She's doing it again.....

Jz that is....

Dust off your baking pans, because on Wednesday, December 9th 2015

The Great Online Cookie Exchange Extravaganza returns!

Won't YOU please join us?

It's easy to play along. 

Just post a recipe that day for a holiday goodie -- any goodie. 

It doesn't have to be for cookies… or even be sweet.

We do not discriminate against any goodie.

(We are equal opportunity consumers around here.)

That's pretty much all there is to it.

The single catch is that there's only one way to get your name in the official list of participants: You have to contact me (Jz) by Monday, Dec. 7th with both your name and the address of your blog.  

shame or self-consciousness

I had never discussed any of our dynamic or our kinks with anyone irl who i didn't already know was involved in this lifestyle, and even that has been very, very few people.  

I obviously write about it freely enough - although not as explicitly or articulately as many people. And I chat with some people online, never in particularly explicit terms though.  

Even talking with my husband - I sometimes (most often actually) find it hard (actually, very hard) to say the explicit words, to ask for things in anything but euphemisms.    

I found myself talking recently with someone about our lifestyle/arrangement/dynamic/kinks.  This person is someone who it is appropriate to talk about these things with.   I was a little concerned about being censured or rebuked about it all, but I took the leap and i was reassured that wouldn't happen.  

I found it impossible to say any of the words out loud though - masochist, spanking, caning, pain, control, submission, dominance, marking, bondage, rituals, service....  I tripped over all of these and more - in fact, i really wasn't able to say much out loud at all.  I talked about us in such vague and general terms that i don't think i would have recognized us from my description.  

She asked if it were shame holding me back and making it difficult.  I immediately told her it was not shame - it felt like being self-conscious.  I don't believe i am ashamed of what we do and how we are - i know i don't believe any of it is wrong.  But what about it makes me self-conscious?  Why is it so hard for me to use the language?  Where does that feeling come from?  

who is serving whom?

I could write very long winded pieces about each part of this - but honestly i barely have time to sneeze these days.  We knew this phase would be coming - lots of travel, lots of obligations and activities, just lots of life - it was on the calendars...

So i will be short and sweet (maybe).

[Yes - i recognize that writing this is a somewhat backhanded way of bringing this up to him -  bringing things up to him though is the purpose of the blog - and maybe we will find 5 minutes sometime soon to have a long and deep heart to heart talk, in which case, this gives us somewhere to start]

One of his biggest goals when all this started was that i open up to him, that i learn to let him see me and to help me, that i learn to rely on him.  Let's just say i was not remotely open and i had no idea how to let another person see me, or help me,  much less to rely on someone else.

It was a hard and sometimes gut wrenching thing for me.  It still requires hard work, ironically enough.

I have never fully figured out how that all fit with my serving him.  Letting him help me - with advice and guidance in my personal and professional life, with encouragement, with the kids, or with doing the dishes and grocery shopping - it seemed backwards of what was 'supposed' to be.  It felt like it made me a princess rather than a slave.  I have to actively fight against this feeling.

But.... I think I've let it let me get lazy.  I do let him do things for me, for us.  I let him help me figure things out that i need to figure out.  I even take advantage of time to do things for myself or time to relax that is created because he has done parts of what needs doing.

Then i wonder if i've gone too far.  Am i taking advantage of him?  Does he feel put upon or overworked.  Do i feel like a princess to him?  If I have those thoughts, why don't i just shut up, get up, and do more?   What happened to active submission?  Service?

And why doesn't he just stop it, put me back in line and re-set things?  [See...burden on him... passive submission on my part... ugh!]

And maintenance??  The daily caning was good for me.  I dreaded it, but it was good for me - for my state of mind and for my connection to him, for my submission and thus for my service.  But it was work for him, a chore and something else in a long list of things that have to be done each day.  So it was him serving me.

Likewise whenever i am horny or just really craving whatever i'm craving.  Is he serving me or himself?  Taken to the ridiculous extreme - wouldn't it be better if i hated sex and all the aspects of BDSM - then I could be sure it would be serving him only and me not at all.  See - i can see the flaws in my thinking sometimes....

All of this sounds pretty superficial and petty.  In fact, we both have pretty weighty things going on.  He, like many fathers and husbands, takes on the weight of the world for his family willingly and gladly.  I do believe that his job is in fact easier if i am open to him and accepting of his help.  He has said that a big part of the beauty of this lifestyle for him is that he sometimes feels like I am the only part of his life that he can influence for the better and make a positive difference in, that there is so much he can't control and that to be able to have any control over a part he cares so much about makes his responsibilites feel easier.