Lists, Clothes and Betterment

Today when I logged in I had over 1600 comments in the spam folder. Wouldn’t it be nice if that many people had actually visited my blog in the past week? But no, I average around a 100 a week, 200 if I’ve been posted to e[lust] recently. Ah well, the spam machines are busy, and Akismet does its job.

So, in 2011, I did 30 Days of Kink in January. In 2012, I did 31 Days of Gratitude in January. Last year, I was just surviving. This year, I was slacking. 😉 So, I’m going to make up for it in February. I’m going to do 28 Days of Lists. I’ve only come up with 12 so far, so if you have ideas, drop me a note, a comment, a tweet, whatever. They tell me lists are a good form of blogging, so I hope you enjoy them.

Next weekend is Winter Wickedness. I am very excited. There are so many great presenters coming, and so many interesting classes available. Not to mention the parties and the fun. It’s going to be a great weekend. He actually made a clothing request this year – skater skirts. So we each got one and are creating an outfit around it. I’m not sure what I’m wearing the second night. More thrifting may be needed. I ordered a new dress off Amazon, but they say it won’t arrive til the end of February, so that’s not going to work. I’m sure I’ll come up with something fun and shiny.

Been reading Bootblacking 101 by Andrew McDiarmid. Finding I like his talking about the experience more than his initial instructions. It is old school leather, so very much the boy in the leather bar, but the mentality is still something I can relate to. “You are a Bootblack.”

I also decided to step out of my shell a bit and bought a ticket for a service intensive. Not that service is out of my shell, but going to a kink ‘event’ without a partner, and taking steps to spend a day with like-minded individuals bettering myself as a service submissive. I’ve never even gone to a submissive roundtable before. But I know I will be surrounded by friends from this community and friendly new people I have yet to meet. It isn’t until April, but I’m looking forward to it very much.

Speaking of bettering myself and lists, my best friend made a really good suggestion to me today, that she uses in her own life. When stressing out, write things down in a list. Things That are Stressing Me Out, for instance. Acknowledging things so they are less scary is what I use my journals for. Getting it out of my head so I can see it. But the next step she suggested is important, too: look at those things and see if you can do anything about any of them. Make the things you can do into a To Do list. Do those things, or if you are already doing those things, realize that you are doing all that you can (and stressing isn’t going to help). And if there are things that you can’t do anything about, stop fretting over them (again, stressing isn’t going to help). That’s the simplified version, but it is definitely something I need to do more often.

There was also an article about asking better questions which caught my eye this week. While I found some of her questions strange, the point of the article held true. “How was your day?” or “How are you?” rarely get informative answers. Asking more personal questions, that have direct relevance to their life, will facilitate better answers and more communication. Something to keep in mind as you go about your day.