Domesticity: The Bathroom

Last month we were in the kitchen, this month I want to walk you through cleaning and maintaining a tidy bathroom. I feel that cleanliness in the bathroom shows guests how important cleanliness is in your home and your own person. While I currently don’t have much more than a hallway sized bathroom with a shower at the end of it, one day I do hope to have a pleasant and inviting retreat for weary bodies.

Danae on Domestic Servitude has put together a fabulous Fall Cleaning list for every room of the house. You can download the PDF of the bathroom cleaning list here! Below is my general cleaning list for the bathroom. You can make yours more detailed and edit it for your own home.

Bathroom Cleaning Checklist

1. Scrub toilet
2. Scrub shower (I don’t have a tub)
3. Replace towels
4. Wipe down and scrub sink
5. Sweep and mop
6. Refill soap
7. Check/replace deodorizer
8. Clean mirror

Listed below are articles across the web that have helped me with my own bathroom cleaning routine. I hope that they can help you establish what you want to do in the bathroom to keep it inviting and clean.

Intense Bathroom Cleanup

Bathroom Cleaning and Organization

Bathroom Cleaning Tips

Cleaning the Bathroom (PDF)

How to Clean Your Bathroom

Bathroom Cleaning Tips (video)

Bathroom Cleaning Tips

Royal Flush – Bathroom Cleaning

Time Saving Bathroom Cleaning Tips

What tips do you have to making the bathroom clean and relaxing?

photo by pepo

Domesticity: The Kitchen

The kitchen is the heart of any home and having a clean and germ-free work environment for cooking and food preparation is important. Knowing some skills and cleaning tips can make keeping your kitchen clean and sparkling effortless. No longer is doing dishes and mopping floors drudgery; enhanced it can be an important part of your service when you wear your domestic servant hat.

Danae on Domestic Servitude has put together a fabulous Fall Cleaning list for every room of the house. You can download the PDF of the kitchen cleaning list here! Below is my general cleaning list for the kitchen. You can make yours more detailed and edit it for your own kitchen.

Kitchen Cleaning Checklist

1. Large appliances cleaned inside and out.
2. Small appliances cleaned outside and underneath.
3. Counter tops washed, dried and polished.
4. Kitchen cabinets wiped with furniture polish.
5. Dishes washed, dried and put away or stored in dishwasher.
6. Kitchen sink cleaned out, wiped and polished with cleaner.
7. Kitchen floor swept and damp mopped.
8. Trash removed.

Listed below are articles across the web that I have found to be helpful for setting up my own cleaning routine for the kitchen. I hope that you will explore these and if you don’t have a cleaning routine in place; consider starting one with the kitchen.

Kitchen Cleaning Tips – Easy tips and preventative measures to keeping your kitchen clean and organized.

Quick and Easy Kitchen Cleaning Tips – Preventative tips and quick cleaning to have your guests complimenting your kitchen.

Kitchen Cleaning Tips – Tips submitted by readers on LifeTip.com

Kitchen Cleaning Tips for the Lazy Cleaner – Quick and easy tips for anyone that leads a busy life.

Natural Kitchen Cleaning Tips – Using everyday household items like vinegar and baking soda to clean instead of harmful and expensive cleaners.

Stop Scrubbing: Fast and Easy Kitchen Cleanup Tips – Small tips to keep things cleaner in the kitchen before you have a mess.

Kitchen Cleaning Tips - An extensive cleaning how-to for every item in your kitchen.

15 Minute Kitchen Clean Up – Cleaning the kitchen doesn’t have to take a lot of time!

Intense Kitchen Cleaning – If you have more time, here’s a longer, more intense cleaning.

Kitchen Cleaning Tips – More little tips to keep your kitchen sparkling and germ free.

photo by palindrome6996

Top Ten Books on Holiday Preparation

With the holidays right around the corner I wanted to give you some helpful resources to get you started on decorating and planning for family; whether that be meals or traveling.

The following list was gathered from Amazon.com

1. Celebrating Home: Decorating for the Holidays and Seasons (Seasons of Cannon Falls)
2. Country Living Merry & Bright: 301 Festive Ideas for Celebrating Christmas
3. The American Patriot’s Treasury of Thanksgiving Dinner Ideas: Old-World Table Settings, Recipes, Games, Hand Crafts, and Party Ideas for Cultural Enrichment and Pleasure
4. Thanksgiving 101: Celebrate America’s Favorite Holiday with America’s Thanksgiving Expert
5. Christmas (Williams-Sonoma)
6. Christmas: Decorations, Feasts, Gifts, Traditions (1000 Hints, Tips and Ideas)
7. ?
8. ?
9. ?
10. ?

This list is intentionally left incomplete. What are your favorite books for the holiday season to get you prepared and ready to enjoy a low stress season?

Also Recommended

The Simply Service Holiday 2008 edition – pdf

Inside the edition:

• The Matriarch of Merriment by Sazmira
• Holiday Tips and Ideas by Danae
• Holiday Traditions by Whipmaster Bob Clark
• The Great Christmas Tree Adventure by BootPig
• Gift Wrap Like a PorkChop by PorkChop
• Making Croissants for the Holidays by Wildfluers
• Also Tons of Holiday Recipe Cards!

Finding Domesticity In You

I’m personally not a very domestic person. When I do find the desire to clean it’s normally to relieve stress (believe it or not). It can help calm my  nerves and give my mind something else to do while working on the house. Since I’ve become Master’s stay at home submissive I find I need to look further than stress relief to get the chores done. I’m certain that you have felt the same way too. Chores just happen to be the reality of a submissive sometimes. It’s not glorifiying, it’s not fantasy. It’s just life. If you are fortunate to have a Dominant willing to share the domestic chores that’s wonderful, but many submissives have to balance work and home life to make their Dominant happy.

So what does this have to do with washing dishes? Sure the title is misleading until I tell you a little story. One night I was exploring the internet via Google search looking for ways to develop my domestic skills, I was searching for simple ways to do things, greener cleaning solutions and so forth. One of the links I clicked was Make Washing Dishes Fun by danae over on Domestic Servitude. It was the first time I had encountered this site and it wasn’t going to be the last. I read all of the archives. She also has a post on Handwashing Dishes that I enjoyed. I found there were small ways to recapture the joys of cleaning and home care.

Since then I have grown in my way of cleaning, I’m finding simpler ways to do things. I have learned to recycle and prepare some simple things. The inspiration I get from the site was all I needed to push me further into my domestic service. I’m far from perfect but I’m getting better every single day.

The site has grown since I first found it. danae has taken on a few more authors to help her with the work and the reading is fabulous. If you have any domestic struggles with your submission this is a fantastic website to go to for all sorts of tips. I especially enjoy the recipes personally, but they share lots of fantastic DIY items, internet finds and so much more. I don’t think anything like this exists anywhere else. Can I just say I love this site?!

What other sites would you recommend for someone learning domesticity?

Best Submissive Blogslist

There are thousands of blogs on the internet by submissives. Some of them are decently written and by all means, worth following. This is not that list. This list is about the best submissive blogs out there; the ones that drive you to want to participate, feel their journey and be a part of their lives.

I’d love you to go to each of these websites, leave a comment and tell them Submissive Guide sent you.

• A subtle slavegirl
• A Submissive’s musings
• Behind the Collar
• Craving His Touch
• danae whispering
• Journey Into Submission
• Kitten’s Pawprints
• MD’s precious treasure
• persephone in love
• Ramblings of a kajira
• slave journal of the kiva
• The Femme Fagette
• The Journey
• This girl’s weblog
• Under His Hand
• View From the Floor

Think you should be on the list? Let me know!

My First Blog Award!

I’d like to say thank you to baby from Educating Baby for gifting me with a ‘Friends’ Award.  It is a great honor to be recognized so soon after my start of this blog. I only hope that I can become friends with more of you, and help you find the advice and help you need to become the submissive you strive to be.

“These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers.”

The Rules to accepting this award: “Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.”

And now it’s my turn to give the award to 8 of my greatest friends in the blogosphere. These people describe in their blogs what it really means to be a submissive in their relationship.

And the award goes to:

1. danae whispering
2. Under His Hand
3. The journey
4. This girl’s weblog
5. a submissive’s musings
6. View from the Floor
7. MD’s precious treasure
8. subtle’s blog

RACK: An Alternative to SSC

In a previous post I talked about Safe, Sane and Consensual or SSC, a safety mantra that quite a bit of the BDSM community has picked up as a way to explain ourselves to non-lifestyle people. It’s an easy way to explain what can’t really be explained. I don’t intend to make this a primer for RACK, just like I didn’t have that intention for SSC. It’s a viewpoint, plain and simple.

If you have ever tried to explain what we do to someone that doesn’t have any familiarity you will probably use these very standards to stand up to your descriptions. An alternative, but one that is even hard for some BDSM practitioners to embrace is called RACK. It stands for Risk Aware Consensual Kink. The only think that the two safety standards have in common is the consensuality of it.

Risk Aware

All of the activities that you can participate in have some level of risk to them. From something as basic as a spanking, to verbal humiliation, edge play, or the even more intense forms of play. These risks can be physical, mental, emotional and psychological. Can you place a label of safe on something that carries risks such as burns, bruising, cuts, scrapes, mental anguish, stress, fatigue, headaches or other dangers?

Consensual

Just like SSC, consensual means that both parties agree to the activities and negotiations that have occurred. This is probably the most important premise of both mantras. Without consensuality, then it is considered illegal. Illegal generally isn’t the way I’d want to play.

Shift in Purpose

The purpose of RACK is awareness and education. You should endeavor to learn all there is about a play activity before engaging in it.

danae from Within Reality explains the differences with a scenario played by both versions.

The difference between the two terms is even more clear when the spirit of them is applied in the public scene.

When watching a scene that may involve some heavy risk you might hear the person next to you whisper to their partner “they shouldn’t do that…its unsafe…that is a dangerous Dominant” – that is the spirit of SSC.

If you hear whispered “I wonder if he knows the risk involved in doing that….I wonder if he does “this” it could be made safer….I think I will tell him about it later after his scene” – that is the “spirit” of RACK.

I really like her viewpoint. Do you hear whispers of  ‘dangerous Dominant’ at parties you frequent? Is it really true? Is the DM stopping the play for safety concerns?

Simply Service

A once-a-month newsletter/e-zine written for service oriented people, by service oriented people in M/s, D/s or Leather relationships.

Current contributors are all slave or submissive identified, and in real time relationships where obedience and service are necessary, valued skills, achieved over time. I have been fortunate enough to meet these lovely people all over the country, and have delighted in great conversations, where we sometimes agree, and sometimes disagree, but are bound by a mutual respect of each other’s choices. Occasionally, words from the “other side” might be included as well, as many perspectives will be represented.

Many current contributors are active in their own local leather communities, as well as maintaining relationships, homes, jobs and more. We know it can be a balancing act. We know it isn’t pretty all the time. We’ll be sharing our stories, tricks, tips, lessons learned (easy and hard), mistakes, and human foibles.

Every possible relationship combination will be represented, as this is about service, and can transcend gender and role orientations. Contributors are encouraged to write about issues they are currently facing, and as such each issue may go in a number of directions. The thought of “theming” issues has arisen, and is on hold at this time to allow for freedom of expression and creativity as this project finds a niche of its own. Philosophy, skill training, methods, and more may be examined.

Simply Service Groups on the Web

Yahoo Group: Simply Service
FetLife Group: Simply Service

Contributions will be accepted and reviewed on a per submission basis for addition into a future issue. Please include a bio, and any references you have and send submissions to msolympusleather2003@cox.net.

To view these newsletters you must have the free Adobe Reader or another PDF reader.  Here’s where you can get it! Download Adobe Reader

Archives

Holiday 2008 Download Now!	The Matriarch of Merriment by Sazmira Holiday Tips and Ideas by Danae Holiday Traditions by Whipmaster Bob Clark The Great Christmas Tree Adventure by BootPig Gift Wrap Like a PorkChop by PorkChop Making Croissants for the Holidays by Wildfluers Also Tons of Holiday Recipe Cards!

Unconventional Service by Dusk Peterson Making House Guests Comfortable and Welcome by Danae Carson Not Trustworthy, Risk Worthy SWJ2 Media Release	August 2008 Download Now!

June 2008 Download Now!	Rolling with the Punches by Joy C. On Pigs by Whipmaster Bob Clark Working Backwards by kate maripose

Is Slavery Real? by Darren Productivity Tools Training Outside of the Box by Bootpig porkchops Rules of Bedding: Inside Info from a Retail Whore	May 2008 Download Now!

November 2006 Download Now!

The Path of Service, a Primer Part 1: The Mental, Physical, and Spiritual Disciplines of Service and Surrender by Mercedes White Socks by Jamie Nemitz Personal Responsibility in BDSM by ZooDirt and Kyphi Community Service by Kassie Nine Fold Path Seminars This Month in NC and GA The Role of Slavery in Modern Society by mair A Dominant’s View of Service by Mermaid Master A Series: The Glorified Bottom by Kathryn_Tact For Pig by BootPig

When You Say Nothing At All – Nonverbal Communication in the Scene by seri My Little Sister Wants a Slave by Mistress Grace Hope’s journal Ritual of the Pipe by izzy Service in Daddy Moments by Sean-Michael Traveling with Master by Elegant Brighten your World? Clean your Windows! by sweetkahi Our Readers Write!	February 2006 Download Now!

November 2005 Download Now!	My Journey by slavedebbie Community Unity by Master Kalan Declutter 101 by Tante Jen Metamorphosis by slave a Naturally Polyamourous by Mistress Pamela Essay by E Missy Hall Intimate Partner Abuse in the BDSM Lifestyle by sequi

Ledgerbook Service by Jezzie, property of Anton Eulogy for O by slave a Pantheon of Leather Nominations From the Editor and Letters Humidity and Leather Toys – Flirting with Danger by Elegant Time Management by Mistress Grace Politely Encouraging Departure or “Go Home, Please” by sazmira Reader’s Write! August Responses and September’s Question Are you Experienced? by Kassie Humility by sweetkahi	September 2005 Download Now

August 2005 Download Now!	Grace in Service by Linda ‘BootPig’ Hall Being Transparent for Daddy by slaveboi carlie Aromatherapy Uses in Service by Tante Jen Working with Speech Protocols by slave a Rule of St Benedict Notes for use in Master/slave or service relationships by slave jean Our Readers Write! Consideration 101 by sazmira

Service does not always mean Serious by morgana From the Editor and GWNN Bash Announcement Southwest Leather Conference Announcement – Looking for PR reps Luxury in the Bath with Tante Jen Aftercare starts with Negotiations by Lady Wyllo hope’s Journal The Pitfalls of Excellence by slave a A Life without Rules by Tante Jen	July 2005 Download Now!

June 2005 Download Now!

The Reality of Reliance by ZD, one of our rare offerings from the Top perspective Hiding in Plain Sight by wonderwoman. Balancing your service relationship with functioning the real world. Children, jobs, and more Psycho-Hostess: Tamed? slave jean Are you a Psycho-Hostess? A humorous, but real, look at how obsessive the service-minded can be, and how to reel that in and make it graceful. Deconstruction of Bootblacking by Steven Hagen, 2005 Southwest Bootblack and IMBB First Runner-Up 2005 hope

Ritualizing the Ordinary by slave jean Discovering Leather Care as Service by Sean Michael Part II of the The Write Stuff: Written Communication in Service by morgana Part II of the Mental Orgasm: The Phenomenon of Brain Sex series by Wyllo Hand Signals as a tool of communication by BootPig	May 2005 Download Now!

April 2005 Download Now!	slave a is back with an introspective look at Presumption in Service From the Editor The Art of the Interview

From the Editor –Linda Service Oriented and Protocols If He told you to jump off a bridge… Submission from Strength New Studies Show Diamonds Cause Irritation in Slaves Working Outside the Home A Feminist Perspective of BDSM Ritual Routine Recommitment Head space, slave space, sub space and other places we travel	March 2005 Download Now!

February 2005 Download Now!	Living Authentically Serving While Sick A is for Alpha The Symbology of Ritual Earned Respect of Proper Manners Bed Linens Primer

Welcome from Linda ‘Bootpig’ Hall Catherine Gross. Servants Retreat 2005 How does your service rank? Using the hospitality industry as a reference. Obedience. A slave examines the development of obedience. The Basics of Resistance Management The differences between submissives and slaves. Is one deeper than the other or are they just different?? Master/slave is not another form of marriage Beginning to serve tea

January 2005 Download Now!