Happy New Year...And A Little Reflection...

Happy New Years...

I have noticed most everyone I read has already put up their Happy New Year posts, so I am late to the party, but here goes!

I want to wish everyone who reads my blog and whose blogs I read a very Happy New Year.  I hope the upcoming year brings you everything you have wished for...even those deep down wishes that you have never expressed to anyone...even yourself (because sometimes those are the most important).  I wish you all love, happiness, success, and joy throughout 2013, and for all the years to come.  

I wish you great blogs to read, wonderful partners to play with, abiding love to cherish, amazing family moments to remember long into old age, and the sweetest of dreams in the darkest of nights.  You are all special to me, because, like my BD, you allow me to be who I am....and I am grateful for that.

And A Little Reflection...

Tonight, for me, has an aspect of sadness, as well as joy.  Much of my sadness comes from the fact that BD and I are not able to be physically together right now.  He is so much a part of me that it is hard to go through day to day life without seeing him.  My life was not all that it could be without him in it.  My heart had a hole exactly his size in it, and until I had him, that hole was never filled.  Now it is...but something is still missing.  His presence, his voice in my ear first thing in the morning, the feel of his hand caressing my hair in the middle of the night.  While I miss having a sex life (oh, Lord, do I MISS having a sex life!), that is such a small part of what makes me miss him.  His kindness, the love for me that I can see in his eyes and his heart every time he looks at me, his determination that I will not be my own worst enemy, his absolute and total belief in me and in the knowledge that I can accomplish anything I dream about.  Fixing coffee for him in the mornings.  Cooking his meals, so that I know he is eating healthy.  Loving him up close, instead of at a distance, because I know he is so alone where he is. 

We were able to talk on the phone tonight, which really boosted my spirits....while we were on the phone and for about an hour afterward.  After that, unfortunately, there was a crash...spirits falling to the ground at high speeds.  I'm not really sure why.  He has promised me two phone calls tomorrow...the first being at 9 a.m., so I really should be thrilled!  But I am not.  I miss him.  I miss him in ways I can't even describe, because they hurt too much.  He is the one person still living in this world who has faith in me no matter what, who trusts me beyond measure, who is proud of me every day....even when I am not proud of myself.  He SEES me like no one has ever been able to see me before.  He told me tonight that he knows me so well because I am his passion, his obsession, and his dream....it's his job to study me, and his joy.  That makes me feel so humbled....and so blessed to be a part of his world.  To me, he is happiness, peace, safety, and love...and I miss him....so much.

Moving On Before I Completely Lose It....

New Years is always a time of resolutions, but I don't think I am going to make any concrete ones.  There are things I want to do in 2013:  Lose weight, Stop Smoking, Get Published.  But every single year, I make resolutions, and like most of the world, I give up on them by February (if I even make it that far!).  So this year, I am trying something new.

I found the above icon and it speaks to me.  I have so many goals, so many things I dream about and want to accomplish, but I have NO OOMPH!  (Definition:  OOMPH - the thing inside you that makes you put yourself out there, that makes you take the steps to accomplish your goals, instead of sitting back and wanting them without ever making any progress.)  I don't know if it is caused by a laziness gene, my tendency to procrastinate, or perhaps the absolute fear....the fear of ACCOMPLISHING my goals, which is ALMOST as strong as the fear of NOT accomplishing them.  Or perhaps it is depression....who really knows.  All I know is that the OOMPH is not there, and I need to get some! 

So...instead of making concrete resolutions, I have decided that the statement on the above icon is something I want to begin living by.  I want to go after what I want!  I want to ask for what I desire!  And I want to take, not just the first step, but all the steps to get me there!

So here I go, world!  Or, should I say here I come!

Happy New Year Everyone!!!

Cassaundra

I've Got It!!!

Finally, after HOURS of thinking about this (I say, tongue in cheek, because I just brought this up in my last blog post last night), I have figured out what I am going to call my meme!  Thank you to Fondles, Phoenix, and faerie for the support!

I have decided to call my new weekly meme Sentimental Sundays.  I feel this gives me some room on days when I don't have an appropriate vintage picture I want to use to be able to use other pictures that make me sentimental or make me feel something that I want to talk about.

Sentimental:    
     a : marked or governed by feeling, sensibility, or emotional idealism

     b : resulting from feeling rather than reason or thought

This really captures where I wanted to go with this weekly post, so that is what I am going with!  

If anyone else would like to join me in doing this on Sundays, I would love to have you!  I am going to work on creating an icon to put on my page for it, so I'd be happy to share it with you once I am done!

CRAP!!!!!  

I just googled it, and it is already being used as a meme by other people AND it is the name of a blog!  Back to the drawing board....

To be continued.....

Starting A Special Weekly Post...and a Merry Christmas to All!

Hello to everyone, welcome back, and Merry Christmas to one and all!  I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and spent tons of time with your loved ones.  My Christmas was pretty good.  I spent it with my brother, my sister, her husband, her baby, and her husband's family.  They are truly great people (although her brother in law kind of drives me crazy because he lets his wife run all over him...she treats him so badly and I hate it, because he really is a good guy!) and just accepted us into their family just because their son married our sister.  With our own family being the way it is, that is really a blessing to us all. 

Now, I have noticed that a lot of people have special kinds of posts they do on certain days of the week (think along the lines of "Whiny Wednesdays", "Meme Mondays", that kind of thing), and I want to do that, too...I have decided I want to have a certain day of the week that I post vintage type pics and discuss how the picture or the phrase on the picture relates to my life at that specific time.  (Wow...when I type it, it sounds kind of dumb...but believe me, it sounds AWESOME in my head!!!  Typing it out makes it sound kind of serious....but I'm not sure if it will be!)  My problem is, I have NO IDEA what to call it!  That's where you, my beloved blogger buddies, come in! 

I really need some more brains helping me out with this.  Maybe it is the fact that my brain is VERY tired from the holidays and family time, or maybe it is the lateness of the hour...or maybe it's just that this is hard!!!  LOL!  So, I would like to request some help.  If you think of a good name for this type of post, please email me or post it in the comments.  I think I have decided to do it on Sundays (of course, that is open, based on the name I settle on), but that is just because it is easier for me to schedule things on Sundays.

I also want to start doing some of the ones that other people do...but I don't know how that works here in blogland.  I don't know if I need to ask someone's permission to start doing it, or if there is a particular person who started particular ones that I need to...I don't know...sign up with or something?  If anyone knows how this kind of thing works, some advice in this area would be appreciated as well!  :-)

Other than that, I am just spending some time catching up on other blogs, trying to find more writing jobs, and getting ready to send a MASSIVE letter to BD that I have worked on every single day for the last week.  In it, I talk about some stuff that I want to address here in my blog, but that will be for another day....cause I am tired!!! 

Thanks everyone in advance for your help!  Have a great night, and I will be back to post something with some substance (well, MAYBE with some substance!) when I wake up!

*hugs

Cassaundra

Taking a little break...

Hello everyone.  I just wanted to let everyone know that this afternoon I am going to my sister's house to spend the next few days (Christmas, basically) with the family.  My darling sister lives in the middle of FREAKING nowhere and has no internet access.....so starting this afternoon, I will be gone until after Christmas.  I will still be checking in on blogs and emails until sometime this afternoon/evening....then I will be incommunicado....

Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas, and I'll see you when it's over!

Submission and Responsibility...

I have been spending the last couple of days reading blogs and learning how others live this lifestyle.  While some of those people and I have a near identical vision of our lives, some don't.  And that's okay....

But I have noticed that perhaps I have a different outlook on what it means to be a sub than some other subs do....Some subs and their Doms believe that there is no responsibility on the part of the sub for any issue.  And that's fine, if they both feel that that is right for them...but it seems awfully hard on the Dom, in my opinion.  I do not in any way intend with this post to demean or otherwise criticize anyone else's choices or lifestyle, and I hope no one takes offense to anything said here, because it was not intentional.

I love BD and want him to be happy always....with life, with himself, and with me.  We both know that he will make mistakes in this journey, as will I.  But I don't understand the mindset that any mistakes that are made are his responsibility.  Now, if a mistake is made that he could have prevented or that truly IS his fault, then I have no problem with him taking the full Dom responsibility for that....but if I make a mistake or do something to bring sadness to him, that is not his fault and he should not feel badly for it.  Of course, being BD, he will anyway...he will feel that I made a wrong choice because he did not guide me sufficiently into making the right one....or that if I act out, perhaps it is because he is not giving me what I need....and in some cases, this is correct to a point....but it is also because I made the wrong choice or because I chose to act out instead of communicating (which, I have to say, I do regularly, for two reasons:  1. because sometimes it is hard for me, as a sub, to ask for something I need...it is easier to act out and 2. because there is a brat in me who enjoys acting out...and BD loves her and likes to see her on occasion!)  There should be blame placed on me, as well.  

I have many responsibilities as a sub, in my opinion.  Many of those revolve around what I do and how I behave, both in public and in private, for BD, but they also include taking responsibility for the choices I make.  Many people outside this lifestyle believe that subs have no choices.  Maybe some don't.  I do and I feel I should take responsibility when those choices turn out badly...not just when all goes well.  After all, that's one of the things a good spanking is for, right?????  :-D

During my blog hopping, I found an amazing woman at an amazing blog and want to share something she wrote.  I asked her if I could link to it here, and luckily she said yes.  I did not, however, ask if I could post it here, so I am just going to link to her profile and her blog page.  It is called Submissive's Creed...and it is WONDERFUL!

Kitty

The Submissive's Creed

I hope you all go and read it...again, it is wonderful!

Thanks for reading!

Cassaundra (with a collar!)

Feminism and the D/s Relationship...

I have been gone for a little over a week and I have missed you all so!  Between illness, children, internet issues, and more, my presence here has been a little spotty.  But I am back now and feel that there is something I need to address.

I have just responded to a comment on my post One Dom's Outlook with the longest comment I believe I have ever made on a blog in my life.  While I was gone, someone from one of the forums that I am a member of made a comment on this post anonymously ( I KNEW I should have disabled anonymous comments!), which drives me crazy.  If you feel strongly enough about a subject to comment on it, then you should be man (or woman) enough to stand behind it proudly, name and all!  While many of us use nicknames or pseudonyms on the internet, at least we use them!  Am I the only one who finds it cowardly to post argumentative, slightly inflammatory comments on someone's blog while hiding behind the "anonymous" banner?

However, that is the smallest thing about this comment that bothered me.  The bigger issue is that he/she (I gathered the impression that it was a she) completely (perhaps intentionally?) overlooked the true meaning behind the post and simply attacked BD's statements about feminism.  Therefore, after addressing it in my reply to him/her, I felt the need to discuss it here as well.  

BD did make the statement that feminism/women's lib has robbed women of their place.  Perhaps, due to the fact that he was originally addressing me in this conversation and not the entire world of the internet, he did not explain himself as fully as he would have had he known ahead of time that I was going to use his statements in my blog.  I know where he was going with this statement, because he and I have had this discussion many times before.  He is not in any way saying that every woman's place is in the home (or as dear anonymous stated, "under their husband's heel/belt.").  He is stating that we have been robbed of the choice to be the kind of women our grandmothers were.  Feminism has taught women that we are equal to (although sometimes it has gone as far as to say "better than") men in all areas of life and that we should fight tooth and nail to be able to do all things that men do.  It has taught us that NOT wanting that is wrong.  Perhaps this was not the original goal, but it has become the societal outcome.  Before feminism got a toe-hold, women who wanted to work in typically male oriented fields were ridiculed and even assaulted for their desires.  While there are a great number of women throughout history who have flaunted convention successfully, there are an equal number who have been devastatingly punished for their audacity.  It seems the tables have turned, and now we are ridiculed if we don't want to be "the breadwinners, the Alpha Female, the ball-buster, because feminism has "given" us all the right to do that, along with the expectation that that is what we should want and something is wrong with us if we don't want it."  (I put this in quotations, not because I didn't write it, but because it is a direct quote from  my reply to the comment from anonymous.)

I believe in equality between the sexes, but I believe in it in the way it was seen in the middle ages.  I don't know where this phrase comes from originally, because I have seen it in so many places, but it completely sums up how I feel about feminism and it's place in our society:

“Equal in dignity, different in function” 

Women are not made identical to men.  While I wholeheartedly accept the right of any woman in the world do go out and be whoever she wants to be, I do not personally want to be the woman who is known for being able to carry as heavy a load as the men she works with.  I do not personally want to be known as the woman who has killed just as many enemy soldiers as her male counterparts.  I do not personally want to be the woman who is called ruthless in business and has brokered just as many deals as the rest of the guys in the office.  If you do want to be known as one of those women, congratulations on your strength, your bravery, your business acumen, and I truly and sincerely hope for you every happiness to be had in life.  Can't you simply wish me the same, even though my goals are more historically feminine goals? 

Kids and Your Lifestyle...How Does It Work?

Hello all.  Every week, my one year old nephew (one year and five months, to be exact) comes to my house and spends Thursday night to Saturday with me.  I love it!  My sister is ten years younger than me and never wanted to have kids.  This means she never babysat, never spent time with young children or babies, and at least I knew she was having safe sex!  But then she got married....then she got pregnant....and she loves this baby boy more than life itself!  However, once she found out she was pregnant, she began asking me to make arrangements to come and stay with her after the baby was born to help her until she was comfortable with him.  Well, that "arrangement" lasted for a year.  I have been out of her house for five months....and I miss the little guy all the time!  So this visitation schedule works great for us.

But having him here has brought up a question for me.  BD and I do not currently live together, and neither of us have kids.  I have helped other people raise their kids, raised people's kids for them, and babysat my tail off....but have none of my own.  So I have no frame of reference for adding kids into a lifestyle that is already set and is BDSM (or at the very least, D/s) oriented.

How have you made this transition?  Are your kids aware of what is going on, or is it kept more subtle in front of them and the serious stuff reserved for private time?  I can't imagine NOT saying "Yes, Sir", among other things, and wonder how this dynamic changes (or doesn't) when children come into the picture.  BD and I do not restrict our lifestyle to our bedroom....this is a true life for us.

Thanks, everyone!  As I think more and more about my life once I have married BD, these kinds of questions get stuck in my brain and I can't get them out!