account), and there was even a whole different email address that I only used for that facebook account. And honestly I hadn't even checked that facebook account in ages. Either way, he found his way here.

And so...deep breath...I texted him back asking him to please not share it with anyone else and thanking him for his discretion. And my awesome brother, the one who got married just over 8 months ago himself, told me that he believes that if God had an opinion on it then He would have given it and that just so long as the focus was on Him and the satisfaction came from each other, what we do is our business. And that he would keep it to himself. :) Soooo...thank you!

I guess my biggest fear about having the blog found by someone in real life was that they wouldn't understand that this is something we do because I want it and would think that it's something Nick does to me instead of for me. What a tremendous relief that when it finally happened it was with someone who didn't jump to that conclusion. Love you, little brother!