Yet another reflective post, this one about how well i kept last years' resolutions and setting new ones for this year. But i think it's the time of year to be reflective and thoughtful isn't it? And i know i always do much better when i have some goals to strive towards, so i think this is an important process for me. Oh, Happy New Year everyone! i prolly should have said that at the beginning, but my mind is kind of everywhere at the moment. Anyway, here goes...My resolutions for last year were:
#1. to blog frequently, aiming for at least 25 posts per month.
#2. to spend more quality time with flame.
#3. to beat the pnd thing, get rid of it completely and move on.
but #1. then got changed to:
to maintain a healthy balance between my 'slave', 'mummy', 'wife' and 'nursery nurse' roles.
Of the 3 amended resolutions i feel that i have kept #1 and #3 really well. i was signed off by my therapist and doctor as recovered from the post-natal depression back in February, and since then there have been no signs of relapses or anything like that. If anything, i have continued to grow in happiness and contentment since then, apart from the usual bad days which everyone gets. When i look back on it now it's almost like it was someone else who battled through the pnd, not me, because it's hard for me to imagine feeling like that when i have such a wonderful family to love and support me. i'm just hoping that it doesn't return after the birth of our next baby.
As part of beating the pnd, and a continuation of last year, i also feel that i have done really well in balancing out and fulfilling all the many different roles and responsibilities that i have. i think i am a good mummy to Poppy and manage to devote enough time to her for her to be happy, healthy, thriving and ahead with her development. i think i have also settled into my new role of 'wife' pretty good, although to be honest there hasn't been a big change from what i was doing before. i have coped well with going back to work part-time, and have been able to give my full focus to the children whilst i am there (i was a bit worried that i would be too distracted wondering if Poppy was ok, but that hasn't been the case as i know she is just down the corridor and in good hands), and i have been finding time at weekends to plan and prepare for sessions. And i feel that i have developed further as Sir's slave this year, completed some parts of my training (particularly in the humiliation and play with Dommes categories) even if i didn't actually get any signed off as 'passed'. It's been difficult to find the time for training this year, hence the slow progress, and i guess next year will be the same, but i do hope to get at least some aspects 'passed' in 2010. We'll see...
The resolution i didn't do so well on this year was spending more time with flame. We had a couple of patches this year where we seemed to be lacking the usual connection between us, where we drifted apart for a while, but each time we have sat down and chatted about it and mended things between us. There's plenty of reasons why we haven't been able to spend as much time together as i would have hoped for - including illness and health problems on flame's part, me being too focused on working on my training in the chatrooms rather than talking to her, flame getting collared by a new online Master and needing to spend time with Him, preparations for the wedding and returning to work being on my mind and distracting me too much, etc, etc. But all of those are really excuses, and i want to make a better effort this year to deepen my relationship with flame. Online is the only method of contact we have, so i need to really try hard to spend quality time with her when we're both in the chatroom together. Otherwise i run the risk of losing her, and that's definitely something i don't want.
OK, onto resolutions for this year:
#1. to deepen my relationship with flame by spending more quality time with her whenever possible. As part of this i will try to ensure that she gets first dibs on me when we are both in channel, that i make the effort to sit with her and chat with her and flirt and scene with her, and also that i try out other methods of keeping in touch such as sending cards and letters.
#2. to extend my use of this blog to help me deepen in my slavery. i want to comment more on other blogs, use more questions and surveys and quizzes, put up polls and analyse the results, reflect more on things i've read or other people's posts, take part in discussions, etc. i feel like sometimes this year my blog has got a bit stale and boring, and when i read back through it it wasn't as useful to me in documenting my thoughts and feelings and progress as it has been in other years, so i need to get back to that.
#3. to be more proactive in my slave training and seek out ways in which i can develop myself. i intend to spend more time working on the areas that Sir has set me, even when it's not an official training time, and i want to think of ways in which i can develop myself as His slave - by researching and reading, by practicing things, by learning new skills, by thinking of new ways to serve Him. i realise that this year i have put too much emphasis on Sir training me, when really i should be using His guidance to help train myself, so that's what i want to do next year.
So there they are, my new resolutions. As part of these, especially 2 and 3 i would really appreciate questions, discussion topics, ideas, etc. so please feel free to leave these in comments. And good luck to everyone else who makes resolutions!




Answering the usual questions about this year, like i did for 
i keep writing a post and then thinking of more things to add - it seems the pregnancy hormones are fuzzling my brain already! Over the Christmas holidays i have been able to cross off some more items on my 101 list:
So i went to the doctor this morning, and he confirmed that i am pregnant. From my dates, he reckons i will be due about 8th September but that could be amended once i start being scanned and stuff (like it did last time). i told him that the line on the pregnancy test was a lot stronger than last time with Poppy even though i did the test at the same point in my cycle, and he said that shows this baby is eager to come because it prolly means that i ovulated earlier in my cycle and the baby settled into the womb earlier too :)
Somehow Christmas seems to have snuck up on me this year, because all of a sudden it was here, and now just as suddenly it's all over and done with. But i wanted to take the time to write about our family Christmas because we really did have a lovely one this year.
Recently someone on another blog (can't remember who and can't find it now, which is really annoying) wrote about how sometimes they wished they were 'wired' differently, i.e. they wished they could be non-kinky and not feel compelled to act in certain ways. i think that was the gist of it anyway, because i've spent a long time thinking about this since so it might be a bit muddled by my own thoughts. But basically my question was/is 'would it be better to be wired differently, to be vanilla?'
Just a quick postto tell everyone how incredibly proud i am of my little girl, and how everyday she does something to amaze and surprise me.
In not such great news i have a new lesson in 'libby's learning folder' related to the
Today our nursery is closed because of the snow, so Poppy and i are now officially on Christmas holidays! (The nursery is open next week, right up till Christmas eve, but not my unit because it operates during school term-time only, but i booked Poppy that week off ages ago because i wanted some time to get me and her all nice and prepared for Christmas this year, especially as i'm attempting to cook the Christmas dinner myself for the first time ever!) Sir has gone into work today, but He says He'll prolly come home early especially if it snows some more as our driveway goes through the middle of a farmer's field so can be quite tricky to negotiate in the snow.
....... when your Master makes a decision that you are really desperately unhappy with?
** i started writing this post a few weeks ago at the beginning of November, but never got around to finishing it, so decided to leave the first paragraph as it is and then add to it. Hope that won't get too confusing!**
So as promised, here's an update on the '101' list, which for those who don't know is a list i compiled of 101 things i wanted to achieve in 1001 days - it's in the sidebar to view if you want to! Recently i have been able to cross a few more items off the list, namely:
First you really should go and check out the post which initially sparked this musing in my mind, over at Chloe's
i just had to share what Poppy did today, because it's one of those classic moments when you're bringing up children which you just couldn't make up if you tried......
i asked for readers to leave questions at the end of my last post and 3 of you did, which i'm really pleased about, so i'm going to answer those questions here:
Stole these questions from Roles Defining Rules (
Recently i've found myself in a really good headspace. Ignoring the swine flu week, which left me feeling down and low and lonely, i've been feeling like i've got my life in balance and am doing my best in all aspects of my life at the moment - as a slave, as a wife, as a mother, as a nursery nurse, as a friend. Of course, i could always do with more time - to serve Sir, to play with Poppy, to keep on top of the housework, to spend with flame, to visit my family, to work on my training, to prepare activities for the children at work - but i feel that i am doing my best with the time i've got and am managing to keep on top of all aspects of my life without neglecting any area.
Being ill with the swine flu this week has really brought home to me what is important in my life - Sir and flame, but most of all Poppy. On the doctor's advice, i wasn't allowed to be in the same room as her all week, and definitely no cuddles or kisses because she wasn't supposed to get nearer than 3 metres while i was ill. So the most i could do was wave to her in the doorway when Sir brought her in to say 'goodnight' to me, and i found it very very upsetting.
So i spent a week recovering from the swine flu, and it was a pretty miserable week - i spent most of it in bed or laying on the sofa feeling rotten and not wanting to eat anything, having no energy at all, and not allowed to get too close to Poppy incase i infected her. But Sir has been looking after me real good, and my mum has helped out with Poppy all week, and different people have been spending time with me to make sure i didn't get lonely while Sir was at work. And i've been taking the tamiflu, and drinking lots and trying to eat as much of the food i could that Sir has been bringing me.
i've been diagnosed with swine flu :( Yesterday i woke up feeling really rubbish and it continued throughout the day - shivery cold but with moments of becoming really hot and sweating, sore throat with a cough, headache, aching all over, no appetite at all and very very tired. i actually slept most of the day, then in the evening Sir made me go on the swime flu website and we took the online questionnaire thingy and i had all the symptoms except for a temperature (though i did have a fever), so the website said it was 'very likely' that i had swine flu, which Sir got confirmed when He phoned the out-of-hours doctor straight after. i've been given a number for Sir to take to the nearest antiviral collection point on Monday and then i will start taking Tamiflu to try to reduce some of the symptoms. i'm actually feeling a little bit better today than yesterday, not quite so tired at least which is good, but i'm prolly going to be out of action for this week at least :(

i realised when i read the last post back that it might seem a bit weird that i was pissy all day yesterday, and yet it was only when i went into the bondage chatroom and spent time with someone who i don't really know that well, that i managed to finally chill out. Some people might be wondering why i wasn't able to chill out with Sir's help earlier in the day, and i wanted to make sure that people know it's nothing to do with Sir, it isn't that He doesn't care or doesn't try to help me when i am feeling pissy, but we have both learnt from experience that if anything it only makes it worse because then i get to feeling that i have failed as His slave, that He shouldn't be spending His time trying to cheer me up, that i should be trying to make Him happy not the other way round, and then my mood normally gets even worse.
... i can't submit properly to a Domme when i'm feeling even a little bit pissy. Yesterday i was feeling pissy on and off throughout the day, and even though Sir kept asking me i had no reason why and couldn't figure out what was making me feel that way. By the end of the evening i was feeling much more relaxed, mainly due to the attentions of a nice Dom in channel who snuggled with me and made me feel better. But when i woke up this morning the pissiness came gradually creeping back in, so i asked Sir if maybe we could cancel the session with Ma'am today. However Sir refused to cancel it for that reason, so i had to go ahead with it.