Life is flying by at a pace faster than I can keep up with.  School is finally out so that is a little less running around, but not much less. My daughter started back to work so I am babysitting every day for the little darling.  She is wonderful but, geez louise, I had forgotten how little gets done in a day with a baby around. So as soon as K leaves for work at 6:15 I clean like a mad woman so I can have it all done by 8:30 when she gets here. She is here until about 6:00 so that means using her nap time to get dinner started or we don’t eat until very late. Thursday and Friday I do double duty because we take the five year old grand darling for the weekends.  I still have my volunteer work at the library, and since it is summer there is lots of traveling.  We are going to Myrtle Beach, courtesy of a lovely on-line friend, a fellow DDer, who owns time share there.  Our son in the Army gets a four day leave for the 4th of July holiday and it is a gift from her to say thank you for his service.  What a blessing!  Thank you, thank you, thank you Molly!  We will be back home for only a few days and then we will be driving to Fort Lauderdale because K’s sister will be in town with her family. She lives overseas so we only can see her if we are willing to travel to Florida the month she comes every summer.  It is fine, K’s dad lives there so we make it a big family thing.  Since she comes from so far, they get to stay in the house and we get to get a hotel room.  It puts a strain on our budget but it is worth it to see everybody. One of our daughters is getting married in November so that is another big expense we are trying to work in, not to mention all the work of planning the wedding. It’s no wonder I can’t find time to get online.  Plus our laptop is very old and cranky.  It hates doing anything I ask and just wants to sleep in peace.  So it takes ages to do even the simplest thing and since I haven’t figured out how to do this blog on my BlackBerry I put it off until I am too embarrassed to even log on.

There hasn’t been much in the way of punishment, thank goodness!  I don’t really get into trouble, when you have been married 27 years you pretty much have it down.  When I do manage to get into trouble it is for disrespect.  I get annoyed or mad and spout off without thinking first.  I think quite well when I am over the pillows getting my rear end paddled!  As K says, my bottom does a much better job of remembering than my brain!

The diet has been stagnant, much to my dismay.  But I haven’t really been working on it either.  I need to buckle down and take it seriously again. I was going to walk this morning after K left for work but when I opened the front door it started raining. I took that as a sign from God that exercise is bad. Surely if I was meant to exercise it would always be perfect exercising weather whenever I wanted to indulge in that form of torture. That”s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I hope you all are doing well, enjoying your summer and your time with family.  I really will try to be here more often.

Today is our 27th anniversary.  There were some times when I thought that we wouldn’t make it.  We are some of the lucky ones, we have found peace in our marriage and are more in love than ever before.  I am so glad to have a partner, a lover and a friend, all in one!

I realize that I missed another important anniversary of ours! Our blogiversary was April 9th and it passed me right by!  Thanks to all of you who have made this a year to remember.

We have had a lot of things going on. Like you all don’t, right? How do you all manage to keep up with the blog(s) and everything else?

We went to our son’s graduation from basic training, I cried like a baby-of course! He was so handsome. We spent every available moment with him, we took him shopping, to the movies and out to eat.  I brought him cookies and fudge, which he was kind enough to share with his bunk mates. My niece really wanted to make him some cookies so I let her do the chocolate chip cookies.  I don’t think she put enough flour in, they were rather lacy and thin! But he ate them anyway and texted her to thank her. He is such a good boy! He is now stationed at Fort Gordon in Augusta doing his AIT.

We spent time visiting with my brother and his lovely family. It has been so long since we spent any time together.  He is seven years younger than me so once I moved out and got married we kind of lost touch. It was great to reconnect.

March 20th saw the birth of our second grand daughter.  She was born by c-section but everybody did great. She was 8 pounds 5 ounces and 21 inches long. Our eldest grand daughter, who is 5, is in love with her new baby cousin.  As we all are of course! My daughter is going to stay home until June and then I am going to do daycare for her.

The weather has finally started to improve.  Yay! I love the warm and the sun and the fresh air and the patio and the wine and the cooking out and  . . . well you get the point. Unfortunately I slipped a disc in my neck so I am on restriction right now.  I can hardly do anything. No hanging laundry for me! It really is annoying! I have been on prednisone and vicodin and I am going to physical therapy.  K took a couple of days off of work to help me out but he went back yesterday.  His famous last words before he left were, “don’t over do it.” Now I ask you, is that not open to interpretation?  My interpretation was “do as much as I can before he gets home and makes me stop.”  He was not amused.  Therefore, I have earned a punishment.  Yikes!  Of course, it didn’t helped when I got sassy about it when he got home.  He doesn’t usually mind sassy but not when he is being serious, go figure.

So, I guess you are all pretty well caught up. What’s been going on in your world?

Well, life goes on.  We have been crazy busy, as I am sure you all have been as well.  Our daughter’s fiance’ came back from Iraq. He was here for about 10 days.  He is stationed at Fort Bliss in El Paso.  We had a party, we had company for dinner every night, we had to help them get everything organized for their move . . . and the list goes on.  They left yesterday.  It was so hard to say goodbye.  She is the first of my babies to move far away (1700 miles) for real.  Our eldest went to California for a while when she was 18 but she wasn’t gone for long.

During all this hoopla our beautiful youngest daughter turned 16.  Where does the time go?  It was only yesterday when she was sucking her thumb and dragging her blanket everywhere she went.  Now she is in a steady relationship (dating for a year already) and thinking about college.  Yikes!

Our 2nd eldest daughter is expecting her first baby on the 20th.  She has been so tired that she comes over for dinner every night after work  and I send left overs home for her hubby who works 2nd shift.  I am anxiously awaiting this baby.  We don’t know what gender it is yet and I can’t wait to go shopping for tiny little baby clothes!

Our son graduates from basic training on the 19th.  K and I are going to Oklahoma to see it.  It was a hard choice to make since the baby is due the day after.  But our daughter has lots of support here and our son would have no one.  We just hope the baby comes early or late!

I can’t wait to see my son, I haven’t seen him since January 4th.  We are a very close family so being apart this long is like forever!  We leave this Sunday and will be gone for a week.  We are driving and plan to do some sightseeing along the way.  It will be a lot of fun and we are looking forward to the time alone.

I’ve been very well behaved.  We do regular “reminder” spankings but I haven’t earned a punishment spanking in ages.  (That’s a good thing!)  This may or may not be directly related to the fact that a new paddle arrived here recently.  It is very scary looking and I do not want to find out what it feels like.  K has said it is only for punishment so if I don’t do anything that needs punishing I should be ok!  So far so good!

The diet has been on hold recently because of all the parties and celebrating we have been doing.  I know that when we get back from Oklahoma K intends to hold me to some very strict standards.  I may be finding out what that paddle feels like  after all!

Spring is in the air, thank goodness.  I am so sick of being cooped up!  I hope you are all doing well, keeping sane and all that.

I know, I missed last week.  I was too embarrassed to say that I gained weight.  We had a baby shower for my daughter on Saturday and a Super Bowl party on Sunday.  Both days I ate way too much.  K gave me a pass because of the parties but told me that I would be going back to my strict diet rules this week. We had weigh in yesterday and I lost half of what I had gained so that was good news. Starting yesterday, I am back to journaling, which I hate with a passion, it is so darn tedious.  But it works, I know it works, I just have to do it.  If I don’t I will be in trouble and I really don’t want that.  He’s making it easy too, I just have to record what and how much I eat, I don’t even have to count calories.  He will add that if I am not seeing any loss or if I don’t take the journaling seriously.   I also have to start adding exercise to my weekly routine.  He isn’t going to make not doing it punishable, yet, but if I am not making any progress on the diet then he will.  I still have 25 pounds to lose and with a daughter getting married next November I would really like to make my goal by then.  As it is, I don’t have to shop in the big ladies section for a dress this time, yay me!  But if I could buy a size 8 instead of a 12 I would be thrilled beyond words.  (At one time I was a size 20/22)

Have a good week!

Good news on the diet front.  I am down 2.2 pounds and K is down .6!  I am so happy about that.  Steady and sure wins the race.  No punishments for anything this week.

I have been thinking about exercise lately.  Since I stopped working I am not constantly moving anymore.  I’ve had some ideas but I am the kind of person that doesn’t like other people to know what I am doing when I am doing it.  So, even though I bought some Dancing with the Stars dvds I haven’t used them yet because my daughter is always here and she might see me!  We have a nice sized flight of stairs in our house leading to the basement and I have thought about just going up and down those when ever the thought occurs to me, if I do that 20 times a day more than I do already that would add over 500 extra steps a day.  Then there is always the possibility of  becoming a mall walker.  But those are all old people so I would look funny!  Ah well, I will just “keep pondering until my ponderer is sore” in the words of the great Winnie the Pooh, at least I think it was Winnie, maybe it was Tigger.

I hope you guys are all doing well, keeping warm and all that.

Today was weigh in day.  We’ve changed our weigh ins to Monday because after all the holiday hoopla that is what worked out the best.  The good news is I was down 1 pound and K was down .8 pound.   So no punishments on either side, for that.

The bad news is, with me being off of work it is a lot harder to resist the snacks. I get bored or sick of what I am doing so I search for nibbles.  Fortunately we are to the point now where all the holiday goodies have been eaten or disposed of and I refuse to buy anything that will sabotage me.   Unfortunately, I have a punishment coming for eating fried walnuts until I thought I would throw up.  I knew what I was doing, in theory, but I just couldn’t stop myself.  I rationalized it by telling myself that if I ate them all then they would be gone and not tempting me any longer.  What makes us do these crazy things?  It’s not like I didn’t know doing it would get me spanked.  It isn’t a new rule or an unreasonable one.

K does not like it when I do stuff like that to myself, and who can blame him.  He doesn’t like to see me miserable, even if it is my own fault.  Of course, he has no problems with causing a different kind of misery for the sake of a lesson learned!  So, within the next day or two I will probably be feeling sorry for myself with a very sore bottom, blaming it all on my mother and her evil walnuts.

BTW: this is totally off topic but I updated my blog roll today and removed all the “dead” links.  Some of the blogs have disappeared or been removed by the author or some have gone private.  If you see your blog was removed from our list but maybe the link was just bad or you moved or something else, just e-mail us at livingdd08@gmail.com and I will fix it.

When we started ttwd, I had no idea it would be so much work.  I mean, really, a spanking every now and again and that should do it.  (Don’t laugh so loud, I can hear you!)  Kids, work, life in general, conspire to make this as difficult as possible.  I earn a spanking, K wants to give said spanking but the darn kids refuse to go to bed at an hour that would make a bed time punishment feasible.  So, we think, ok it will happen in the morning before K has to go to work.  He leaves for work at 6:15, that means we would have to get up by 5 for him to have time to punish with any intensity, and have even a few minutes time for cuddling and reconnection.  Sounds easy but in reality, getting up that early is darn hard!  We have yet to do it in fact.  So punishment gets pushed farther and farther away from the actual misdeed to the point where it seems silly (to me) to be punished at all.  It isn’t that the desire to follow through is missing.    Punishment is a reasonable expectation (him expecting to give it and me expecting to receive it) after breaking any rule.  The rules we have aren’t frivolous after all, they are in place for a reason.   And, it isn’t like we have a ton of rules that I am always breaking.

In an ideal world, we would have a house with a sound proof room that would allow punishments, arguments, crazy sex and other loud activities to happen whenever the whim or need came upon us.  In our real world, we live in a tiny 50 year old ranch house with paper thin walls and our bedroom is sandwiched between both of the boys bedrooms.  So, punishments have to stack up and be taken care of when the opportunity home alone presents itself, which is rare right now.  It will be easier in a few weeks when our daughter moves in with her fiance’.  Then we will have K’s days off every week (as long as they aren’t on the weekends) to take care of business, because the other kids will be in school.  But then there is summer vacation . . .

And then there is the emotional work involved in ttwd.  To do this and do it well, barriers have to come down.  I have always been emotionally closed but that doesn’t work in a DD relationship.  I have to be willing to let K into all aspects of my life, even those I consider too personal to share.  When he asks me a question he has the right to an honest answer no matter how emotionally vulnerable it makes me.  And the same goes in reverse.   We both have  the right to a partner that is 100 percent invested in the other and the marriage and that is work!  It means being able to put aside petty hurts for the health of the marriage.  It means not holding a grudge because it is easier than letting it go.  I’m working on that.

Let us not forget the physical part of ttwd.  That is work too.  It is hard work to give a proper spanking and as hard of work to take one with grace.  It is hard work to wait up for a husband who would like to “connect” when he gets home from work at 11:30 p.m and you turn into a pumpkin at 9:00 p.m.  (even though it is always so worth it in the long run, I really don’t mind, it is just hard sometimes.)  It is hard work to hold his hand when all you want to do is kick him in the shins because he is annoying the hell out of you.  But you hold his hand anyway and in 5 minutes you’ve forgotten why you wanted to kick him in the shins and are cuddling up as close as you can to the big strong man who has the capacity (and the desire) to tame you with a look.

It isn’t easy, it probably won’t ever be easy, even when all the kids are gone and it is just the two of us rambling around in the house.  But, the good news is, we are in this together.  The hard work is both of ours but the rewards belong to us both as well.

OMG, the holidays were crazy, I quit my job and my son left for the army!!!

I worked retail and loved it but I worked 40 hours a week making minimum wage with a BA!  I asked them to pay me more and they said “sorry, no can do” so I said “see ya”.  K prefers for me to be home anyway, but would never say I couldn’t work if that is what I wanted.  It was just that I made so little- he makes in 2 shifts of OT what I made in 2 weeks of working (that is just sad)- it was so not worth the stress of having us both gone so much.  January 2nd was my last day.  I refused to abandon them during the major holiday ad sets, but let me tell you, being at work at 4a.m really tests your resolve to do the right thing.

Our eldest son left for basic training last Monday. I have yet to hear from him so I have not been able to write him or anything.  It is killing me!  (I have a letter all ready to go when I do get an address!)  K and I went to watch his swearing in and I did a good job of not breaking down until I made it to the privacy of the public bathroom.  I am so proud of him but my heart broke to let him go.  There was a psycho lady there watching her son.  OMG!  The whole time she was saying things like “if anything happens to my son I will kill them all” “I don’t understand why they join when no one is making them” and on and on.  The man who was with her kept shushing her and she turned on him and said ” what, I can’t have an opinion?” and he said, “NO!”  I wanted to applaud him!  I am sure her son joined to get away from her!

There has been absolutely no spanking here for over a month!! Zip, zilch, nada!!! Our daughter is with us until her fiance’ comes to get her when he gets back from Iraq.  Hopefully that is in a few weeks.  But, as of right now, she is here all the time so there is no privacy to deal with anything of a “loud” nature.

On a brighter note, my daughter and I bought her wedding dress yesterday.  A couple of times a year the local bridal shop sells the “try ons” for $99.  So we were able to buy her the most beautiful dress that retails here for $699 for only $99.  That gives us $600 more to spend on booze or food (in my logical mind, anyway). I vote for booze but that’s just me!

We had our first real weigh in after the holidays on Monday.  We both had gained a few pounds over the holidays but managed to lose a little last week. Not much but enough to keep us both out of trouble!  I have been slowly working on throwing out the last of the goodies but it is hard when it is something you especially love and know you won’t see again until next Christmas.

It is going to take me ages to catch up on all the blog reading I’ve missed.  If I don’t comment on what you’ve written it isn’t because I don’t appreciate you!  Take care, thanks for being such loyal friends, I hope our absence hasn’t sent you searching elsewhere for good reading.

Hello everyone, just a quick note to let you know we are not dead!  I work in retail so, as you can imagine, my days are very hectic right now and leave little to no time for computers. K is working a ton too (gotta pay for Christmas!) so he hasn’t had any time to get on here either.

Since we have two adult children living with us temporarily there has not been much spanking going on, discipline or fun.  We had one day  over a week ago where we had a couple of hours with no one here but us and K did use that time to address some respect issues.

Our eldest son leaves for Army basic training on January 4th.  We are so proud of him but it is going to be so hard to have him gone.  We also have a daughter engaged to be married to an Army soldier.  He is in Iraq right now and will hopefully be home within a couple of months.  When he comes home they are moving to El Paso to live together until they get married in November.  They are just babies but you know how that is, you can’t tell them anything.  Her response is,”mom you were the same age when you got married and look how that turned out! “  Dang, I hate when they throw my successes in my face!

I have given work my notice.  I have been there for over a year with no raise or promotion.  I am a minimum wage slave with a college degree, that sucks!  I have told them I will stay if they give me a $3/hour raise, at the least.  I work really hard there and love my job but it isn’t worth what they pay me.  I can’t justify being away from home and my kids for that little money.  I really want to stay so I hope they come through.

I hope you all are managing to stay sane during this busy season.

May your holidays be blessed with good family and friends.  May you receive all those things that truly bring joy to your lives.