i'm tired

i have always tried to keep this place somewhere that i didn't whine and complain. But i am tired....in every way one can be tired.

Physically i can't seem to get rest. i can't sleep well at night. i am always doing something or going somewhere during the days. From the moment i wake up until i go to sleep, i am required to do something for someone, and it is usually not me. i'm just plain tired.

Intellectually, i have had a time trying to figure ways to postpone things until money comes in. School is not a problem this semester, at all (so far at least, i am sure there are stresses coming, it is school after all). But i still feel drained, as if i have worked too many difficult puzzles, and as if most of them are far too difficult for me anyway.

Mentally, i have been worried and concerned over a lot of things. Stress about work issues, worry over the future, and yes worries about our relationship have kept my mind from shutting down at all. i do know how bad worrying is for me, but it is something i have yet to learn to not do. No, i don't want tips or help in this because frankly, i feel like enough of a failure as it is.

Emotionally....this one i can't even type about tonight. i am way too scattered emotionally to make sense of myself, much less try to type coherently.

But most of all, i'm just tired. Tired of not being....good enough.

That's all.

Mortality

My grandfather died of a massive heart attack at age 43. Of course, that was pre-WWII so health care was nowhere near what it is now, and who knows if he would have died now? Maybe he would have learned warning signs, gotten tests run, changed anything in his lifestyle that may have needed to be changed, and lived far longer than he did.

But he lived then, and died then, and the one thing that might be seen as positive from it is that it has taught my brothers and myself that life is not a "forever" thing, and made us aware of our health issues at a younger age than we might otherwise have become aware of them.

You see, yesterday my brother had a slight heart attack himself. i am grateful that he recognized the signs of it, called his wife and let her talk him into going straight to the hospital. He had no pain, but tightness in his chest and shortness of breath. He is still in the hospital and they have scheduled a catherter (or however it is spelled) tomorrow. They thought it was an extreme anxiety attack at first because of his lack of pain, but luckily his doctor had enough awareness of heart issues to keep him, and run tests to make sure. The enzymes are a bit off, from what i have been told, whatever that means.

Well, what it means is that his heart has been through some sort of trauma and is recovering from it.

And what it means is that my dedication earlier this month to a healthier way of living for myself has really, truly hit home. i committed to it for a reason, for myself, my family, and Padrone...and walking, eating healthier, and drinking more water won't keep me from having health issues, that's for sure. But it can't hurt, as cutting down on stress won't hurt me either.

i am glad that my brother lives in this age of medicine, and not 70 years ago when my grandfather died. i am glad his fear overcame his stubbornness and he drove to the hospital. i am glad he has the support of a loving wife. i am glad he is still around.

Not the kind of blog post i hoped to type this time. Not something i want to think about, type about, or experience. But i am deeply grateful for the life that flows in my veins, and i am going to learn to treasure it and take care of my body so it will take care of me for years to come.

Padrone, i will do better...my stress...my mood...my health...my immune system...my obedience. i do love You, even when it is difficult for You to see.

Refocusing

Tonight we had a wonderful time of refocusing, ourselves, our relationship, who we are not only individually but also to each other. It has left me feeling extremely .... i am not sure i can explain how i feel.

i am grateful to have such a wonderful Master, for one thing. Gratitude for his care, for his seeing what i, what we, need even before i know it myself. Gratitude for his control when i am feeling such a lack of control. Gratitude for his love, and his own need to have things firmly where and as they should be for us. i love this man, with all that i am and all that i will be.

The past few weeks have been almost unbearably busy. i have been working so much that i honestly have had to tell my boss that if i don't have a break, i *will* break. Of course, that didn't stop her from calling me later to work the next day, but i actually refused to do it. i was rather proud of myself, and i hope Padrone was proud of me too.

i have had to reprioritize my life, frankly, because i had let my job become way too high on that list, and that meant that Padrone had to go down. Not a good situation, especially as long as it was going on. If it means that i change jobs, so be it. i have ended up letting my boss take advantage of me far more than i realized, even though i did realize it was happening. And frankly, when i ended up with a pile of laundry too high to see over and no clothes to even wear to work because i had no time to wash clothes, it was time to put my foot down.

And so i did, and i took today off. i was called once from work and i didn't even answer it. i figured if it was that important, they would at least leave a voice mail. :)

It felt wonderful. And then tonight the strong reconnection with Padrone ... that was simply the icing on the cake, as we say.

i am incredibly blessed.

God, Padrone, family (although at times that has to flip of course), home, job. That's it from here on out.

i love You, Padrone. Thank You for showing me so clearly just how skewed my priorities had gotten. i am Yours, and gratefully so.

Just stuff

So i am at work today, and apparently we're going to have actual winter weather here. My dad called me to make sure i had enough wood for the fire, and i guess i can heat soup on it if the power goes out. Thank goodness for pot-bellied stoves!

i have no idea if we'll get as bad as they will, since they are a couple of hours north of here. i do know that the north part of our state is really making drastic preparations, and are expecting a severe winter storm. i know others think it is funny that we southerners "freak out" about snow, but since we experience it so rarely, it IS a big deal! And of course we don't know "how to drive" in snow, and we get silly when we just watch it falling. We love snow - lol.

But this is more than snow, from what i understand. It is going to have ice as well, which wreaks havoc on power lines and such, which is the main reason for the preparations of having wood, etc. And of course, we're concerned about our clients as well. Two of my clients have electric heat with no alternative heat source, but one has family very close by so i am not worried about her. The other client, on the other hand, may or may not have a place to go, since her daughter lives 2 hours away. We'll see what happens though.

Maybe, if it DOES snow, i can take pics and put them on here, non-identifying ones of course, if Padrone approves. We'll see. It would probably make some of you laugh that we get so excited about the snow you may see in photos here though - lol.

Anyway, i am substituting again tomorrow, and grateful for the opportunity. i had to say no one day last week, and i hated to, but there was no one to work for me in the client's home so i had no choice.

i registered for a couple more classes this semester. One will be extremely easy, since i have to retake English 102, and apparently there are no more Special Ed classes that i can take without taking some sort of technology literacy test or something. i think i'm just going to take the GRE and go ahead and start the Masters program next fall at the University of Alabama. It's a hybrid program - mostly online but with a weekend a month or so that is required to be on campus. i can do that, but i'm not totally sure if i can do it and work as a teacher too...BUT if i have taken my GRE, i'll be ready to begin classes in any Masters program. i would be taking graduate classes now if i had already taken it. i know, i know.

i know y'all have to get so bored with my life - lol.

On the relationship front, i think Padrone and i are both kind of ready for some intimacy. Due to circumstances on both sides of the ocean, our privacy has been pretty well eliminated lately. It has tended to make each of us kind of long for more, and so we're being a little creative and coming up with ways to regain a level of privacy. I miss him, y'all. i miss the intimacy of just talking with him without worrying about being overheard - even if we're only saying innocuous things. It's hard when we can't, but we have been together for so long that it doesn't affect our relationship as it would if we were still beginning and trying to make it work. Now we know we work, and what we're doing is more a case of biding our time until we are more free again.

i love him with all my heart. This man believes in me more than anyone ever has in my entire life, and it is because of HIM that i begin to believe in myself as well. i would still be working a dead end, low wage job if Padrone had not encouraged, supported, and eventually required me to research options and actually DO something with my life. And i actually CAN be someone! i can have a life i see others living. i can succeed in jobs that are challenging. i really CAN.

But i never would have believed that if he hadn't, using all the patience he is so famous for, shown me how he sees me, and done it in ways that were so natural that they couldn't have been contrived. i haven't been fed a line or manipulated, i have simply been helped to gain a level of confidence that i would never have attained if it weren't for him. And i like feeling confident about my ability to succeed in life, not just in my ability to be a good submissive to him.

Padrone, sometimes i try to imagine where i would be if you weren't in my life, and it is always a dark, dreary place of existence. You have brought me to life. You have opened doors in my heart and mind that only you can ever know about. Your flower is opening under the tender care you provide her, and Padrone....she is learning to feel as confident and as strong as a rose that blooms in winter. Thank you, my Owner. i adore you.

Choices and consequences, and more choices

i don't do New Year's resolutions, but it seems that after the excesses of the holidays, i typically do tend to make some decisions about my life that i have put off while i enjoyed myself. So maybe one could call them resolutions, although it doesn't take any sort of thought or decision making or planning to make these decisions. They also typically are based on the need for change or for a new direction.

For instance, i have decided that i am going to walk today. i haven't exercised in quite some time, and the day is gorgeous, if cool, and i finally got my ipod to work, so i am going walking. i hope to make it a regular thing, since my working hours are supposed to be getting more consistent and i can more easily get into a routine now than before. i am not making a resolution, nor even a commitment, because this is something i want to do to better myself, it is an active choice i am making, and if it turns into a chore or an obligation (in the beginning at any rate), it will be far more difficult to make myself do it than if i simply grab my ipod and go.

That is how i am about losing weight as well. i am not going to make a commitment to lose weight, although i do want to do just that. What i am going to do is to think about making healthier choices of when, what, and how much i eat. i want to look better for Padrone, but what has been the motivating factor behind this particular thought process is that i want to feel better in general.

i get sick far more than i ever have. Within the past 3-4 years it seems i have been sick at least every couple of months. Used to, i never got sick, maybe one or two colds in a year, or something like that. Since i've known Padrone, i have had the flu, the swine flu, shoulder surgery, gall bladder surgery, more migraines than i can count, colds out the wazoo, and most recently a terrible tummy virus (i honestly think it was a form of the flu, based on how long it took to recover from it). So much of that could be prevented if i was in better health in general. Some couldn't, like the surgeries. But i can, should, and will, take better care of my health to prevent sicknesses and not just deal with them when they "get me".

i have already begun the process of improving my finances, and that is a continuing thing. Padrone had me on a very small, but very firm, saving plan...and i hope to continue that this year but in a way that is on a little larger scale. i am not going to any extreme by any means, but i do want to have money so that i always know my light bill will be paid and that i will always have money for gas in my car. Improving my health will decrease time missed from work, which will increase the financial stability, so see? Making good choices is, for me, the way to go.

i also want to improve my submission to Padrone. i want to find ways to keep our communication going, even if i am working. i want to discover more ways to honor him and please him, and i want to lose the fear of vulnerability that still has its place in our relationship. i want to feel more free to explore, to reveal thoughts and ideas, and to live in the knowledge that Padrone loves for me to offer my submission...which means that my sharing of ideas and thoughts, and even fantasies and needs, that may not be things we have previously explored, is something that he would encourage and really want for me to do.

On the home front, i want to declutter, gradually and yet consistently. i want to clean until the house sparkles, and then rest for a week! i want to begin cooking at home more often, and taking my lunch to work, although again...if that is a "have to" then i'll get resentful and pout and whine and such.

And lastly, i want to improve my spiritual life. That is a very personal choice, and one that i won't speak of here unless i feel the need to do so. So no resolutions, only decisions to improve my life overall.

And yes, i will begin with a nice walk as soon as i finish typing this, and clean the lunch dishes.

Padrone, i am grateful that you haven't pushed and shoved me into becoming the perfect slave, or changing my life totally for you. That may sound selfish, but your patience in waiting for me to see the simple reality that you deserve better than a sick, unhealthy, slave with no money and constant stress because of that...is what has led me to that conclusion. You could have shoved that down my throat, yes, of course you could have. But you don't want to force me, you want me to offer. And now i am.

i offer you a getting-healthier me.

i offer you a more fiscally fit me (or at least a steady push towards that goal).

i offer you a more free, less inhibited me. And yes, that was even scary to type, sheesh.

i offer you a more organized, less cluttered, hence less stressed, me.

And i offer you a more spiritual, calmer, again less stressed, me.

Grazie for giving me the freedom to make poor choices, and the ability to learn from the consequences of those choices. You are truly a wonderful, caring man, and i am immensely blessed to be yours.