Update

A quick update...

We are moving into the new house on Sunday and I start my new position at 6am Monday. It has been a stress-filled two weeks but we are enjoying buying blinds and other stuff for the new place. I own a lawn mower for the very first time!!! lol

There have been no sessions lately...and I think we both need one. Hopefully next weekend...in total privacy for the first time!

I haven’t had the chance to visit the blogs I read, so I hope everything is going well for everyone.

Keep Living Well.

C.

Polyamorous Relationships

I have been so busy lately that I haven’t been able to keep up with the blogs I read, but yesterday I got a few minutes and tried to catch up. Over at Once Bitten, kaylem and Gabriel are considering the pros and cons of polyamorous relationships. Their writing has helped lg and I so much over the last several months and for once I might have some experience to share. Not experience being IN a polyamorous relationship, but having been raised as a child by one.

I will try not to let this post get away from me. If you have read here before, you know how long-winded I can be.

My childhood was a loving one and my folks were very attentive towards me, my being their only child. But it was also about as unorthodox as you can get. For the first six or eight years of my life I lived in a commune. It started in downtown D.C. in 1969 (a year after I was born) and moved to a farm in Virginia in ’71. We left the commune (which my Dad started) in ’74 or ’75. Over the time that it existed, there were probably four or five hundred people to have lived with us. There were times that there were forty people living in the house at one time (a side note: Carly Simon and other semi-famous musicians used to come and jam there).

So, I never felt like an only child, there were always other kids around. But I was also exposed to a lot. Nudity was a given. Drugs were an everyday thing. And my parents never hid anything from me. Not that they had sex in front of me, mind you, but they never had any problem talking to me about it, or drugs, or anything else. They tried to treat me like an equal. I have never called them Mom or Dad...I just used their names like everyone else.

All during those first years of my life, my Dad was very much at the center of our home, no matter how many people were living there at the time. My Mom, who I now realize was and is his submissive by every definition of the word, has adored and supported him in everything he has ever done. This included his desire for having intimate relationships with other women.

At some time before we moved away from the commune, my mother and father started a long-term relationship with another woman. I am sure that she wasn’t the only one, not by a long-shot. But, to this woman, my folks were totally committed, as she was to them. And as far as I was concerned, she was as much my mother as my mother was. When we left the commune, she came with us. They were always open with me about all of our relationships together. They kind of had to be, considering that they could not be open about it in the ‘real’ world. I introduced my second Mom as my aunt to outsiders, and since they slept in the same bedroom, in the same bed, I had to be careful who I brought into our house and what I allowed them to see. When I was ten or so, they added a third woman, a teenager, who I referred to others as my step-sister. She also slept with them.

This dynamic lasted for about three years and we were all very happy, or at least I was. I had started competing in music competitions by that time (and winning most of them) so life was good.

When I turned thirteen, however, everything changed. I discovered my love for women myself and found out what all the fuss was about sex. At about the same time, my second Mom decided that this family dynamic was not what she wanted and that she wanted kids of her own, which was not something that my folks were willing to provide her, so she left. Just like that. Looking back now, I didn’t even realize how devastating to me this was. My music, which was the absolute focus of my life at the time (I practiced four to five hours a day, seven days a week) suffered tremendously. She had decided to tell us about her feelings the night before I was to perform my placement recital at North Carolina School of the Arts (I had already got in). I summarily blew the recital, and ended up with a teacher I hated and was subsequently kicked out nine weeks later.

When I was fifteen or so, my ‘step’ sister turned eighteen and left also. My folks had expected her to stay with them, and when she didn’t, they were also devastated. They told me that I was not allowed to see her anymore (a mistake they have been apologizing for ever since), so she and I had to sneak to see each other.

The rest of my teenage years were so fucked up, it would take a book to write everything that I went through. Some of the highlights were the fact that I was kidnapped, lived on the streets for six months and by the time I was seventeen, I had dropped out of school altogether and I didn’t play music at all anymore.

There are a lot of reasons why things went bad for me for a while. Some of it was my self-absorbed, teenage self, some of it was strictly my struggle with my loving but extremely Dominant father, and the Shadow he cast. But a lot of it was a direct result of what happened with the ‘family’ members I lost along the way. I met lg shortly after I dropped out of school (I was seventeen, she was sixteen) and everything changed again. It was the typical “Us Against The World” type of start for the two of us. We dated two weeks before we moved in together and a month later we were in our own apartment. We haven’t been apart for more than a day since, except for once; when I went to Wisconsin as a salesperson for my father. Worst six weeks of my life (another long story...lol).

Over the years, my father has not changed when it comes to polyamory. I have watched while he has struggled to keep these types of relationships going. He and my mother spent fourteen long years with a woman that had her own agenda and truthfully cared very little for them. That ended excruciatingly bad, with the woman emptying bank accounts and the like. It didn’t stop my father, though. They are currently in what I think is their healthiest polyamorous relationship to date. It is based, truly, on a three-way connection between them. It is unique (like my folks relationships have always been) in that my mother has MS and has been bed-ridden for over two years now. Her disease had taken her mind and soul before this new woman came into her life. It has been many years since I have seen her so happy and alive as she is now. My father has always managed to have a young and pretty woman to share his life with (his current woman is in her late forties) and a wife that not only accepts this, but embraces it. But it has taken him sixty eight years, and a lot of serious heart-ache, to finally get it right.

So, I ask myself, “Do I wish I had had a ‘normal’ family dynamic growing up?” Hmmm. Damn tough question. I would have to say no. I have an open, honest and real idea of who I am, and I owe that to the lifestyle I grew up in. I am still struggling with a lot of the things that happened to me when I was a teen, but no more than any other conscious person, I think. I found my soulmate in a woman that brought me back from the brink and kept me alive, and I owe that, in part, also to the way I was raised.

I guess my final thoughts on intimate relationships that involve more than two people is this:
Relationships are hard. ANY relationship. And the more people that are involved in it, the more difficult it becomes. And always remember that any children living within sight of those relationships are involved and a definite part of the dynamic.

As hard as polyamorous relationships are, however, successful ones can be just that more rewarding. And the key to success, and this is the theme to living together in general, I think, is communication, communication, communication! With EVERYONE involved in that communication, including children.

lg and I have ‘played’ with other people in the past, and have considered polyamory, but in my opinion, we were nowhere near ready for it. And now that we are more mature and in tune with each other, we have stopped actively searching for another person to join our union. You never know, it may happen someday, but it won’t be because we went out in search of it. Not anytime soon, anyway.

I don’t know if this will help anyone, but reading kaylem and Gabriel’s musings on these types of relationships really struck a chord with me. I was raised with it and there are good things and bad things to consider. Even with love and good communication, it is still possible for it not to work, for the dynamic to be too hard. But when it does work, it can be the basis for a lifetime of truthfulness and happiness.

Keep Living Well.

C.

Changes, Changes, Changes...

The old saying, “When it rains, it pours” is a perfect description of our lives right now. I just got out of an interview with my company’s internet department. They have offered me a job working on commercial websites and our city’s website. I won’t state the city, but it is on par with tampa.com or miami.com and the like. It involves a 22% raise with a $1,500 yearly bonus. The hours are different; I have to be to work at 6am instead of 8:30am (I am SO not a morning person) but I get off at two instead of five. It would also mean that I would not see as much of lg as I am used to, but hey, a raise is a raise. And I’ll be doing work that I have wanted to do professionally for over ten years now.

Change is good!

I’d like to thank everyone who has been commenting here and emailing. I will try to comment and return emails as soon as I can, but with a new job, having to train a replacement for my old job and having to move residents in two weeks, I am a little pressed for time. lol I do want to make sure that you all know that I appreciate the dialog and I hope you will forgive me if I don’t respond right away.

Anyway, things are getting better by the minute and I can’t wait to christen our new place with an intense session with lg. We will have the internet at home soon after we move in, so lg’s desire to post some pics will be a reality soon.
Keep Living.

C.

We Got the House...

So, we got the house.
Let me explain HOW I think we got it. Yesterday’s phone conversation with the realtor went something like this:

Realtor: “I’m sorry, Mr. _________, but the owners of the houset have some problems with some of the debt on your credit report.”
Me: “Really?”
Realtor: “Yes. There are...(thirty seconds or so of listing debts)...and I just don’t see how I can put you in this house.”
Me: “Well, as I said when we looked at the house, we do have some credit issues, which is the very reason we are renting and not buying. We have spent the last year keeping up our payments on all our current bills and somewhere on our credit report it must show that we have paid off (a medical bill) about six months ago.”
Realtor: “Really? Let me see...(long pause). Yes. Yes, I see it now.”
Me: “You see, we plan on taking this year to catch up all of our outstanding debts so that we can buy a house of our own at the end of this lease.”
Realtor: “I see. Have you found a real estate agent to help you yet?”
Me: “Why no, we haven’t (a lie).”
Realtor: “Well, it does seem like you have a plan for getting your credit back up. It’s really not that bad. Let’s see...(short pause)...Everything on your report adds up to about $2,500. That really isn’t bad at all.”
Me: “No. It really isn’t that bad. Let me ask you something. If we paid these debts off , say, in the next six months, how long do you think it would take for our credit score to start rising?
Realtor: “Well, it takes five years to get anything on your report to come completely off...(continued with a five minute lecture on credit development, keeping a credit card that you pay off every month, etc....bla, bla, bla. Nothing I didn’t already know. He even shared that HIS credit score is 800...la-di-fucking-da)."
Me: “So, if I did...(repeating what he had said...acting like I was writing it down) then it shouldn’t take too long at all.”
Realtor: “No, I don’t think it would.”
Me: ...Silence
Realtor: “Ok, Mr. Schaefer. I’m sure that I can talk to the owners and we can work something out.”
Me: “That sounds great. Thanks for all your help.”
Realtor: “No problem. I’ll call you tomorrow after I talk with the owners.”
Me: “Ok, then I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Goodbye.”
Realtor: “Goodbye.”

He called back this afternoon and told us to come in at 4pm to sign the lease.

I am posting yesterday’s phone call for a couple of reasons.
First, I am proud of myself. Proud that I did NOT react on the phone like I reacted in my last post, not for what I DID do. My last post was venting for having to, once again, kiss some lackey’s ass. lg also had to hear a whole lot more on the way home from work yesterday. Only a couple short years ago, I would have blown up and we would still be looking for a place to live. Second, and this is what I really want to talk about, is the actual semantics of everyday conversations.

My fifth idiosyncrasy was about my ongoing struggle with interactions with other people in the world at large. My anti-social behavior. I have never been good at conversing with people in social or even business situations. This is not because I do not know how to communicate; I consider myself quite above average when it comes to communication, when it is honest and about REAL issues. Small talk and what I have heard called POWER talking (how to get your way using tricks in conversations and crap like that) have always been very alien to me. lg has always been the pro when it came to these things.
I have been struggling with the fact that, whether I think it is bullshit or not, it is absolutely necessary in the society we live in. And I am getting much better at it, even though it makes me feel ill when I do engage in it and I am NOT proud of doing it.
Example: The conversation I had with the realtor could have cost us this house, but it didn’t, even though I believe that the man had no intention of renting to us when I first answered the phone. I didn’t panic or get pissed off, however, and was able to direct the conversation where I chose to. Of course, I had to do a bunch of fucked up (in my opinion...others see these as positive traits, I know) things to do it. My non-confrontational confidence, my ability to stroke his ego and appeal to his greed were all factors in his changing his attitude and his mind.
In a society where it’s ok, even considered an admirable quality, to ‘take out’ the next guy to get ahead and where we are rewarded for our greed, it is no wonder we treat each other in the truly awful ways we do. I wish that I could change it, and for many years I thought I could at least do my part by not participating in all the crap I have just described. But I have been shit on because of this for so many years that I just don’t care anymore. I will still try to be kind to people, and will still avoid bullshit, day to day conversations, but I WILL play the game if I need to get what my family and I need.

So, my apologies for the rant in my last post. I considered deleting it (it embarrasses me slightly) but it is who I am...and this seems to be the only public forum that will allow it, even if I DO have to hide behind a pseudonym. And besides, my last post distracts from my boys photos!

Keep Living.

C.

FUCKEM!

I can’t fucking believe it! Our (questionable) credit is now fucking with our ability to rent! A (somewhat embarrassing) call from the realtor today explained that the owners of the house we are trying to rent may have problems with some of the stuff on our credit report, despite the fact that NONE of it is within the last 18 months and the fact that we have not been late on a single rent payment for over two years.

I mean, COME ONE! What the fuck do they want from us! They give us a credit card four years ago with a credit limit of $300 and an APR rate of 29% and the first time we are late we are charged late fees, transaction charges, etc. of $125! So now we owe $400 on a card with a $300 limit. Things get tough financially so we pay the minimum every month on the card. A year later, we owe over $500 on a card with a $300 limit! WHAT THE FUCK!?!
So I say “Fuck it!” and forget I even have a card. It goes to collection and what does it say we owe? $784.23! I figured it out. With all the payments we made in the time we had the card, we paid them OVER A THOUSAND DOLLARS! And we still owe them $784.23??????? For $300 spent on a Christmas that wouldn’t have happened if we had not got the card?

FREE SOCIETY, MY ASS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CAPITOL ONE CAN KISS MY LILLY WHITE ASS!

MONEY-GRUBBING FUCKERS!

My Boy's A Photographer!

Our son’s photos are back from the developer! Here are a couple of pics he took in Australia. The boy has the eye, for sure! These were taken on cheap disposable cameras.

The Australian Opera House...from a different point of view...

The Australian Opera House...A Godly point of view...

A Mountain Trail

(Click the pics to see the larger versions)

We definitely have to get him a decent camera, don’t you think?!?

Keep Living Well.

C.

Update and a Question...

Well, as I have mentioned in an earlier post, we are not able to buy a house yet due to credit problems. We have several things to take care of to get our credit score up. It’s not that bad, really. If we paid everything off that is on our report, including medical bills, it will cost us under three grand. A lot better than I had thought it would be.
So that means that we will have to rent for another year, which is ok because it will give us time to get our credit up to par so we can buy when the year is up. lg said that she would prefer a house to rent rather than another apartment. Since we have been talking about this, it dawned on me that lg and I have never lived in a place where we were the only people in the building. We either lived in an apartment building, rented a portion of a house with other units in it or have had roommates in every single place we have lived in the last nineteen years! (Some of the roommates were fun, though...*evil grin*)
We have been looking for houses to rent for the last few days and have found several. We had narrowed it down to two as of today. The first is a 3br/1.5ba on a corner lot of a decent sub-division. Its brick with a large manufactured addition. Its very clean with a large, screened in patio, but is not the most stylish. Very ‘70s! lol The next door neighbor (who was very nice) told us that the rent was $950/mo. The second house was actually VERY nice. Its a 3br/2ba on a very secluded lot, with a patio and a fairly large, screened in pool!
So, today I called the numbers from the signs out front. I called the one with the pool first. The woman was kinda bitchy (not important, really) and told me that the rent was $1,200/mo. About what I had expected. When I called about the other home, I got a pleasant surprise. The rent is only $875/mo! Now, truthfully, we could afford the house with the pool and it would be very nice to have for a year. The problem is that if we did that, we would not have the resources to pay off the things on our credit report, and end up in the same boat as we are in right now at the end of the year-lease.
So we are in the process of filling out the application and getting the ball rolling on the house without the pool. Both of us are very excited and a little nervous, but that’s natural, I think. To be the only ones living there is going to be a pleasant, new experience for us. I believe it will do wonders for our new lifestyle too! For lg not to have to worry about people on the other side of the wall hearing us will do wonders on its own ( I couldn’t care less who hears us...lol).

Ok, I have a question that I am going to ask here and on the TPE forum. It concerns ‘playrooms’. We will have an extra room that we plan on hooking up all my computers in (there are five). I was also thinking that this could serve well as a playroom also. My question is:

How do you all hide/protect your playrooms without bringing undo attention to it to begin with?

I mean, if you lock the door and tell kids/guests not to go in, doesn’t that just make them want to know what’s in there all the more? I thought of keeping our stuff in our bedroom, but this would mean lugging things back and forth all the time. I know that we could just keep playing in our bedroom, which we may end up having to do, but I think there is something to be said for having separate spaces for ‘D/s play’ and our vanilla lives. Just thought you all may know some tricks I hadn't thought of.
Anyway, life is hectic, nerve-wracking and as scary as ever...but without conflict and change what a boring world we would live in.

Keep Living Well.

C.

Tagged Again...

I was tagged by our friend with the sore fingers from all the typing she has been doing, annissa...

Five idiosyncrasies, huh... I have none; I am perfectly normal in every way...HA! lol

1. I have to have a fan running in order to sleep, no matter what the temperature is. This stems from the fact that the house that I grew up in had no A/C, so I would put a fan six inches from my head in order to stay cool.

2. I’m a pack-rat and save everything, to lg’s aggravation. I will save a broken VCR for the thirty or so screws that keep the thing together. In my defense, Our VCR, CD changer and one of our TVs came from family members or friends that were throwing them away because they ‘didn’t work’. We have been watching the TV for over three years now.

3. This one is a little strange. I can NOT stand it for someone to rub their bare feet on any carpet. It has the effect that fingernails down a chalkboard has on most people (which doesn’t bother me in the slightest, btw). I can do it myself and it doesn’t bother me, but if someone else does it, they will see me running away like a crazy man. lol

4. I am a ‘Get To Where You Are Going As Fast As Possible’ type. On car trips, passengers better pee when they can, cuz otherwise they will be doing it in fast food drink containers (male OR female!).

5. I’m not sure if this is a idiosyncrasy or not, but I am not a very social person and prefer to say nothing than to engage in ‘small talk’. If I have nothing to say, then I say nothing, which sometimes causes people to think that I am rude or moody. Thanks to lg, I have gotten a lot better at socializing over the years.

Ok, I have some new people to tag...sorry folks. : )

• kaya


• Christina


• rayne


• Tara


• SeaRabbit

Keep Living Well.

C.

An Interesting Evening...

Last night was an interesting night. lg and I hadn’t had sex in over a week. There were several reasons for this. First, the activities we have been engaged in since the boy came home were not conducive to alone time for us. Second, our life is in turmoil due to the fact that we have to find a place to live. We have quite a bit to fix on our credit before we can buy a home, so we will have to rent for another year. *sigh* The third reason that we have not been having sex for a while is that I have been consciously waiting for lg to either vocally ask for sex or for her to initiate it. This is something that she has much trouble with; asking for what she wants. Due to this, there have been several nights that she would get naked and cuddle up to me as we lay in bed at the end of a day and I could tell she may want to engage in some fun. I would lay there, waiting for her to do or say something, but she would inevitably fall asleep with no nookie. I haven’t discussed this with lg yet, so when she reads this it will be the first she has heard about it. She may have some things to say to me about it; i.e. “I thought you were supposed to be the one to initiate sex!” or “Aren’t I supposed to follow your lead?”. In some cases, yes. Maybe most cases. But I would like to see her feel as comfortable asking for what she wants from me, especially when it comes to sex, as I am supposed to be with what I want from her.
Last night she initiated sex. It was quite cute, really. We were lying in bed watching TV like we usually do at the end of a day when she undressed and started trying to cuddle. When I did not immediately attack her, she asked me to turn out the light. When I still did not respond, she grabbed the remote out of my hand and turned off the TV, leaving us in darkness. I asked her what she was doing and she responded in that cute, sly little voice “I don’t know”. She then grabbed my cock and we were off! lol
Another thing that I noticed while we were having sex, and I hope lg will see as well, was the way she always starts out saying things like “Don’t play with my butt, ok?” or “I don’t really feel like having pain tonight, ok?” This is totally my fault. I have a tendency to go a little too deep into Dom/Space (and it IS real...I don’t care what anyone says...lol) too soon, grabbing and squeezing and going for all the ‘sensitive’ spots with no work-up. It is partially lg’s fault for being so incredibly sexy, but since I have been paying such close attention to what we say and do to each other, I am getting much better. Last night she started in the same way. I didn’t say anything, but took my time, being especially gentle to start with. I then gradually increased the intensity of my caresses until an hour later I was pinching her nipples and slapping her cunt harder than I ever have. Ever! At the end, I was pushing two fingers of each hand into her pussy and spreading them out, opening her up wider than she has been since she had the boy! I was able to suck her clit into my mouth and literally chew on it, which is something I have never been able to do before. What was lg’s reaction to all this? Four orgasms (that I noticed) and I had to keep telling her to be quiet or put my hand over her mouth to keep her from disturbing our son or the two friends he had over for the night. I hope that lg sees that I actually am paying attention and she doesn’t need to list a series of rules for me to follow during sex. If there are rules to be made, I will make them. Trust that I will not go hodge-podge into sex or a scene without first making sure that you are ready for it. Someday I may be able to throw you over the bed without warning and stuff my dick up your ass (God willing), but that is somewhere far down the road from where we are now.
Needless to say, lg was a very good little girl last night. She stretched (pun intended) her limits and we both benefited. She crossed that ‘line’ a few steps and returned unharmed (if a little sore).
I love you, little girl...more and more everyday. I know how cliché it is, but sometimes I honestly think I am going to explode from the love you give me.

You are mine, always.

C.

What a great weekend!

We went to Epcot on Saturday, MGM on Saturday night and Typhoon Lagoon on Sunday because we found out we had more days left on our tickets (which we bought four or five years ago) than we had thought. MGM was crowded as Hell, but the other two parks were practically empty! The three of us had a ball riding rides, going to shows, making fun of the tourists (playfully), and generally hanging out together. We hadn’t done that in a long time. Mission Space was the main reason I wanted to go and it didn’t disappoint! If you have never ridden it, it is absolutely the best simulator you will ever ride, pulling 3 Gs! It’s short, but I knew it would be.

There hasn’t been any D/s play for a while, which is fine. We needed some ‘normal’ family time. lg is now wearing an anklet 24/7 to represent her submission to me. While she is still getting used to the idea that she is mine whenever I want for whatever I want and has made a few blunders, she is doing very well, overall. I have been trying to let her know what I expect, but I definitely have room for improvement.

The journey continues...

Keep Living Well.

C.