a submissive's musings: March 2009

Blogging

Despite my promise in my New Year's resolutions to blog more regularly, and to make sure i have at least 25 posts every month, i have been falling into a bit of a pattern with my blogging this year so far - where i get near the end of the month and have to hurriedly blog loads in order to meet that target. Part of it is to do with not knowing what to write about, as i've already covered quite a lot of topics already in this blog, part of it is to do with being so busy with Poppy and my training and getting ready for the wedding that several days go by without me even thinking about this blog, and part of it is to do with not needing this blog in the same way as i did in the beginning. i'm not saying that i'm going to stop blogging or anything like that, i guess i'm just asking for a bit of help:

~Does anyone have any inspiration for what i can write about? Any questions you want answered or topics you'd like to see my opinion on?

~ Does anyone have any tips for what they do when they don't feel in the blogging mood, but need to write a post? Any ideas on how to motivate myself to write?

Any contributions will be gratefully received. In the meantime i'm going to write some posts and backdate them for this week to the days i would normally have posted them, and see if i can still make my post quota for this month because i'm so determined to keep that resolution this year!

my first Mother's Day

It seems to have come round quickly, but today was my first mother's day as a mummy and i really enjoyed it. 'Poppy' brought me breakfast in bed this morning, which was a real treat because i don't often get that, and we had a lovely lazy start to the day snuggled in bed together, all 3 of us, with me and Sir talking and Poppy playing happily with some of her toys. Then i got given my presents from Poppy which were a box of lovely chocolates, some flowers picked from the garden (apparently Poppy chose the ones herself which is sweet), and a special newspaper with an article on the front cover all about me winning the 'best mum of the year award'. It was a very sweet gesture and i was so touched - i've put it in my special treasure box which i created when Poppy was born for all the things i want to keep as she grows up.

Then we took a walk through the woods and saw all the violets coming up and went to visit the horses and fed them some apples and carrots. And then we had a picnic lunch sitting by the river, enjoying the warm spring weather and just relaxing in each other's company. This afternoon we spent pottering around in our garden, getting it ready for all the flowers to come up and i planted lots of vegetables in my area of the vegetable patch so i'm hoping they'll grow nice and big for summer.

Today has been a lovely day and i've been feeling very appreciative of my little family, and so so proud of the beautiful little person i helped to create and bring into this world. i hope i can continue to be the bestest mummy that i can be for her as she grows, so that she develops into the bright, inquisitive, happy little girl that it already seems she is destined to be. i love my Poppy so much :)

Springgggg

It feels like winter has lasted a long time this year, but today is officially the first day of spring and i'm so glad it's finally here. Today has been bright and warm and sunny, with the birds singing and all the daffodils coming out, and it really has felt like spring, so i'm hoping the weather is going to stay like this now and there won't be anymore nasty surprises (like snow - brrrrrr!).

Soon me and Sir are going to take Poppy to a farm for the first time so she can see all the animals, and i'm especially looking forward to seeing all the baby chicks and ducklings and lambs, and hoping that i can get to stroke and bottlefeed some of the lambs this year because i wasn't allowed last year due to being pregnant (apparently pregnant sheep and newborn lambs have a disease which can be passed onto unborn human babies). i am feeling very happy and contented at the moment and looking forward to all the exciting things still to come this year, like Easter, then returning to work, then Poppy's first birthday, then our wedding and honeymoon and my 30th birthday! Lots and lots of good things and now the pnd has gone i will be able to fully enjoy them - yayyyyyy. i've got a feeling 2009 is going to be a brilliant year. Happy spring everyone!!

Some of you might remember the surprise family photo session i arranged for Sir for valentine's day.... well the finished photos got delivered to our house today! i was sooooo excited cos i remembered how beautiful the photos were which we chose and all the example photos in frames they showed us looked absolutely fantastic. i was just hoping that our finished product would be worth the money we're paying out for it (on an interest free monthly payment plan cos we didn't want to fork it out all at once, though i did put a lump sum in as my contribution for Sir's present)......

And when we finally got to see our unique framed photos i nearly cried. They are stunning and capture us as a family perfectly - there's a big one of all 3 of us playing with the bubbles in the middle, then there's 2 smaller slots on either side, with the top ones being of me and Sir snuggling together and looking relaxed and content, and the bottom ones of Poppy on her own looking up at the bubbles and giggling happily. The frame is sleek and black and very stylish and the whole thing just looks wonderful up on the big wall in our lounge. It's something we will treasure for a long time, especially as Poppy gets older because it's a lasting memory of a happy day for our little family. The picture at the top gives an example of the type of style we got (except ours is all in the one frame with cutouts rather than separate frames). i'm sooooo glad i decided to get this done, it makes me smile everytime i look at it :)

It is real

Yeah, sorry to keep going on about this, but i just wanted to say once again for all those people out there who doubt the depth of the relationship between me and flame, don't see how we can be a 'proper' poly family, say that we're not really girlfriends, etc. because we're 'only' online and haven't made any other form of contact beyond that.... that this week has proved to me once again that what we have toegther is just as deep and true and real as any 'real-life' relationship i have even been in and a lot more enriching than many of them have been.

This week i have not seen flame at all, not since Sunday after her Sir session. i gather that she has been ill or sleeping or at doctor's appointments all week, but whatever the reason why she hasn't been on IRC when i have, it's made me miss her loads, and each day when i sit in the chatroom and she doesn't appear it makes me realise just how much i enjoy spending time with her, even if we're just catching up on our days and chatting about our D/s relationships and our training or our families or whatever. i really really hope she is ok and we can chat soon because it feels like there is a huge chunk of my life on hold at the moment.

Love you flame XX

Dreams

The past few nights, well actually ever since Sir started having the training update talks with me, i have been having some really vivid dreams. And while some of them are just nonsense and don't mean much, there has been a recurring theme to my dreams of the past few nights, so i thought i'd share it here....

In my dreams i am serving a Domme. Sometimes it is someone i don't know, but usually it is either someone from the chatroom (but i am with them in real-life) or it is Ma'am who i have met before and who will be doing my Domme training in real-life when Sir thinks i am ready. In the dreams i am always serving in a sexual sense or a submissive sense - i.e. giving Her a foot rub, or licking at her bottom - and i am always both enjoying it and feeling relaxed and confident about what i'm doing. And i always wake up from the dreams with a big smile on my face, feeling aroused. Infact Sir woke me up last night because apparently i was rubbing myself against His leg as i was having the dream *blush*.

The reason i wanted to post about this is because the way i am acting and feeling in the dreams is completely different to how i really feel about serving a Domme. Even online i am not at all confident about being with a Domme and i am really nervous abput progressing in the types of things i am expected to do when serving one. And when i think about the training i will be doing with Ma'am in real-life i get even more nervous and unsure of myself, even though i have no specific details about what will be involved yet. But i think it is a good thing that subconsciously i seem to believe that i can do it, and do it well, and enjoy myself whilst doing it. And i also think it is a good thing that i am dreaming about this topic so much recently because maybe it shows that i am ready to start forging ahead with this aspect of my training? At any rate i'm going to take the next few steps with Dommes online and see how i go.....

bits n bobs

Lots of things have been happening this week, but nothing substantial enough to write a blog post about, so i thought i'd lump them all together in this bits n bobs post!

Firstly, i can cross off something else on my 101 list, because while i was waiting for my wedding dress fitting appointment yesterday i wandered round town for a bit and went into one of the department stores and they had those massage chairs in which you can try out, so i did! It was slightly weird at first and one of the settings i didn't like cos it moved around too quick, but once i found a good setting it was lovely. Really expensive chairs though and not worth the money in my opinion, especially when you have a Sir who gives even better massages for free!

So as i already mentioned, i had my first fitting for the wedding dress yesterday, and it was even more beautiful than i remembered it being. It fitted really well, except for it was a little bit tight round my bewbies, but since i stopped breastfeeding they have gradually been shrinking so we are hoping they will shrink a lil bit more to fit in the dress. i still have a couple more fittings before the wedding so the dress can be altered if it needs to. They showed me the bridesmaids and flower girl dresses too and they are very pretty - their fittings are in a few weeks' time.

Talking of bewbies, which i kind of was..... since stopping breastfeeding Poppy Sir has started being rough with them again, and i'm finding that they're even more sensitive than they used to be, but in a good way. Once He starts manhandling them i don't want Him to stop and it makes me go all gooey and mushy and sooooo needy - *blush*.

Hmmm what else? Oh, i know! We had the first 'play date' round our house on Friday - since the postnatal support group has finished some of us mums agreed to carry on getting together, and it was our turn to host it. Because it was also Red Nose day we held a red nose party, where everyone had to wear red and we made red nose cakes and iced biscuits to eat and sell. The babies just enjoyed getting messy but us mums had a great time chatting and laughing and eating too! And speaking of babies - Poppy is developing so fast! She can say/sign a total of 12 words now and she is able to squirm on her tummy to get round the place, pretty fast too. If i start her off she will crawl for a few paces before stopping and sitting back, which is progress from before, so soon we think she will be crawling round by herself. She loves books, baths, music and animals, is very inquisitive and alert and is such a happy contented little girl :)

One more thing to write about in this hodge-podge. Sir said that as a result of me beating the pnd and getting to move my 'tackling big tasks' training to the completed section, He would buy me a little something as a reward. It turned out to be a special 'angel worry stone' which is a small clear glass stone with a purple angel shape inside. i can carry it round with me to remind me that Joshua is always with me and every night before i go to sleep i am to whisper all my worries to the stone, and my special angel will work on them whilst i sleep peacefully - nice idea huh?

Hope you enjoyed that little libby life update, proper posts to follow this week!

The wife thing

With all of the preparations for our wedding we have been making recently, becoming Sir's wife has been on my mind a lot. And then i read this blog post by Emma on the same subject and it got me thinking lots and lots about why i want to be Sir's wife as well as His slave, how things might be different after we are married, and which role will be more important to me.

Firstly, i think the slave part of my relationship and identity with Sir will always be the strongest and the one which primarily guides my actions. i would be happy to stay with Sir if He hadn't wanted to marry me, but i would find it much more difficult if He wanted me to be His wife but no longer His slave. The M/s is what our relationship is built on - with that in place i can get through anything, but take that away and i feel very shaky indeed and would start questioning whether it is right for me to stay there. Luckily i don't see Sir ever deciding to turn vanilla, so that shouldn't be an issue but just thinking about it shows me exactly where my priorities lie. i really can't imagine interacting with Sir on a vanilla level as equals, whereas i can quite happily imagine remaining His slave without ever getting married, so i guess that answers the question of which is most important to me.

After we are married i pretty much see things as carrying on as they are now. We already live together, we already have a child together, we already share money and pay bills and stuff like that together. It just means we will get more benefits once we are married and we will legally be joined, as well as feeling we already are joined as an M/s couple. i imagine myself being one of those old-style housewives, who cook and clean and take care of the house and children so that the husband can be looked after on His return from work. Yes, i might have a part-time job too, but i see my role as one of being subservient to, dependent on, and taking care of my Husband, who is very much the head of the household. He makes all the decisions, He controls the money (and makes most of it), etc. That's how i'd like it to be anyway, and i see no reason why it shouldn't work out like that. Of course, i'll keep all my slave rules, routines and trainings as well - but the old-fashioned housewife is how i would like vanilla observers to view how my new role works after i am married.

As to why i want to be Sir's wife as well as His slave, i've thought long and hard about this. Part of it was answered above when i concluded that i could still be happy being His slave but not His wife, but i couldn't if i were His wife but not His slave. One of the main reasons i want to marry Sir is to show the depth of our commitment to all our vanilla family and friends - the D/s friends already know it because of the collaring ceremony, but others don't and i want to prove it to them. Also because it's what is 'done' in our society and whilst i don't always want to conform to what society expects of me, in this case i do. i want to tell the world that i have found my 'One' for life, that i am taken, and that i am not looking or available for anyone else. Also i want Poppy to grow up in a family where her mummy and daddy are married to each other, because i think this sets a good role model for her to follow. Sorry if i offended any others out there who love differently, but i do still believe in marriage and what it represents and i want my children to grow up in a married family.

So there you have it - my current thoughts on what it will be like once i become a slave wife as well as a slave mummy. If anyone has any comments to add from personal experience i'd love to hear them :)

Journal prompts #1

Due to the death of the Thursday Question on luna's site (why weren't other people using them?), i have decided to switch over to the Submissive Journal Prompts - found here - to provide the questions for me to answer every Friday from now on. Today's one is this:

"Is a slave held to a higher standard of compliance than a submissive?"

i think generally in most D/s relationships the answer would be yes. It definitely is in mine and Sir's relationship because the physical act of agreeing to become His slave, of signing the contract and being collared by Him signified a step up to the next level of compliance, which we both understood before we took that step. Most subs would be expected to comply with a basic set of rules and boundaries within which their behaviour is modified and controlled to a certain extent. And i think there are times when a sub is expected to comply with everything her Dom asks of her - in a scene for example, once the limits have been established at the outset. And most subs would try to comply with pretty much everything their Dom asked of them unless there was a good reason, i think, because this is the essence of what submission is. But by being a sub rather than a slave they do keep the right to say "actually i have a problem with doing that because....." and would expect the Dom to listen to what they were saying and talk it through with them. Whereas a slave does not have that right any longer, and would have to carry out the order even if there was a problem, unless the Dom decided to listen and make allowances.

In most M/s relationships though i think there is some leeway for when genuine problems arise. But it can't just be that the slave doesn't feel like it or would prefer to do it a different way, or doesn't enjoy that task, or whatever. There would have to be a good, genuine, valid reason for the Master to even take it into consideration - such as a health issue. And even then in some relationships the slave wouldn't be allowed to voice their opinion, so they would have to get on with it despite the problem. i think in most things, there is more expected of a slave than a sub, just because of the contract and what they have agreed to. i tend to think that an all-encompassing compliance comes as part and parcel of being a slave and if you're not willing to give that then you shouldn't become a slave in the first place. A D/s relationship is much more fluid and changing than a M/s one because both parties are negotiating and compromising on a daily basis, but a M/s one tends to be more fixed and uncompromising - at least that's how i see it and experience it.

Anyone else have anything to add?

Resuming my training

During my battle with the pnd Sir eased off a lot on my training and didn't set me any new tasks to do because He said that i already had enough to deal with. Some days when i felt like keeping myself occupied i would choose to work on an aspect of my training, but to be honest it kind of fell by the wayside whilst i was being treated and recovering from the pnd. But now i'm feeling much better, back to my old self, so Sir has had several chats with me recently about my training, and this is what i am working on at the moment and in the near future:

~ the 'tackling big tasks' training which i've had for a while now is passed, because Sir says the way in which i tackled the pnd head on shows that i have definitely mastered this skill, and He is very proud of me! i won't be getting a charm for this, but Sir is going to get me a little something for being able to move this to the completed section of my training :)

~ the 'play with Dommes', 'extending play with subs', and 'ageplay' trainings i am to gradually resume online as i feel comfortable doing so, and then depending on how i get on Sir will decide when to move these into real-life as well. Before the pnd i was up to the stage of being ready to serve a Domme sexually and test out experiencing pain from the hands of a Domme, flirting and being touchy-feely with more subs and searching for some i could feel comfortable scening with, and trying out different forms of ageplay with Orpheus and Dream -so i need to get back into all these aspects now.

~ 'humiliation' is a new area which Sir wants to explore with me, but first He has set me the task of observing online humiliation scenes and then taking part in some with Doms i would feel comfortable doing this type of play with, before He moves it into real-life. i am a bit nervous about this, but will give it my best shot.

~ the 'cumming on demand' training is going to resume, as a general ongoing training as part of all of our play, though i am still allowed to cum r/l when scening online.

Sir has designated Wednesday afternoons and Sunday mornings as our new play/training times, as He gets home early on Wednesdays and Poppy is still round my mum's and my sister has Poppy on Sunday mornings. Feeling excited but a little nervous about getting back into the training properly again, but i think it will be good for me and i want to do well for Sir and become even better as His slave. Watch this space for updates!

Depression

i've been browsing through luna's new site - The Submissive Guide - which has some really great articles on it, and i came across one about balancing depression and submission. i know pnd is a different kind of depression from the kind that other people have, but it is similar, so i got to thinking about how i coped with being a sub during the time i had pnd and whether they affected each other.

luna's advice is to 'keep your routine', 'get out of bed' and 'ask for help'. The first one i did really well, and actually my routine as Sir's slave helped me deal with the pnd because it gave me guidelines for what i *had* to do and it made me feel safe and secure and like some things in my life were still the same even though i had been diagnosed with this big scary thing. And because Sir knows me so well, He realised that having a very strict set routine would be helpful for me in dealing with the pnd and getting myself through each day so He sat down with me and helped me work out a special weekly routine where i had activities like counselling, alternative therapies, visits from a Sure Start volunteer, libby time, etc. all scheduled in and it was the same routine every week so i got used to it. And by keeping me busy with all these scheduled things on my routine i didn't have that much time to mope around and feel sorry for myself, so that was really clever of Sir. So in this aspect i think being a sub helped me deal with the pnd because i am so conditioned to follow my slave routine that i automatically followed the new routine Sir set for me and didn't even think about not following it, so i was kept busy and also being helped by all the special activities that had been scheduled in for me.....

Wow that was a long paragraph! The second piece of advice - about getting out of bed - i also followed, but not really because of being a sub (although having certain things to do for Sir helped motivate me with that), it was more to do with the fact that i had Poppy to care for. Though i don't really remember ever having a problem with not wanting to get out of bed, so maybe pnd is different in that way or i didn't suffer with that particular symptom? The third piece of advice i didn't follow in the beginning though - i tried to hide the problem away from Sir and flame until they had to drag it out of me, because i hoped it might go away and i didn't want to become a burden on them. i've definitely learnt my lesson there and in future i hope it would go to either or both of them with any major problems that arose, but again i don't think this one is really related to me being a sub. i would have dealt with it in the same way had i been in a vanilla relationship.... i think.

Overall though i would say that being a sub made the pnd easier to deal with, and i prolly recovered from it quicker than i would have done in a vanilla relationship. It's hard for me to explain exactly why, but i think it's to do with the deep trust i have with Sir, the way i rely on Him to show me what to do, the way i follow everything He tells me to do, and discuss everything with Him. It just meant that it wasn't ever *my* problem to resolve, it was *our* problem, and if He was telling me to deal with it in a certain way, that's what i did. It made things so much simpler for me to know that things were out of my hands and being taken care of at a time that i really didn't have the energy or the resources to take care of things for myself anyway. i was lucky in that Sir relaxed some of the rules and most of my training during that time so i wasn't under pressure to *perform* but He kept enough of the routines and rituals in that i felt safe and secure and in familiar territory. Again i think this is unique to a D/s dynamic because Sir was only able to adapt things so perfectly to what i needed because of the practice He has had in interpreting my moods and reactions and in knowing what is best for me at all times.

That's my personal take on having depression within a D/s dynamic, but i'd be interested to hear from others who have experienced it and see whether they found their D/s role a help or a hinderence in dealing with their depression.

Thanks :)

Who would win in a fight between a bear and a shark?

I reckon the shark. Cos sharks can kill pretty much anything and also it would grab hold of the bear and pull it down under the water till it drowns.

Soooooo i'm trying out this new prompt thingy called Plinky, for those days when i just don't know what to write about. i know it's a vanilla blog prompt, but i'm hoping to get a bit of discussion going here and who knows? Maybe someone can find a way to relate it to BDSM! Please comment with your own views on this question, or whether you even found it at all interesting to read/think about cos i don't want to carry on doing them if i'm going to bore everyone to death.

Hmmmm

i didn't get as many votes as usual on my poll, but i've decided to close it and publish the results because i think everyone who's going to vote has by now. Just to remind everyone, it was about my hypothesised link between having a submissive nature and being too trusting. Here's the results:

33 people voted:-

~ 11 class themselves as submissive and naturally trusting

~ 7 as submissive and naturally suspicious

~ 6 as Dominant and naturally trusting

~ 2 as Dominant and naturally suspicious

~ 2 as submissive and neither

~ 2 as Dominant and neither

~ 1 as other and naturally trusting

~ 1 as other and naturally suspicious

~ 1 as other and neither

So although the most number of votes was for 'submissive and naturally trusting' because of the quite high number of Dom/mes who seem to also be naturally trusting and the quite high numbers of subs who seem to be naturally suspicious, i wouldn't say this poll was very conclusive. So either there is no link between being submissive and being too trusting, or we would need to get a lot more votes in order to see the pattern. i still think there prolly is some link there, at least for some types of subs, but i guess it would be difficult to ever prove it. Keeps my brain ticking over though!

Also, i'm soooo sorry not to have posted here for a while, but since i got rid of the pnd properly i seem to be super busy all the time and the days just fly by. In a way it's a good thing because i'm occupied and enjoying myself with Poppy and Sir and also taking time for myself, but i'm not happy about the way i've been neglecting this blog recently so i'm going to try to rectify that - promise!