Married In Ohio

I just realized that WordPress has been spitting up blank pages for the past 4 hours or so. It seems that there is some sort of incompatibility between it the latest version of PHP. I should have learned my lesson by now; upgrades never go smoothly. For the time being, I have reverted to the previous version of PHP. Now there is yet one more thing on the to-do list. Anyway, you have my apologies if you tried to comment and were unable.

This is how we dressed up for Halloween. I’m not sure how real barbarians did it. There was a cold wind blowing up underneath the fur.

We went to a two parties on Saturday night. After going to a “regular” costume party, we went to a local swing club where the costumes were a bit more risqué. Actually, they were quite a bit spicier. We stayed after the judging for some naughty adult fun.

We’ll provide a full report later but I wanted to post these photographs. For now, let me just say that California Girl and I both have “rug burn”. She’s got it on her back and I have it on both knees.

Here is our tenth photograph for Half-Nekkid Thursday. If hard to believe we’ve already been doing this for ten weeks. I think that this is our favorite photograph so far. If it’s not too cold, we may try and go to a swing party dressed like this. We have more fur to wear for the “regular” party that we plan on going too.

We’re always a matched set for Halloween (and similar occasions). So here is another question for everybody. Do you think that it’s too corny? Do you and your SO coordinate or dress individually when you go to themed parties?

Here is the fifth edition of our new Tuesday tradition. With Halloween fast approaching, we decided to take photographs in our Halloween costumes. Or at least part of our costumes. California Girl is a Barbarian Babe and I am a Barbarian Brute. We’ll be sure to post photographs of ourselves in our full costumes after the holiday but her are a few shots of us having fun in our battle helmets. You’ll see more of our costumes in this weeks HNT post. And even though these pictures are NC-17 our HNT photo is PG.

California Girl and I really like the having a scheduled day for our HNT photo sessions. It gives us something to look forward too during the early part of the week when we are both drowning in work. This week was especially good since we got to dress up. California Girl was reminding me about the need to take our HNT photographs soon after I got home form work.

I wonder if barbarians had sex with their helmets on.

It was fun having sex in our helmets. We did take them off after a while.

Halloween is for adults too. Do you have your costume yet?

Now that this weekend has past, the long weekends are over. The Boy is finished with cross country and wresting doesn’t crank up until December. The may be a small weekday match or two towards the end of November but no big tournaments. The Girl still has three more soccer games, the last of which will be in November. Ordinarily, they would finish up next weekend but the final game won’t be until the second week in November, due to scheduling conflicts after a postponement.

So what do I plan to do with all of my “free” time? Well, next weekend is Halloween, and California Girl and I always go to a big Halloween party. We’ve already got our costumes. We fell out of the habit when the children were young but we started back going years ago. It’s always a blast dressing up, walking around, seeing and being seen. And, if there’s time, we also may go to the Halloween at a local swing club. We’ve never been before but we’ve heard that the costumes are “interesting”.

Of course, there will still be Friday night football. This Friday marks the last week of the regular season but it looks like The Boy’s high school will be in the play offs. The Girl will be going there next year and she’s probably a bigger fan than he is. But we don’t have to wake up early on Saturday for the first time in ages. We are already looking forward to sleeping in. And other things.

Here is our ninth photograph for Half-Nekkid Thursday. It’s a little bit risqué but we both liked it. We like the way that you can’t tell what we’re doing but you really can.
It’s a good thing that California Girl likes bald heads because my hairline is receding at warp speed.

Here is a question for everybody. Are we faking or doing it for real? And what clues led you your answer?

Here is the fourth edition of our new Tuesday tradition. I know that technically it’s Wednesday but I haven’t slept yet so it’s still Tuesday to me. The photographs are semi-out takes from the photo session for this weeks HNT post. I say semi-out takes because we took some photographs just for fun. Although they may have a “mature theme”, our actual HNT photographs are usually PG-13. Most of the just for fun photographs that we took are R or NC-17.

It was weird how our photo session started. “California Girl asked if I was read for dinner yet. I reminded her hat we hadn’t yet taken our HNT photograph. She said “Oh yeah. I forgot.” Then she finished up what she was working on, got up from the computer and went upstairs to the master bedroom. I followed her upstairs. As I was to find out later out later, she did not need a lot of “preparation” even though she forgot.

This one was suitable for HNT. We just liked the one we picked better.

This one wasn’t really suitable for HNT. But it did help us prepare for our eventual HNT photo.

This one isn’t suitable for HNT either. It was really just for fun. We got so preoccupied that we almost didn’t get to take the photograph that we had planned.

Ultimately, we did manage to take a suitable photo HNT that we both liked. And we had killer sex in the process too.

Several people have asked what California Girl and I do to try and keep things fresh so I thought I would list ten things that came to mind. This is what works for us. YMMV. The list is in no particular order, its total stream of consciousness. I’m sure that I have omitted one or more things that are probably more significant. I may add them to the list if I think about it when they pop into my head.

1. The bedroom is off limits to the kids. Period.
   Mom and dad need to have a place where they can be husband and wife. It really puts a damper on things if kids are coming in and out or sleeping in the same bed. It was an adjustment for the kids when we started doing this but nowadays, they won’t even know on the door except in extreme cases. (Like one day last week when I overslept and they were going to be late for school if they didn’t wake me up.)
2. We don’t wear pajamas or other night clothes.
   This used to be the rule rather than the exception when it was the two of us. Then the kids came along and California Girl started wearing pajamas. Despite the fact that they are relatively easy to remove, they proved to be much more problematical than she envisioned. Ultimately we went back to the way that things used to be pre-kids and the PJs went into the trash. We keep a couple of nice terry cloth robes from Lands’ End handy for those occasions when we get have to go into another room.
3. Saturday morning sex.
   This is something that we have always done even before we realized it was a tradition. When the kids were younger, California Girl would take them to their Saturday morning activities then come back and get in bed with me. And for the last two months or so, my schedule has been: Take the boy to high school so that he can ride the bus with his teammates to his cross country meet. Come home and spend an hour or so “entertaining” California Girl. Get back into the car and drive to wherever The Boy’s meet happened to be. Sometimes, when the children were small, Saturday would be the only time that our schedules aligned and we weren’t completely exhausted the entire week. It wasn’t as often as we would have liked but it was still something to look forward to. And a great stress reliever.
4. We take showers together.
   This is another one of those things that we did when we were younger that we have continued to do. It’s not as efficient as taking showers separately but it’s a lot more fun. We can only do it on weekends during the winter but during the summer and on vacation, we do it almost every day. Just like the bedroom being off limits, the kids think that it is perfectly normal. I know once The Girl told my mom that “they are taking a shower” when she called for us but she has never said anything to me about it.
5. We have sex during the day or in the morning.
   This was something that we used to do when we first met but gradually it turned into a nighttime thing. That is not the best time when you’re frazzled after a long day at work or chasing the kids around. Now we give each other our best (in the morning) if possible. And look for opportunities to spend some time together during the day. For example, if the Girl is playing in a soccer tournament, we often make use of the time between games. While she is washing her uniform and taking a shower, we’re “playing” grown up games in the master bedroom. I wonder a bit what the other parents think when we get back out to the field, especially on those occasions when we miscalculate the time and don’t have the opportunity to freshen up as much as we would like. We wouldn’t stop doing it but we do wonder.
6. We don’t “waste” nights out by always doing things with friends.
   I can always go out with the guys and California Girl can always go out with the girls. It was much harder for us to get out together when the children were smaller. So, on the rare occasions when we had a baby sitter, we either cut the night short and spent some time by ourselves or didn’t get together with friends at all. It’s important to maintain friendships but your spouse is your most important friend. We weren’t being anti social but we did want some time out of the house for just the two of us.
7. We are adventurous in the bedroom when we do get together.
   I won’t say much about this. This means different things to different people. For some, anal sex or sex during the woman’s period is living on the edge. For others, its business as usual. One thing I will say is that after many years of using a diaphragm as our primary method of birth control, I relish those occasions where we don’t have to worry about dripping in the wrong place at the wrong time of the month.
8. We invent new traditions.
   We don’t always do the same thing every day/week/month/year. We add new things to our repertoire. For instance, today is Tuesday. Very shortly, we will be having our photograph session for Half Nekkid Thursday. Our photographs aren’t nearly as artistic as some. But we have a lot of fun taking them. What’s not to like when you start out half-naked (or more). Or back during the summer, I started going in later to work (we have flex time) so we could have sex and take a show together every morning. I got home later but there was still plenty of daylight left and it was a great way to start the day.
9. California Girl never wears a bra.
   This is a little sexy and a little slutty which is the whole point. It doesn’t take much to get my attention; a little bounce here a little jiggle there. Anyway, I still like the look despite the fact hat she has been doing it for a long time. It’s not the most conservative look but we care a lot more about what each other think than the nameless people we pass when we are out and about. And the only thing that made California Girl’s boobs change shape was pregnancy, childbirth and nursing babies.
10. We do things together even when we don’t have to.
    If we’re getting carry-out for dinner, we might both go to pick it up. It’s redundant but it harkens back to the days when we used to spend time together doing nothing in particular. I can remember California Girl accompanying me to pick up dinner back during our college days together. We also work out together when we can. We both really enjoy our weekend runs in the park. I can run much faster than California Girl but would much rather go for a relaxing jog at her pace and just talk and enjoy the scenery.

Once of the questions that gets frequently asked is if being part of an interracial couple has caused any problems. It hasn’t caused any problems within our immediate family but we have encountered many closed-minded individuals over the years. Here is an account of our experience with one of them. This particular bigot happened to be black.

You know how people always say “they should do something about that”? Well, I’m “they” or at least I used to be. I don’t just complain. I try and do something about it. So if things don’t work out like I want, I know that I tried. Sometimes this can be very frustrating.

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Today is ask MCB/CG day. I usually do this on once a month on Thursday or Friday in the third week of the month but decided to do it earlier in the week this month because we usually get busier towards the end of the week. This is the fifth time that we have done this. Every other time, the questions have been very inquiring. Feel free to ask us anything. We’ll respond in the comments or, if the answer is long, in a separate post. I can’t check our blog from work but we will answer anything that is asked before our next post. So please leave us a comment.