Mother’s Day, etc.

Hello, everyone! I had a moment free to sit down and post, so I thought I’d take advantage! Life has been good. God provided some unexpected side work for Nick to help meet our needs, and I’ve also sold some photography packages. I also made my first etsy sale – yippee!

Did everyone have a nice Mother’s Day? It was a busy weekend for us – Kate and Will went to the Kentucky Derby, and my in-laws babysat for them, so we got to see the kids over the weekend and Kate and Will on Sunday when they came back. We went to church that morning, then the whole family spent the day at Kelly's house until it was time for Kate and family to fly back to Texas.
I made anniversary pillow covers for Nick’s stepmom and grandmother, a pillow cover for Kate with the address of her lake house translated to French, and a pillow cover with a favorite hymn lyric for my mom. For my gift, I bought myself a couple of watches on sale a few weeks ago.
Coincidentally, James also came home from Texas that weekend. I think I’ve mentioned that he’s a surgical tech and was doing a travelling job there for a few months. That job has ended, and in a few days he’ll be packing back up to do a stint in Los Angeles. I miss him like crazy, but this is a good time in life for him to travel. He’s single, childless, and still in his twenties, so I’m glad for him to get the opportunity to see some new places. He makes good money being willing to travel, and that’s allowing him to save up for a house.

There’s not been a whole lot happening on the DD front, but neither has it felt like it’s absent. There’s just been no reason for punishment, which is a good thing!

Well, I’m off to edit pictures and work on the laundry – have a great day!

Happy (okay very late) Easter!

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Easter! Ours was lovely. It was also both Nick’s and Morgan’s birthday, and while I’m quite alright with being married to a 32 year old, I’m having a bit of trouble with being mother to a 10 year old! How on earth did my little baby get to be such a big girl? I swear it seems like 6 months since she was Daisy’s size! Of course Daisy’s pulling this growing up trick on me too – she’s still supposed to be brand new, and she’s almost 19 months old already!

Anyway, we went to church that morning, then went to Nick’s grandmother’s house for Easter/Birthday brunch and hunting eggs. Right now I’ve got the only two children in the family except for Kate's two, and they live in Texas. Speaking of them, they’ll be coming in next weekend. Kate and Will will be going to see the Kentucky Derby, and they’re leaving the kids with Nick’s dad and stepmom for the weekend. It will be great to see them all, even if it’s only briefly.
Backing up just a bit, Nick made Morgan the most awesome birthday gift. (Well, I helped with reading off the plans, and my dad provided the scrap wood and the saw, and my mom made the linens and bedding. Oh, and I painted it.) I think I’ve mentioned how much she loves her American Girl doll Kate bought her for Christmas. Shortly after she got it, I found her an Our Generation doll at Tuesday Morning for a great price. Anyway, great big ten year old that she may be, she still has enough little girl in her to really, really love them and want tons of accessories for them. Well I found a plan for an American Girl farmhouse doll bed on Ana White’s website, and Nick and I spent a couple of hours at my parent’s house building it. We modified it just a bit to make it wide enough to accommodate both dolls, and Morgan was THRILLED with it! Nick doesn’t do a lot of wood working, but he did such a great job on this, and I couldn’t be happier with how it came out!
What’s really neat is that she has the plans for this bed all the way up to a California King size – I’d love to have one for us!

Morgan and I did some really neat egg dying this year. I found a really cool tutorial for dyeing eggs using silk ties, so I headed to the thrift store, and we ended up with these!

Let’s see, what else has been happening? Nick had to go away for school (for work) the Monday through Thursday prior to his birthday. Morgan’s spring break started that Wednesday, so I was home alone with two kids there for a couple of days. But he brought me back a Godiva cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory so I forgave him.

 I was also supposed to do a photo shoot that Wednesday, but it got rained out, so we postponed it to this past Wednesday. Of course that was the day all the storms hit, so hopefully we’ll actually be able to make it happen this coming Wednesday. Speaking of the storms, we were very fortunate to get only heavy rains at our house. A lot of people in our city got tons of hail and hail damage. One friend on the opposite side of town lost every window in her house, her brand new roof had holes torn through it, and her vinyl siding looked like it had been through a drive-by shooting. And of course Alabama was hit terribly hard. We had several cities in our state take some heavy damage as well, but nothing like Tuscaloosa suffered. Please keep them all in your prayers.

Today my mom kept the girls for me so I could spend some time at a car show with Nick. That’s something I’ve not gotten to do kid-free in a very long time, and I really enjoyed it. I got to take some cool pictures, and I got to spend some time with my favorite guy.

Anyway, I think that’s about everything that’s happened since I last posted. Happy Spring!

It’s Spriiiiiing!!!

Hello, everyone! How are you all? I’m doing great! Our beautiful pink azaleas have bloomed, and the peonies are hot on their heels! (No pictures – what was I thinking?)

I finally (on the third rescheduling) got to take Morgan’s team pictures on Monday, and I think they turned out great. Hopefully the parents will think so too and will buy lots!

My awesome chair and 1/2 came in last Wednesday, and I LOVE it! I’ve been doing some more crafting, and I’ve come up with some more pillow covers that I’m really pleased with. I plan on eventually stocking them in my etsy shop. (June 26 is our anniversary).

Oh, and I got spanked last night. Here’s the thing – weekend before last, I told Nick I would really appreciate some attention in that area, and he said he would try to get to it that weekend. It never happened, and I think that may have factored into last night’s spanking just a bit. I’ve been working really hard on getting the laundry done, and I’m most of the way there. Nick was out in the garage working on his Fairlane, and I went out to put in another load. I teasingly said something about how I had the pile just about gone “despite the lack of promised motivation.” He said that I had been doing really well, but that he wasn’t afraid to step up if I started screwing up, and without really thinking about it, I said that I’d rather not have to do that. It was an offhand remark, not one that I really meant to make, but I think he heard it.

Sunday night after church I fell asleep on the couch and didn’t wake up till about 11:30. Nick went to bed shortly after I got up, but I was wide awake. I knew I had the soccer photo shoot the next day, so I started working up an order form (the coach’s fiance had made me one, but it was crooked, misspelled, and just generally not very professional looking, so I wanted to make my own). While I was waiting on our excruciatingly slow printer to churn out 10 copies of the 5 page order form (1 page of package details, 3 pages of team photo template choices, and 1 page for the actual order form), I started working on the Mr. and Mrs. pillows pictured above. By the time I got in bed, it was after 5:00 in the morning, and Nick woke up and caught me, although he didn’t say much about it at the time other than to let me know that he noticed.

Now a few weeks ago we had made an agreement (at my request) that I would be up by 9:00 every day and text him by 9:15 to let him know. I’d been trying to keep to it, but I’d missed a few times without him saying anything, and I’d kind of fallen off doing it just because I felt like he didn’t really care either way. Monday I slept (way) in until 11:00, and obviously didn’t text him. When he got to Morgan’s soccer game he said something about it and let me know that we’d be discussing it later.

Monday night he fell asleep on the couch, and I kind of didn’t wake him up until I was pretty sure he would just go straight to bed. Not very mature I admit, but I was feeling pretty nervous. Nervous enough, in fact, that I couldn’t fall asleep until late. Despite my alarm and my best intentions, I didn’t wake up until 10:15. I immediately texted him and told him that I’d overslept. The text I got back? “Wow, sucks for you.” Yikes!

By the time he got home my stomach was doing pretty much constant flips.

I had rented Due Date for us to watch, a movie he’d been wanting to see. Soon after he got home I quietly apologized for staying up late and oversleeping. He told me that he was going to take care of it, and I asked if we could do it before we watched the movie. I really didn’t want to sit through it while trying not to think about what was coming.

I put the kids to bed at nine, and we watched TV for a little while to give them time to fall asleep. Before I knew it though, he was ushering me upstairs. I immediately ran to the bathroom to pee, and when I came out he had the AngelBrat Paddle in hand. He made me bend over the side of the bed, then he took down my jeans and panties. He honestly probably only gave me 25 or 30 swats, but I had an awful time staying still for it. My bottom was on fire by the time it was over, and I don’t think I could have handled much more. Fortunately he had a good handle on what I needed, and he ended it much, much sooner than most spankings he’s ever given me.

After he spanked me, he held me and rubbed my bottom for a bit, then left me to compose myself and come down when I was ready. I put away the paddle, pulled my jeans and panties back up, and joined him downstairs. The movie was very funny, and I enjoyed it so much more than I would have if I’d had the paddling hanging over my head.

Anyway, that’s been what’s going on in our house. How have your lives been?

Catching up

Hello, everyone! It’s been a busy few weeks for me, but I’m finally getting the chance to pop in for a minute. We got our new furniture last Tuesday! Yay! Well, except for my awesome chair and a half. That’s coming in on another truck. Boo! But seriously, we love, love, love the furniture we do have. We also sold our old couch on Craigslist along with a couple of other items, so that was a nice to have a little money to help out.

We painted our living room, which has made a huge difference, since we went from this:
to this:

Also, I made a pillow for the new couch using my Silhouette SD to cut a stencil for it, and I’m soooo in love with the way it turned out. Pancho, it seems, is too:
Let’s see, what else?

Oh! I can’t believe I forgot to mention this earlier, but on Feb 27, a little girl Morgan’s age at our church asked Morgan if she could help her get saved. Morgan asked me if I would talk to her, so I grabbed my brother Robert (the pastor), and together we led her to the Lord! But the evening got even better – Morgan made a profession of faith and was baptized several years ago, but we’d always had our doubts that she really understood it at the time, and we just weren’t seeing the attitude and actions of a Christian in her. I talked to her about the little girl who’d just gotten saved, and she told me that she didn’t feel like she was really saved herself. So this time I grabbed my brother’s wife Faith and my mom, and we went and talked to Morgan about it some more, and she prayed and asked Jesus into her heart! Then a couple of weeks later the first little girl’s twin sister asked to talk to me, and she also became a Christian! Nick called me the kid whisperer, but I can assure you it was all God and had nothing at all to do with me. Yesterday all three girls were baptized!
Let’s see, in other news, Morgan is playing soccer this year, so that’s an adventure. She’s still learning, but we think she really has the potential to be a great player.

My photography is really picking up with the warmer weather. I had a shoot with a great family a couple of weeks ago, and I have a few more on the books for this month. I’m actually supposed to do the team pictures for Morgan’s soccer team this evening (if we don’t get rained out again grrr!). I’ll be offering several packages, so hopefully that will bring in a little money.

I love that spring is starting to bloom around here. Nick brought me some gorgeous flowers out of the blue a few days ago , and the trees in our yard are starting to blossom. I’ll leave you with a few local shots from the last few weeks.

Just what I needed

Last night I had reached my breaking point stress-wise. I hadn’t had a break from the kids for what seemed like days, and they were both just dancing on my last nerve. Morgan’s first soccer game was yesterday, the teams were not well-matched, and she was turning out to be a very sore loser. Daisy was into absolutely everything (as 17 month old babies tend to be), and Nick had been working for 6 days and spending some of his evenings on side work at his friend’s house.

Basically all of this had left me with a pretty horrible attitude myself, and I found myself snapping at everyone. When Nick asked me if I had done any laundry like he asked, I retorted that I hadn’t done a thing all day except take care of the kids, but that I’d be happy to get to it when I was done with what I was doing.

A few minutes later I went out to the garage to pull the clean clothes out of the dryer.Within a few seconds the door opened behind me, and I found myself being pushed forward over the washing machine. Nick had grabbed a paddle on the way out and proceeded to spank me hard enough to break it across my bottom. Once it broke he continued to use the half he had left until he felt like he had my attention. Granted, it wasn’t a very heavy duty paddle, but it was sturdy enough to leave my bottom throbbing, even used over my jeans.

After he finished spanking me he turned me around and told me in no uncertain terms that he was absolutely done with my attitude. At that point all I could do was just hug him and thank him for bringing me back from the edge. He held me for a few minutes, and it was just exactly what I needed. It’s almost crazy how quickly and consistently a spanking will solve an attitude problem for me, and it was such a perfect thing for him to do right then.

Gosh, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?

I looked at the blog and realized it has been almost a month since I’ve posted! It seems like I just never have any time!

I did actually get a spanking Saturday night – the first one in nearly four months. I’d finally broken down and told him I needed it a while before it happened. It wasn’t the longest or hardest I’ve had by any means, but four months really gives a girl’s butt time to get tender! He told me to pick an implement, and I managed to convince him to use his hand since it had been so long. That lasted until his hand started hurting. After that he switched to the snake paddle I reviewed a few months back.

Yesterday we had a short conversation about the length of time it had been since there had been any sort of discipline. I have to admit that I had gotten to the point where I was feeling both neglected and very angry about it. He told me that he felt like I should be happy that he was ever doing it at all since it’s not something he enjoys and that part of it was letting it happen when he decided it needed to happen. I kind of call BS on that though. If he doesn’t want to do it at all, then the whole reason he’s doing it is for me. And if he’s doing it for me, but he’s not doing it at anywhere near a level where it will be beneficial to me then what’s the point of doing it at all?

I tried to explain it this way: Imagine there are two people, one of whom is madly in love with the other one. Person A wants a committed relationship, but Person B says that he doesn’t want to commit, but is willing to have a few romantic weekends here and there, just so long as he doesn’t have to go too much out of his way and they don’t have to ever talk about their “relationship”. In that situation, it would be kinder for Person B to just end the romantic relationship completely so that Person A can come to terms with the loss and move on.

It’s not that I want him to just pull the plug on DD completely, but it’s incredibly hard to have the need and believe there’s some small chance it will be met, but spend the vast majority of my time with it unmet. I just need to have some attention paid to it more than a few times a year. Sometimes I think it would be better to just cut ties with DD completely so that I can mourn it properly.

BUT, with my undying optimism apparently firmly in place, I’ve ordered something that I hope will help. A few days ago I got a $10 coupon from Zazzle.com. LOVE that company! It’s where I ordered these. Anyway, it’s super easy to create your own designs, so I ordered these magnets, to put up on the fridge when the need gets especially strong. All of them are subtle enough that I can explain them away if Morgan asks about them, yet specific enough to tell him just what I need.

Hopefully he’ll be on board with it, but I guess we’ll see.

In other news – we got our income tax return back!! Aaaaand…it was awesome! We got back enough to catch up on all of our bills, pay a few of them ahead, and buy some stuff we really wanted! The big ticket item we got was a new living room set! Squeeee! We’ve never in our whole marriage had a brand-new-never-been-owned-by-anyone-but-us piece of furniture. Well, we did buy a new crib and rocker when Morgan was born, but nothing for us. Anyway, it looks almost exactly like this:

Unfortunately we won’t get it all for about another 3 weeks, but that will give us time to paint first. We also got to finally pay off Nick’s Fairlane (this was actually from him selling his bike a few weeks ago), and he’s going to be able to get a transmission for it (which is the main thing it needs). I got to get one of these:

It’s a Sizzix BigKick Die Cutter, and it has made making hair bows super fast and easy. Oh yeah – I’ve been making and selling hair bows and glass magnets along with a few other crafty things, and I will eventually move all of it into an etsy shop. And along the lines of crafty things, I got to finally order:

 

I am SO excited about it! Anyway, that’s been our lovely last month. How has yours been?

Randomness

Hello, everyone. Just popping in. Nothing much happening here. I’m nicely recovered from my tumble down the stairs – thank you all for your sweet comments.

This past Tuesday Nick’s grandparents took us out to dinner at The Chop House, which is my favorite restaurant in the whole wide world. Nick loves it too, so we very much enjoyed it. They have apparently decided to take each of the grandchildren (and their spouses if they’re married) out for dinner, so this was our turn.

Kate and her kids are coming in to visit in a couple of weeks, which will be nice. They didn’t get to come in for Christmas, so we haven’t seen them since we visited them in Texas last August.
Speaking of Texas, my brother James decided to take on another 3 month assignment in Houston, so he won’t be back till spring. Daisy will have gone from 13 to 19 months by the time he sees her again, so he’ll hardly recognize her!

I’ve started selling some of my craft items among my friends, and I’ve had quite a bit of interest as well as a few purchases so far, so hopefully that will help fill the gap until the weather warms up and I can start booking photography clients again.

We should be getting our income tax return in about 3 weeks, and I can’t wait. We’re going to pay off a few big bills, catch up a few small ones, and buy a few things we’ve been wanting, one of which is a Silhouette machine. This will allow me to do tons of new crafts, as well as open up a few new business opportunities for me.

Anyway, that’s what’s going on around here. I hope you guys are all doing well!

Um–ouch!

Hey, guys. How have you all been? A few nights ago Nick and I had a brief DD related conversation, and he assured me that he’s not done with it. There’s been no real change, but I’ve not given him any reason to punish either, and it made me feel better just to hear him say he’s still on board. He did say that he’s aware of the need but that there just hasn’t been any time to take care of it.

On another subject, yesterday was exciting, but not in a good way. I was carrying Daisy down the stairs along with a cup of tea and a bowl of banana bread I had been feeding her. About halfway down my foot slipped, and I (we) went flying headlong into the wall at the bottom. Fortunately I threw everything but her and had her wrapped up like a football by the time I hit, so she wasn’t hurt, and the extent of her involvement was a very glancing bump against the wall after I hit and was rolling down to the floor. She was certainly frightened by it all, but her tears lasted less than 15 seconds, and she was happily playing in the spilled tea and bread crumbs while I lay there and tried to make sure I wasn’t going to pass out. That was purely God, because I certainly wasn’t capable of any sort of planning in the 7 or 8 steps distance to the landing. Also purely God was the fact that I came through it with just some scrapes and bruises.

I did have a bad moment where I thought I was going to lose consciousness, so I called my dad to come over since it was just me and the baby, but the spell passed pretty quickly.

Today I’m very, very sore, and I’m finding that I’m banged up more than I initially realized. I have some bad bruises on both knees, my left calf, left shoulder, and left elbow, as well as scrapes on both knees, the back of my left thigh, and my left shoulder. I also have a bruise coming up on my chin, not surprising since that’s what made first contact with the wall, and hard enough to have left a pretty sizeable dent in the sheetrock. I also busted my lower lip against my teeth when I hit. The worst of it though is probably my left ring finger. It’s not broken, but it was jammed hard enough that I knew to switch my wedding ring to my right hand before I even made it out of the floor. Tonight it’s purple and swollen, although I can still move it without it being excruciating.

Anyway, my dad came over and went to pick Morgan up from school (at that point we were thinking driving might not be the wisest decision), and Nick came home to take care of me. Fortunately his workday was almost over anyway, so he won’t lose any pay over it. So that was my Monday. How’s your week going?

Still blessed

Ok, ok, I know it looks like I gave up on DD and fell off the face of the earth, but I promise that’s not what happened! I’ve just been crazy busy lately. As far as DD, well, there’s been some small mention of it on my part with some small not-completely-oppositional response on Nick’s part, so here’s hoping, anyway.

Something VERY cool happened yesterday. Well, to back up just a bit – on Christmas Eve we went to celebrate with Nick’s extended family, and Nick’s cousin B was there. Now B used to weigh somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 pounds, but a couple of years ago he had gastric bypass and lost a ton of weight. He’s even had the surgery to remove his excess skin, and he looks just great.

Anyway, we started talking about my photography business, and he said that he’d be interested in booking a portrait session, because the only formal pictures anyone has of him are pre-weight loss. Now I would have been happy to do this for free, just because he’s family, and it would make me happy to do something to help him celebrate his transformation to a healthy weight. But what he offered instead was to bring me his copy of Photoshop CS5, the very newest version and way up high on my wish list of things we really can’t afford but that would make my life so much easier! Yesterday he brought it by and installed it for me, and I’ve had so much fun playing with it!

In other news, I’ve been playing around a lot with different craft projects, and I’ve decided to open an Etsy shop just as soon as I can get some inventory built up. There are so many easy, inexpensive things I can make, from hair bows to magnets to coasters, and maybe I can bring in a little money that way. My friend R loved the coasters I made for some of my family for Christmas, and today she met me with some supplies to make a set for her to give as a birthday gift. I’m not charging her to make them, but the supplies she brought me will make many more than just hers, so I’m still coming out ahead.

This week is pretty tight money-wise, so I’ve not been able to go out and load up on supplies like I’d like, but I’ve got enough to make a few things anyway. Nick didn’t get to go to school last week because of the snow, which also caused his work to be closed for one day and open late another day. It also kept most of the customer’s away, and the New Year’s holiday hurt us too, so his check was a lot smaller than we needed. BUT, that just gives God a chance to really shine in taking care of us. In fact, we were in this same position this time last year, and this happened.  

Anyway, I’m off to bed – church in the morning!

Yuck!

We’re all sick here. I HATE being sick! It’s nothing serious, just colds all around, but I wish it would be done with already. We had an unexpected snowstorm today, and the ground is covered, so school will probably be out tomorrow. Morgan is in better shape than the rest of us, so she’s been going to school this week, although Nick missed work yesterday. Anyway, not much point to this post, just complaining a bit. Hope you’re all feeling well and having a great week!

A wise man once said…

I was cleaning out my inbox this morning, and I found this quote in an email from The Generous Wife:

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has. Epictetus

And I realized that it didn’t take me too long at all to quit zeroing in on my blessings once November passed, and I need to try to regain some of that focus. So for today, here’s a Gratitude Post.

Today I’m thankful for:

Morgan’s new glasses. The eye doctor we use was running a special before Christmas for $1 eye exams. My in-laws had told me that they wanted to take her after the holidays to get new glasses, and I was able to take advantage of the $1 exam so that her prescription would be up to date. It had just run out in November and hadn’t, as it turned out, changed at all, but it had to be renewed for them to make her new glasses. She had picked out her old glasses herself, but she pretty quickly grew to hate the way she looked in them. They also ended up eventually getting pretty scuffed up, as glasses worn by an 8/9 year old will tend to do. Unfortunately we hadn’t had the money to buy her new ones, so it was a blessing that my in-laws offered. The doctor’s office was running a special for 2 pairs for $99, so they ended up getting her 2 pairs, plus a year’s worth of insurance on her favorite pair.

These cookies. Oh. My. Goodness.

A few months ago I ordered a set of postcards for my photography business from www.overnightprints.com along with a calendar for my brother and his wife for Christmas. When the order came the postcards were missing, so I called them and they reprinted them and sent them out. Last week they randomly sent me another set. Yay free stuff!

Nick gets to go back to Atlanta for another round of classes for work next week, and while I’m not looking forward to him being gone again, it is another step closer to him achieving his ASE certification, which will mean a raise at work along with some other benefits.

Windows Live Writer. I just discovered it, and I love the way it functions with Blogger.

Have a great day!

Brightening it up a bit

So as you can see, I have a new template. Well, actually it’s the same old template, but I played with the colors a bit. It may get old for me, but I’ve got the old version saved if it does. But I figured, hey, Valentine’s Day is just around the corner – why not?

Resolutions

Well, it’s that time again – time to make resolutions to keep or at least strive for. This year I hope to:

Grow my photography business to the point that I at least double my investment.

Get my laundry completely done and keep on top of it.

Do more crafting! This year I made almost all of the Christmas gifts that left our house, and not only did it save us a ton of money, but everyone seemed to love them!

Along those same lines – get a Silhouette machine. This is actually something that Nick and I will both use (rather, I will use it for him). I think I’ve mentioned that he and a couple of his friends are trying to get a custom car business off the ground in their free time, and we would use the machine to cut stickers to sell and to make heat transfers for t-shirts.

I want to learn how to sew on a machine. I got a nice sewing machine for Christmas about three years ago, and it’s never been out of the box. It’s not that I don’t want to use it – it’s that I have no place to set it up. I’m not sure how to go about remedying that, but I really would love to find some room to do not just sewing, but the rest of my crafting as well, and I'd love to be able to get back into origami as well.

I want to try to keep my house within about 15-30 minutes of being ready for company at all times.

I want to be better at couponing.

I want to get Daisy’s room completely organized. I hate to admit it, but right now it’s still half full of stuff that got dumped in there while we were putting down the new flooring in the rest of the downstairs. Her bed and the area around it and through the middle of the room are clear, but her pack-n-play is full of toys that belong to both her and Morgan, and they need to be seriously paired down.

I want to have more company over this year.

I want Morgan to be able to have more friends sleep over.

I’d like to have more date nights.

I want to get to know Jesus better.

How about you guys – any resolutions for you?

A New Year, a new era?

Thirteen years ago Nick spanked me for the first time. Six years after that we introduced the concept of domestic discipline into our marriage, and it changed our marriage entirely. Seven years later, DD seems to have died a quiet death. The day just past was the 7 year anniversary of DD for us, and as I expected, it passed without mention.

It’s been a couple of months since there was any form of discipline happening, and it’s been nearly as long since there’s been so much as a mention of it. A few days after this spanking there was another one promised for the same thing. I had ended up staying up all night the next Tuesday night, albeit with good intentions. Nick had an early meeting the next morning, and I was trying to make sure he got up on time. When I woke him up and he realized I hadn’t been to bed, he let me know that it would be dealt with. I asked him if we could try to take care of it soon, and he promised to try to do it the next day. Obviously that never happened. Nor was it ever even referenced again.

Honestly, I didn’t want the spanking, and I certainly hadn’t been trying to earn it, but I have to admit that the broken promise felt an awful lot like not caring. Much the same way that the birthday spanking he promised never happened. Sort of like how the birthday spankings for 2008 and 2009 never happened either. It’s not like this is the longest we’ve ever gone without any kind of spanking for punishment or play. There was, after all, the seven month hiatus of 2009, although that was during my pregnancy. But this feels different. All the other times we went through dry spells as far as actual activity, Nick still made verbal references to his authority. This time around it’s as if he’d never taken on the responsibility in the first place.

I’ve purposely refrained from bringing it up because I just haven’t had the spare strength to deal with the inevitable feelings of insecurity and burdensomeness. And I always told myself that I’d let it go if it ever got to the point that it was no longer doing our marriage any good. It seems clear that we’ve reached that point.

There’s a tiny voice in the back of my mind saying “See! I told you he doesn’t love you enough to do this without you pestering him!” And while I can mostly dismiss that as my insecurities bubbling up, I have to admit that there is some small truth in it too. And so it has come down to this: Does he love me enough to ever really wholeheartedly make a commitment to having a DD marriage? Or do I love him enough to not try to make him? The fact is, I can’t answer for him, although I suspect what the true answer might be. But I can answer for me. The question really boils down to this: “Do I love him more than I love me?” and the answer is yes, of course I do. And so I have to let it go. It may be that I’m wrong (as I have been before), and if so, I’ll be glad to be so. But this time I have to be the one to make a real commitment to being the wife he needs me to be, the wife that lives under his authority by never making him exercise it. After all these years, I think I may be getting the hang of it.

Whew! A minute to breathe again!

Hey, guys! I hope everyone had an AWESOME Christmas! Ours was lovely, going back to the day after my last post.

On the day of the 22nd Morgan, Daisy, and I got to spend some unexpected time with mine and Nick's niece Kit. Her mom is Kate, the sister who lives in Texas, but Kit was in the state to spend Christmas with her dad, so we were thrilled to get to see her. On the 23rd we did Christmas at my parents' house. Everybody really loved the homemade gifts I got them. Nick and I both got some clothes, and I got a pair of boots. We also got a gift card to Red Lobster from my brother Robert and his wife Kate. The girls got both clothes and toys, and it was just a sweet time together as a family. The 24th we went to have Christmas with Nick's extended family and there was a neat video montage of pictures from Christmases past. I got a set of stuff from Bath and Body Works, and Nick got a gift card to Olive Garden. That night when we were wrapping gifts I was trying to remove the glass from a picture frame to clean it and the glass cracked. Unfortunately the frame was the biggest gift we had for Nick's dad and stepmom, so he ended up giving them the Olive Garden gift card to replace it.

Christmas morning we opened gifts at home first, and the girls had a blast. Afterwards we went to Nick's dad and stepmom's house for breakfast and gifts. My favorite gift there was a beautiful Stella & Dot necklace from Kate. It has 3 charms, a silver circle with "mom" stamped in it and two gold circles with the girls' initials. I totally didn't expect to have something over there to open from them because they had already sent us the biggest gift we got from anyone - a nice big check that allowed us to pay the house payment and buy a few things. This was such a blessing, and truly an answer to prayer, because I didn't know how we were going to pay the house payment.

Saturday we went running around for a bit and did a little after Christmas shopping. We bought this coffee maker as a gift to each other, and it is FABULOUS! It was a little pricey for a coffee maker (okay a lot pricey, but we got it 20% off), but we love, love, LOVE it!

But the best, best, BEST thing I got for Christmas wasn't a physical gift. Okay, first of all some sad news. On my meme the other day I said that I hadn't been to any funerals in 2010. Thursday I got word that yet another former co-worker had unexpectedly passed away, but this one was a man I very much liked and respected. In fact, he was my direct supervisor for a number of years, and I always had a soft spot for him. His funeral service was tonight, and I made arrangements to attend with my friend Denise. Now I've mentioned Denise on here before. She's been coming to church with us quite a bit lately, and she's really been under conviction, but she had never broken down and become a Christian. The deaths at work lately have really hit her hard, and the funeral tonight even harder. Jim, the man who passed away, was a very strong Christian, and one of my former coworkers shared this story about him: Last week she and Jim were talking about the woman who had passed away earlier that week. They had just come from her funeral, and the coworker sharing the story said that it was weird to think that you just never knew how much time you have left. "That's why you have to be ready," Jim replied. Within just a few days he was gone himself.

After the funeral tonight I asked Denise if she wanted to grab a bite to eat. She agreed and we went and had dinner. I had been in prayer for her all evening (well for days really, but especially in light of the funeral tonight). Dinner was lighthearted for the most part, but toward the end it turned toward spiritual matters, and I could tell that she had been trying to work her way around to this conversation. We spent a long time talking, eventually moving out to my car where we talked some more. She broke down in tears and asked me to please show her what she needed to do to become a Christian, and I had the amazing privilege of leading her to the Lord! I have to say that this was none of my doing whatsoever - I rambled and cried and went off on rabbit trails and was generally just a terrible evangelist, but God used me in spite of my shortcomings, and I'm absolutely thrilled! This has been such an amazing answer to prayer, and I know that Jim is in heaven rejoicing that such a blessing came from his passing!

So that's been my crazy wonderful week - how has yours been?

Another Meme

So I was looking back through my archives to see if I had ever done the meme I just posted before. I came across one I did in January 2009, and I was struck by all the changes that have taken place since then. I thought I'd repost it with my updated answers (in red). Feel free to steal it. :)


1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before? Went to Houston, won a trip to Hawaii (although we've not gone yet).
In 2010 I became a stay at home mom for the first time and also launched a photography business.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I honestly can't remember last year's resolutions, but we've decided to make some financial changes this year.
This year's resolution was just to trust God more, and we've definitely had to do that. Next year I'd like to expand my photography business.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Yes. Unfortunately she also got divorced. We also found out that Nick's sister is pregnant. Sadly, still not me, although at this point that would be something of a financial disaster.
Two girls I graduated high school with gave birth. But considering my 2009 answer, I want to point out that I got pregnant about three weeks after I posted that answer and I entered 2010 with a 13 week old baby of my own!

4. Did anyone close to you die? My grandfather
No. I'm blessed to have attended no funerals in 2010, although I did learn that a former co-worker passed away a week ago.


5. What countries did you visit? Just this one.
Same answer.

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008? A SLR digital camera
This coming year I'd like to have the full Photoshop Suite/Lightroom and a better lighting equipment package. And since I've been reading all these craft blogs, I've fallen in love with the idea of having a Cricut machine.

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? March 3, the day my papaw passed away, and June 26, our 10th anniversary.
January 7, 2010 was the day I went in and quit my job.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? I don't know how much of an achievement you'd consider it, but I did win that trip to Hawaii.
Actually getting a few photography clients. Also, moderate overall success as a coupon ninja, and serious coupon ninja success when it came to Christmas this year.

9. What was your biggest failure? Probably that we could have handled our money better.
Not keeping more on top of the laundry.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Not unless you count strep throat
Nope! Unless you count the time I slipped in our backyard and ended up with a very sore spine and tailbone for a few days.

11. What was the best thing you bought? Probably my car - it's been a great investment so far.
My camera!

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Morgan has really gotten it together with school. She had some issues in October with not really wanting to get her work done, but she's improved 110%.
Morgan has been an ah-may-zing big sister!

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? A couple we've known for years and years and actually introduced. They both just gave up on their marriage and decided to get divorced rather than putting any effort into fixing things.
Barack Obama

14. Where did most of your money go? Bills, food.
Bills, diapers, formula

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Our trip to Houston.
My camera and our trip back to Texas.

16. What song will always remind you of 2008? Anything Hannah Montana. If I never hear Hannah Montana again it will be too soon, but since Morgan sings the stuff in her sleep, I'm probably not that lucky.
Anything by the Avett Brothers. Nick has been playing the crap out of them!

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: a) happier or sadder? Probably happier, Probably about the same b) thinner or fatter? About the same, maybe a little heavier, but not much c) richer or poorer? Probably about the same, although we really should be richer, Poorer

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Photography
Day to day photography just for myself.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Eating out.
Staying up way too late.

20. How did you spend Christmas? With family, eating, opening gifts.
This year will be the same.

21. Did you fall in love in 2008? Yes, with my husband and daughter, every day.
Yes, with my husband and both of my daughters, every day.

22. What was your favorite TV program? Lost
Lost, until it went off, then Sons of Anarchy and Terriers.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? Nah
Nope.

24. What was the best book you read? I couldn't even begin to narrow that down.
Same answer, although there have been some great ones!

25. What was your greatest musical discovery? That Itunes will let you redownload your purchases if your hard drive crashes!
The Avett Brothers

26. What did you want and get? A better car.
A Nikon D90

27. What did you want and not get? A Nikon D90
Photoshop/Lightroom

28. What was your favorite film of this year? Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Fireproof
Sherlock Holmes

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 31, and I hung out with Nick, went shopping, went to see the movie Fireproof, and stopped to visit with some friends.
I turned 33, and to celebrate we had a cookout with family and friends the day before, then I had a photo shoot. The day of we went to church then went and had lunch with Nick's sister and her husband.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?More money? Definitely more money, and a baby, or at least having one on the way.
Having made enough off my photography to have paid for my camera in full. Right now I'm a little over 50% of the way there.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008? Same old jeans and cute shirts I'm afraid.
Not much has changed here.

32. What kept you sane? Nick beating my butt when I got too stressed, although I probably could have used more of that.
Concentrating on letting God take care of us and our finances.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Mmmmm....Josh Holloway, although Harrison Ford wasn't bad either.
Still Josh Holloway - Oh, Sawyer, I miss you!

34. What political issue stirred you the most? No politics here, please.
The health care fiasco!

35. Who did you miss? My friend L
Still my friend L, although I got to see her a bit more this year.

36. Who was the best new person you met? I can't really think of anyone new I met in real life that made a big impression, but I met lots of great people on here!
Same answer

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008. Life is not fair - sometimes the people who make the worst decisions can still end up swimming in money.
God is always there for us - His mercies are new every morning!

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. I can't really think of a good answer for this one.
Still can't come up with one!

Fried Brain

I feel like my brain is fried right now. I've been rushing around trying to get everything finished for Christmas while still juggling the house and kids and it's wearing me out! I'm done with almost everything but the wrapping. Oh, and that other batch of lotion I have to make. And the rest of the lip balm. And the sugar scrub. And those other two Question Jars. Oh, and the other two sets of crayons. Oh yeah, and I still have to apply the sealer to the other 7 sets of coasters I made. But that's it. Except for whipping up those sets of glass stone magnets. So really - I'm practically done. Look, I've got 71 hours left till Christmas - don't judge me!


Anyway, I need a minute to be not-creative, so I'm totally going to steal Grace's Christmas meme:

1.Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
Definitely hot chocolate, although I do like to have about a half a glass of eggnog once a year.

2.Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
I don't technically wrap. I bag. If anything actually gets wrapped it's generally by Nick. But either way, they're packaged.

3.Colored lights on tree/house or white?
White inside, colored outside.

4.Do you hang mistletoe?
We used to, but I haven't found anywhere to buy it in a couple of years.

5.When do you put your decorations up?
Okay, I'm going to tell you the worst thing in the world: It's three days till Christmas and my tree still isn't up. Normally I put it up just after Thanksgiving, but this year I wanted to wait because I figured Daisy would be tearing it apart. Then after a few days I realized it's up in the attic and we don't have a ladder. So I decided to just decorate a small fake pine we have out year round. And I'm totally going to do that. Right after I finish those glass stone magnets...

6.What is your favorite holiday dish?
Ummmm, I'd have to say sausage balls. But only if they're really moist and cheesy.

7.Favorite Holiday memory as a child?
Christmas Eve. We opened gifts at home and at both grandparents' houses on Christmas Eve, and I loved coming home after the final celebration and discovering all over again all the
gifts I'd gotten earlier in the evening.

8.When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
My parents never did the Santa Claus thing with us, although someone always dressed as Santa to hand out gifts on my dad's side of the family. In fact, when my brother was about 4, he nearly started a riot among a room full of kindergarten-age cousins when he declared that the man in the red suit was really Uncle Claude.

9.Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
Now that we're grown with families of our own, the celebration gets stretched out some. This past Friday we did my dad's side of the family, Thursday we'll do my parent's house, Friday we'll do Nick's extended family, Christmas morning we'll open at home then at Nick's parents' house, and sometime next week we'll do my mom's side of the family.

10.How do you decorate your Christmas tree?
Well, normally it's a very rustic, woodsy, fishing cabin type theme. This year it's going to be a bit more Charlie Brown since I'll be scavenging stuff from around the house to decorate with.

11.Snow! Love it or Dread it?
Love it, although I hate driving in it.

12.Can you ice skate?
Nope!

13.Do you remember your favorite gift?
The year I was 10 I got a 100 piece accessory set for my Barbies. Morgan still has some of the pieces to it around here somewhere.

14.What’s the most important thing about the Holidays for you?
Family.

15.What is your favorite Holiday Dessert?
My sister-in-law's amazing boiled custard.

16.What tops your tree?
Hehe, usually a miniature fishing hat.

17.Which do you prefer giving or receiving?
Definitely giving.

18.What is your favorite Christmas Song?
O Holy Night

19.Candy Canes: Yuck or Yum?
They're okay.

20. Favorite Christmas Show?
Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

21.Saddest Christmas Song?
I’ll be Home for Christmas

Christmas Crafting

Okay, so I know - I've totally not been posting like I should. But I've been a busy bee, I promise! Nick had to go to Atlanta for some training classes for work on Monday and got back tonight. Morgan was home sick from school last Wednesday and Thursday (thus lots of make-up work), then school was out because of the weather Monday, Tuesday, and today. So it's been a busy week as a solo parent.

But I've also been doing lots of crafting for Christmas! God has been really good in providing some wonderful options for gifts. Because Nick's sister and her husband (the ones in Texas) are so far out of our league financially and they always get us such nice gifts, it completely stresses me out every year trying to come up with something nice for them that we can afford. Not that they would make a big deal out if it, but they've always been so generous to us that we really want to get them something they'll love. All that I had to start with was a panoramic picture of the lake I had taken off the upper deck of their lake house when we were there in August. I found a 9x24 frame at the Goodwill for $5, and I'm going to try to refinish it, and I ordered a print of the picture to fit into it. Then I came across some great craft blogs, and I've been busy making some really neat things to supplement not only their gift, but also gifts of some others in the family that we didn't have much for.

I got the ideas for the dressed-up post-its (hello, teacher gift!) and the coasters here. I actually did the coasters with rub-ons instead of napkins or paper, and I'm in L-O-V-E with how they turned out. Plus the tiles were only 16 cents each at Lowes! I've got enough tiles left to make two more sets, and I think I'm going to see if my artist husband will paint them for me. The post-its were 12 pads for $3.94 at Wal-mart, and the scrap-book paper I used for the craft I already had.

The snowman crayons are TERRIFIC! I found the idea for them here. Daisy is right at the age where she has discovered coloring and scribbling, but standard crayons and pencils are sometimes hard for her to keep steady. I'm going to make another set for Nick's sister's little boy (4 months older than Daisy), and my cousin's little boy (8 weeks older than Daisy). I will say that I ended up having to use 11 full size crayons for each snowman , but fortunately I had stocked up on crayons when they were twenty cents a box back when school started, so I had all I needed. I will, however, have to go with non-primary colors for the other two sets. The most labor-intensive part of the whole thing was unwrapping all the unmelted crayons. The mold was a silicone muffin pan I got at Target from the dollar bin (well, the $2.50 bin). I just filled the cups and stuck the whole thing in the oven on a cookie sheet at 150 degrees. It took about 45 minutes for them to fully melt, but I think they turned out great!

The little tin pots are homemade lip balm. I found the recipe for that here. My mom and dad actually came by yesterday and surprised me with almost all of the supplies I needed for that. My mom used to make candles and knew of a great wholesale place to buy that sort of thing, so they got me the lip balm pots along with some beeswax, fragrance, glycerin soap, lotion bases, soap dyes, and lotion bottles, along with some baskets and bath poufs so that I can put together some gifts sets. I also got some epsom salt and made bath salts (which I still have to package), and I'm going to make some sugar scrub as well.

But my very, very favorite gift is the Question Jar. This is such a neat idea, and it cost me almost nothing. Hobby Lobby had the jars for half off, the raffia I had, and the flower I made out of a twenty cent piece of felt. This is a jar filled with some really neat get-to-know-you-better questions on strips of card stock, and best of all, Pamela Donnis, the lady who created the idea, even has a PDF you can download for free with the questions already on it! She also has the tutorial for the flower. I found the list of questions to be interesting and thought-provoking. While there were some pretty standard ones in there (like "What would you do with a million dollars?"), there were also some that I had never thought about before (like "What was the most interesting class you ever took?"). I bought three jars, and I'm making one to give to each of Nick's two sisters and brothers-in-law, and one to my brother and sister-in-law. Eventually though I'm going to make one for me and Nick too.

In other news - well, there is no other news. TTWD seems to be TTWdon'tD these days, and I've pretty much let it drop. Life is chugging along, and for the moment it's just less complicated without it. If there's ever a lesson I've learned it's that stirring that particular pot never fails to send some doubts and insecurities to the surface too, and I can always do with fewer of those.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!