Things to Do

TO DO: Spa Day Reward

I kinda suck at the whole “take care of yourself” thing. I don’t take care of my skin, my hair, my nails. I’ve told you before about my haircuts and how terrible I am with that. In my entire life, even through a six-week modeling course, I have never once plucked a single hair on my body. It’s all just kinda foreign to me.

But lately, I’ve been desperately craving a spa day.

I want to lounge in a seat while someone expertly paints my toenails. I want to get my eyebrows shaped and have a nice refreshing facial. I want to get my hair did and done. In a perfect world, I’d get a relaxing massage too!

And I have begun putting the gears in motion.

I told The Boyfriend that I will make all the doctors, dentists, optometrist appointments if and only if, he makes me a spa day appointment. It’s a task that I need to get done but for some reason cannot make myself do it. Firstly, I am deathly afraid of dentists. The idea of any of us having to go see a dentist, scares the crap out of me. The rest, I’m not sure why it seems like such a chore for me, but it’s been on my to-do list for years and I just keep making excuses.

Maybe if I have a reward to look forward to at the end of it (other than knowing we’re all somewhat healthy), it won’t be so hard for me to do it!

The Boyfriend liked the idea a lot. He liked it mainly for the idea of me treating myself to something. He always gets a kick out of treating me like a princess, although never thinks to do it himself – I think mainly because he’s afraid I’ll reject it.

So now, he has to:

  • Find a spa
  • Book me a…
    • Mani/Pedi
    • Eyebrow Threading (because I’ve always wanted to try it! Especially over waxing)
    • Facial
    • Haircut

And then I have to:

  • Find out how each of the kids are covered under their Dad’s healthcare – the older three with Alfie and Carter with The Boyfriend
  • Call our doctor who we haven’t seen in about four years
  • Find a dentist for the whole family and book first appointments
  • Find an optomotrist for the whole family and book appointments

Geez, just writing that out makes my palms sweaty. So much work but it’s gotta get done and at least I’ll get a spa day out of the deal 😉

TO WRITE: A Collection of My Years of Blogging

I’ve had this idea of late. I’ve been blogging on and off since I was about 14. I’m 28 now, so you figure, that’s about 14 years of blogging – almost half my life! I say almost and about because I have always tended to take extended breaks from blogging.

And there’s a lot of content. Lots and lots of content.

And right now, it’s strewn all over the internet.

I think it could be interesting to collect some of my best pieces, snippets and quotes from over the years, from all the different blogs, and gather it and put it into a nice organized eBook, maybe with some commentary from my present perspective or something similar. It could also add some of my favorite posts from places like Twitter and Facebook and be a sort of collection of my last 14 or so years on the interwebs…

It’s a very rough idea, as you can tell, but it’s swarming around in my brain like a flock of locusts.

Anyone have any experience doing this? Any words of advice?

 

TO DO: Get My Hair Did!

I don’t often do much with my hair…

In the past, I’ve had all sorts of interesting hair. I went from long, straight, blah hair to a short bob to a mohawk that landed me in the local newspaper. Then I shaved that off, grew it out, shaved off what grew and then got long layers that bored me to death.

What I have now is a good four years of not getting it cut and just doing the odd color here and there. Here’s a basic look at the hair:

That's Me!

That’s Me!

It reaches down to the top of my hips and a good six inches of it is just dead hair. Currently, it’s dyed a kind of purplish red. I only recently started dying my hair and I generally stick with browns and reddish colors, although honestly, it’s not doing much in the way of changing a lick of anything. This last dye-job, The Boyfriend’s response was, “You can hardly tell”. I have a lot of gray hair interspersed everywhere too, although I can’t say I hate that. I hope to gray gracefully, just like my Mom.

I only know how to do about three things where my hair is concerned. I can do a simple braid, I can put it in a pony tail and I’m relatively decent with gel. Outside of that, I seriously suck. Curls don’t stay in my hair because it’s too thin, it’s unbearably straight and holds styles for very short periods of time and it’s seriously stubborn.

I’ve wanted to go and get it cut for a really long time now, although I can honestly say I’m a little scared to. I’ve had my hair this long for a long time, it feels like it’s going to be a huge change to do anything with it. Plus, I have no idea what I’ll look like with shorter hair now, because the last time I had short hair, was when I was still skinny, pre-Carter.

I often go into hairdressers and give them a basic length limitation and say that I need something relatively low-maintenance because I’m a hair idiot, but otherwise surprise me. This has always resulted in long layers. Well, I am just plain done with the long layers!

I keep thinking that I want to go dramatically short. I loved when I had short hair. It was the most attention I ever paid to my hair. And I think a lot of people would agree that it totally suits my personality. I’ve been thinking either something like Kaley Cuoco’s new haircut

Kaley Cuoco

Kaley Cuoco

or maybe something like Ginnifer Goodwin’s for short styles.

Ginnifer Goodwin

Ginnifer Goodwin

The last time I went from long hair to really short hair, I cried. I don’t know why and I don’t want to repeat the experience. So, I often think that maybe starting small and just going a couple inches at a time is smarter, but then I also know me. Chances are I’d just get comfortable with the length for another 4 years and we’d be right back where we started… Here.

I used to be able to take risks with my appearance and now, I’m just so stuck in a rut, and I’m done! Any thoughts?

TO DO: #WritingChallenges for #EroticWriters

As the creator of The Erotic Writers Group, I’m often coming up with challenges and prompts for our group’s #DailyChallenge over on Challenge Central, where you can get #WritingChallenges for #EroticWriters every single day.

Since I’m coming up with them, I think it’s only appropriate that I participate every once and awhile. How can I expect others to, if I don’t?

Over time, I have participated in a few of the challenges. My first one was a 250 word #WordcountWednesday submission. Most recently, I submitted a sex song called Deeper Into Me for #SaturdaySerenade. Every once and awhile, I will submit some stuff and add it on My Writing & Erotica blog.

However, I’m sorely behind. We have just come back after quite a long hiatus and in the 3 weeks we’ve been doing the challenges, I’ve only submitted 2 or 3 pieces. Simply not good enough. So, I figured I’d create a list of all the challenges that I want to do and then challenge myself to start checking them off my list. Chances are, I’ll get none in by the submission deadline, although hooray for me if I do.

#SumItUpSundays

#SumItUpSundays

#SumItUpSundays

#MondaysMuse

#MondaysMuse

#MondaysMuse

#WordcountWednesday

#WordcountWednesday

#WordcountWednesday

#ThursdayThoughts

#ThursdayThoughts

#ThursdayThoughts

#FetishFridays

#FetishFridays

#FetishFridays

#SaturdaySerenade

#SaturdaySerenade

#SaturdaySerenade

#WritingPrompts to Use

Back in early summer of 2014, we used to add #WritingPrompts for #EroticWriters every week, five at a time. Starting this new year, we’ve been adding one a day. I decided to start collecting all the ones that I’m really interested in writing about.

I plan to continually update this list as new challenges and prompts come out and as I make submissions. It’s part of my #EroticWriters Resolutions to get going on this, so fingers crossed and all. I’ll update on Twitter when I make any changes to this list, so be sure to follow me there.

And if you’d like to learn more about these challenges, please don’t hesitate to check out Challenge Central. It’s easy to participate and you can get all the information you need there. Hope to see you there!

TO DO: #EroticWriters & #EroticReaders Resolutions 2015

Recently on The Erotic Writers Group blog, a couple of posts were published about setting resolutions as an erotic writer and an erotic reader and there was also a challenge for #EroticWriters resolutions. Today, I thought I’d take a minute to reflect on some of my writing goals for 2015.

#EroticReaders Resolutions

  1. Read 25 Books in 2015

    I’m participating in Goodreads’ yearly reading challenge. Last year, I think I put 50 books at first and then after starting my massive Sherlock Holmes, abandoned the challenge. This year, I’ve selected a more manageable number and have also started adding eBooks that I read (because I forgot you could do this on Goodreads).

  2. Write Reviews

    I’m not sure exactly how I want to go about doing this. I find that I’m often more critical of my review of things than I am of my own fictional or non-fictional writing. I struggle with giving criticisms of any kind as well, so that makes it difficult too. I mainly would really like to start publishing reviews on my Goodreads account and then venture elsewhere.

  3. Read Some Classic Erotica

    This is just kind of an ongoing role. I’ve been reading approximately one piece of classic erotica every year for the past few. Sadopaedia by Anonymous is my absolute favorite and I’ve read it about 30 times. Every couple of months I go back to it and flip through the pages. I am working on a list of book’s that I’d like to read in this genre including The Story of O and The Whippingham Papers (I’ll add it when it’s done).

  4. Join a Book Club

    Whether it’s finally getting down to making the book club I’ve always desired to make or just joining one of the many thousands of book clubs on Goodreads, I really want to try this out at some point this year. I figure that I won’t even consider it at the moment because I’m too busy elsewhere, but maybe in the summer or during back-to-school I’ll dedicate myself to it.

  5. Read More Poetry

    I tend to stick to non-fiction a lot when I’m choosing what to read. And I don’t spend nearly enough time seeking out new and interesting things to read. I’ve always wanted to spend some time reading poetry. I’ve purchased a variety of different books of poetry and save it to read all over the place, but I never really hunker down and do it. Poetry takes up a lot more mental capacity for me than other forms of reading, so I rarely dedicate myself to it. I’d like to change that.

  6. Actually Read Erotica

    Yes, I read publications from 100 years ago, but I rarely ever explore modern day erotica. Often times, I don’t know what I want to read, so I don’t know where I want to look, and I just don’t spend much time on it. But I run a community for #EroticWriters and #EroticReaders, it’s only right that I take a few moments to actually read what they’re doing!

#EroticWriters Resolutions

  1. Regularly Post to my Writers Blog

    I made my first post to my writing blog back in July 2014 and really enjoyed participating in The Erotic Writers Group #WritingChallenges for #EroticWriters. Ideally, I would be posting once a day or maybe even twice a day, one submission post and then one unrelated post. Currently, I’m nowhere near that! The goal for now is to at least post twice a week.

  2.  Complete a First Draft of The Brighton Tales

    This goal is taking me so much longer than it should. To be honest, I haven’t even looked at it since the last post I did about wanting to complete this story. At the very least, if I do nothing else on this list but this, I want to complete the first draft of The Brighton Tales. Mark my words!

  3. Participate in #WritingChallenges for #EroticWriters

    I’d like to participate in every single one of them, but I know how hard I find that, especially when I’m the creator of the challenges. Sometimes it just won’t work. So I’d like to commit to doing at least one writing prompt every session and it would be fantastic if I could do every single #ThursdayThoughts and one other challenge throughout the week.

That’s all I can think of for the moment, although I’m sure that I’ll come up with more as the days go on. What are some of your resolutions this year? Be sure to stay tuned to see my progress 😉

TO DO: Knit & Sew

UPDATES

One thing that I’ve always wanted to do is make my own clothing. First, I just wanted to knit sweaters and vests, because I thought it was the coolest thing ever. My Grandma always knitted things like washcloths and towels and she was able to slam out hundreds of these things in a day. It was mesmerizing. But as an 11-year-old, I wanted sweaters and vests.

I learnt how to knit, just the basics. Enough that I’ve managed to make a bunch of headband-like devices (although I’m sure they could be used otherwise). Then, when I got pregnant with Carter, I started experiencing intense joint pain in my hands and basically gave up on knitting. I’ve never learnt how to do anything but the basic knit stich and I’ve never followed a pattern, so still no closer to that sweater or vest.

When I was about 14, I took a sewing class in school as an elective. I made a comfy pair of pajama pants and a beautiful medieval-inspired dress. I also made about a billion pillows! I absolutely loved sewing and if we hadn’t gotten rid of our sewing machine shortly after I learnt to sew, I probably would’ve kept on sewing like crazy.

It never occured to me, during all this time, to ever pick up hand sewing. Not until last night anyways, and then now it’s all I seem to be able to think about. All the things I could’ve been sewing all these years. You don’t need a machine to sew!

So now, I desperately want to get knitting needles, yarn, fabric, thread and sewing needles (plus, something to keep all those things organized in…), so that I can start learning how to do that – hand sew and make knitted sweaters and such. What I need to do is pick a “goal piece”, something to aspire to making specifically. Then, work towards learning what I need to know to be able to do it.

For example, I don’t know how to do any other hand sewing stitch than one that you use to close up the end of a pillow after you’ve stuffed it. And that was years and years ago that I last did that. So, for hand sewing, I need to get really good at perfecting certain types of stitches for my goal project.

It’s official, it’s a goal to get me some hand sewing materials.

TO ATTEND: Munches

Back when I was pregnant with Carter (just over 5 years ago now…), The Boyfriend and I began attending munches. It had been on my to-do list forever and a day, and finally, after months/years of begging, the stars finally aligned and I went to my first munch.

Our first actual time out going to a munch was not that great of an experience. As total newbies, very awkward already in social situations, we both went into it with absolutely no balls whatsoever. We ended up not even being able to get up the courage to walk over the rather intimidating table.

However, surprisingly, that didn’t deter us altogether. We ended up hooking up with another group and went out the next month and had a great first experience. Both of us walked away from the experience full of life, full of ideas and if I remember correctly, had some of the kinkiest sex ever. For the rest of that pregnancy almost, we were attending munches and our relationship (in my humble opinion) has never been better.

Even though The Boyfriend was still his ole vanilla self the entire time, he seemed to be able to comprehend my kinks a little bit better. Sadly, after Carter was born, the person who ran the munches we really loved moved away due to illness and The Boyfriend’s understanding of my desire for kink went out the window.

Every month I say to him, when the notification comes up in my FetLife group, “We should go to the munch this month”. Sometimes, he’ll be working and the hesitance is understandable. Other times, he won’t be working – but again, the understanding for my desire went out the window…

I have never wanted to attend munches on my own, not initially anyways. I’m not opposed to doing it alone, it’s just…

This is always such a hard thing for me to explain. When I’m going to a munch, I look at that as exploring my sexuality, even though often times there is no sexual exploration involved. But I don’t look as my sexuality that as something that I can pack up and shut down for the night, it’s a thing that I carry with me everywhere I go. My sexuality very much defines me, and I would appreciate it staying that way. I have no intention of extracting my sexuality from any part of my identity, for any reason, at any time.

So, when I go to a munch, the only real place in the world where I can just hang out with people without worrying about the parts of my identity that the world/society deems deviant, I want to share that freedom with my partner. I want to share that most primal and most authentic part of myself with my partner. It’s very much about exploring my sexuality, my identity, me.

And if I were single, maybe I’d be interested in going it alone. I don’t know that for sure one way or another, because I’m not single and I haven’t been truly single for huge portions of my adult life. But as a person in a monogamous relationship, I want to explore my sexuality with my partner, and so going to a munch (as innocent as it is) can, in many ways, feel like cheating when you go it alone. Again, I don’t know this for hard fact, but it is what deters me from doing it… If that makes any sense?!?

Ideally, The Boyfriend and I would make it a priority to attend a munch every single month. I understand that this is not always possible due to work and it’s even hard when thinking about kids, but even if we just went every couple of months. If he can’t come, it would be nice if I still got to go. For that, I think I’d need a dedicated munch buddy or something…

TO HAVE: A FFM Threesome

For many years of my life, I was kind of known for threesomes. Alfie and I had joked with a friend once about having a threesome and next thing you know, we’re having threesomes constantly. Really, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but every couple of months, pregnant or not, we’d find some poor sucker to join us in the bedroom.

It was probably the only area of Alfie and I’s relationship where we had any clear and defined boundaries. Or at least, that was true for all the MFM threesomes we had. And they were all so uncomplicated. Only one MFM experience was a bad one and even at that, if I were in a different un-pregnated headspace for that one, I probably wouldn’t have ever though it was a bad experience.

However, with women, it was always bad. Twice we tried and twice we failed so miserably that I lost friends and he gained some. I kissed a girl with braces and didn’t like it – he liked it too much. I got insecure with another girl and didn’t like it – he liked it too much. Both times ended with me down in my room crying and him carrying on like nothing had happened…

And you’d think the two bad experiences would turn me off the concept entirely. You’d think I’d be so hung up on it. And yet, here I sit, still wishing I could have a successful FFM threesome.

I don’t know what it is about it that is such an attractant to me, even after my bad experiences. I mean, of course, I just want to be with a woman without a man’s presence. But, I also want to be with a woman with a man’s presence. Something about the duality of it… The feminine and the masculine.

I know what a threesome feels like, and I know what it feels like when it’s two guys. But what does it feel like when it’s two girls and it’s comfortable like it is with two guys? What does it feel like to be getting the best of both genders at the exact same moment?

I need to know!!

TO DO: Get a Tattoo

I’ve wanted a tattoo, the same tattoo, since I was 13. When I was 13, I was told I couldn’t get it until I could do so without needing a parents permission. When I was 18 and could go get a tattoo, I was pregnant and broke. For the first time, in a really long time, I’m neither broke nor pregnant and I don’t need my parents permission.

However, I have still yet to get my tattoo. This is mostly because of fear (which you can see from previous posts is something I struggle with) but it’s also because now I don’t know what I want first.

My original tattoo, the same one I’ve wanted since I was 13, is a scary first tattoo. First of all, it’s big. Second, it’s on my back, near my kidney-like area. I don’t know if I’ll like tattoo needles or hate them. I keep thinking maybe I should start with something smaller. What I really want is some decorative f-holes like the ones found on a violin, but with my own little flair.

The Boyfriend and I have also always wanted to get matching tattoos representing our kids. Neither of us have ever really thought about a design for that tattoo but we both know that we want something with all the kids first and middle names. I’d like us to get it on the same spot on our bodies, but who knows where.

The Boyfriend already has two tattoos. One on his right bicep and one on his left upper arm.

The Boyfriend's Tattoo

The Boyfriend’s Tattoo

 

The right one is almost like a tribal arm band and the other is a fire-breathing dragon. He also really wants to get another tattoo, either on his back or chest, of an animal and another animal fighting each other (cannot for the life of me remember the two animals and I don’t want to say what I think it is, because I don’t want to be wrong…). At least he knows what to expect…

I always wanted to have a lot of different body modifications and at one point had planned to have my entire body covered in tattoos and about 13 different piercings. Now, I’ve decided against getting anymore piercings, except maybe a couple nipple piercings (although The Boyfriend hates that idea). But tattoos… I know I want at least one big one on each of my arms, I have a huge list of ideas for my back, something near my feet would be awesome, and possibly something on my chest.

I’m quite concerned about stretch marks, since a lot of my back and stomach are covered by them. I’ve always wanted to get a wrap-around tattoo, one that comes over my hips and something right above my pubic area, but with the c-section scar and all the marks, I just don’t think it’s going to be possible. Not and still look relatively decent. Especially as I age.

But f-holes and my family one at the very least!

TO DO: Get Back to Twitter

Forgive me Internet, for I have neglected.

It has been 13 months (exactly!) since I last posted to my personal Twitter account.

Whew! I feel a little bit better. Ugh, now that that weight has been lifted off my shoulders, can I just say, I cannot wait to get back to Twitter. I don’t even know what ever happened to make me stop tweeting…

It’s that time of year where I say that I’m not going to make resolutions then go right on making them all over the place. This year however, I am not living in denial and I am just outright saying that I’m setting some resolutions. Maybe it will result in me actually accomplishing something, who knows?!?

So, my first official resolution for 2015 (and even though I’ve already given it away), drumroll please…

I am totally coming back to Twitter. January 1st, come rain or come shine, no matter what device I’m forced to use, I will be tweeting again!

Until then, be sure to follow me on Twitter and enjoy this collection of 13 of my favorite Twitter memories (for the 13 months I’ve been gone).

https://twitter.com/ValerieRayne13/status/309506248469000192

https://twitter.com/ValerieRayne13/status/379306729449598976

https://twitter.com/ValerieRayne13/status/396114558617538560