I'm overworked and underslept and somehow I'm staying sensuous. Wake up at 5am. Dress. Feed dog. Wake DC. Ask DC to take dog out. Grab protein shake and herd DC out the door. Take DC to bus stop at Ex's house. Drive to technical writing client's office. Work 10 hours. Drive home. Run errand. Make dinner. Serve dinner. Clean up after dinner or coach DC to clean up after dinner. Homework patrol. Bedtime. Repeat next day.

Somehow I'm staying sensuous. Here's what's working for me:

• Wearing womanly-woman clothes
• Laughing with my children at least once a day. When my mama heart is happy, it boosts my sensuouswife heart.
• Wearing at least one thing that makes me feel gorgeous...pretty jewelry/accessories/makeup
• Noticing an admiring glance and smiling back appreciatively
• Enjoying my favorite toys
• Wine or chocolate in moderation
• Hot salty baths
• Reading a good book in a soft comfy bed or a hot salty bath
• Saving some time every day for my Sweetheart. Sweetheart helps a lot because he notices and appreciates every little thing.

What works for you?

How do you stay sensuous even when you're super busy?

One of my favorite ways to cultivate a sensuous life is to look for and seize opportunities for pleasure. All kinds of pleasure perceived through all the senses. Tonight I chose to delight my sense of sight and I want to share it with you.

For several months now, I've had six boxes stacked neatly in the corner of my dining room. I told myself I'd likely be moving from this beautiful apartment to a house in a year or so and I'd save myself of the trouble of repacking my china and crystal. After all, I'd unpacked everything else or stacked it neatly in storage. I had plenty of darling casual dishes in the kitchen. Why did I need china?

Except I did.

I like it. I have always liked china. I like beauty and I love integrating beauty into my everyday life. I bought my few china plates on clearance when I was 22 and I loved eating off of my bargain china when I got my first tiny apartment. China is sensuous. The shiny finish. The rich colors. The textures. The lavishness of it. The luxury of it.

Can you tell I like china?

So it dawned on me tonight. What am I waiting for? After thinking about it for a minute, I realized that on some level I felt like I was waiting. Waiting for more financial security. Waiting until I bought another house. Waiting until I remarried. Almost as if I was waiting until some magic sense of security and permanence before I let myself drink in the sight of luxury again.

But that's just silly! It's mine already!

So I unpacked the china. I let myself enjoy the design aspect of placing the plates and wine glasses in the china cabinet in a new fresh way. Not the same as before.

I know right? An empty china cabinet sitting here in my dining room for nearly six months! And now my lonely china cabinet is full and happy.

And lemme tell you, darlings. It looks beautiful! Lovely! My sweet eyes drinking in the sight.

Beauty matters. Integrate and invite beauty into your life every chance you get. Not all of you have wedding gift china like I do. That's okay. Go with one of your girlfriends to a china store at an outlet mall and see what you can get for twenty bucks. You'll be surprised what snazzy little pieces you can find on clearance. Darlings, quit waiting for the undefined something. Create beauty in your world now! Savor little luxuries in your everyday.

As I placed the crystal on the glass shelves and while I mixed and matched a place setting so I could take a picture for this article, I imagined how unbelievably erotic it would be to set the table for two with china and candlelight and greet Sensuous Husband wearing nuthin' but a filmy little sumthin'. And I smiled. And winked to myself.

Get your spicy on with this Sensuous Spicy Jambalaya.

Shula's Spicy Jambalaya~www.sensuouswife.com/blog

Doesn't that look yummy?

This jambalaya is a quick yummy one dish meal that is sure to satisfy.

It's easy to make, too!

You'll need these ingredients and a large 12" deep skillet with lid.

Shula's Jambalaya Ingredients~www.sensuouswife.com/blog

1 1/2 pounds smoked sausage (I use Eckrich)
2 cups rice (I use Texmati but you can use Basmati if you can't find the Texas rice)
3 cups chicken bouillion
1 can Trappey's okra and tomatoes
1/2 stick butter
Tony Chachere's creole seasoning

1. Preheat the skillet over medium heat
2. Slice the sausage and brown in skillet 3-5 minutes
3. Add the rice and stir
4. Add the bouillion, okra, and butter.
5. Open the Tony Chachere bottle 1/3 of the way. Shake 4 times into the pan.
6. Cover and cook for 20 minutes, stirring once about halfway through.

It will be yummy and delicious and savory and warm and tender. Toldya it was sensuous! (smile)

I want to show y'all how beautifully the flowers are in full bloom. Aren't they lovely?

I want to live like that. I want to live in full bloom, fully showing my beauty, fully showing my glory, fully sharing my joy. I believe we bloom under the touch of someone who loves us. By bloom I mean we become our best selves, we develop into our full gorgeousness. Gorgeous spirit. Gorgeous body. Can't you just see the sparkle in a woman's eye when she knows she's loved? The peace on her face, the serenity?

Can being loved make you look younger? Research says it can.
According to research done by David Weeks, a clinical neuropsychologist at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, making love 3 times a week in a stress-free relationship can make you look 10 years younger. Dr. Weeks studied more than 3500 men and women between the ages of 18 and 102. In his study, a panel of judges viewed the participants through a one way mirror and then guessed the age of each subject. A group of men and women were labeled 'super young' whose ages were underestimated by 7-12 years. Can you imagine?

I want to be like that, don't you? What choices are you willing to make so that you live in full bloom?
Love,
SW

We come with beautiful secrets
We come with purposes written on our hearts, written on our souls
We come to every new morning
With possibilities only we can hold, that only we can hold

Redemption comes in strange place, small spaces
Calling out the best of who we are

And I want to add to the beauty
To tell a better story
I want to shine with the light
That's burning up inside

It comes in small inspirations
It brings redemption to life and work
To our lives and our work

It comes in loving community
It comes in helping a soul find it's worth

Redemption comes in strange places, small spaces
Calling out the best of who we are

And I want to add to the beauty
To tell a better story
I want to shine with the light
That's burning up inside

This is grace, an invitation to be beautiful
This is grace, an invitation

Redemption comes in strange places, small spaces
Calling out our best

And I want to add to the beauty
To tell a better story
I want to shine with the light
That's burning up inside

God has been working on my heart big time. I have been doing well to process and keep up with it in real time. Lots of soul searching and prayer and humility and then quantum leaps of growth and healing. Taint easy. I am so so so lucky to have an inner circle of friends that I can talk with and they will love me and accept me and pray for me and encourage me to process and grow. This weekend, I took a long walk. I was gone for several hours, solitude and journaling and duking it out with God. Going without sugar or any kind of emotional eating for several days has been like a fast that has revealed many areas in my heart that needed to be healed and forgiven.

After one particularly intense rant, I had a moment where Jesus became so real and relevant for me. I was angry about a situation, at someone in particular and I was telling God about it. I was legitimately angry for some wrongs done to me and I told God, "God I just want to punch them!" and in my heart I heard this thought. It was as though Jesus answered me saying "I was punched and beaten. Can what was done to me be enough. Cause that person deserves a good punch and I was beaten up, can it be enough what was done to me?" This so shocked me that I stopped in my tracks. Peace seeped in to that angry pit in my stomach, and I let it go.

As I was walking back around the lake, I was startled to see all these golden sparkly lights on the water. It was only visible from that one point on the lake. This song was playing on my phone's mp3 player at the time. I stood there and just drank in the beauty. I got to wishing so so badly that I could record this. I've never seen golden lights sparkling at random on the water quite like that. I decided to at least take a picture. And while I was monkeying around with the camera settings I discovered my camera phone would shoot video. I had not known this! So I held the phone as still as I could and took the video. I'm not gonna win any awards for cinematography but I hope you can sense the peace and tranquility and beauty that overwhelmed me that day in such a lovely good way.

I've said it before. Wearing great lingerie gives every wife a sense of confidence and joy, even sassyness. Whether you're at the kids soccer game, in a business meeting, grocery shopping at SuperTarget, or on a date with your DH....
knowing you look great all under makes you feel good all over.
And no, I don't work for Victoria's Secret. I just love feeling good about being a sexually confident wife and inviting my girlfriends to feel good being sexually confident wives too. And this bra comes in a wide range of sizes. Like sexually confident wives.

When our first child was born, he spent the first few days of his life in the neonatal intensive care unit at the hospital. Delighted Husband and I were there with him nearly all the time. This was before my awakening so sexy wasn't usually on my radar. I had not yet cultivated my worldview that I was a sexy woman. But I had this moment. And I want to share it with you.

Beloved Child was a bit premature, and fussy, so the pediatrician suggested I open my blouse and give my baby skin-to-skin contact. They had these beautiful pale yellow privacy shades they placed around my rocking chair. Feeling a little awkward but hungry to hold my baby and let him know mama was there, I unbuttoned my maternity blouse, unwrapped my little darling (he looked like a little burrito in that white hospital blanket!) and laid my sweet baby against my abdomen and covered us both with a blanket. He was jaundiced, so he looked so foreign next to my skin. But in his face he looked just like me and in my heart he felt like mine! mine! mine! It was a peaceful, quiet moment amidst all the beeping chaos of the NICU.

Then I looked at his father.

Delighted Husband was looking at me and Beloved Baby like we were all that was precious in the world. And then I caught it..that quick tiny sparkle in his eye. Just like that, I was lost in the tractor beam of Delighted Husband's gaze. Without words, we remembered what we did to create this child. A blush crept over my cheeks and I looked at Delighted Husband with this self-aware heat in my eyes. My eyes said, "We made love. It was fabulous. You made me pregnant, and now I have this amazing little person nestled up against my skin. Oh my God."

In that moment, Delighted Husband snapped a picture.

And in an instant, the moment was over. The nurse walked up to draw blood from Beloved Child and crying and chaos pushed in and drowned out the moment.

Weeks later, I went to the store where I had gone for the film to be developed. When I got to that SexyMamaMoment photo, I was elated. Standing there in the pharmacy all disheveled and sleep deprived, I looked at that photo and thought, "oh my God, is that really me?" and it was. I didn't feel sexy there in the store. At all. At all. At all. But in my trembling hands I held photographic proof that my moment had really happened.

I put it in the photo album, along with all the other photos of Beloved Child's first six weeks. When friends from church asked to see baby pictures, I didn't think twice about handing over the photo album while I went to go boil some water for tea. I don't remember what he said, but I remember one of our church friends coughing and looking at me in an embarrassed putdown way and swiftly handing off the baby album like it was contaminated. I was flooded with embarrassment. I didn't have much confidence then. And I was Southern and here was a guest in my home offended by something I had given him. I was seriously infected with the disease to please. When our friends went home that night, I took out the picture of my first SexyMamaMoment, and I tore it up. To this day, there is a blank spot in that baby photo album. And oh I would fill it if I could. I have searched for the negative and I cannot find it. I have tears in my eyes just remembering what has been lost. How I would love to see that picture today!

There's a lesson here, my darlings. Don't let anyone look down on you for owning and recognizing that you are a sexual being. Don't let others erase your beautiful defining moment or put down your identity as a beautiful sexual creature created by God. Hold on to the good in your life. Hold on tight! Stretch marks and mortgages and fatigue and soccer leagues and teacher meetings and client meetings and HOA meetings will try to push in and take those moments from you by encroaching on the time those moments can occur. But hold on tight!

Looking back, I realize that man was an illmannered prude and I was a naive woman who gave away her validation card quite too easily. Not any more.

Like most of my aha! heartfelt moments, this was inspired by another blogger who generously shared their heart in a post. So thank you Mama of Romance for your beautiful post Feeling Beautiful: It's Up to You.
She says, "Because I feel like I am beautiful, it shines through.
It's so much easier to enjoy sex, to be passionate, and to love making love when you feel beautiful.
Being a woman is an incredibly powerful thing.
The curves, the soft skin, the feminine features.
Giving birth, having a baby, motherhood - it's all a beautiful thing.
Mother's are beautiful."

Amen, sista!

I would add: when you do have a moment when you feel beautiful, don't let anybody talk you out of it. Nobody but you and God have the right to decide whether or not you're beautiful. And God has already voted Yes.

Love,
SW

I am watching my favorite part of the whole Olympics...the Parade of Nations.
I have a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes.
The women.
They are so beautiful.
All so different
so differently beautiful
and all of them so beautiful I have a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. Unplanned, these words keep leaping from my throat,
"Look at her! She's so beautiful!"
There is no formula. There is no specifications list. No engineering document dictating cheekbones must be at a particular angle or eyes must be a certain size. I look at each woman Olympic athlete and I see a woman in her glory. And she knows it. This is perhaps the the crowning moment of her life. And she is so beautiful. And she knows it. So alive. Beaming energy so vibrant it makes the stadium lights redundant. Glory.

Women are so beautiful.

God did it again. Made me feel gorgeous when I didn't expect it.

I was wearing an especially womanly woman dress at work yesterday. A fetching little number with cap sleeves, a sailor bow neckline with a tiny amount of peekabo cleavage and a twirly knee-length skirt. I always feel like I've stepped onto the set of a forties World War Two movie when I wear this dress. I even wore pearls and red lipstick. Makes me feel so good!

Delighted Husband had left for work before I did and since I often change into something more comfortable when I get home from work, I doubted he'd see me in this dress. So I wasn't really thinking about my lover seeing me all dolled up, I just did it for me.

So I was lost in thought around lunchtime while on my way to see one of my girlfriends for a drive by hugging. You know that thing where you don't have an entire lunch hour but you take the elevator to your friend's floor just to give her a hug and chat for 5 minutes? Well I love those drive by huggings. It's like the relational version of taking a hit at an oxygen bar. (deep breath happy sigh).

So I was scurrying along the shiny marble floors of Corporate America when I had to pause to wait for an elevator. As I was entering the elevator lobby, a tall stranger was leaving the elevator lobby. He was olive skinned and foreign, although I couldn't tell from where. For three and a half seconds, Olive Skinned Foreigner's eyes met mine for an instant, traveled down my body and up again to meet my eyes with a luminious look of assessment and delight. His friends continued to talk to him and he ignored them. For three and a half seconds, this man looked at me like I was a Ferrarri.

I couldn't tell where he was from by looking at him, could have been the Meditteranean, could have been somewhere in the East. Wherever Olive Skinned Foreigner was from, he was from one of those places in the world where it's not considered rude to stare at a woman for three and a half seconds with a look of frank assessment and obvious delight. Different cultures have very different ideas about feminine beauty. Many foreign cultures admire and embrace voluptuous women. Literally.

Well he admired me but he didn't embrace me.
Those three and a half seconds made me feel like my lungs were full of helium and my heels were an inch off the ground.

I told Delighted Husband all about it during our date that evening.
He laughed with his eyes sparkling and gave me a frank assessment of his own. Then he put his arm around my waist and let his hand accidentally stray to pat my butt before going back to my waist. He's allowed to.

God, I love being a woman!