A few quick thoughts on my mental health

I haven’t been doing well lately. my mental health has taken a drastic nose dive. Back in the spring when Master and i decided that we were going to stop trying to have a baby i was doing well. The shit scared-ness of the idea of becoming a parent and the very real threat of postpartum depression was removed, i was relieved. After a short while my mental health fluctuated as i was feeling so many conflicting feelings, guilt primarily. We ended up changing our minds and decided to try once more after a few months of discussion. Enter Fall From Grace and my life affirming experience. i even managed to make it through the news that our sperm had to be returned to the sperm bank and the decision that Lee and i made to call it quits on the baby-making front. But that life affirmed feeling FFG gave me quickly fell off and i began to circle the drain. It began to affect my job and i have gained a significant amount of weight over the summer and fall but primarily since FFG which was August long weekend. Lee and i have hardly played and when we do i can’t take nearly as much pain if it’s not cathartic.

i have taken a temporary reduction in my hours at work and my MD has started me on an another medication on top of the one i’m currently on. i have also started seeing a psychologist with whom i will be doing an intensive group therapy called Dialectical Behavior Therapy which is basically CBT (cognitive based therapy not cock and balls torture!) with a mindfulness component. It starts next month but the problem is that they hold the group class in a room that is used for a lot of prenatal classes and such so i’m slightly concerned that it will be triggering for me to be in there.

Master and i have been looking at tightening up some of our rules a bit more to help with structure in my life too. i mentioned to Her the other day that i’d like it if we could work on position training again. i think having the positions to work on would help ground/reconnect me on when She’s not home by incorporating it into my day.

Struggling with depression takes all of the drive out of you. You have no desire to do anything; you don’t care what happens around you. Struggling with borderline personality disorder means my emotions are unstable, i’m impulsive and my reactions can be wildly out of proportion.

Lee bears the brunt of my outbursts. She knows that when it happens there is very little that can be done and nothing She will say or do will ever be right but She stays with me and loves me and owns me in spite of all that. She is an amazing and strong woman. Sometimes i wonder if She’s not the crazy one for staying aboard the crazy ride that is elle.

Waterboarding may have just save my life....

NOTE:  i wrote this right after the last post but never published it. i'm not going to reread it or i will start editing it and i want it to remain my original feelings so i apologize if it's not the easiest to read.

So on with the show: Waterboarding may have just save my life....

....And, well, our car breaking down probably contributed too.

That is about the craziest thing that i have ever said and may ever say. Hear me out though.

Backstory...
If you've read much of the blog you know i have chronic depression as well as other stuff. i've talked about it before but short story is i've had depression and borderline personality disorder for over half my life now. i've attempted suicide more than once and been hospitalized about half a dozen times (mostly just short stays). i haven't been actively suicidal for many years now but i still often have days where i wish i would just disappear. i've have told Master before that i were to become ill in a way that could kill me (for example, cancer) i would just let it run it's course and take me though.

Onwards...
Our fourth wedding anniversary was two weekends ago now. We went camping at a provincial park in Ontario about 3 hours from home and had a great time. About an hour and a bit outside the city on our way home the fuel pump in our car suddenly died while i was driving. We were very lucky that it happened where it did because i lost power, which meant no steering or brakes once the engine stopped getting fuel. Had it died about 15-20 minutes earlier the highway that we were on would have been much more dangerous (cliffs and lakes= dangerous place not to be able to stop or direct your car) and rather than a tow truck it could have been an ambulance or hearse picking us up.

Car fixed and off we go to Fall from Grace Friday evening. Saturday afternoon we watched a water torture demo. Afterwards we were talking to the guy who did the demo and i mentioned that i was really interested in trying waterboarding so he offered to do it with Lee. He already had two other people that he was going to do so i had a bit of time to stew in my thoughts. i missed the first one as i went for a walk but watched the person before me, i was nervous but not too scared.

When it was my turn my hands were handcuffed i was tied to a coffee table with my arms overhead one end and my bound feet at the other end. A third person straddled across my midsection to hold me down. The the demo guy held one of Lee's shirts over my face and Master poured a bucket of ice cold water, quarter of a bucket at a time, over my face. She'd pour some, the shirt would be removed, they'd give me a few breaths then do it again. It was one of the scariest feeling that i think i've ever had. immediately after i was probably "suffering from" some sub space energy but i felt happy and grateful to be alive and i felt so full of love for both Her and life in general.  After the subspace wore off and i thought a bit about it i wasn't too sure if i liked it. It's dangerous and kinda scared me. Sunday i watched someone else have it done and at that moment i realized that i loved it cause i was envious of the guy that was being waterboarded.

i have told Mater before that there have been times in our play that She stops just before it gets really intense, that i wish She would push a bit further and make me go to that uncomfortable and sometimes scary place and that's exactly what it felt like and more being waterboarded. The last time they put the cloth back over my head, the guy who was holding it down stood in a way in which i couldn't easily clap (which was my "safeword") and that terrified me almost more than the fear of drowning itself.

In the days following i have had more time to process my thoughts and feelings. Add the close call with the car to the waterboarding and you get one very introspective elle. As i explained to Master, doing the waterboarding made me realize something very valuable. i fought to live, i struggled with every ounce of energy i had to LIVE.With my depression there have been many times where i hoped i would die, begged to die and have actively tried to end my own life so for me struggling and fighting to live has made me really think. i half jokingly told Master that if my depression starts to get bad again to waterboard me and i will feel better instantly.

i'm still processing all of my feeling and we have other big things going on in our lives right now that i don't think i will talk about today

i ended up with a fairly large bruise on my forearm from banging my arms on the table trying to get free and the handcuffs bruised my wrists a bit too. We have documented the bruise as i am considering seeing about getting a tattoo done of it as a lasting reminder that there was a moment where i fought to live, once i can figure out how i would explain that to the vanilla folks in my life.

Fall From Grace Weekend Review

Master and i went to Fall From Grace this past weekend. For those who don't know, it's a local kinky camping event. We had such a great time. We had a bunch wonderful new experiences and Master learned a few new tricks and got a few new toys to add to Her goodie bag!

Friday evening was busy. i don't think i retained much from the demo on asphyxiation that evening. We arrived just as things were getting started so after the demo then we had to go set up camp for the weekend. Not much exciting for me to report, i'll let Lee tell you about what She did.

Saturday was a blast- we sat around like kids at camp and had crafts time, except that we made floggers instead of the stuff kids make! Then it was the water torture demo. i'm writing a separate post about that event so if you want to know more read it. The fireside chat that evening got rained out, which was too bad cause i was interested in hearing other people's perspectives on the topic, Love and SM. Hung out in the dungeon for a bit and watched a few scenes while it rained then went back to sit by the fire again after the rain stopped and with a big group of people on a whole variety of topics.

Sunday was great too. In the afternoon we watched a stapling demo and Lee got to try that out on the demo bottom (for sterility reasons the staplers can't be shared and thus not tried on anyone else). Again, i will let Master share Her own thoughts and feelings on the experience. i think it could be a fun way to do temporary chastity piercings.

Later that day a friend showed Master how to do some basic needle play. i've been curious about needle play for years. About four years ago at a fetish night at the local gay bar where we were living i had 4 needles put in my chest at a demo station. While the needles felt good it was very clinical feeling. Ever since then i have wanted Master to try so it was great for Her to finally have a chance to learn. She did a button of three on one side of my chest while our friend did the same on the other side as well as one on my sternum. He tried to do one through my breast just under my nipple but that was hurting a bit too much so that didn't happen this time. Then he walked Lee through doing some on my labia, which She did two there. i'm surprised how relaxed and comfortable i felt. Lee played with me a bit after the needles were in and it was a delicious feeling and from what i could tell it looked like Master enjoyed Herself as well. We kept half the box of needles so that's a good sign that they will be added to the play repertoire. Yay for me!!

Monday was the wrap up- the organizers of the event sat down with those people who were still around to ask their opinions of the weekend-what worked, what didn't etc. i think that was a great idea and i'm sure helps ensure that people have a good time and come back. i also engaged in some non consensual play with one of the tent pegs from our friends' tent. i caught it between my second and third toes on the right foot and ended up with a bruise on my foot and a cut between my toes. It was not pleasant but luckily it was at the end of the weekend rather than the beginning.

Master and i had two rough body play scenes over the weekend, both in the middle of the field where some of the tents were set up. The first one was on Saturday early in the night while most of the other campers were at a bastinado demo. After dinner we went for a walk to the creek that was close to us but it started to storm and the lightening was getting closer so we headed back. i'm not sure exactly what happened but just as we're getting close to the tent Master starts beating on me. She used her fists, feet, knees, and any other part of Her body that She could. The rain was spitting a bit and the cold water felt both wonderful and torturous at the same time. It also made the grass slippery so i ended up on the ground quite a bit. i don't know how long it went on for (20ish minutes?) but seemed to have ended as organically as it started.

The second one was before the needles on Sunday afternoon. Again, not too sure exactly how this one happened but i kinda think i might have egged Her on a bit. That time She went and grabbed Her toy bag and also used Thumper (it's a rope ball at the one end and the rope loops at the other-i assume for it's for throwing? It feels like a fist when Master hits me with it that's all that matters!!), The Mother Fucker (a short thick heavy rubber impact implement that is both thuddy and stingy at the same time and hurts like... a mother fucker) and a thick cane that we got at FFG from NoirLuna. Between the two scenes i ended up with some delightful bruises, mostly on my one arm but there are a few on my other arm, my shoulders, ass and thighs. A picture of the bruise on my right arm is on my fetlife profile.

i'm sure i'm forgetting stuff and maybe when Lee gets around to writing Her version of events She will fill in blanks for me. All in all we had a fantastic time and are already looking forward to next year.

A Big Decision

Changes are coming in spades at the moment it seems. Earlier this week a rather monumental decision was made. As you all know, we have been trying for the past two years to have a baby. There has been a lot of hope attached to the process and a lot of stress, frustration and fear. Stress of will this be the month to try? If we try will it work? Frustration with the clinic wasting so much of our time as we wait for appointments that they are an hour late for and again the planets not aligning to allow us to try. And fear of what happens if it works. What will change? What will we lose? How much will we struggle financially? How will mental health be affected?

PXS was an amazing experience for us. (Don't worry I'm not actually changing the topic.) We had never been on a real holiday together and having nearly a week where the full focus was pretty much on our Power Exchange was quite an eye opener. The workshops were great, the people wonderful, the realization that we have come so far in the last year and half a high note and then the drop came with the realization it could be many, many years before we are able to go to such a thing again if in the next year we have a baby.

If we have a baby the spontaneous evening of play, pain, fuck, dinner, play, pain, fuck, cake would not be able to happen like that again. We can't ignore our child for hours on end as I make my slave scream in delicious pain and not expect Child and Family Servies to come knocking. Hell it was enough to realize right before the end of a great, kind of loud scene and about ten seconds away from elle orgasming that a police car was sitting in front of our house, lights flashing. Luckily they hadn't come to take me away for beating my slave, but it was still a mood killer. Change that to a baby screaming while elle is screaming and CFS pounding on the door. Play would be out and since a lot of our sex is pretty rough that would be limited too.

Our dynamic has become the foundation for our marriage and we both fear how the addition of a child would affect and change that. Neither of us want the strain on our relationship that would come with very limited ability to continue the rules and protocols that we have while little eyes and ears were around, very limited play, inability to attend conferences out of town, and even just a strain to continue our commitment and dedication to MAsT: Winnipeg.

Not only is the affect to our dynamic of concern because of the fun times but it really helps balance elle's mental health. I'm not just saying we don't want to sacrifice some playtime or change how elle serves me coffee, but it is the structure and release that our dynamic gives to elle that really helps her. After coming back from PXS we both had drop, elle's was quite difficult and took some time to fully come out of. It seemed to be so hard for her in part because she was scared that with daily life and responsibilities back in the picture we would lose some of what we had gained while away. Even just the thought sent her spinning.

We have learned pretty well over the years what makes her mental health worse and what helps. Lack of sleep is not good. One day is manageable but if they start stacking up we both know where that road leads, so we do our best to not let that happen. She has a doctor's note at work so they can't mandate her and really fuck up her sleep; she has a bedtime that we are fairly good at sticking with; I don't have her get up with me in the morning when I think sleep would be more important. It helps. A good sleep for her is probably one of the most effective ways to keep her in a good place. How then would a baby that doesn't sleep through the night for what could be years affect her night after night.

I know sometimes that elle just needs me to back off and give her space; I know that when she is in that place there are sometimes hurtful words and actions that she is not in control of; I know that at that time she needs to see that I'm not going to abandon her; and, I know when she comes back down she needs me more than ever to tell her how much I love her and her home is always with me. Yep, I know all of this. A baby, knows none. A toddler, knows none. A teenager, well that's when we would send them off to boarding school or sell them for medical experiments because they think they know everything.

elle needs peace, structure and to give up control to stay balanced. I need peace, structure and to have control to keep our life balanced. Having a baby would be like adding a ten pound weight to a scale that has feathers on the other side.

If you haven't figured it out yet, we have decided to stop trying to have a baby. Since this decision was made we have both said how much lighter we feel.

Don't get me wrong, before and throughout the process we have both very much wanted a child. I'm sure there will always be a bit of that want left in us. We were trying because we had the best of intentions and had it happened a year ago when we were just starting to really get our M/s feet under us then we would have been thrilled. Now that our M/s is so strong we feel we can't have both. We had to choose and M/s with all of the things that that encompasses for us, is the choice we've made. If we felt we could have both we would. I know this is the right decision for us though.

Slavery Follow-up, PXS Review, and Our New Kink

There are a few things that are swirling around in my head this morning. I haven’t written any sort of follow up to my last post about struggling with the word slave, and neither Master nor I have written about our wonderful experience at the Power eXchange Summit or the new path that we have started to explore.

So to start, the slavery struggle.

I still have a hard time once in a while but I have, for the most part, gotten past thinking that I need to find a new title. Part of it was another book on WWII, The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz by David Avey.  The author was a British POW in a camp just outside of Auschwitz who traded places with a Danish Jew twice to get a first-hand account of what was really going on inside the death camp as well as helping another Jewish man. In it he said something along the lines that the Nazis treated the prisoners as less than slaves because a slave is at least valued by their owner. I think that, for the most part, that is true. The Nazis didn’t want those people to survive and did almost everything possible to ensure that they died. Master most definitely values me and want me to live so I can continue serving Her. I am well cared for and want for very little. Hell, yesterday She gave me a foot massage and cooked me dinner.

Another thing that has continued my thoughts on this subject, though not in making me feel more at ease with the title of slave is Episode 73 of the KinkyCast, and some of the writings on the Fetlife profile of the person that they interviewed. There is some very interesting and thought provoking stuff but since I didn’t ask permission to repeat anything that was said/written I will leave it at that and highly suggest that you go listen and read for yourself.

I still don’t know if slave is quite the right word to use. I don’t fit the “true” definition; none of us in the lifestyle do because none of us can truly be owned by another person. We are not forced to obey, we can legally leave at any time and there is not a thing our Owners can legally do to stop us. We choose to obey. We in the BDSM community, and general society at large, to some extent, tend to adapt words to suit our own needs. And words evolve, I get that. But I can’t just pick any word and use it however I so choose. Like I said to Lee the other day I can’t call a road a river and expect others to have a clue what I’m talking about without clarifying and/or explaining what I mean every time I do. We label everything in our world so we can all be on the same page, imagine a world where we all made up our own names for things, it would be chaos! But within the BDSM community I don’t know if there is a better widely known title for what my position is than slave. So slave it is, for now?!?

I’m just starting to repeat what I said in my last post so I will stop here on this topic except to say that there are a few other titles that I have been tossing around (indentured servant and vassal are two) but Master said that She wants me as Her slave so the struggle continues.  More to come on this topic in the future I’m sure.

On to the Power eXchange Summit (PXS) recap.

I know I can speak for both myself and Master when I say we had a great time. We met some wonderful people, participated in many inspiring workshops and roundtables and overall came away with a better, stronger power exchange. We even won a prize for travelling so far to attend (we were the only ones who came from Canada, or anywhere other than the USA , for that matter I'm pretty sure). We arrived in Columbus the day before the Summit started so we had a bit of time to go exploring, which was nice. Once PXS actually started it was a very busy weekend. I started off Saturday by going to a workshop on chronic pain and kink while Lee went to one on needs wants and desires. Then we went to the cuckqueaning one. After lunch it was the Executive PE workshop then one on empowerment. We ended the workshop day by going to a roundtable on sexual orientation and gender in PE which was interesting. Saturday evening was the roaring ‘20s casino night where we had our photo taken (which, I realized just the other day was the first professional photo taken of us in the five and a half years of being together!) and played a game and hung out with some of the people that we had met. We also won a very yummy smelling bison leather flogger in the silent auction.

Sunday we went to a workshop on polyamory and PE and ended the Summit with a workshop a workshop that had been wrongly titled on the website and in the run book as honor, service and devotion but was actually about the architypes/models of M/s relationships by Raven Kaldera and Joshua Tenpenny. After the closing ceremonies we had a pizza lunch and headed back to our hotel room. We had planned to go out a bit but we were both spent and decided to just lay low for the evening and spend time decompressing and packing for our early flight the next morning. The two workshops that stood out for me the most were Executive Power Exchange by Kevin and katie and Cuckqueaning by Doug and slave lori. The Executive Power Exchange one gave us some new information to use but more so gave us words that help us describe our style of PE. The cuckqueaning workshop on the other hand has helped us start down a new path in our relationship, more on that in a bit.

Overall, I would say that going to PS was one of best things (if not the best thing) we have done for our relationship. The event drop, which didn’t really start until we got home on the Tuesday evening and lasted through the weekend, was so worth it. I would go again in a heartbeat. I have actually already looked at the calendar for next year trying to figure out which weekend it will be!

Lee and I have agreed that we need to make going to these kinds of events more of a priority and therefore plan our vacation time around them as much as possible and be more prepared financially for them. For a brief moment we were looking at going to the M/s con in DC in September but we just cannot afford to go without putting a strain on ourselves.

Next up is our new kink, cuckqueaning.

I guess in the strictest fashion of the word we aren’t quite looking at cuckqueaning since Lee is a woman and cuckqueaning is typically with a dominant man and a submissive woman but I don’t know if there is a term for cucking with only female participants.

Since we haven’t yet started to look for a third woman to join we are more in the fantasizing stages of exploring this kink. Master has been mostly denying me sexual release/orgasm. She has been using me to get Herself off, which She had done many times before PXS but before She would usually allow me to masturbate afterwards, now I can’t. She has taken away permission to ask for sex and orgasm. I can still tell Her that I'm horny though. She has also been edging me, getting me very close to cumming then backing off so that I will learn that sexual stimulation doesn’t always lead to me orgasming. There have been a few sexual encounters where She has humiliated me by telling me how much better it will be once we/She finds another woman to fuck while I am made to just watch and possibly use my mouth to clean them after they are finished fucking. I get so turned on just thinking about all of this. Why do I get so horny thinking about my wife fucking other women? Why do I get so turned on by the idea of being used and not allowed to orgasm? Master has told me that She isn’t going to stop allowing me to orgasm entirely but in the three weeks since we have started this, there have only been two or three times we have had sex that I’ve been given permission to cum. Before this, it wouldn’t have been uncommon for me to orgasm (and usually multiple) about four times a week, including the times I would masturbate for Master. I just texted Master to tell Her that I’m so horny. She told me to go fill my ass with the plug so I will be even more wet and horny for when She gets home so I can put on a show for Her. Now I am aching I am so horny, which in turn makes me feel very submissive, which is why we are doing this. Being sexually aroused makes me want to serve Her so much more. I love it! I want to feel like this all the time. I hope that we start our search for a cuckcake soon.

I was going to write about coming out kinky, a topic that has been on my mind a lot lately as that is what we are going to talk about at MAsT this weekend but I’ve run out of time so I will leave it for another day.

Struggling with slavery

i am currently reading "If This is a Woman Inside Ravensbruck: Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women" by Sarah Helm. i'm about 2/3 of the way through it and already this book has stirred up a lot of thoughts and emotions for me. It absolutely baffles me how people could carry out such horrific acts on others. It has made me question calling myself a slave.

i told Master a couple of days ago about how i am feeling. We talked for a little while about it. When She asked me what i wanted to do about it, i asked Her that that depended on whether She was wanting for me to reconcile my feelings with the idea or if we are going to look at trying to find new words. She told me that She expects reconciliation.

i have been tasked with trying to figure out how. How do i separate my slavery with true slavery? i feel like me being called/calling myself a slave makes light of the tremendous suffering and terror that true slaves went through throughout history and are, to this day, still going through. How on any level can i, sitting in comparatively absolute luxury, equate myself to someone who has know real horror? i have never known what it is like to be starved, tortured, made to live in filth and disease, used for medical experimentation and worked to death. i have never had to worry that at any moment i might be killed for any reason. i have the ability to talk with anybody i choose, read anything i want and speak up if i think my Master is doing something that will harm me.

How can i call myself a slave? Yes, i am my Master's property but does that make me a slave? Is that enough? i have the ability, as mentioned earlier that i have the right to speak up, but i don't have the right to tell Master what She will do with that information. i have given over control to Her but in reality i have done so willingly and freely and could at any moment revoke that consent. Yes that would probably end our relationship. She would have no right to "hunt" me down and force me to come back if i left. Does She doesn't have the "right " to transfer ownership of me to another master, that is something that we negotiated in the beginning. She has full control of our relationship but if that relationship ends so does Her control of me and what my future will be.

i think that the difference is a word that, up until now, i have left out of this.That word is Consent. A am a consensual slave. But isn't that an oxymoron?

i still don't have an answer yet, i imagine that it will take more time and soul searching before i can come to terms with my slavery.

Somewhere in my "researching" someone said something along the lines that just because that you can use your property any way you chose that not everything you have the right to do is right, morals still apply to Masters (and slaves)w. i willingly gave up my freedom to Master because i knew that She will use me well. She respects me and is not careless in how She deploys her Mastery over me. 

i'm sure there will be more to come on this topic in the future.

Mental Health, MAsT, Service and PXS All In One

This is elle writing, i couldn't get the internet on my account to work so i'm using Sir's- hence this post being authored under Her name.

I'm home from work today with some sort of stomach bug so i thought i'd try to write a post even though it's only been a couple of days since the last one.

i seem to get sick a lot, like almost monthly there seems to be something going on. i've read before that people with mental health problems, especially during 'flare-ups', get physically sick more often as well. I would definitely say that i'm having a flare-up now. About two months ago Master and i went to our doctor and asked him to reduce my anti-depressant medication as it seemed like i was feeling very anxious and agitated/on edge all the time. He agreed and also gave me a script for an adjuvant med to try if i found i was getting more depressed. But, i can't take it. It's not recommended if you're pregnant or trying to become pregnant.
For the first couple of weeks after the reduction i was doing okay, more than that i felt emotionally and mentally stable for the first time in a long time. Then i hit the edge of the cliff and for the past six weeks or so i have been more and more depressed. i have begged Sir to let me die more days than not i think and have gone for weeks without having a day that i didn't cry. We have added zinc and magnesium to the concoction of 'happy' pills that i take on a daily basis; omegas, vitamin D, iron and Wellbutrin.
Are they helping? i haven't seen a big change but maybe the frequency of crying has decreased slightly in the last 10 days or so. i don't know how long it would take before either of them are helping. And, yes, i know i should have probably only started one at a time to see which one (if it is only one) that is working but with the way i have been feeling i didn't have the time to do med trials properly, i just need results. Maybe once i have things stabilized again i will remove one and see if there are any changes.

Last night i asked Sir about seeing if some of the T.V. shows that we can't get might be available on iTunes, for example Orange is the New Black. i've heard a lot of talk about this show but i've never seen it. And we can't change our cable because it is provided through our landlord. At one point in the discussion Sir got all excited about seeing all the ladies in their inmate uniforms, and i responded that yes that would be nice but i was interested in seeing the guards. i pointed out how stereotypical of us it is to pick the side we did and we had a good laugh over it.

Last weekend was our monthly MAsT discussion on service. It was supposed to be presented by Master and myself as well as two of the other organizers but one was sick so a friend stepped in at the last moment to help us out. The discussion went well, there was some great conversations. The research and private discussions that Master and i had prior to the group discussion really have made me think about the service i provide Master in our dynamic. We have been reading Real Service by Raven and Joshua which has made me think a lot about the whys and hows of my service. One thing that i've been contemplating is why i enjoy service. In Real Service, it is mentioned that people are drawn to service either for the service itself but more often for the control.  i believe that i enjoy being of service because of both but being under Master's control is usually what attracts me. I do also very much enjoy serving just to see Her happy; i think for most people it's not one or the other which is what i felt they were saying in the book.

We've talked briefly about the level of protocol, rules, etc that Master is expecting for Power eXchange Summit. There will be many more conversations about PXS, especially if we drive. i'm getting so excited and nervous about the whole idea!