I hate the loopy johnny.

Hello blogland, looks like I'll be up all night and it's not entirely my fault. Each year of my 30s has triggered various protests from my body. One medication or lifestyle change might cure one ailment while setting off another issue. This time, it's insomnia. 

Since I can hardly vacuum or clean in the dead of the night, I suppose I can manage to write uninterrupted.

DD is alive and well, while not front burner. My smart mouth and eye rolls often aren't dealt with. He forgets by the time we go to bed and I'm not really sure if it happened that evening or two days ago. I forget to do things he's told me to do, but not out of outright defiance... just our life in the first six weeks of a school year.

But lest I get too comfortable, there are things that cause Dominic to pause everything for to make a spanking happen. Like showing the bull red, I can make choices that tell him "spank this girl NOW." There were several moments during the most recent spanking where my stomach dropped and "oh shit" went through my head.  Not because it was so horrible, Dominic isn't cruel or insane. Dominic's confidence that spanking me was good for me, for us, and exactly what I needed put me in a very good submissive headspace. Hundreds of spankings ago, I'd have to give Dominic reassurance that I wasn't going to break, encourage him to keep spanking, or spank harder. We talked through that mental journey that happens when he gets bossy, growly, and tells me to bend over. But this time, when I jumped or wiggled,  he didn't stop. He knows I can handle a harsh spanking. He knows I need and want him to spank firmly, even when I sort of don't! (Only a submissive partner can understand that dichotomy!)

I jumped forward when he switched from his belt to the *%#$! loopy johnny.

Thankfully, we only own ONE.

Cane-Iac claims this implement is made to be both loved and feared. That is False.

No love here. No love at all. I do not love to hate it. I know it's silent and this infraction absolutely warranted severe implements. But just let me express how much I hate it. It's not like it's appropriate for me to lament how sore an implement makes me to my husband who uses them! 😂 You know that mixed feeling you might get about implements you love to hate? It hurts plenty and you get butterflies thinking about it, but at the same time it's a good hurt and puts you in a really good submissive spot? Or maybe the image of your partner using it is a turn on?

It's not like that. At. All.

I dread it. It's an incredibly effective deterrent. Dominic barely puts any swing behind it and I am clawing the sheets. I am in tears after maybe three swats.  I have a fairly decent pain tolerance too! Do you have an intense addictive habit you're trying to quit like say, cocaine? Order this implement. You'll be able to quit cold turkey. 

Anyway, Dominic didn't stop. He knew he was doing exactly what I needed. Jumping forward gave him a better angle for my thighs so they got some very painful motivation to get my butt back into position.

It took about three days before I quit feeling this spanking. Driving the next morning was miserable. (I guess it would defeat the purpose of not whining to ask Dominic if there are bonus points for not whining.)

I'd like to be more intentional with submission and wish we weren't both so spent by the end of the day. I wish we both had more energy and margin in the day to be disciplined with maintenance and discipline for smaller infractions. We both would benefit from that time together doing things that encourage growth in our roles.

But even with the day to day grind and attitude I often get, I defer to Dominic and am mindful of his preferences. When I've blatantly crossed an important line, we find our roles. A few nights later, we made cheap cocktails and ate junk food while watching an incredibly stupid movie. The connected, light feeling days that follow a punishment remind me why we keep doing this, why it's worth making time and energy for.

Even if it means gritting my teeth for that blasted implement. 😖😱

What's your "why"

I know it's popular on social media to post your why for working out, selling a product, etc. This is my PSA to regularly re-visit your why. Dominic and I have settled habits and routines that work well for us. He mainly handles getting bills paid each month but we've got a budget that we both understand.  It works really well from day to day. Until it doesn't. We haven't re-visited the budget in a long time and unintentionally found ourselves in a dynamic where we weren't regularly discussing things as they changed. Life is hectic and obviously it's not that exciting. As childcare expenses changed, things got paid off, or expenses added I'd do the math in my head and know where we were. But I didn't look at Dominic's spreadsheet to see what adjustments actually got made to various debts and interest payoffs that he calculates.

That key piece of information makes is really hard to jointly make the BIG decisions like whether or not to buy a house or what kind of cars to get. Those are decisions we've got to be on the same page on and while I trust Dominic's judgement, when we were coming from really different places I suddenly felt like the decision was ALL his to make. And when we're talking about a house or car, that's something we've BOTH really got to be comfortable with. Even if we didn't end up where I originally wanted to be, it's not a healthy place for either partner to think their desires were completely ignored or not important.

Dominic and I really don't fight. But by the time we hashed through all of the big stuff of where to live, I was feeling murderous. Yes, health conversations led us to decide who would handle the bills. But we didn't continue those healthy conversations so we both understood what was going on. While I defer to him on a lot of things, we've never ever had a dynamic where he would make those decisions without discussing things with me. My lack of interest in the bills unintentionally made him think I didn't want to hear about it and little by little, things would happen that I had no awareness of. He certainly didn't intend to do things without talking to me -- he thought he was doing what I wanted.  Dominic was stunned by my anger because, to his credit, he was working very hard to figure out how to make the things I thought were best for our family work for us.  But I never intended for him to figure it out alone.

Somehow the areas we each handle became our own little universes. Because we weren't talking about any of them. We've been in survival mode for so long, those conversations seemed like luxuries.   They really aren't though... the boring conversations become explosive hurtful conversations.

PSA: talk about the boring stuff. Even when you'd rather stab yourself in the eye than look at spreadsheets.