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By Serenity Everton, February 24, 2010 10:04 am

I know I said my next entry would be about cayenne pepper oil, but it’s not. So there.

Really, this isn’t a blog entry at all. It’s a shout out, to Casey Morgan. If you don’t read supplicium post mortem, and are brave enough to read about loving, and losing and grieving, today’s the day.

So, get a tissue, and read about her 9th anniversary. And about her wedding day, and some of the things that happened in between.

If you don’t know why her blog has its name, you will before the end.

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By Serenity Everton, February 22, 2010 9:17 am

At 4:30 on Sunday, Chris came home from a 3-day trip, gave hugs, disappeared for 3 minutes and came purposefully into the kitchen as I was heating the oven and unwrapping the take-and-bake pizzas he had brought home with him.

He fiddled in the spice cabinet, as he often does, and behind me the princess ran in with a paper full of stickers to show him. She’s plastered hearts & hamsters over a sheet of blank white paper and was planning to present it to her bestest ‘boy’ friend. “Look Dad!” she said, then asked  with a wrinkle in her nose, “What’s that?”

With a perfectly straight face, he answered, “Cayenne pepper oil.”

“Ew,” she said, as my heart quaked a bit.

Once she had disappeared, he came up behind me and said, “Just let that sit on the counter.”

“And when she asks what it is for,” I muttered, “What do I tell her? For your pizza?”

He raised a brow, hmphed, and pinched my backside. “Oh, I’m going to use it later, but I haven’t decided for sure where. That will depend on your behavior, young lady.”

Oh dear. Welcome home.

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By Serenity Everton, February 17, 2010 12:12 pm

I’ve never tried blogging from my phone before. First, I can’t type the traditional way on the phone’s QWERTY keyboard and that slows down word production. I assume it will also shorten the word count but am not about to embark on a scientific study to prove it.

In any event, this is probably the only way I will produce any sort of blog entry this week so that’s how it is. I still can’t work out commenting on blogs from the blackberry browser though. That means I have failed to properly and lovingly gush over Punishment Book’s five year history and its amazing coven of contributors. Honestly, I’d rather chat with all of them in my living room (or one of theirs) than the second but also important exchange of blog musings, even if such a chat would likely produce a spate of real-life spankings to then report.

Neither have I – at least online – welcomed Iris’s wee urchin to the world. I do know he’s keeping Iris busy, although not quite busy enough to shut her mind completely down. I can’t wait to meet him beyond the confines of fiber-optic technology. I think I might also like to watch Iris nurse, although that’s a bit sadistic of me. Of course those that know me very well already suspected I have a sadistic streak, hm? I’m not good at the enforcing of sadism, but I sure can like watching someone I like voluntarily suffer.

It wasn’t too long ago that Chris took a very long time and thrashed me very thoroughly. And in a nice way.

What was nice about it?

Oh. Red leather cuffs. Being pushed to my knees. Biting. Orgasming. Fucking. The things that might be classed as Not Quite So Nice included the delrin-filled hairbrush paddle and a London Tanners strap. Sheesh. It still hurt hours upon hours later.

Since then, Less Than Splendid life has intruded on my haze of happiness. Chris’s Valentines present did not arrive in time for Valentine’s Day. I seem to have misplaced (or, forgotten where I hid) the spreader bar that goes with that bondage set. The princess came home from school with two pink eyes. Chris is leaving for the weekend just in time to miss my monthly bout with PMS. AND he gets to meet the wee urchin before I do.

I’m trying not to pout but it’s hard.

Maybe tonight he’ll get his valentine. And I’ll get my smile back…

[written last night on my phone... published.... now!]

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By Serenity Everton, February 11, 2010 6:01 pm

Things that are going on…

– Punishment Book is five years old. FIVE. Wow!

– I had 1500 e-mails in my/sparkle’s inbox a few weeks ago. I’ve been spending a little time every day paring them down. Deleting them. Sorting them. Filing them into nice little file folders in the sidebar. I’m down to just over 500 now. It’s been … somewhat memorable. But, then, why didn’t I just delete/move them as I got them? Silly of me.

– Visiting family members have departed, followed by a frank self-assessment that I thrive in a relatively organized and somewhat quiet environment.

– I miss my friends. I like family, and babies and toddlers and all, but I’d like to see my friends again. That includes many of you who read this blog everyday. I’m looking forward to getting out and being grown-up in March, hopefully meeting some (more) of you, seeing old friends, and would love to spend hours chatting.

– I’m having trouble focusing on work, which I should be doing now. Sometimes working from home reduces productivity, you know? But a home office does make the 10-hour work days more bearable when they come along. Actually, I’m having trouble focusing on anything. Even blogging. Hence the “random thoughts.”

– I haven’t written much lately about the books I’ve been reading. The men in the romances have been a bit wishy-washy. They have the words but don’t follow it up with actions when it relates to their females, and can be led around by their, er, phallic attachments. Penises, of course! Of the serious literature, I had nothing pertinent to say about Uncle Tom’s Cabin. More than I could ever say has already been written about it, anyway. The princess’s current chapter book Kit’s Story Collection about life during the Depression when people lost their homes and their jobs and their children were thrown out in the street is frankly damn depressing. I avoid reading it as much as possible, which is why we’ve taken so long to finish it. But I think we’re almost past the worst of it. (We read other non-chapter books, too. And she reads to us. It’s just that we read one chapter book at a time.)

– random piece of non-kinky information about life at our house? We’re having hamburgers for dinner, but not the fast-food kind. We make them. Or, rather, Chris makes them. I like it when he cooks, and not because it’s easier for me, as I usually am cleaning up after. I like it when he cooks because he’s good at it.

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By Serenity Everton, February 9, 2010 12:50 pm

We are hosting family. It was not expected, and rather abrupt. Still, I hid The Loving Dominant before anyone wandered into my office.

And I cleaned the girlchild’s room. She’s sleeping in her daddy’s office. Her room is occupied by an aunt, an uncle, a newborn and a 2-year-old, as her room is more (though not perfectly) toddler-friendly.

Back soon.

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By Serenity Everton, February 7, 2010 5:04 am

The princess is making Valentines for her classmates at school. She has a bag of chocolate hearts, colored papers, a list of people and she’s set off  making a collection of oddly-shaped little notes with misspellings, math problems and various other decor in pencil and marker.

For each one she is taping one of the chocolate hearts to the cover. Next week, the school district has closed on the 12th and the 15th for President’s Day and an in-service, but never fear.

Her first-grade teacher has planned a big Valentines bash for February 11 and all the children are expected to exchange Valentines with each other. The event will be complete with “teaching centers” run by parents who are expected to do Valentine’s crafts, cooking and reading with them.  I can see this is all meant in good fun and for good times, and for my pinkie-child, it’s like a dream come true.

But.

A little checking has demonstrated conclusively that the other first-grade classrooms are not having Valentine’s Day parties, and the schedule in part was meant to facilitate the absence of such “celebrations”. They are not in school on that day anyway.

The princess is already drawing her own conclusions about the ‘holiday’. The chocolates, marketed to children and parents for Valentine’s treats, have little sayings printed on them in the old-style hard candies all Americans know.

Except they’re not such old-style sayings anymore*.

I read through them with her, and we ended up sorting them into piles.

LOL
Sweet
Be Mine
2 Cute
One & Only
U R Cool
4 Ever
I’m Yours
True Love
Wild 4 U
Hottie

After I had to define the phrases hottie, Wild 4 U and LOL, she looked at me and said quite seriously, “Mama, some of these are not appropriate for school.”

“I know,” I answered. “Would it feel awkward to give a candy to a boy that said on it True Love?”

“Yes!” she said absolutely, then clarified, “Except if it was B—-, because he’s going to marry me. He said so.”

“He did?” I answered, pretending surprise. “Is he back from his trip?”

“Yes!” she returned happily. “He told me today at recess that we’re going to get married when we grow up.”

“It’s good if you love the person you are married to,” I returned. “But what about I’m Yours? Is that going to be appropriate for your classmates?”

“No!” she returned absolutely and hotly.

We ended up separating about half of the candies out as ‘inappropriate’. Even so, she’s still having trouble with who to give the Be Mines and the One & Onlys. Indeed, she’s coming up against the very reason that have caused the other first-grade teachers to avoid Valentine’s Day altogether and celebrate President’s Day instead.

Valentine’s Day should – is – a time to celebrate love with loved ones.

But not everyone has a love, do they? I detested Valentine’s Day as a child for much the same reason, cringing and being so choosy about what valentines I would give to my schoolmates (by expectation, not desire) as to drive my mother crazy. “Just pick one!” she’d say.

I’d read them carefully and say, “I can’t give that to C—!”

Then again, I did feel a lot like the female version of Charlie Brown as a child. The first Valentine’s Day I ever actually celebrated was with Chris.

So this meandering, wandering tirade can be summed up by the following:

1.  Being told I love you by your parents and your siblings and your spouse is fine. Exchanging little special joys is good. Having an excuse to buy chocolate is excellent.

2. Getting and giving inane little cards to your classmates with expressions of life-long devotion on them when you are six is creepy. I say so.

Nevertheless, this is how we’re spending our weekend. Cutting out, writing on, pasting together and decorating pink, red, white and purple hearts. I will be so glad when this holiday is over. Bring on St. Patrick’s Day. I’ll take leprechauns any day over this nonsense.

[* The packaging did not list all the sayings on the chocolate hearts, and it was impossible to preview them without opening the bag. I would have picked a different sort of candy if I'd known I would have to tell the princess what hottie means. And she did give one of those away... to someone who reads this blog. If you get it in the mail, smile! ]