One Witch's Story

My Awesome Weekend

2012-01-30T13:20:00.003-06:00

It snowed Friday afternoon and into the night, giving us about an inch of snow. When I picked Cam up from school on Friday, there was already a good dusting of snow. And for whatever reason, he decided he need to clear the "roads." So he ran into the house, found his toy snowplow, and started clearing roads on the sidewalk. The funniest part: he was saying he was clearing the roads to Camelot (no, I am NOT making this up), so he was Camelot's snow plow. So we played in the falling snow for about half an hour, because the wind wasn't blowing, so it felt positively balmy out, despite the snow.

Saturday, we spent more time outside, clearing more roads. Though it was a tad bit more difficult, since the wet, fluffy snow that had fallen had frozen into the kind of snow that doesn't want to be messed with. The kind that crunches with every step you take. And laughs when your snow plow tries to break through. Luckily, we had something of a staging area where his trucks could work without the snow being in the way. (Can you see the payloader in the bit of dirt? He was loading the dirt into a dump truck, taking it over to a bit of snow, and dumping it. It was "sand" to help clear the road.)

I'm still making headway in eating better. Last night, I had homemade sloppy joes. Before, if I wanted sloppy joes, I would buy burger, Manwich, and hamburger buns. But in my healthy eating, hamburger buns are obviously off the table. And with the second ingredient in Manwich being HFCS, and the third being just corn syrup, well, I don't really want to eat that either. So my sloppy joes took a bit longer and a little bit more effort to prepare. No problem. (BTW, have I mentioned just how thankful I am that I enjoyed cooking/knew how to cook before I started on this food adventure?) I wish I had had a red bell pepper, to replace half of the green bell pepper that I put in the sauce. That's my only complaint. Too much green bell pepper taste. Not bad, I say. Oh, and that I had put the onions in to cook sooner, because they're still crunchy, and I'm still not a fan of crunchy onions.

Sloppy Joes

8oz tomato sauce
1 C ketchup (I used HFCS-free stuff. One of these days I'll learn to make my own!)
1/4 small onion, diced
1/2 small green pepper, diced (or 1/4 green and 1/4 red)
2 cloves garlic, diced
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp celery seed
1/2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp mustard (oops, I forgot this in mine. Oh, well!)
1 pound ground beef

Brown the ground beef.
Add onion, pepper(s), and garlic and cook until soft (or to desired crunch level).
Add remaining ingredients, mix.
Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 10-20 minutes.

I also made my own buns. The recipe can be found here. They make an excellent GF/low carb alternative to hamburger buns and with the strong flavour of the meat sauce, you really can't tell that they aren't your typical buns.

what i miss

2012-01-15T21:09:00.003-06:00

Mostly I miss being able to eat whatever I felt like. Yeah, I always had to worry about what might disagree with my stomach - but that was the thing, sometimes I would eat something and be fine, then eat it a day or week or month later, and be sooo much LESS than fine. Now I can't pick up anything in the "inner aisles" of the grocery store without scanning the ingredient list - some of the things in the outer aisles need to be scanned, too. So I guess what I miss most is my ignorance? It's easy to be ignorant. Now I have to make good choices or pay the price (nausea, head ache, general malaise).

But for specifics:

I miss oreos.
I miss being able to whip up a batch of cookies or cupcakes.
I miss pie.
I miss macaroni and cheese.
I miss tortillas. (Have yet to have a taco in the last two months that doesn't have my entire face and both hands covered in taco-stuff.)
I miss being able to buy a box/bag of "food" for lazy food preparation.
I miss sammiches.

But it's getting better. It's getting easier. When I see a picture of a sandwhich, I recoil a bit, because I know how terrible and awful I would feel if I ate it. Christmas at my parents' was a fun exercise in staying gluten free. I didn't want to be miserable, but my mom had made poppyseed bread, which is my absolute favourite! so I kept joking about different processsed food stuffs - well, if it has gluten in it, at least I'll be able to enjoy the poppyseed bread because I'll already be feeling miserable from this! Luckily (unluckily?) nothing I ate had gluten in it (except for some gravy at a HyVee food court. oops!)

So, I've been gluten free (except for two mishaps) since Dec. 1. And I've had very little in the way of any sort of grain in that time, too. I've made steps toward eliminating (or severely cutting back) the presence of processed food-stuff in my diet. I've almost completely eliminated franken-foods like hydrogenated vegetable(*cough*SOY*cough*) oils and HFCS.

Go me!

homecoming

2011-12-14T14:51:00.005-06:00

As much as I sometimes want to punch my brother in the mouth (he's a staunch libertarian, I'm very left-wing liberal), I still love him... Kind of.

And today, he is starting his journey home from serving in Afghanistan!! I'm so happy for him and his family. I know it's been rough for his wife and three kids; hopefully he's done with deployments. As for me, I know I'll be sleeping easier at night, knowing he's not having bullets whizzing by his head (Once heard from my mom that he said "It's just like TV, you're running and you can see the bullets hitting the ground" OMG!)

A bit of good news as an early Xmas present. :)

wheat!

2011-12-12T13:25:00.002-06:00

So I've been off wheat for two weeks now. And I have to say, I'm doing great! I've also severely cut back on my refined sugar and caffeine intake.

I've gone from having bowel issues (sorry, TMI) to having none. Well, except when I used apparently contaminated garlic powder (Great Value from Walmart. "May contain traces of wheat, soy, etc, etc). Stupid garlic powder :(

I'm sleeping better. I used to wake up sooo groggy and I wanted nothing more than to crawl back in bed and stay there. I had about 4 hours a day where I felt energized. Now, I wake up and while I still want to crawl back into bed and stay there (because my thermostat is set on 60 so my house is cold, but my bed is WARM WARM WARM), I wake up fairly quickly and easily. I'm energized All. Day. Long.

And most importantly: I'm not constantly hungry! I used to be hungry ALL the time. I would eat, then twenty minutes later, I'd be starving. Now I stay full! It's awesome. I had dinner two hours ago. I'm still full. Yes!

where i've been and where i'm going

2011-12-02T11:57:00.003-06:00

I haven't been anywhere. Especially here at the blog. It would be nice if I could say "Oh, I was SOOOO busy doing homework, I just had no time to blog." But that's not true, as my newest addiction to Pinterest would show. So, truthfully... I've been thinking about my life and going "it's not THAT interesting, so why blog about it?" Really. A lot of my life feels like it's the same thing day in and day out. How many posts can I make about the hilarious stuff that comes out of Cam's mouth? Too many, probably.

I've been thinking about the point of having this blog, too. I started it as a way to work out my spirituality (and get some feedback on it), but my spirituality has changed since I started this blog over two years ago. Hell, it's changed since last year, since the spring, since the summer. I've lost a lot of my religious trappings, and have settled into a fairly laissez-faire spirituality. What I believe is too personal/individual to be called a religion, I think.

When I changed my blog from Witch at Church to One Witch's Story, it was so I could write about my life, which included spiritual beliefs. And my story is changing, I guess. I have self-diagnosed myself with Celiac disease, on the basis of a high incidence of gallbladder disease (my gallbladder was FULL of stones when I was 18 and started developing problems. Had it removed 5 years ago next week) and gluten allergies and a statistically relevant incidence of kidney stones (had a few stones in my right kidney, which were taken care of surgically two years ago, still have one hanging out in my left kidney) and gluten allergies.

So I'm going on a gluten-free diet. A grain free diet, really, because I'm planning on starting the Primal diet near the end of this month (no grains, no legumes, no refined sugar, limited dairy.) And of course, I'm dragging Camden along for the ride. I'm taking him to the doctor next week so he can be tested for gluten allergies/intolerance. For myself, I'm doing the self-test (day 2 and going strong!) where I cut it out for a few weeks, then reintroduce it to see how I feel. I can't do that with Cam, though, because his daycare provides meals and won't let the kids bring in their own food... Which means that feeding him gluten free stuff at home then having him get it at school REALLY defeats the purpose. But if I can get the test (hopefully) saying that he had allergies or an intolerance, the school will provide the gluten free food (or let me pack his breakfast/lunch/snack, I'm not sure). Woo-hoo. Wish us luck for a positive, will you?

Also, I got everything in for grad school. My application was sent to the review board yesterday, so I'm playing the waiting game to hear back. I'm deathly nervous, but I'm trying not to think about it too much. Everything will work out in the end, I'm sure.

grad school

2011-10-27T10:48:00.004-05:00

Today, I turned in the last bits and bobs of my graduate school application for the MAE program. It should be noted that I only decided to apply less than two weeks ago; everyone was certain there was no way in hell I could get everything in on time. But I did. So HAH!

Reviews of applications begin on Tuesday. Here's to hoping that I'm accepted!

city museum

2011-10-16T16:41:00.004-05:00

I made plans several weeks ago to go to St. Louis and talk to UMSL about their teaching program. And because I've been to St. Louis many times for school field trips, I know that there are quite a few fun things to do. About a week before we went, Camden and I sat down at the computer and looked at pictures and videos of the different places I knew: the science center, the magic house, the zoo, and the city museum.

From pictures and videos, the city museum was the obvious choice. Tunnels to crawl through, slides to slide down, gorgeous artwork, a bus perched precariously on the rooftop, etc etc! The city museum is a cross between a museum and a GIANT indoor playground. (Almost) Everything is hands on.

Of course, the week before we went, Camden came down with the pox. I was really worried that he wouldn't be able to go... Thankfully, however, he was deemed contagious no longer! So off we went!

My trip to UMSL was a waste, because it turns out that everything they had to tell me I could have found online. (Just want to say that when I called, the person I talked to said it was very hard to explain over the phone, and I should schedule an appointment to come in and talk. Thanks, person!)

Then on to the city museum! (And lucky for us, rooftop access was FREE that day. YES!)

A slide made of rollers (like rolling pins). Very bumpy and very uncomfortable! Camden loved it, though.

The fossil, bug, and skeleton room. The walls were covered with tons of displays of pinned insects. There was a nifty diorama of dinosaurs and a jungle area. And there were skeletons, including a cat skeleton, which was both cool and kind of creepy.

If it wasn't for all the other fun and awesome stuff, I'm fairly certain Camden would have stayed in this room much longer than he did.

They also had a room of architecture elements (I'm assuming they were pulled from buildings about to be torn down). Camden was not nearly as enamored with this room as my mother or I.

This column is in the food court area. Cam has a thing for frilled lizards, so he absolutely loved it. It hovered over us as we sat and had some snacks (we were planning on lunch, but the food was ridiculously over priced... What can I say? I'm cheap!)

The roof! See the school bus? The front end is hanging over the side of the building... 11 stories up. Have I mentioned I'm terrified of heights?

Oh, there's also a giant sculpture of a praying mantis. Why? I have no idea!

Do you see me? I crawled up the tiny stairs into the wire cage, which is perched on the roof. Again, I'm not good with heights, so I was pretty shaky the entire time. LOL It was fun anyway!

to be a witch

2011-10-15T20:44:00.004-05:00

To be a witch is to...

love and be loved

know everything and nothing at all

move among the stars while staying on earth

follow the moon

change the world around you and yourself

live with the earth, not just on it

dance and sing and hold hands with the universe

share and give, while receiving all the while

BE magic, not just perform it

be honourable or nothing at all

accept others

harm none

know what you feel is right and good

see beyond the barriers

honour the gods and yourself

be one with the gods

study and learn

be the teacher and the student

acknowledge the truth

be truly free

Found an image with this listing on it, except the listing was in a super random order (and it likely still is even after my tweaking) and had some grammatical errors... so I fixed it up. Every time it comes up (with a new person) that I'm a witch, they tend to ask me what that entails/what I believe... I'm thinking I should print this stuff out on business cards to hand out to the ~~nosy~~curious people ~~who should really just mind their own business~~.

joys of the pox

2011-10-09T19:39:00.002-05:00

Camden has chicken pox (as we well know). Since we'd be visiting my parents next weekend anyway, I decided that to save both my (and Camden's) sanity, we'd just extend the trip by a ~~week~~few days. In the Ville, it was just me and Camden. And since he was ordered by the doctor and the woman from the health department to remain at home, no exceptions, we were both stuck at home. (I failed to ask them how I was supposed to buy groceries for the week if I, as a single parent, couldn't a) take him into the store with me, b) take him with me and leave him in the car, or c) leave him home (alone). But I digress.)

But at my parents, there would be three adults available for Camden-watching. Huzzah! Not to mention the acres of people-less land that Camden can enjoy, even if he is poxed up. So away we went!

Fun that we've had so far:

-Purging my room at my parents' of junk and old stuff

-Wading in my dad's new pond (he just built it a month or so ago, so it only has about a foot of water in the bottom of it. We need some rain so it'll get some water in it!) and throwing mud balls at each other

-Playing with Cat and my parents' dogs

-Making a mess in the living room with trains and monster trucks! (Camden's fun)

I'm planning another doctor's visit for Cam on Wednesday, to (hopefully) get the go ahead to take him in public. We've been planning a trip to St. Louis on Thursday for a few weeks now, and I know he'll be super disappointed if he doesn't get to go. I've once again marked his belly spots with marker (orange this time, so I guess he's fire belly, with his red spots and orange circles) to keep track of new spots. Praying and hoping for no new ones. If we go 24 hours without any new ones, he ought to be in the all clear! (But we'll still get the doctor's okay, I think. I REFUSE to be responsible for someone getting the pox.)

christmas belly

2011-10-07T11:39:00.003-05:00

Camden has the pox! Chicken pox. Despite being vaccinated against it (okay, only halfway so, but still) and not being around anyone who has it, he's covered head to to in itchy red spots. Last night, I was still thinking (hoping!) that they might be bug bites, so I circled them with a green marker (it was all I could find!). Have you heard of this? Circle the spots with a marker, then check the next day to see if there are new spots, and voila, it's chicken pox if there are more or voila, it's probably not chicken pox if there aren't. Well, we woke up this morning and there were new spots.

Voila.

Luckily, I had scheduled a well-child check up for him for today. So we went in, they made us sit in a private waiting room, then took us to the exam room where we sat for an hour before the doctor got there. She did the well-child stuff, then looked at his spots. "Yep, it's chicken pox."

Great.

So he and I are both out of school for the next week. He may be out of school for even longer: I'm not sure what his school's policy on chicken pox is, if he just has to be not contagious, or if all his crusties have to be gone, too. Either way, once he's not contagious, at least I'll be able to drag him to class with me.

(And just in case you didn't get it, christmas belly is because of the red spot and green circles on his belly.)

beginning of fall

2011-09-26T12:03:00.002-05:00

Camden and I really enjoyed our first weekend of Autumn. Saturday was really like any Saturday, but Sunday was spectacular.

Camden managed to drag me out of the house and to the park (I didn't want to go, because it was still chilly). By the time we got there, however, the temperature was feeling quite nice. So we spent some time playing on the equipment: throwing toys up and down the slides to each other and me chasing him around a bit. Then he wanted to go down the hill and check out the cannons (there is a veteran memorial type thing at this park). So we went down the hill and over the bridge and made it as far as a walnut tree, where Camden decided it would be more fun to pick up walnuts and throw them at the trunk. ... I agreed. ^_^

Then we went back across the bridge, and as we did so, the wind picked up and the leaves started dropping. So Camden and I decided to spend some time chasing leaves. We took off our jackets and shoes and ran around like the heathens we are, jumping, and spinning, and laughing as we tried to catch leaves out of the air. After a wee bit of that, we just lay in the grass, watching the sky and the trees and the gently falling leaves. After a bit, Camden decided it was time to go home.

As we walked up a hill that was (thankfully) more grass than rocks, Camden decided he wanted to roll down it. So he did. Eventually we made our way home. In the field of grass next to our house, I just happened to catch a grasshopper.

And this grasshopper just happened to meet his end, thanks to a spider Camden and I have been feeding moths and other bugs to. Should I feel bad for feeding the grasshopper to the spider? Perhaps. But Camden enjoyed it, and afterwards we looked at pictures of spiders (and other bugs) on the interwebs and learned a bit about them. Teaching opportunities, I say!

declutter nation

2011-09-17T14:10:00.003-05:00

So, as you may (or may not) know, I've been trying really hard to a) clean my house and b) keep it clean.

Well, let me tell you: it is hard to clean when a good amount of the STUFF in your house is just that, STUFF. Clutter, clutter, clutter, and, you guessed it, more clutter. So I haven't been focusing on cleaning my house this last week or so; I've been focused on decluttering. A lot of it has to do with the fact that I'll be moving in December, and I don't want to have to pack/move more than is necessary. So I've purged the closets and dressers, Camden's toys, the kitchen, the bathroom. I've thrown away a lot of STUFF that I didn't even know I had (which means it was obviously unimportant). I think I managed to donate at least half as much again as I threw in the trash.

So my "messy house" is still somewhat messy, but just being rid of all those bags full of unnecessary STUFF makes it seem so much more manageable. (The little bit of organization I did in the process doesn't hurt, either!!!) I'm still not quite finished. I still have my desk in the living room with four drawers filled with random STUFF and my TV stand, which has amassed DVD cases and video games (that I don't play, so I may be making a trip to Hastings to sell them off and maybe earn a few dollars).

What's so great about having an uncluttered house? (Aside from not having all that extra STUFF to find places for and keep picked up and organized and cleaned, I mean.) Well, I don't know about you, but clutter stresses me out! Seeing all that STUFF all the time, never knowing what to do with it... It makes for a relatively stressful living situation. And inviting friends over (or having surprise visitors) is just a mess. Before I could invite someone over, I had to make sure I had time to pick up the house. Now that I'm enjoying less STUFF, I can invite someone over for dinner (the same night as the invitation) and not rush home to clean like a madwoman. I can go home and straighten up for ten minutes or so, because that's all it needs.

Things seem so much easier when I have space. My counters are not clear by any means, but they are clear to the point where I can set something down without worrying about knocking over seven other things. My coffee table and night stand are the same way. Will I ever have completely bare surfaces? Not likely. Am I happy with what I have now? Yes, totally. And that was the point of this whole exercise. To make my house comfortable--for me. And now it is (and is becoming more so as I continue to find the odd thing that I'm okay with letting go).

why i love...

2011-09-16T11:42:00.002-05:00

the fall

-Beautiful colours. The leaves are changing, turning a green summery world into a riot of oranges, yellows, and red. What's not to love?

-Cool weather. Temperatures are bearable again!! We can play outside without sweating through our T-shirts. And the cool weather also makes good hoodie and sweater weather.

-New beginnings. Who would have thought a witch, of all people, would see the Fall as a time for new beginnings? Well, I think a witch who has been in school for the majority of her life would. New teachers, new classes, new friends. And we are reminded of future new beginnings, as the year and wheel are reaching their "end."

-The food. I love fall (and winter) food. Stews, heavy casseroles, soups. Things which I make throughout the year, but as with the weather sentiment, I can enjoy these things in the fall without sweating through my clothes. Oh, and apple pie!

-The holidays. Mabon. Samhain. Thanksgiving. All are wonderful reasons to celebrate the fall.

-The bugs die! So this is near the end of the fall season, but it still counts. Cam is allergic to bug bites (mosquito bites swell at the source, and tick bites swell at the source and all about it), so to be able to go outside without worrying about "what's going to get him this time" is a huge relief.

-Miscellaneous: hay rides, scare crows, pumpkins and pumpkin pies and jack-o-lanterns, marching band, hot cocoa, crisp mornings, the first frost. And on and on and on.

this day

2011-09-14T08:50:00.005-05:00

Five years ago today, I met the man who would change my life. For all the hardships I've endured in my life, he made them all okay. For all the challenges I face, I do it with love in my heart for him. He has made me who I am today, more so than any other person I've met. He helps me be a better person; just knowing him makes me want to be a better person. When I am down, he has the ability to bring me up; when I am up, he makes me soar to greater heights. Even as he wears me out, he fills my soul and spirit with life and energy.

My son. My beautiful, funny, smart man. It has been quite the road we have traveled, and its end is nowhere in sight. I am so happy to have you in my life, for this is a road not made to be traveled alone. You guide me, as I guide you. We were meant for each other.

A very happy birthday to Camden, my son, my sun, the light of my life.

on a roll

2011-09-09T20:13:00.002-05:00

Camden is one nutty child!

This morning, I mentioned that someone was being mean to me, and he says "What he do to you?" Talk about melting my heart.

On our way home, he asks if he can tell me a joke. Of course I say yes!

Camden: Who drives their cars on sidewalks?
(Here we have a five minute interlude, because I say "I don't know, who?" and he gets on to me for saying anything. So he asks me again, and this time I say "dogs" and he says again that I'm not supposed to say anything. So I roll my eyes as he asks me again, but I say nothing.)
Camden: The Transformers!

Obviously, he came up with this joke himself, and I'm very proud of him for it. (My friend liked to tell the story of his sister who came up with a joke at a similar age: What has four legs and doesn't move? A horse!)

This evening's events are equally amusing.

Camden: I'm thirsty
Me: What do you want
Camden: Your blood!
Me: o.O

And a little later

Camden: Your cherry pies are the best!
(I made some little pie pockets from fresh cherries. Very exciting!)

I love my child. :)

quest for a clean house (again...still?)

2011-09-01T17:36:00.002-05:00

My house/apartment/living quarters is generally a huge mess. Not necessarily dirty, though sometimes it is that, too, but toys/projects spread out everywhere and on every surface, beds unmade, clothes here and there (clean or dirty), papers in every corner imaginable, etc. Ever so often, I'll clean a room top to bottom (usually when I'm wanting to move a piece of furniture about) and I'll tell myself that this time it will stay clean. And... It never does.

I think I've figured out what my problem is. Okay, well, I have lots of problems. My first is that I was never required to pick my stuff up when I was a kid. (Glad my mom doesn't read this blog. She'd kill me.) So I never developed that habit. And keeping a whole room is a lot of work. Okay, it's not. But when you don't have that cleaning habit, it becomes a lot of work, because you have to remind yourself about every little thing. (Maybe I'm just a messy, lazy person looking for excuses?)

So instead of tackling the entire house, I've decided to build up to it. While the majority of my house exists as the usual messy state, two areas are clean! And they've been that way for a week. I've been making my bed every morning. Not a big thing, but like I said, I'm building up. I've also been washing dishes before I go to bed. I either do them after dinner, or right before I go to bed. Last night I was focused on homework and ended up not getting to them until 11.30, when I thought "I'll just get them in the morning" but then forced myself to wash them anyway. Took five minutes.

My next step? Keeping the living room floor and tables clear. Starting Monday.

I'm hoping this will help me form these clean habits, and I'm hoping even more that the habits will stick from this apartment to the next.

Bedtime Story: The Final Chapter

2011-08-27T19:21:00.006-05:00

Summary of parts I and II:

Girl wants a tall bed. Girl gets tall bed. Tall bed dies. Twice. After second death, girl buys flatpack bed from IKEA, thinking it's the right size. 'Tisn't. Girl is still left sleeping on a mattress on the floor.

And now, what we've all been waiting for: The Final Chapter.

So the girl is getting really tired of sleeping on the floor. Her knees have mysteriously taken a leave of good health which makes entering and vacating the bed a less than graceful operation.

So she searches.

And she plans.

And she draws poorly drawn plans, because she hasn't a visually artistic bone in her body.

And she talks shop with her father, which was very exciting and very nervous-making. Every time she had a plan for building something, she would ask her father for help, and he would end up taking the entire project out of her hands. But not this time! This time he helped edit the plans, and he provided helpful tools.

Finally the girl decides "This is the day!" She draws yet another plan (for all the other drawings disappeared) and takes last minute measurements and off she goes to the hardware store! Pine! Carriage bolts! Nuts! Washers! Drill bit! Candy bar!

As she's watching the helpful hardware store employee cutting the boards, she feels a moment of horror. What if it doesn't fit in my car? Thankfully, it did. With a whole three inches to spare.

She totes the lumber into her house and begins work! After much cursing and swearing and candy bar-munching and a few extra holes here and there, the girl has a bed!

(I am terribly embarrassed by how fuzzy this pic is. Took it on my phone to send to my dad, then sent it to facebook, only to realise it's fuzzier than a bunny. Oh well.)

And the best news is that it holds the weight of the mattress. And the weight of the girl. And a boy child. And two rats. And no wibbles or wobbles. Sturdy as a rock. Needless to say, the girl was (and still is!) very proud of herself.

Georgia Aquarium

2011-08-23T18:10:00.004-05:00

Camden, my mother, and I drove down to Atlanta, Georgia Thursday/Friday to visit my sister. I hadn't seen her since Christmas and she asked earlier this summer if I'd visit her. And to celebrate, Red bought us all tickets to visit the Georgia Aquarium. I've been to the aquarium in Chicago, so I was excited, but Camden has only been to zoos, so he was super excited. Plus, he's in love with sharks and octopuses and squid.

My sister, rather like myself, likes to get to things on time. And by on time, I obviously mean early. So we ended up getting to the aquarium about 30 minutes before it actually opened. Luckily, there was still fun stuff to peruse outside, like these dolphin statues. Cam's favourites were the super hero dolphin (when he saw it, he said "What!?" in the tone of WTF is going on here) and the "Bob the Builder" dolphin, as we called it.

They had five or six that were roped off and not readily available for posing with, but Camden really liked the "Peace" dolphin.

Flash wasn't allowed in most (read: any) of the aquarium, so my pictures of the animals all came out very poorly. Except the penguins here. Guess something made them all hold still for the ~~five seconds~~time it takes my camera to open and close the lens.

This is another one that held still. He was in Camden's favourite tank-the ray and shark tank. They said it was around 100 yards long. There were two viewing windows on either end, then a big tunnel that you could go through to watch the fishes swim over you.

Cam's favourite part of the whole thing was the divers in the shark tank. I think this guy had a sense of humour, no?

job hunting

2011-08-14T15:43:00.002-05:00

I'm graduating in December. YES YES YES! Originally, this graduation barely elicited a rather apathetic "yay" because I knew I'd have another year and a half of school. Buuuuut.... I'm skipping grad school. I don't want to teach; I don't want to teach music. I don't have the vocal ability to teach elementary children, and I don't have the ear to teach middle school+. So after 4.5 years, I'll be graduating with a fairly useless degree in a time of economic recession. Will the job market turn around by December? By gods, I hope so. But honestly, I don't see it getting better. (And to add my pessimistic view to the end of that statement: I don't see it getting better, ever.)

In the mean time, I'm scanning classifieds and job websites, hoping to find a place that will be a good fit for my talents.

Just today, I sent in my resume for a solar energy tech company in St. Louis, MO. And while my chances of getting a job with the company (they don't have any openings listed, but have a "Interested in working for us? Send your resume!" on their site) are likely incredibly small, I'm excited by just the possibility. I have no sales experience, but I know I could sell solar panels. This is a product I definitely believe in, and I'm hoping and praying and lighting candles and blowing on dandelion puffs to get this job.

But if not, I'll find something else. Probably it won't be as gratifying as I'm making the solar tech job out to be, but it will be a job. And if I don't find something else, I'll go build a hut on my parents' land and be self-reliant.

Bedtime Story Part II

2011-08-05T20:16:00.003-05:00

So the girl's bed had turned into the teenage dream of a mattress on the floor. She didn't mind--not really. Then she started working. The work wore her out, to the point of barely being able to move. Suddenly, she missed her tall bed, where getting into it was nothing more than a step on this box then crawling in. Now, she had to lower herself to the floor, with a sore body and one knee that refused to cooperate. More so than climbing into her old bed, she missed climbing out of it, which was really nothing more than rolling over and putting her feet to the ground. TAH-DAH. None of this ridiculousness that is now involved, leveraging her entire weight from the ground to standing.

But she had promised herself (and anyone who would listen) that that bed was not coming back into her house. No how, no way. Besides, it was broken. So she decided to look online for a NEW bed. A factory-made bed. Flat-pack. And she found one! Inexpensive (and, considering where it was coming from, probably cheap as well), and, she thought, the right size. So she ordered it, checking and double checking and even triple checking to make sure that there wasn't a choice between Full/Queen/King listed. It came up in the "queen size bed frame" search, so it must be a queen size frame. Obviously.

Then it came. It came, it came! She did a happy dance and sliced open the box to look at the lovely pieces of wood. It was here!

That night, she pulled out her tools, moved the mattress up against the wall, and set to work putting together her shiny new bed frame. Suddenly, it was together! She danced in excitement, pulling out her queen size bed slats and laying them on the frame.

Wait.

What's this?

Why are they hanging over?

What?

What?!

FUCK!

She ran to her computer, pulling up the website, looking again. No, it doesn't say it's a full bed. It came up when she searched "queen bed frame." Why is it the wrong size?!*

Alas, the girl's dreams of a bed off the floor were no closer to fruition. Except now she has plans of building one on her own... Will there be a part three to this bedtime story?

*Footnote to add to the bitter tale of the new bed (don't want it ruining the amusement of my adventures in finding the perfect bed). I took apart the frame and called the company, hoping that they would pay for the return shipping, since it was due to their lack of size information that led to me ordering it in the first place. But the most they said was "sorry for your confusion." And looking up shipping prices, it would cost more than twice as much as the original price of the bed to ship it back to the company. So I took it to a consignment shop, where I'll get about a third of the price back if I'm lucky.

my coffee table

2011-07-31T19:55:00.003-05:00

(Maybe I should have taken a more flattering picture of my coffee table? Eh, too much work!)

I picked up my coffee table a few years ago at a thrift shop. It was, I believe, ten dollars. Or maybe it was five? Or maybe it was even free. Like I said, it was a few years ago. I got it because the one that I had before this one bit the dust when Camden happened to fall on it--it was pretty unstable. It was the usual darkish wood flavour of coffee table--nothing too outrageous.

About a month (or more) ago, I picked up a small can of oops coloured paint with the plans of painting my rather bland coffee table. And like any good DIY project, I waited for ages to get around to it. And today when Camden came to me, carrying the can of oops paint asking to paint the table, I realised I had run out of reasons not to. So we did. And... Why didn't I do it sooner?! I love it!

Except now I'm worried that it will further fuel my SFMA(serial furniture movers anonymous)... No need to move the furniture--just paint it! Because now I'm really wanting to paint my TV cabinet. And my desk. And my desk chair. But I think that much light grey/off white might drive me crazy. We'll see.

(In other news, I have another bedtime story to tell--hopefully sometime later this week. )

my life

2011-07-27T18:16:00.002-05:00

My life has been crazy. Well, maybe not crazy, but it's definitely been full. The Walmart here in town is going through remodel, and I was lucky to get hired on the remodel crew. While I'm thankful to have a job, I really can't stand it, and I'm definitely ready for school to start up. So my days for the last month have been spent at Walmart, moving stuff then moving it again, and dealing with the supervisors' BS. I generally like the job, and I generally like the people I'm working with, but several of the supervisors just drive me crazy (and everyone else, too).

So I haven't really been doing too many exciting things to be blogging about. Hell, I work all day then come home where I make dinner as quickly as possible, then spend the rest of the night trying to avoid standing/walking. Doesn't really help that the heat index has been around 110 for the last week (with a slight reprieve for the weekend).

I'm hoping that once school starts up, things will settle down and I'll be able to resume with my usual posting habits.

my weekend in pictures

2011-07-04T07:05:00.003-05:00

Cam and I spent the weekend with my parents. And despite some serious drama caused by my dad's ex, it was a good weekend. Cam and I took off Saturday morning to visit Haha Tonka State Park, which has the most beautiful views.

The rest of the weekend was spent playing with the hose, building fires, playing with fireworks (including mining out cicada holes with bottle rockets), and enjoying a thunderstorm. We left last night to take advantage of the cooler night temperatures. Glad we did, because I got to snap this picture of the clouds and moon, which looks like (to me) a bear trying to snatch the moon.

Happy Fourth, ya'll.

living with purpose

2011-06-19T21:01:00.004-05:00

First off, happy Solstice! As usual, I've (obviously) failed to manage a holiday post. Luckily, I can keep trying. Camden and I didn't do much to "celebrate," but we did enjoy the summer, although it was fairly cool. He and I talked about the Oak and Holly Kings fighting, and the Holly King winning to lead our march toward Yule (where they'll fight again, with the Oak King as victor). We went to a local nature center to stare at some honey bees (a small inside hive (with a pipe leading outside) made of plexiglass so you can see the bees doing bee things. We also ogled a bull snake that was apparently not hungry, since it wasn't munching on the (live) mouse in its tank. Then we came home and grilled chicken for dinner. All in all, a fun day.

And on to the topic of the hour:

I've known about Transcendentalism since high school or junior high. But I only knew about it in the general sort of way. Last fall, in my AmeriLit class, I actually read the Transcendentalist authors; Whitman, Thoreau, Emerson. And I fell in love. Then, earlier this year, I was introduced to the term simple living, in reference to modern life, as opposed to "back in the day" simplicity. I think that if every one would strive to live simply, the world would be a better place. Less waste, more community. Less stress, more time. Less hate, more love. As a world-wide community (Western/modernized world, anyway), we have a consumerist and materialistic ethic. We want what we want (or what they want us to want), and we want it now. And to help us get this stuff we have to work long hours at jobs we may or may not enjoy. We want our children to want stuff too, so we help them "get ahead" by over-scheduling them.

That's not something I want from my life. I don't want the hectic schedule of work, soccer practice, music lessons, dinner at McDonald's, TV, bed, rinse and repeat. I want my life to be my own. I want my life to belong to me and my family, not to the world at large. A book that I am reading suggested making a purpose statement for one's family. Because part of living simply is living with purpose. And it's hard to live with a purpose that hasn't been defined. My purpose statement? (Rather: my family's purpose statement.)

Enjoy Life; Love Others.

That is the shortened version. Both are basic yet vital to my spiritual and religious beliefs. The (only slightly) lengthier version is:

Enjoy life by
-making our home a place of creativity, love and laughter
-living within our means
-being environmentally conscious
Love others by
-loving (family) unconditionally
-participating in community service
-having faith in god, nature, others, and one's self

I am sure that at some point this will change. Not greatly, maybe just a tweak here or there. But for now, it is enough.

Bedtime story

2011-06-07T13:53:00.004-05:00

Once upon a time a girl wanted a bed. Not just any bed. A bed that she could store stuff under. Or build forts under. And so, her dad built her one. An amazing four poster bed with plenty of crawl space beneath. The girl loved her bed, except that it wobbled to and fro. When she leaned on the foot of the bed, it would move an alarming amount. This wobbling to and fro eventually led to the destruction of the bed's metal parts.

"But do not be alarmed, child; I will fix it. I have new steel hangers that are indestructible," said her father.

So her father came to visit. He took the broken, flimsy hangers off the bed parts, and put on the new indestructible parts. It was not easy. They did not want to fit. "Ah, but this is good," thought the girl, "for if they are this tight putting together, my bed will no longer wobble to and fro!" And much cursing and hammer pounding and more cursing later, the girl's bed was as good as new. Better than new, for now it had indestructible parts. And lots of screws to help steady it even more.

After five months of having the bed against wall A, the girl decided she wanted the bed to be against wall B. She pulled and tugged and huffed and puffed and cursed and spat, but the bed would not budge! "No problem," said she, "I'll just take off the mattress. Sure then it will move!" So she easily slid the mattress off the bed, only nearly knocking a shadow box from the wall.

"But what is this strange button?" she asked, finding a black circular peg thingy. Looking closer, she sees that it's the peg from one of the hangers. One of the indestructible hangers. Looking even closer, she sees that both the tabs for the hanger is missing! "Noooo!"

Instead of further defying a sure death from sleeping on a broken bed, the girl decided to dismantle the bed. But, alas! As she was removing all of those extra steadying screws, two strip! And another broke off at the head. She looked and searched for something to help, but nothing she found could.

Of she went, on her quest to remove the screws from the bed. First to one store, where an employee handed her something saying, "This will work!" Back home went she, only to find out that the employee must have been the ~~village~~store idiot, because there was no way that tool would work, since it was designed for a specific type of screw. So she returned the failed merchandise and searched out another store. Here, they sold her a tool that she was sure would work. So she got home and tried it... Only to find out that she's not quite smart enough to make it work.

Eventually, after much man-handling and more cursing and spitting, huffing and puffing, and pulling and tugging, the girl managed to get the boards free from the defective screws.

And from that moment, she decided that that bed would never enter her home again. And she lived happily ever after, even if she was relegated to sleeping on a mattress on the floor like some teenager.

acceptance

2011-06-05T23:47:00.006-05:00

A week or so ago, I mentioned my "secret garden" in passing to a friend, and when he asked about it, we both thought it would be easier to simply link him to the blog post I made. Either the address of my blog, or the name, led him to ask me if I was a witch. When I said yes... He said the oddest thing. He said good. Good that I was a witch!

And and a few days ago, I was at the doctor, and he saw my tattoo. And suddenly he started gushing about how beautiful it was (and at that point, I noticed how dry and ashy my legs were and was mortified that I forgot to put lotion on) and asked if it had any meaning. So, I told him it was a pentacle and he pipes up, "Like in Wicca, right?" And I hesitated... Because I'm not a Wiccan, but he took it as me being worried about the usual persecution we non-book religions suffer and said "Oh, it's cool! I've studied Wicca a bit and it's a really neat religion. ... You classify it as a religion, right?" LOL So I said that I was Pagan, and yes, it is a religion. I'm assuming he thought it might be classified as a spirituality?

Anyway, don't mind me. I'm just basking in the warm glow of acceptance. I hope that, someday, it is something we all can experience. Actually, no. I hope that someday this is the normal way of things, and there will be no warm glow because it will just be how things are.

my secret garden

2011-06-02T12:05:00.003-05:00

Six-ish years ago, I decided I was going to revamp a little piece of the yard, where (who knows how long ago) my mom had planted mints and lemon balm, and various other herbs. This garden is next to a little building that was a chicken coop turned playhouse turned horse shed turned abandoned shack that you couldn't pay me to go in. Anyway, when I first got this idea, there was nothing there but a square of overgrown mint and lemon balm. (See picture above.) My mom also had a collection of sandstone; I think she was wanting to make a patio, but didn't have enough. So I liberated them and used them to outline the space. We also had a large pile of bricks in the back (in the space that is the intermediary between the backyard and the woods), so I liberated some of those, too, to make a little square in the middle.

Unfortunately, this first summer of working on the garden, I came down with mono... And couldn't do nearly as much work as I wanted... You know, because heavy lifting with mono can make your spleen explode. So it went back to the weeds.

And the next summer, I was pregnant. Who wants to do yard work when they're pregnant?

And then for several years, I wasn't living there, so why bother? My visits were only for a few days, and I didn't really want to spend those days working.

This last weekend, though... Something changed. Maybe it's just that I was tired of seeing my garden overgrown and weedy. Or that I've been craving working in the dirt with plants. So with Camden's help, I pulled out the weeds. This took forever. They were everywhere. Most annoying were the weeds that had sprouted between the bricks, because they, more than any of the others, gave the garden such an air of neglect.

My next course of action was scouring the woods for moss. I love the look of brick pathways with moss set between the bricks. I scoured the woods and spent a ridiculous amount of time tearing the moss into little strips and shoving it into the cracks.

I also found some wild flowers. Two spiderwort plants and my dad dug up a big clump of daisies for me. And on Monday, my mom and I stopped by some nurseries and bought some plants. I can't remember what all I bought (bad me!) though I did buy quite a few creeper/crawling/ground cover plants that I'm hoping will grow and shade the ground to keep the weeds down. Yay for living mulch.

I also attempted a faerie house. I am soo not crafty at all (as much as I try and want to be). Guess I'll have to keep practicing and hopefully one of these days build a nice-looking faerie house, as opposed to this one, which while not bad, is nowhere near as nice as some that I've seen.

Kids say the darndest things

2011-06-01T08:08:00.004-05:00

I fully accept that this was entirely my doing. But, you see, I've spent the greater part of my life learning about the natural world around me. So when Camden asks me something about nature, I am usually able to give a fairly detailed answer. I try very hard to keep it pared down, due to his age, but usually, I can't and usually, he understands because he's so intelligent!

So when we came across two cicadas doing it yesterday, and he asked me what they were doing... I told him. Okay, I told him they were "making eggs." He looked at me, then looked at them, then ran off to play. Wow, easy question with no follow ups. Awesome.

Later on, inside, he asks me to help him draw a cicada. So I draw a slightly cicadaish bug with a purple crayon. "I wanted it orange!" he says. Of course. So I draw another slightly cicadaish bug in orange. Then he asks me to cut them out. No problem.

I'm watching him play with his slightly cicadaish paper bugs, when he starts putting their butts together. "Look, they're making eggs!"

Oh gee.

Beetles!

2011-05-23T17:24:00.003-05:00

This weekend my garden was invaded by beetles. Cucumber beetles. And the little bastards ate half of my garden, considering that half of my garden is their favourite foods: cucumbers, zucchini, and watermelon. They also ate several of my green bean plants.

I am so frustrated! I didn't check anyone else's plots to see if they were infested, but I'm sure they are. (Hopefully the beetle things didn't focus on my garden. Grr)

I went and bought some organic pesticide and sprayed the little bastards this afternoon, though it didn't seem to have much effect, except that they were crawling away from the plants I was spraying as fast as their little legs could carry them.

In other garden news, though, my cabbages and tomatoes are looking good. One of my tomato plants even has a flower on it! And my bell peppers are starting to grow some true leaves, though they're a little leggy.

And Camden's sunflower house is looking promising!

My Dad's Parents

2011-05-18T20:24:00.007-05:00

I never really got to know my dad's parents. Papa died when I was only three months old. Nanny died when I was in the sixth grade, but I don't really remember spending that much time with her. I loved her and I loved her cooking, but when we went to visit her, I was always playing in the hallways or the elevators or the stairwells of her apartment building with my brother, sister, and/or cousins. I loved Papa, too. Still love him, though I've never met the man, at least not to remember. I love to hear stories of him: how he cheated at Uno is the only one coming to mind at the moment. And the story I love most of all: him claiming me as his baby. My Papa was not the type of man to hold newborn babies. Ever. But I was three days old when I was "introduced" to the family and he said "Give me my baby." My mom thinks it was because he knew his end was close (though I don't think he was sick or anything... I should find that out) and he knew he wouldn't be around to know me when I was older.

I cry every time I think of this story, this little bit of my history. I cry because I am overwhelmed that I, out of his ~~millions~~several grandchildren, and the youngest of those at that, was held as a newborn when he wasn't a baby person. I cry because I never got the chance to know this man who claimed me as his baby.

Why bring it up? My aunt has been posting old pictures of Papa and Nanny up on FB, and all these thoughts surge to the surface.

After a coyote hunt with two friends

A close up of him.

Papa and Nanny on their wedding day.

Picture of Nanny. She was absolutely beautiful, no?

Bees!

2011-05-18T20:10:00.002-05:00

Camden has been absolutely begging to be filled with information about bees the past few months. Sadly, I can't remember what set it off. A random book from the library? The day he was pretending to be a bee and stinging me? Something very odd or cosmic? Who knows. What I do know is that we've read about five books on the subject. Some were age appropriate, some were a little advanced for him (but... maybe not?) Anyway, the boy is very well versed in his bee knowledge (for an almost 5-year-old).

Case and point:

I had a late doctor appointment (still trying to get my wrist issues under control) so I ~~had~~got to take Cam with me. He had a notebook and a pen from the car (somebody forgot to grab some toys... oops!) that he was writing in and drawing in, then showing me and the doctor the pictures. One of the pictures he drew was of a bee, and he was talking about its stinger and how the bee was a girl bee and not a boy so it could sting some body. And the doctor said she didn't know that boy bees don't have stingers. So Camden got to teach a doctor something: how cool is that?

Thor, god of thunder!

2011-05-14T11:16:00.002-05:00

In the past Camden has always said he wants to be a policeman. Or a fireman. Or a soldier.

But those professions have all been abandoned by my fast-growing young man.

Yesterday, he told me he wants to grow up to be...

THOR

God of Thunder!

Love him so much!

Little bee

2011-05-08T08:57:00.002-05:00

We found this bee on the way to the park while looking for silly earthworms that crawl onto the road and can't get back into the dirt before the sun bakes them.

I don't know why it let us harass it. I think something is wrong with it's wings, and now it can't fly. :(

At first I thought it might be a drone, but then I noticed the pollen baskets. I never did see a stinger on it, though.

"Imma get you!" she says.

Cam's happy to have a new friend for the day. Right now, she's living in one of our flower pots outside munching on a dandelion. Or maybe the clover.

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. Hope your day is full of wonderfulness (mine most definitely was; bees are so cool!)

What a summery day!

2011-05-07T20:19:00.003-05:00

Today was the BEST. Mostly because I finally got to ~~play in the dirt~~plant my garden. And... What a garden! It's probably going to look terrible and all half-hazard, because, well, because I had a 4.5 year old helping me. I'm okay with that though.

What I planted:
tomatoes
bell peppers (six of these puppies, WAAY too many but I'm really only expecting one to make it, so it'll be okay)
cabbage
bush beans
carrots
cucumbers (for Camden; I think they taste terrible)
yellow squash
zucchini
watermelon
sunflower house
flowers (marigold, zinnia, and... something colourful; I gave these to Cam to plant)

I don't know what I'm going to do with all that produce... Eat a lot of green beans with zucchini, I guess.

Camden and I also walked across town (really, about a mile from the house) to return a textbook I'd rented for the semester. And we went to the park a couple different times. To top it all off, we grilled some hotdogs and ate a junk-food dinner. (Once those veggies ripen, we'll be eating healthy enough, I think.) All in all, a fun filled, action-packed summery day. ~~But mostly, I can tell it's summer because of the terrible sunburn I got over the course of the day. Ugh!~~

This is a very scattered post, and for that, I am sorry. I'm terribly exhausted (6+ hours in the sun will do that to you!) and I really just wanted to gush about my garden.

Just writing...

2011-05-03T20:46:00.004-05:00

I keep telling myself I'm going to get back in to the habit of writing here... But then my life goes crazy, or I just spend several boring days where there's nothing to write about. And when something does happen that I'd like to write about, I can't seem to find the time.

Such as: last week Camden and I planted strawberry plants. While my parents were here for my recital, we stopped at a garage sale, and I found a strawberry tower planter...thing. Of course, it was freezing cold and you can't plant strawberries when it's cold! But it warmed up (kinda) so I bought some fresh potting soil and four and a half strawberry plants (one had a runner that was already sprouting roots: two for one!) and Camden and I planted them. Now we are looking forward to fresh home-grown strawberries... if it ever warms up enough for the strawberry plants to bloom. (Which reminds me, my parents house is surrounded by HORDES of wild strawberries, and it seemed like EVERY SINGLE PLANT was blooming. Nom wild strawberries!)

And another: I think NEMO worms are suicidal. Those things are all over the sidewalks, and it hasn't even rained for... two whole days! Okay, they're not all over the sidewalks. But today I had to throw one off into some shaded grass. Yesterday, I found one. The day before that Camden and I found one on the way to the park trying to cross a road. What is with these guys? Don't they know they'll get caught in the sun and burn to such a crisp that even the birds won't eat them?! Luckily for them, though, I haven't lost my youthful compunction which leads me to pick worms out of mud puddles or off of sizzling ~~frying pans~~ sidewalks.

Oh, yeah. Happy Beltane! One of these days, I'll actually get the post on the holiday instead of 1-7 days late. :)

Easter Weekend

2011-04-25T13:03:00.002-05:00

After having spent last weekend with my parents at my place, I can't say I was too terribly excited to go visit them at their place this weekend. (Not that I don't love my parents, but seeing too much of them just annoys the hell out of me.) But it was Easter, and I haven't been home since before it was too cold to do any outside stuff. So off we went. And I have to say, it's much more springy in Southern MO. There are more dogwoods, which from 20+ years of exposure to during the beginnings of spring, just shout "Spring is here!!!" And there is a decided lack of dogwoods here in the north, for whatever reason. (Maybe if I went to a more wooded area than the actual town of Kirksville, I would see some.)

Of course, thunder storms also come with spring, and there was an average of 3 a day all weekend. Luckily, Camden had his rain boots (and it was warm enough for me to go without shoes!) so we got to splash around in the mud and puddles and grass. We caught two toads, which were put into the toad house we made last spring; one left fairly quickly, the other stayed for most of the afternoon. (We tried to feed the second one some earthworms, but I think he was rather pissed off with us and not interested in eating.)

All in all, it wasn't a bad weekend. My dad made Camden a slingshot from a hickory stick, inner tube, and a piece cut from a leather work glove (whose partner is MIA). I also heard some news about my brother, although I think I would have rather not heard. (He called the parentals and was telling them that "it's just like the movies. You're running and you can see the bullets hitting the ground around your feet." Uh, no, I don't want to hear about people shooting at him. Four months and he's home for good, though.) And while Easter was cold and rainy, Camden still got an egg hunt (inside, in the living room) and a TON of candy, along with a Transformers backpack.

Recital

2011-04-17T19:02:00.004-05:00

Whelp... My recital is finally over with. Just in time, too. It went really well. My wrists held up for it (thank goodness, I think if it had been any colder they might not have) and I didn't get as nervous as I usually do. Typically, when I go to play for an audience, I get shaky and my legs tremble. My first piece, I had some trembling in my legs, but worked through it (and luckily my hands never shook). My third piece was a duet that I played with a friend, which went really really well. We didn't have any guidance on it, except for a few comments one time from our studio professor, so it's nice to know that we can throw together music and have it turn out really well. And my last piece was another marimba piece, which didn't go nearly as well as I had hoped or expected, but I'm okay with that (mostly).

On to pictures!

I did my recital with my friend Bob, who plays tuba. He ordered the cake, asking for it to say "Congratulations Sydnii and Bob" and the bakery asked if they could decorate it. (I'm assuming they were looking to practice, since they didn't charge.) Anyway, this is what we ended up with, a cake that we have jokingly named our "engagement cake."

Picture of myself and my high school (and college!) friend Cody playing our duet. I really wanted to do a duet on my recital, and I'm glad that Cody, who've I've known since he was a freshman in high school, was willing to help me out.

Playing some marimba.

Playing some more marimba, and looking fierce

Oops, I did it again

2011-04-15T20:00:00.003-05:00

It being disappearing for a time. I've just been so busy! And by busy, I obviously mean busy playing in the park and reading books and drawing and coloring and sewing and any other myriad of things with Camden. I've also been cursing my bad wrists. We've had mostly gorgeous weather, but every so often a cold front moves through, the temperature drops, and it rains. And my wrists (I have carpal tunnel syndrome) hurt like hell. Today, I lost all strength and dexterity in my hands. And I have a solo/senior recital on Sunday. Luckily, I've been playing my recital repertoire really well recently, so I don't think one day off will kill me.

On the good side of the spectrum, though... My parents are here for a weekend-long visit (due to senior recital, of course). And even better: my dad found some morels this morning before they drove up here, so I got mushrooms for dinner! First time I've had morels in at least a year, maybe two. We also had hamburgers and asparagus spears. Sooo good. More good: I ought to be able to sleep in in the morning. Both my parents are early risers, so Camden will bug them instead of me in the morning!

And this is a terrible update. Will update more Sunday night, hopefully with some AWESOME recital pics ^_^ (Maybe video, too!)

Don't name livestock

2011-04-05T18:20:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, Camden learned (and I remembered) why we shouldn't name our food.

Halfway through a bag of gummiworms, he decided they needed names. After which, he said we had to keep them and not eat them. What a weirdo! (And on a side note, growing up, my family raised beef cows and pigs and chickens. And they all had names. Luckily, we weren't as sentimental as my kid. lol)

Summer Skies

2011-04-01T17:25:00.003-05:00

Today, I started dreaming of summer. After school, Camden and I went to play at the park. It was around 60 degrees, the sun was shining, the wind was blowing. It was cool without being cold. The grass is just beginning to really turn green. Oh, and there were clouds. Great, beautiful, puffy, white cumulus clouds. I spread out a blanket and just lay there watching them for about five minutes (before Camden was able to get me to get up and play). Watching clouds always reminds me of when I was a kid, during the summer I would watch clouds from the roof of an old milk barn that had been lost in a hillside forest. (Just recently, the owner of that hillside forest has cleared out all the trees, so it's just a hillside of scrub and cows and ruins of a house and milk barn. Such a shame, to lose all those trees.) Anyway, the sky reminded me of summer and I had/have a longing for a lazy summer afternoon, where nothing is due for class and I have nowhere to go and nowhere to be. Where time can be spent doing something as simple as lying in the grass watching the clouds go by as they morph from shape to shape. It takes me away, staring into the clouds, so that I am also a cloud, floating in the endless sea of blue skies with children running to stay in my shadow or to stay out of my shadow.

Alas, it is only just spring. We're still waiting for the soil to warm enough to plant our garden. (Which I am very excited about. I absolutely can't wait!) And waiting for it to be consistently warm enough to play outside. Ah, summer. Why must you be so far away?

Wish Bottle

2011-03-30T17:44:00.003-05:00

Since I had a bit of interest in the wish bottle I made I thought I would write up a post giving a few more details about how I did it. (Either follow my example or make it up yourself)

The idea of the wish bottle comes from several different sources.

First, the idea of wishes. Everyone knows that if you blow on a dandelion puff while making a wish, it will come true if all the seeds are blown off. (Or, it will come true in as many days/weeks/months/years as there are seeds left on the stem.)

In Cecelia Ahern's book If You Could See Me Now (fiction), there is a part where the three main characters are catching (if I remember correctly) some sort of floating seed, telling it their wish, then sending it off where the Imaginary Friend Community (or whatever, it's been a few years since I read it) receives the wish and grants it or not. Since then, Camden and I have been wishing upon floating seeds of one sort or another and sending them to the fairies.

Also, the idea of the bottle came from some (non-magical, but very lovely) jewelry I saw on Etsy. I saw it and thought the idea of bottling a wish was clever. And I have a thing for glass bottles. They're just so pretty! Also, bottle spells in general aren't unheard of (a witch's bottle, anyone?), and they're fairly common in hoodoo. So, yay.

Anyway, on to the actual creation of my bottle.

Stuff needed:
Bottle of any size (I used a small glass vial, about 3 inches tall).
A small feather
A floating seed

Clean and purify your bottle. If it's actually dirty and you have to wash it, you might want to do this a day or two before working the spell to give it time to dry.

If you cast circles to work your magic, go ahead and do that.

Keeping your wish (for a specific thing, or a general idea like happiness, health, etc) in mind, put the feather into the bottle and say "Give my wish wings that it may soar to where wishes come true."

With your wish still in mind, put the seed into the bottle and say "Help my wish take root and grow so that this may be where wishes come true."

Speak your wish to the bottle. "I wish for a job/happiness/health/cool funky socks/what-have-you." Quickly cap or cork the bottle.

You can keep the bottle on your altar or display it elsewhere (mine is in a shadow box in the bedroom).

Or, for a simpler version (or if you just can't find the right bottle), pluck a dandelion seed whisper your wish to it, and let it go on a breeze.

Speech stuff

2011-03-28T17:55:00.004-05:00

Next week I'm taking Camden to COMO for a dr's appointment with a developmental pediatrician, where he'll be screened by a number of therapists/specialists (speech, occupational, physical, and so on). He's been diagnosed with apraxia, which is a neurological expressive speech disorder. With this appointment, I was really hoping to get him tested for food intolerances/sensitivities so we could determine whether or not a change of diet could be useful. Unfortunately, when I called today to see if I could set that up, they said that they would have to refer us to an allergist. Which is just as well, since I wouldn't be able to try a GF/CF diet until May, when I'm out of school and have time to prepare all his meals (including those he eats at school, since his school meals are almost entirely based off of grains and dairy). Anyway, despite the fact that they won't be able to test him for that, I will hopefully be getting more strategies and ideas to work with/pass along to his speech therapists here in KV.

I didn't know that living with his apraxia would be such hard work. I didn't realise that it would involve a lot of translation (I feel bad leaving him with people who don't know him, because he's just so hard to understand, and he gets frustrated and the person he's with gets frustrated). I didn't think he would have to fight so hard to make a sound that is easy for most people (thinking /k/ and /g/ here). I didn't think that I would be driven to tears multiple times a week, simply because I can't understand something that he's wanting to tell me. I didn't know that I would want to punch people (okay, certain person--unnamed) for telling me that he's not doing it because he's lazy (the apraxia dx was a huge in your face). I didn't realise how frustrating it would be to have to drill the same idea over and over and over every day, several times a day.

Of course, I also didn't know how my heart would soar with happiness and pride when he automatically uses the right word (saying I want instead of me want for example) or puts the right sounds together for the word that he wants. Or when his speech therapists tell me that he's their favourite patient. I didn't know that he would work so hard to be understood, by repeating what he says, trying to enunciate, saying it a different way, gesturing, etc.

We are far from the end of our journey with apraxia, but every day Camden makes improvement. He says I with increasing frequency, though not nearly as often as we would like. A year ago, he couldn't tell a story. He can now tell a short story about his day. A year ago, he used 1, 2 and 3 word sentences almost exclusively. Now his sentences can reach up to 6 or 7 or 8 words long, though he still uses a lot of shorter sentences. He does a lot more creative and imagination play now than he used to (though that might just be part of growing up/normal development?).

He makes my heart sing every day that I know him, and every day that I know him I love him more.

A story (not mine, obviously):

WELCOME TO HOLLAND

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability
- to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand
it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip -
to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The
Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some
handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags
and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in
and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm
supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and
there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting,
filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different
place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new
language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have
met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than
Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you
look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and
Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all
bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your
life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had
planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of
that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy,
you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ...
about Holland.

by
Emily Perl Kingsley.
c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved

My week is AWESOME

2011-03-23T13:33:00.010-05:00

This week has been surprisingly good. I think I owe it to the wish bottle I made on Tuesday. In it is a little feather and a flying seed. (Ever since it got warm, Cam and I have been picking up these seeds, telling them our wishes, then sending them off.) I didn't make any specific wish, just made this be a focal point for growing happiness, love, etc. So maybe it isn't a wish bottle, per se, but, eh, whatever.

And the same night I made the wish bottle, Camden decided it would be fun to help me with dishes. So I let him rinse. I tried letting him actually washing stuff (he wanted to), but he wasn't doing so well with that.

And today, I passed my prelim! My senior percussion recital is this semester (in three weeks, actually) and I had to play through everything today for three faculty, who then told me that I was free to continue on to my recital! I have no idea what would have happened if I hadn't passed, but it doesn't really matter now! This has been a big cause of stress for me this week, and I'm just happy that I did well and passed. I still have some stuff to work on before my recital, so I'm not quite out of the woods yet, but I'm closer.

(I also had a good week at the thrift store... Finding two tee-shirts, a dress shirt, dress slacks, skirt, ACORN earrings (these are just amazing!), and a dainty little bird necklace. Usually my finds are not this great, or as plentiful.)

Of course, the week hasn't been all great. On Ostara, it was close to 80 degrees outside. It was beautiful. Last night, it snowed. And the snow stuck! Well, it stuck to trees and grass and bushes and cars. Okay, it was actually kinda pretty and I wish I'd gotten a picture of it. Hopefully this taste of winter won't last too long and we'll be back to the beautiful spring weather.

My Books

2011-03-21T18:10:00.002-05:00

Okay, so I stole this idea from Nellie over at A Bit of Gardening Spirit... Posting (most/some of) the books on my bookshelf.

Actually, to pare it down a bit, I'm going to stick to my fiction books and save my reference/music/new agey books for another day. And I'm also posting series by their series titles and the book numbers that I have.

Books 2-13 and prequel of the Wheel of Time Robert Jordan/Brandon Sanderson (I lost my book 1, sooo mad!)

Mistborn Trilogy (complete) Brandon Sanderson

Warbreaker Brandon Sanderson

Way of Kings Brandon Sanderson (First of a series)

Books 1-4 of Runelords David Farland (I think there are more in this series)

Onion Girl Charles de Lint

Life of Pi Yann Martel

The Kin of Ata are Waiting for You Dorothy Bryant

Freak the Mighty Rodman Philbrik

About a Boy Nick Hornby

True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle Avi

Phantom Tollbooth Norton Juster

1984 George Orwell

Walk Two Moons Sharon Creech

Maniac Magee Jerry Spinelli

The Birth House Amy McKay

She's Come Undone Wally Lamb

I Know This Much is True Wally Lamb

Enchanted Forest Chronicles (complete) Patricia C. Wrede

Earth's Children, Books 1 & 2 Jean Auel (I've been trying to find the other three used, and the sixth one is supposed to come out this year!!!)

Dies the Fire S.M. Stirling (This is the first of a series)

Alas, Babylon Pat Frank (One of my top two favorite books)

Watership Down Richard Adams (The other half of my top two favorite books)

Brave New World Aldous Huxley

Garden Spells Sarah Addison Ellen

Among these are some others that I haven't gotten around to reading yet. As you can tell (if you're up to date on children's literature) I have a fondness for books that I read and loved as a kid. (Which reminds me, The Giver should be on my bookshelf, but it's at my parents' house right now, bah!) The ones that I still have are also ones that I've read and loved as an adult. I also have a soft spot for epic fantasy (14 books of Wheel of Time? Yes, please!) and survival books.

What are you reading?

Bedtime

2011-03-15T22:03:00.004-05:00

It's really no surprise that bedtime stretches out to two hours when getting Cam to bed goes something like this:

(Guess who was going through old pictures tonight... These are from sometime in 07)

Intruders...

2011-03-13T10:48:00.004-05:00

Not of the "I'm going to steal your valuables" sort, though. I woke up this morning, walked into the living room, and found my witchy cabinet with one of its doors standing wide open. (My witchy cabinet contains all my herbs and magical items, and it also serves as my altar.) Needless to say, my teeth have been edge since I saw that, and thinking about it, I was feeling odd when I woke up, too. It was one of those times when something is just off.

I didn't really think about it too much, though. But when I snapped at Camden for the fourth or fifth time in less than two hours, well, I knew I had to do something about it. Something was in my home and was upsetting the balance that we have.

So I decided to smudge the apartment (with my homemade smudge sticks nonetheless). I finished that up by sprinkling salt at all the openings: windows, front door, and pipes leading out (sinks and the like). And finally, I sprinkled a solid line of salt just outside my front door, to protect not only from little nasties like got in last night, but from unwanted visitors in general. And I topped it all off by recharging my home protection charm that sits near the front door: ideally it would catch these things, but since I can't remember the last time I recharged it (oops!), it's not so surprising that it didn't.

And it goes without saying that I feel much more comfortable now (even if the smoke from the smudge is somewhat irritating!)

Spring Break

2011-03-10T21:11:00.004-06:00

We went to visit my parents over my Spring Break. And while it was raining and/or FREEZING COLD most of the time we were there, on Saturday, it was quite warm, so we got in some kite flying and wandering about.

Flying a kite

Getting said kite out of a tree. Oops!

Swings!

Just a swingin'!

Just a swing... wait, what's that?

It's behind you!

Oh, it's just Hannibal, the neighborhood mule.

Even mules are deserving of love.

A mysterious fort! (Actually a blind set up by hunters.)

I have a feeling this will be home to at least a few picnics over the summer

Don't buy gas today!

2011-03-10T17:33:00.003-06:00

Apparently, the (Facebook) world is trying to take out the oil industry... by setting aside one day of the year to not buy gas (and obviously, you shouldn't buy gas the days before or after, either, so I guess it's three days. Whatever). The only thing more ridiculous than this is that I have friends who are "attending." Really? I thought my friends were smarter than that!

Admittedly, I drive my car often. But in the NEMO winters, it's hard to get out on a bike or walk, especially with a little one. Soon, though, it will be warm enough to leave the car at home once in a while. (I can't wait!!)

So instead of pretending to do something, either hurt the oil companies or save the environment, how about actually doing something?

Ride a bike

Walk

Carpool

Public transportation

Making good use of your car (IE Not making 7+ visits to the store in a week)

Simple Living

2011-03-08T17:11:00.005-06:00

For the last several years, I've been interested in the "Green Revolution," the idea of homesteading (and more recently, urban homesteading), and leading a simple life. I always assumed that the "simple life" required living the way my grandparents did: hard work, little money, and few possessions.

To an extent, I suppose, I was right, but living simply isn't necessarily reverting back to the stone age (haha). I picked up a book at the library last week called The Simple Living Guide by Janet Luhrs. This book told me very little that I didn't already know, but it was good because it put many of my thoughts and philosophies into words. Living simply is less about going back to the good ol' days and more about living deliberately and fully. The movement... well, I don't know that it is a movement, per se. The idea behind simple living stems from Transcendentalist thought. And I am a huge fan of the Transcendentalists (Whitman, Thoreau, Emerson, usw).

It's about living life one day at a time, one moment at a time. It's about being fully present and focused (ie, limited multitasking). It's about knowing the consequences of actions (if I buy this car, I'm going to have to work X number of years to be able to pay it off and spend that much less time with my family, etc). And while it's not about living an austere lifestyle (unless that's your thing, of course) it is about paring down to mostly just essentials. It's peaceful living, realised both within and outside of oneself.

Anyway, if a "simple life" is something that is attractive to you, I definitely suggest this book. It's filled with wisdom, excellent quotes, and nifty stories about real people who live within their philosophies. Also, it gives some good ideas on how to get started backing away from the hectic life of the typical American and into a simpler life.

Are we there yet? (Spring edition)

2011-02-27T07:27:00.002-06:00

Daffodowndilly

She wore her yellow sun-bonnet,
She wore her greenest gown;
She turned to the south wind
And curtsied up and down.
She turned to the sunlight
And shook her yellow head,
And whispered to her neighbour:
"Winter is dead."

by A.A. Milne

Holey Stones

2011-02-18T16:35:00.004-06:00

This post has been a long time coming. I've had it in my head to do a post over holey stones since last summer (and silly me, I kept putting it off).

Last summer, I was finding holey stones left and right. I found one holey stone when I was in high school, and though I looked and looked, I never found another. Finally, last year I found another. And another. And another. I think I have around 20 or so now, strewn about my house and car.

Holey stones, also known as men-an-tol, an-cloc consanta (drilled stones), crick stones, fairy stones, hag stones, and Odin stones, are stones that naturally have a hole in them, from water and dirt or sand and the passage of time. They are most easily found near water (streams, lakes, or the sea) with rocky shores, or in places that have used creek rocks as landscaping (I've found at least three holey pebbles at the park). Like other magical stones and crystals, holey stones should be cleansed and charged in the usual way (soaking in salt water, then charging in moonlight is what I do.)

I mostly use my holey stones for their protective properties. One (my first ever holey stone, actually) hangs from my rear view mirror in my car. I've used one (or maybe more?) in a charm for protecting my home. One goes to bed with Camden every night to protect him from nightmares, and several watch over me as I sleep at night, also.

These stones also have healing properties. For healing purposes, one should carry the stone with them, or wear it. Last summer I was having issues with kidney stones, so I wore one of my holey stones on a string tied around my neck. One can also run a bath, place the stone in the bath, then get in and soak. (Be sure to either use this holey stone strictly for healing purposes, or cleanse it before using for another purpose.)

Finally, holey stones also aide with psychic sight. If at the sea shore, if one looks through the hole, one will see the sea spirits playing on the tide. Or, if one looks through the hole in the light of the full moon, one will see the land of the fae, or one might see spirits or visions.

Plants

2011-02-10T21:18:00.005-06:00

Last spring I wrote a lot about starting a garden. And then I didn't do it. The garden plots are half way across town and are almost not worth the effort. If my landlord would let me plant a garden right there in the yard, you can bet I would be all over that. But I don't think he would appreciate me digging up all his grass and whatnot. Plus, there are tons of rabbits living by my house.

The other day I was talking to a friend about the garden plots and she thought it was a great idea. So we're going to plant a garden (for realsies this time). Even if she decides to back out or whatever, I think I will still go for it. Because it may be half way across town. It may use more gas to get from my apartment to the garden than it does to get from my apartment to the grocery store. But there's something fulfilling about growing one's own food.

My family had a garden almost every year as I was growing up. I've been out of my parents' house for almost four years now, but when I go to visit in the summer, the first thing I look for when I get there is to see how the garden looks (and if there are any zucchini ready to pick!). It is one of the things I miss most about living at my parents' home. Planting, harvesting, enjoying the vegetables. One of the reasons I look forward to owning my own home (and land) someday is that I'll be able to have a garden. (Well, several gardens: vegetable, herb, flower, etc.)

As I sit here, pondering gardens... I wonder about my predilection for wooded areas. Maybe it comes not from the intrinsic naturalness of the place, but instead because I am surrounded by the cycle of plant life-seedlings bursting forth, growing and thriving plants, and those that are returning to the earth to provide nourishment to the next generation. Odd, that that should just now occur to me. Do plants have spirits? Can an oak tree spirit be a guide? Witches (and non-witches) are guided by wolves and panthers and turtles and mice and dragons all the time. Can the spirits of plants help guide us through life as well?

Thoughts to ponder on this cold winter's night (one of the last, supposed to be 57 next week!).

Snow Ice Cream

2011-02-02T17:47:00.001-06:00

With all that extra blizzard-snow just laying around, I thought Camden and I would do something with it... Make ice cream!! I hadn't done this since I was a kid, and it was lots of fun.

Get your snow! About 4 or 5 cups, unpacked. Scoop it up now then store it in your freezer until it's time to add to the mix.

One cup milk! Real milk or fake milk, it seems to work just fine.

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup sugar

Stir until the sugar has dissolved into the milk

Add snow to the milk/sugar/vanilla.

Stir! Quick, before it all melts!

We added some chocolate to ours, about 1.4 cup Hershey's chocolate syrup. It looks like malt-o-meal and has an odd texture... But it's still yummy!

Happy Imbolc!

Winter wonderland

2011-01-29T15:32:00.006-06:00

It was actually warm enough to enjoy some time outside this afternoon! So Cam and I went and tromped around the park (I made a snow angel) and we also made a snow man!

Camden donated his scarf and hat to the snowman, so the poor thing wouldn't melt. Though, the real danger is from rabbits tearing it down during the night to get to that scrumptious nose!

Pay it Forward

2011-01-27T22:01:00.003-06:00

Found this over at Mother Moon's blog and I like it! So here I am, following her example.

A simple little exchange of sorts. The rules are as follows:

* Create something hand crafted for the first five people who leave a comment on this post who say they wish to participate.

* To play along one must be willing to likewise repost these instructions and also create something handmade for the first five people who comment on their post.

* All gifts are to be created and handed out during 2011.

Just a warning: My gifts are likely to be baked goods. Mostly because that's all I can "hand craft." (Though other options for you are a knitted scarf or hat. Or... Something. Like coasters. Or smudge sticks! ;) hehe) Just be sure to leave your email address so I can email you for your physical address.

Winter's End (almost)

2011-01-23T13:57:00.005-06:00

(Photo by thanq)

At this time of the year, we are solidly in Winter's grasp. It's as though she knows her time is growing short, so she begins to throw everything she can at us. Imbolc is just around the corner, which is the beginning of the end of winter. This is the time of the year when the natural world is quietly slumbering and slowly gathering its strength to awaken in a few short weeks in a riot of color and life and breath. A time where I begin to get Spring fever and crave green and warm sunshine and gentle rains. It's as though I can feel the energy gathering in the world around me, and I can feel its affect on me.

I've been cleaning and organising my house almost nonstop for two weeks now. Not to say that it is any cleaner or more organised than when I began, but well, I've been trying. ;) Of course, this has probably been helped by having out of town visitors and new furniture (a "junior" loft bed for Camden) which facilitated a whirl of furniture moving (SFMA, anyone?) and other organisation. But I'm still ascribing most of the fault to the building energy I feel every time I step outside.

I've also been channeling some of this energy into more creative outlets. As I said in an earlier post, my senior recital is coming up this Spring. And I've been spending lots of time in the practice room preparing and learning the pieces I've chosen. I feel like I've gotten a lot of work done in the short time since the semester started.

I can also sense some of the effects it's having on Camden. We are slowly making strides to clearer speech. He's still not as vocal as a "typical" 4.5 year old, but he is more vocal than he was a year ago. But more than that, he's beginning to add end sounds (previously missing without prompting) to his words. Sometimes it's the wrong sound (rote or roke as opposed to rope), but any attempt is a step in the right direction.

I want to buy some crocuses. And, uh, let them "escape" into my (rented) yard. Crocuses are my favorite part of Spring, because they are its heralds. I smile every time I see them, especially when I see them poking up through the snow. Anyway. I hope you all are enjoying this time of quiet energy. I am!

Bowling!!!

2011-01-20T20:59:00.003-06:00

My parents came to visit Cam and I earlier this week, and I managed to convince them to take us bowling. And it was SO MUCH FUN! I hadn't been in years, and the last time I went, I did very poorly. So it was nice to go and have fun and do well. (I bowled a 128, which is pretty average, right?) Camden had a fun time, also, and has already started bugging me to go back. hehe Silly kid. :)

My new favourite cookies

2011-01-15T12:48:00.003-06:00

So I've been craving chocochip cookies for about a month and a half now. But, you see, I have an issue with cookies. I don't like hard cookies (generally). And I don't like "chewy" cookies, because they are either soggy or are only "chewy" for a day or two, after which, they are hard as a rock. I like cakey/soft cookies. Ones that stay soft if stored properly. So anyway, I wanted soft, cakey, delicious, chocolate chip cookies. And the only chocochip recipes I have make the usual crumbly, brittle, hard cookies. Ew.

So I went searching!

And found one! Well, okay. I altered it a bit in order to make the cookies I wanted, not to mention I was missing an ingredient or two.

Recipe for 24(ish) Chocochip Cookies

1 1/2 C flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
2/3 C butter, softened
1/2 C brown sugar
1/2 C white sugar
1/2 pkg instant vanilla pudding
1 egg
3/4 tsp vanilla
1 1/3 c chocolate chips
3/4 c chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Sift together flour and baking soda; set aside.
Cream butter and sugars.
Mix in pudding mix.
Add eggs and vanilla.
Stir in the flour mixture.
Stir in chocolate chips and nuts.

Bake for 10 minutes.

That was the recipe I started with. I added some flour. (Don't know how much! I'm so terrible at keeping track! lol) I also substituted almond flavoring for vanilla, which I was out of. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I should have used almonds instead of walnuts in my cookies, but that may have been overkill.

These turned out to be absolutely delicious (as you probably guessed, what with the title of the post and all). Definitely in my top three favourite cookies.

Teacher Sydnii?

2011-01-13T14:10:00.004-06:00

(Image not by me)
So for the last year or so I've been planning on being a teacher. Taking the necessary courses, jumping through the right hoops, looking up lesson plans/ideas on the internet. All these things so that when I'm out there in the real world, I won't be utterly lost (and as for the courses and hoops, well, I need those to graduate, too).

But just recently has it sunk in that I'm actually going to be a teacher. And I'm actually pretty excited about it. While it's not my ideal career choice (since I don't really have one), I am still able to be excited about it and feel good about doing it, which is important. I'm entering a position to be a musician, a musicologist, a music theorist, and a guide for impressionable minds. How is that not exciting?

I loved elementary music. And when I was doing my observation hours (55 hours of observing different grades), my hours spent in the elementary classroom were by far my favourite. And this may be a little selfish of me, but I want my students to have the same fond memories of me that I do of my elementary music teachers.

I've reached the point where I'm no longer ready to graduate just so I can be out of school or in the "real world". But I want to graduate so I can ~~teach~~ be a music teacher and inspire my students. (Gods, is that hokey or what? lol)

(And I promise, I'm trying to get back into the habit of blogging on a regular schedule.)

Smudge

2011-01-05T23:30:00.004-06:00

(Photo not by me)
Many months ago, I made smudge sticks. My herbs were ~~dying~~starting to die, so I figured I would harvest them and turn them into something useful.

Let me just preface the rest of this story with: I had never made smudge sticks before!

So I chop down my herbs (sage, lavender, mint), pull out my skein of white cotton yarn, and sit down at the computer. Get on google, search: how to make smudge sticks. Aha! So many hits. I picked one. (Likely the one from ehow.com, since it is A) the first hit and B) is the "visited link" color.) So far so good. I had the right supplies: plants to smudge with, string for tying them up, scissors for cutting the string, and the idea of a smudge stick in the first place. I mean, I could have just let them die out there, right? (Instead, they got to die a slow, eventually dehydrated, death, hanging upside down in my closet.)

So, anyway. I have the supplies. I read through the instructions; they all seem pretty self explanatory. I mean, really, you're just tying together a bunch of plants. But! There is one rule to follow: do not bind them up either too tightly or too loosely. And I didn't! I bound the herbs with just enough tension. Then I hung them up to dry. In my closet. No joke.

Enter today. (Okay, not today at all. Really, like a month ago when I first noticed this.) My smudge sticks are dry! And practically falling out of their binding. Ugh! But I followed the rules! Neither too tightly nor too loosely. Obviously someone sneaked in and retied my smudge sticks too loosely. Oooorrrr I failed to remember, when binding them in the fall, that when things dehydrate, they have a tendency to get smaller.

So, thanks a lot ehow.com smudge stick-making tutorial!

/humor

(I am tired and in a mood tonight. And felt like making fun of myself. And to further make fun of myself, please, check out this past post: What I learned today.)

Happy New Year!!

2011-01-01T07:58:00.003-06:00

Health and happiness to my readers (and everyone else, of course!) this new year. My year started off with snuggles from Camden, playing with tinkertoy robots, and cinnamon rolls! It's started out well, now I just have to keep the ball rolling so it gets better. lol

I'm not one for resolutions. So instead of making the obligatory statements of lose weight, be nice, etc, I'm going to tell the planned benchmarks of this year, which will happen one way or the other.

This year is my Senior Recital. The date is set for mid April. I'll be doing a joint-recital with my friend, who plays tuba. Yep. A tuba/percussion recital. How fun is that?! The good news: I have all of my music picked out and know three pieces. I still have two pieces to learn: one multi-percussion piece and one duet with a friend (percussionist) which will have an afro-cuban feel to it.

I will also be taking the GRE this spring. Not really looking forward to it, but I don't have much choice. Hopefully I will only have to take it once.

I also graduate this year. In December, I'll be getting my BA. I was due to graduate in May, but a change of majors (kinda) in the last year threw my plan out of whack and trying to cram EVERYTHING into the last two semesters was a terrible idea, as I learned this last semester. So I'm taking my time, and spreading things out a little bit between this spring and next fall semesters.

So those are my definite plans for the year. As well as observing the wheel turning again, watching the seasons come and watching the seasons go. Seeing my son grow into himself, hearing his speech grow clearer everyday and rejoicing in his knowledge of emotions and abstract ideas. Learning and growing, myself.

I found this quote in Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson, and it really spoke to me. Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination. This will be my quote for the year. It will remind me to enjoy the journey and worry less about where I'm trying to go.

Many blessings to you and yours, friends!

Happy Week!

2010-12-24T09:45:00.004-06:00

So I meant to post this sooner... as is usually the case. lol

Sunday was my birthday. While not a bad day, it wasn't terribly exciting either. Most of the day was spent looking forward to dinner and dessert. Spiced porkchops, potatoes au gratin, and green beans. And dessert: birthday pie! Apple pie, to be exact. Birthday cake is overrated (and is too time consuming to decorate), and apple pie is DELICIOUS. So that's what I had.

Tuesday, as we all know was the Solstice. As well as a full moon and lunar eclipse. I missed the lunar eclipse; I slept right through it! Although, I don't think I'd would have been able to see it anyway, due to cloud cover. Camden and I did, however, go out to watch the sun rise. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see that, either. Cloud cover, again! It was too thick to actually see the sun break the horizon, which was really disappointing. I was really excited about it, because this was our first Yule at home. Typically we've always been at my parents' for Yule, and, therefore, missed any celebration of it so we (I) didn't make the parentals uncomfortable. Ah, well... There is always next year!

And now we have Christams Eve, and Christmas is tomorrow. More presents (Camden got a TAG reading system for Yule), more food, more family. I'm excited because I'll get to see my sister for the first time since Spring... Or maybe even longer than that. And I'll get to see my brother before he deploys. Not to mention the time Camden (and I, of course) get to spend with my parents.

So, happy Yule (a few days ago) and happy Christmas. Happy holidays. :)

Good deeds. Ah, Rats!

2010-12-18T20:23:00.004-06:00

I don't do a lot for others. I try to take care of my friends, but that is usually as far as it goes when helping others is concerned. It's not that I don't want to help others, though. My time is limited between school and school work and taking care of Camden, so it's not like I can volunteer once a week at the Humane Society (which happens to be one of the few places to volunteer around here--no soup kitchen/homeless shelter/etc). I am generally broke, so I can't donate lots of money to organizations. I try to drop change into the Salvation Army buckets every year (actually, I make Camden do it), but that's about my limit.

(Photo not by me)

Well, a month ago I offered to help transport some rats who needed a home. In the rat world, I guess this is called a "rat train", getting rats from one place to another via multiple people. The rats were in St. Louis and needed to go to Ames, IA. I'm somewhere in the middle of all that, and (stupidly?) offered to pick the rats up in Columbia, MO, then drive them to Ottumwa, IA. All that equals out to be about 6 hours of driving for myself. And if I had thought about that before, I might not have done it. But, I said I would, and I did. And I feel good about doing it. I helped two girlie rats (who were likely at least slightly under-cared for: no fun toys, poor socialization, icky cage) find a forever home, with someone I know (well, very much suspect) will care for them and love them.

So I'm counting this as my one good deed for the year. Well, the big one. It was worth it.

Holiday Cookies!

2010-12-14T12:52:00.003-06:00

My favourite part about the holidays is making/decorating sugar cookies! Well, maybe not making them, since my sugar cookie dough NEVER EVER turns out the way it's supposed to, but I like cutting the shapes out. Especially if I happen to be doing it at my parents' house, because my mom has buckets (literally) of cookie cutters, so we always end up with the usual wintery shapes, but also mooses, lobsters, and of course, dinosaurs!

This weekend, Camden and I bought (sad face!) some sugar cookie dough that was pre-cut (more sad face, but I don't have cookie cutters) so we could make some holiday cookies. It was a fun afternoon diversion, since it was much too cold to even THINK about playing outside.

Not only do I not have cookie cutters, but I don't have colored sugar... So I made some! 3T of sugar and 4 or so drops of food colouring, mix it up. I don't think it would be useful to save, but it worked for what I needed it for.

Awaiting the oven! (See my sugar?!)

Cam got to decorate the first cookie.

Cam's snowman. I helped just a little bit with it. :)

Nom!

Back? I hope so

2010-12-10T20:02:00.003-06:00

The last couple of months have seen my life turned on its head. And not in a good way! I feel as though I lost a part myself this last semester. Or maybe I didn't lose it: maybe that part ran off until things get better. While I don't want to use this time or space to whine about my life, I will say this: it's been the roughest time in my life I've experienced since I was a self-hating teenager. I found it rather amazing, with the addition of so much stress, how easy it was to fall back into those self-loathing and unhappy life patterns. I stopped cooking "good" food. I had almost no time for books. (I've read... two? books since the start of the semester.) Worst, I stopped being a mother to Camden. That was my worst offense. We would get home in the evenings, and I was so exhausted and mentally tired, that I set him down in front of the TV. Every day. Until bedtime.

But thankfully, I've realised this. It took me a while. But this morning, I said to myself (and David, who happened to be there) that I don't like who I've become. My happy-Syd took a vacation and left the person I used to be in her place.

Thankfully, again, the semester is so close to being over, I can taste it. I have one assignment, four finals, and one jury (playing through what I've worked on over the semester in my percussion lessons) left. And that, my friends, seems like nothing. Even just tonight, I feel like the old (new?) me again. I was able to play with Camden without it feeling like a chore. I feel such a sense of relief and release, that it is almost as if I've been holding my breath since August.

So, now I am back. Hopefully to be posting again on a regular basis about the regular variety of topics found on my blog. (If I can even remember what those topics are. haha)

Transcendentalism

2010-11-13T16:51:00.004-06:00

I have been very absent. And I have to say: I really miss this blog. Good news, though: the end is in sight! I have three weeks of class left (+1 week of finals) then it is Winter break. Huzzah! I'm hoping that the next few semesters, while busy, will be NOTHING like this semester. In fact, I've kind of insured this, by adding an extra semester to my schedule before I graduate with my BA. (Which, in turn, adds an entire year to my whole schooling schedule.) But honestly, I CANNOT go through another semester like I've just had.

Anyway, I've had a few high points. In the last few weeks, my American Lit class has been reading Emerson and Whitman. And really, all I can say is: LOVE! There are hearts drawn throughout the pages of these writings (Emerson's Self Reliance And Whitman's "Song of Myself"). Reading these, it was impossible NOT to see echoes of my own philosophies, and I've connected to these writings in a way that I rarely experience. (Good news: my convo buddies in the class also connect with the writings, and we had EXCELLENT discussions about them. And the professor noticed and basically said we were awesome. :D)

If you haven't read Emerson or Whitman or Thoreau, I highly suggest it. Don't believe me on the awesomeness level? A few of my favourite quotes from Whitman:

The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it,
And ceas'd the moment life appear'd.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

I exist as I am, that is enough

Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch'd from

Why should I wish to see God better than this day?
I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass

--heart--

(Photo not mine)

Life

2010-10-29T22:04:00.002-05:00

I knew I wouldn't have much time to post this semester. I just wish I'd known what else this semester would be bringing me. This is by far the most stressful semester I've had. And it's showing. :( Both in my happiness levels (way down from usual--not good!) and my grades. I was supposed to graduate in May, but after experiencing this semester, I've decided to hold off on a few classes and just graduate in next December. This semester I've stretched myself nearly to breaking point, and if I'd stayed on course for next semester, I would have broken. So, after this semester, I'm taking it easy. Well, easier.

On Monday, I had a meeting with one of Camden's speech therapists. And she finally gave me a name for his speech problem: Apraxia. At the time, I thought, thank goodness, we have something to call it, and I didn't really think about the implications too much. Today, I actually read up on it. And it's terrifying. Not in and of itself. It's basically a miswiring between the brain and the muscles which facilitate speech. It's terrifying because there's no guarantee that he'll be able to talk clearly. This could be with him forever. Or therapy can beat it out of him, and he goes through life with no trouble. It is the uncertainty that gets me. I've said for the last two years, "well, he'll catch up." And now I can only hope and pray that he does.

It's not all doom and gloom, though. His speech is becoming more intelligible. And he's noticing (sometimes) when his words don't come out correctly. (He says "My mouth no working.") He's adding in consonant sounds where they should be, at least part of the time. Last week we were working on saying spider-man. He was saying it "buyer-man," but without a strong /r/ or /n/ sound. Now he says it Sss-pi-der-man. Which is amazing. He's an amazing child, and I am blessed to know him.

And since I know I'm going to miss it (because I always do), Happy Samhain/Halloween.

Cleaning house

2010-10-16T20:46:00.004-05:00

My last apartment was a mess most of the time. As embarrassing as it is to say, I'm not talking about the "oh, sorry about the mess" when there's maybe a spot of dirt on a vase in the corner. I'm talking about a small path leading from one room to the next, with the rest of the floor containing toys, books, dirty clothes, clean clothes, etc. (But not rotting food or anything of that nature. Not dirt or filth or refuse. Just stuff). Every once in a while, I would get the urge to clean. This urge was usually accompanied by the urge to move furniture, which often required a clear floor. But I always got too busy. Or too tired. Or too uncaring. And within two weeks, my place would once again be filled with landmines made from pokey toys or books. By the time I decided to move out, I just stopped worrying about it. I figured I'd take care of it in the move. And that once I got to my new place, I would have a fresh, clean start.

However, it didn't really work out that way. Yes, I had a fresh, clean start. However, that attitude and those habits I failed to cultivate in my previous apartment(s) didn't just magically appear. My new apartment was supposed to have a place for everything with everything in its place. But neither Cam nor I were very good at picking up our messes. :/ Granted, there were no longer toys in the living room: those had been sequestered to Cam's bedroom. But other things just filled it up. And I continued on with being too busy, too tired, too uncaring. I looked past the mess. I looked straight to the TV or the computer screen or my book. A messy place isn't a problem if you don't see it.

And then I did see it. And I decided I was tired of it. I started in Cam's room. Cleaned, put things away, purged, rearranged furniture (of course). I did that last weekend. And all this week it's been "make sure everything gets put away, Cam." And surprise, his room is still clean. A week later. This never happens. And through a serious of unfortunate events (Columbus Day, Cam having a fever, daycare closed to move to a new building) I was home most of the week. I had one full day at school, and the rest were mostly me going in for a test or a rehearsal. So my time spent at home was spent expanding the clean bubble to the rest of the house. It helped that I was upset about something (I don't even remember) at least one of those days, which always helps fuel my drive to clean. So I have a clean bathroom, a clean(ish) bedroom (not including my closet though), a clean living room, and a generally clean/uncluttered kitchen. The kitchen still needs a bit of work (ie, I need to knock a wall out and claim some of my neighbor's space to put in more storage). But all in all, my house is clean.

It's still a work in progress. It's still a struggle. But it's getting easier. After my walk-through tonight before bed, the living room will be in the same state it was in Wednesday when I cleaned. And that, for me, is a miracle. (One might even say magic).

It's more than just having a clean/nice place for the random chance someone might stop by, though. A home should be a sanctuary from the chaos of the world, and if that home is chaotic, what sanctuary can one find? I've found in the last few days that I'm happier and calmer. I have the space to free my thoughts and think. And I'm enjoying the time I spend at home.

Not-Movie Night!

2010-10-09T13:40:00.005-05:00

(Photo not mine)

Our normal after school routine usually consists of coming home, turning on the TV and chillin.

And I'm sick of it! The TV is on CONSTANTLY until Camden goes to bed. He has no chance to work on speaking, because he's only sitting there listening to the TV talk. His toys are pretty much forgotten. I doubt he would have missed them if I threw them out!

Yesterday, though, I put an end to it. I decided to take the more difficult road. (Because it is just SO MUCH EASIER to turn the TV on for him while I'm trying to get a moment alone, or cook, or do homework, or hang out with/talk to David.) We had a not-movie night. And you know what?

We didn't die! Haha! We were close a time or two, but we made it through the night. I even managed to keep myself away from the computer. I think for now, we'll just keep it to one night a week, and slowly add more days until the weekdays are all not-movie nights. (Unless we get one from Netflix that we absolutely CAN'T wait to watch).

Wish us luck!

Rats!

2010-10-03T18:38:00.002-05:00

So, I bought Camden a rat for his birthday. We named him Robin (because Cam is Batman).

And, well, when we got home, I decided I wanted to know everything about having a rat for a pet. So I get online, search around. And found out I did it wrong. :( Pet store rats = less than good. (Because they're usually bred for snake food, therefore, the breeder doesn't worry about genetics or socializing the animals). And also that rats need buddies. Since there aren't any good rat breeders (or rescues) near-by, I went back to the pet store. But she had already sold all the rats she had. So we had to wait another two weeks. And into our lives came Remy and Spencer!

We're still working on getting the rat twins acclimated to living with us, but I think that within the next month or so, we'll have a trio of happy rats.

In other news, we're happy that it's October. Because October means Halloween/Samhain time. Yesterday we made a Halloween cake (from a box, I was feeling lazy!) and bought a pumpkin. Today, the pumpkin got turned into a mean jack-o-lantern (per Camden's request) and its seeds are sitting in a bowl of salt water waiting to be roasted. Yum.

Before classes started (or just really early in the semester) I started experimenting with energy manipulation. Well, I was attempting to train myself to be more open to feeling/seeing/sensing energies. Sadly, this semester has been MUCH MUCH busier than I expected (or hoped) and everything but day-to-day living and school work has fallen along the wayside. Including any magical living ideals and this blog. But not to worry! Only eleven weeks left in the semester! :)

Wordless... Monday?

2010-09-27T19:18:00.005-05:00

Okay, I feel TERRIBLE about having no time to post (or read others' bloggings). And I still don't have time to post (or read). But here are some pics. (I'll be posting more about the rat in a post coming this weekend, I promise!)

I was playing with my macro on the next two pics.

I just snapped this pic randomly but I absolutely LOVE how it came out.

Magic

2010-09-16T21:14:00.003-05:00

Over the last few months, I have been working towards being a more of a practicing Witch. I've said in previous posts that "I don't DO magic. I'm a religious Pagan." And, well, that was true. But I've always felt a little... I dunno. Bad about it, I guess. Magic was something I always intended to do, but I always had trouble with visualizing what I needed to visualize or feeling what I was supposed to feel. It always felt like I was just going through the motions of the spell, with none of the power. I couldn't feel or see or comprehend the energy being raised. It's funny, because the spells I cast usually worked. But I felt so incompetent during the casting, that I just decided to lay off. But I'm trying to get back into the habit. I'm trying to make my life magical. :)

I've been thinking about how magic works. How my magic works. I've been doing a bit of study on psionics, or energy manipulation. I can raise energy between my hands (like I'm holding a ball with two hands), but the moment I take one of my hands away, the energy seems to dissipate. (I do this mostly by feel; I can't see the energy structures.) But in general, my magic requires props. Rocks, or bottles, or a twig, or chanting, or a bit of string, or whatever. I guess, I need something to focus on, something through which I can channel the energy/magical intent I raise. And of course, magic through actions, or living with magical intent: rather like a domestic or kitchen witch, but without the fancy title.

Okay, this is scattered... And not particularly well written. I'm just trying to get my thoughts down. Maybe I'll come back and make it more coherent. Or I won't. ^_^

Four years

2010-09-14T15:22:00.004-05:00

Four years ago today, a new life came into this world. This life came into the world with the name Camden Zachary Taylor M. The life was beautiful (and still is) and shone with the pure light of miracle. He is a blessing. He is a trial. He somehow strengthened my belief in myself and in my religion. He allowed me to be fully myself. He made me whole. Rather, he somehow allowed me to find that part of myself that I was missing, so that I could be complete and happy within myself. I am a better and happier person today, four years later, than I would be if he had not come into my life. And that's the honest truth.

I am glad you came into my life, Camden Zachary, my beautiful son; my son, my sun, the light of my life.

(Pic is from Cam's party we had at my parents' house over Labor Day)

You are not little because you are already grown, playing among your lifetimes as do we all, for the fun of living. You have no birthday because you have always lived; you were never born, and never will you die. You are not the child of the people you call mother and father, but their fellow-adventurer on a bright journey to understand the things that are. Every gift from a friend is a wish for your happiness. . . . Fly free and happy beyond birthdays and across forever, and we'll meet now and then when we wish, in the midst of the one celebration that never can end.
--Richard Bach

Great assignment

2010-09-10T15:01:00.005-05:00

I want to teach elementary music. Unfortunately, I'm going to a school that tends to cater more towards high school band directors. Which means I have to take some classes that will, in all likelihood, be completely useless to me. One of these is a class on marching band techniques. But despite that fact, I rather enjoy the class. Largely in part, because Pete is helping us to find our "style" with very non-musical assignments. Our first was "What car would you be?" (I chose an orange Dodge Charger. One of the older variety, not one of the newer ones.) But the one that I really liked was "design your logo." A logo for a letterhead, website, etc. A pictorial representation of ourselves.

This is what I came up with:

The mother/child are self explanatory, I think. The spiral is a less in-your-face symbol of paganism than a pentacle would have been. The dandelion is for whimsy and child-like abandon. And the fact that the seed-heads are music notes... well, that's just an amazing coincidence. (All these images are very much stolen and likely copy-righted. Oops)

I spent maybe a grand total of 45 minutes on this assignment. The majority of that time was spent looking for the images, with about five minutes for putting them together and making the spiral blue. Despite the small amount of time I spent on this project, I feel a connection with it. Because I think it DOES accurately portray who I am. I don't think a person could look at it and go "That's Sydnii." without knowing what it is. But I think, if I said, "This is my logo." the person would GET it.

So the moral, I guess, is that I should be glad for taking classes that teach me nothing useful as a teacher, and instead help me grow in my understanding of myself. :)

Computers

2010-09-05T19:52:00.005-05:00

I think, if the Christians are right and some of us do end up in Hell, while others go to heaven... I think Hell would be an eternity of fixing computers. Just think: when your computer is broken and you have to send it off to get fixed, where does it go? Obviously, to the bowels of the Earth, where all those poor souls are doomed to an eternity of dealing with broken computers. Or when you're having technical issues, the people you call are probably sitting in cubicles in Hell, doomed to help you with your computer issues.

If that's the case, then my labor day weekend was spent in Hell. lol My parents' desktop stopped working a while ago (something wrong with the internets, so they said) so they bought a new one. And kindly gave me the old one. (Which wasn't working, did I mention?) After around 6-8 hours of face time with the machine, I finally managed to reinstall Windows on it and get everything working.

As if that wasn't enough, the parentals asked me to do a few things with their new computer. And then they were having issues with their digicam.

I'm gonna start charging them for this! Geez.

Side note: School is keeping me MUCH busier than I anticipated. But I'm still hoping to make it around to post once a week. Not getting much blog-reading done, though.

Tree Meditation

2010-08-30T19:01:00.003-05:00

Pic by Wonderlane, on Flickr

Today, I was stressed out almost to the point of tears. Not over anything in particular. Just about lots of little things. But I was about to snap. So I set Cam down in front of a movie, and I ran off to my room for some alone time. And some meditation time. 'Cause I needed to chill out.

So I sat down (with a chunk of tumbled sodalite), closed my eyes, and tried to think peaceful thoughts. I was reading last night about a girl who was trying to channel tree thoughts, and it came to me as I was trying to relax that being a tree would be pretty peaceful. So, I imagined I was a tree. With a root system below me and branches spreading out from my head. I was a tree, holding onto the soil, the sun warming my leaves and trunk as the wind made them shiver. Then the thought floated through of a thunderstorm, and suddenly my branches were waving in the wind and I felt the pain as leaves were torn from me. As suddenly as the thought was there, it was gone, and with it, the storm. I became aware of the water seeping into the ground, and I drank it up through my roots. I could feel it as it traveled up my body. It was cool(temperature wise); it was energizing. It had just reached my head/top of my trunk and was starting out into the branches, when David came in and jumped on the bed in front of me.

I didn't close the meditation as I should have. Taking the time to sink away from the tree's form and into my own. He distracted me. So five minutes later, I was still feeling the branches sprouting from my head. haha. I put my hands on my head, where I could feel them, and tried telling them to "go away." David asked me if I had a headache. And I told him I still had branches hanging about. Which made him laugh. Because he could see them ghosting about my head. And on came the jokes about my foliage. Oh, geez. Luckily, the ghostly branches faded away before too long, and even more luckily, the peace and tranquility I felt as a tree has stuck with me.

Thrift Store + School

2010-08-29T13:53:00.004-05:00

School first, I think. Classes have started for the semester, and this semester is going to be CRAZY BUSY for me. I'm only taking 14 hours, but it breaks down into nine classes. Oh, the joys of being a music major, no? A lot of my time is going to be spent in the practice rooms this semester (and next) because I'm taking methods classes, where I learn to play brass, woodwind, and string instruments, and I have a recital coming up in April that I need to prepare for. EXCITEMENT. So I won't be posting much. I'm shooting for once or twice a week. And I won't have time to read everyone else's blogs, which REALLY makes me sad. :( I shall do my best, though!

Thrift Stores!

I adore thrift stores. I try to go into them with no specific purpose, other than to see what I can see. Because, if I have something specific I want, like clothes for Cam or me, or a table, the stores DO NOT have anything. However, I recently won an auction on Ebay that was an athame and a ton of herbs. The herbs mostly came in zip-lock baggies, which made the package smell delightful when it finally arrived. I was absolutely heady from the scent of all these different herbs. But, yeah. Keeping herbs in baggies isn't really ideal. (It's not pretty, you know?) So I headed off to the thrift stores, with the specific purpose of finding smallish glass jars to store my herbs. And I found them! Lots and lots! Which meant I got to enjoy the heady aroma of herbs some more, as I transferred them to the (newly washed/dried) jars.

So now I have a collection of herbs in nifty jars in my witchy cabinet. Perchance I'll get around to taking a picture later in the week.

Love!

Childhood memories

2010-08-26T21:50:00.003-05:00

My childhood isn't very clear in my mind. It wasn't awful but it wasn't great, either, and I've mostly filed it away. I remember places from my childhood. I remember a few people. But actual memories? They are rare. And the memories I do have, I can't put an age to me. I could be one or I could be nine. Like the day I found the cat who would become the mother of on of my family's favourite cats (named Stupid, believe it or not). I remember I found her in the creek, when we (my brother, our cousin, and I) were off exploring. I remember it was Easter, or maybe just around that time, because I tried to feed her a chocolate egg. (She was hungry!) But putting an age to me? I'm fairly certain I was around five, from the image of my brother and cousin. But maybe not.

Two days, no, two moments stand out clearly. One was quite possibly the saddest day of my childhood, and the other the happiest. My birthday, talking to my dad on the phone. We'd just learned the day before that he was being sentenced to prison for vehicular manslaughter (bad car accident). I got to open one of my presents early: it was a bear from the PX I'd been begging the parentals for all year. The other is a few days after my birthday, three years later. Waiting anxiously in the living room. Hearing the truck pull up, dashing out the door in naught but shorts and a tee. My birthday is in December. There was snow on the ground, and ice underfoot. I jumped on my dad and held on for dear life.

I was seven. I was ten. Second grade, fifth.

I got to thinking about childhood memories because one came up out of nowhere as I was walking home today. Classes finally started, and I had a break for lunch, so I decided to make a dash for home to fix a sammich. I walked under a walnut tree, kicking the walnuts as I went, and their scent wafted up to my nose. They say scent is a strong memory aid, and now I'm rather inclined to believe it. Anyway: walnuts. When I was a kid (age: unknown), we would collect walnuts. I dunno from where. But we got them. And we would take them to some place, that was off the beaten path, and kinda creepy, where they would hull the walnuts. My memory: sitting in the truck bed watching the walnuts being hulled. And while this seems rather simplistic... That's because it is. Because I know there's no way I can describe the sun on my face, the cool metal of the truck under my bottom, the smell of the walnuts as they were hulled, the sound of the machine, or what it looked like. It just was. A perfect moment, frozen in time. And kicking a walnut into the street slammed that moment into my head.

Instructions for Life

2010-08-21T22:22:00.001-05:00

I stumbled upon this. I like this.

Serial Furniture Movers Anonymous

2010-08-20T16:50:00.003-05:00

(Photo not by me)

Is there really an SFMA group? 'Cause if there is, I desperately need to join it.

I am not happy in my apartment unless something has been moved around in the last month. Whether it's something in my bedroom, or Cam's, or something in the living room. I just have to move the furniture around! Maybe, if when I arranged the furniture, I paid attention to feng shui (amazing! I spelled that correctly the first try!), then maybe I wouldn't have this urge every six weeks or so to move furniture. Or maybe I just like new things, and putting my couch in a different spot lets me see it in a new way. Who knows?!

Anyhow, my last endeavor involved moving ALL of the furniture in my living room. Except a lamp. This involves: a loveseat, a futon, a dining table, two dining chairs, a popasan chair, coffee table, large area rug, two end tables, TV and TV cabinet. I also bought a bookshelf, put it together, and added it to my living room decor. The day after this, I was SORE! And I'm still sore! (Moved everything around Monday night.)

But it was totally worth it! Because now I can look out a window while I take my meals. I can quite clearly see both the door and the windows from every chair (just in case of zombie apocalypse). And some how or another, the space just breathes better. (David says its less of a clusterfuck. Nice of him, no?)

Now I can only hope that my back is better by the time I start feeling that itch again. Well, okay. I feel the itch all the time. So, I guess, I can only hope that I'm able to resist the urge to move the furniture until my back is better.

Anyone else have this problem? (The SFM syndrome, not a bad back)

October?

2010-08-18T11:41:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, we had a high of ~75 degrees. No, I'm not kidding. It was FANTASTIC! And somewhat disconcerting. LOL (At some point last night, I woke up FREEZING and had to get up and dig a blanket out of the closet.) It is so odd to think that one moment we are in the depths of summer, then the next we are receiving this fall-like weather. Unfortunately, the cold front didn't hang around for long. We'll be back in the 90's by tomorrow.

This "cold snap" has not helped my longing for Fall and its cooler weather, and (insert list of lovely things about fall here). Ah, well. We must all play the waiting game at some point or another.

God-form

2010-08-16T20:18:00.003-05:00

On Friday, David and I were bored of just hanging around the apartment, so we decided to walk downtown. We went in a few stores (mostly to escape the oppressive heat) one of which was a consignment shop. I don't usually find anything when I go in there (and I generally find it overpriced) and since I've moved away from the downtown area, I haven't been in. But we went in and looked about. And I found a Green Man! Okay, it's a leaf with a face on it, but I'm claiming it to be a Green Man. (Close enough, right) Anyway, if you've been following my blog, you know I've been searching for a god-figure to go on my altar. And this was it.

However, I didn't have any monies on me. And despite my plans to return the next day, debit card in hand, I was absolutely positive it would be gone. (Because that's how my luck runs, sometimes.) So David marched us to the bank to get some money, marched us back, and bought it for me. Because he was absolutely positive it would b gone if I waited, also.

And that is the story of me finding my god statue.

Normally, he's lying down flat, because Cam and I like to bounce around a lot and I worry that he'll fall and break. But I thought I'd sit him up for the picture. My altar is the top of a little cabinet (which used to be painted with sunflowers, but I painted over) where I keep my craft tools: candles, tarot cards, incense, etc. It's not a working altar, though, since it sits on my kitchen counter and is much too high to reach.

Rocks in my Head

2010-08-13T12:14:00.003-05:00

I am fond of rocks. And stones. And pebbles. And boulders. I get it from my mother, I think, although she prefers big rocks to use in landscaping. However, while I'm still living in apartments, landscaping-sized stones aren't much use to me, so I tend to look for smaller rocks.

Today, I decided to go out to the state park and visit the creek. I've been feeling kinda down lately, and I find running water to be soothing and comforting. So off I went! And after battling 1/2 a mile of bugs, mud, spider webs, and washed out bridges, I made it to the creek, where there's supposed to be a water fall. But I guess it's been kinda dry the last week or so, and there wasn't quite enough water for the fall. Which really ruined all my plans! haha

Instead I went exploring down stream, not really planning on finding anything. But, I did! This creek is a goldmine for spiffy rocks and quartz. I found nine chunks of quartz, one of which is a tiny baby (see picture below; I put the wire on it so I wouldn't lose it as easily), and also a piece of quartz that is naturally tumbled. Unless someone happened to lose their tumbled quartz in the creek bed. (For some reason, the tumbled quartz didn't make it into the pic. I found it afterwards, hanging out about five inches away. Go figure.)

This rock (below) was hiding out right around the fall (where the fall should have been). It caught my eye because it was white and angular and was sitting on a grayish area. I picked it up, gave it a look, and was getting ready to put it down, when I noticed the crystals growing in the middle of it. I really want to break it open to see what the rest of the insides look like, but I probably won't, for fear of ruining the crystals. You can't see the crystals that well in the pic, but they're the greyish area in the middle.

And lastly, a picture of a rock that I did not find today, but last week. Remember in my "Vacation" post, I wrote about finding a rock with a heart in it? Well, here it is! I ended up giving this to David. I'm just glad that he's sweet, and as sentimental as I am.

Freeing Secrets

2010-08-12T08:49:00.003-05:00

I had a secret. I carried it with me and kept it close to my heart. I shared it once, with one of my first boyfriends. I was convinced he was the one for me, and I could be safe telling him. I told him and he drew away from me. I learned then, that maybe this secret was too much for anyone else to bear. So I carried it with me and kept it close to my heart. I kept it safe and never told a soul. It was my secret, my burden, my shame. It was my cross to carry (haha). Over time, I was able to forgive myself for the secret. I was able to forgive (or just not care enough to carry the grudge) the others involved. It became just a secret, not shameful, not a burden. Just a secret I carried and kept close to my heart.

In April I met David. We've been dating for three months now. It feels like so much longer. I feel as though I've known him forever. But a few weeks ago, I told him my secret. Part of my secret. My secret comes in parts. He did not turn away from me. Now he shared my secret.

We were talking yesterday about... something. I don't remember. Our conversations don't follow a very logical track sometimes, because we are both think in associations. What starts out as a conversation about dinner ends as a conversation about the merits of one couch over another, with gods only know what other topics in between. Our conversation yesterday ended with me talking about the two people who have betrayed my trust to such an extent that I couldn't forgive them. Not yet. And David asked the most amazing question: Has anyone betrayed your trust before? Did you forgive them? Yes, and yes. My secret. It was a betrayal of trust. And I forgave. I told him the other part of my secret. He knows all of it. And still he didn't turn away.

I had a secret. I carried it with me and held it close to my heart. But yesterday, I set it free. And it feels as though I can breathe for the first time in my life. Perhaps it is still a secret, shared between David and I (and the others invovled), and perhaps I carry it with me still. But perhaps it has decided to just float away and enjoy its freedom elsewhere.

I had a secret; I carried it with me and held it close to my heart. But now, I am free.

Beginning of the End

2010-08-09T11:59:00.004-05:00

What is it about transitional holidays that lead us to thinking about the season they usher in. Imbolc brought wishes of Summer heat and bounty. Dreams of fishing, swimming, and sunburns. Okay, maybe not sunburns. But zucchini, grilled hamburgers, summer storms. Summer road trips, lazy days, beautiful flower gardens.

And now Lammas has graced us with its presence. The first of the harvest festivals. The beginning of the end of Summer. Now new dreams are dancing through our heads. Pumpkin pies, crisp fall mornings, leaves to crunch. Brilliant gold, yellow, and red trees, the start of school and classes, the darkening days. Stews and casseroles, quilts on the bed, thinking of Winter before us.

Is it coincidence that these two holidays fall at the height of the season? Imbolc when Winter is at its coldest and Lammas when Summer is at its hottest? The seasons know their end is near, which seems to make them fight all the harder. And the harder they fight, the more we dream about the coming Spring/Summer or Fall/Winter.

And after all that philosophical stuff, I just have to say... I'm ready for Fall, even if I'm not looking forward to another NEMO Winter.

Vacation

2010-08-03T20:48:00.002-05:00

I've been visiting my parents for the last week or so. It's kinda nice to get out of NEMO with its wet. Of course, I came to SWMO with its HOT and DROUGHT-like conditions. But its nice to see the parentals, and I know Camden always has fun when we're down here. (Plus, I get to take care of dr's appointments.)

Anyway, we decided to do something a bit different for dinner tonight. We packed up some hotdogs + other campfire paraphernalia and took off for the river. We also called up my Aunt and Uncle and invited them to come roast on the riverbank with us. It was only around 98 degrees. Anyway, we had fun splashing around in the water and munching on hotdogs and chips.

And like I do anytime I'm near a place with running water, I looked for holey stones. And I found them! I found EIGHT! Talk about a treasure trove. Maybe it's just the type of rock down around here, or whatever. Now I just need to figure out what I'm going to do with them all! (I think if I manage to have another giveaway anytime soon, I'll put one in that.)

I also found a stone with a heart-shaped indention in it. It's cutesy and adorable and awesome all at the same time. lol

I promise more posts are forthcoming, once I make it back to the drowned lands, I mean NEMO.

Kids say the darndest things, no?

2010-07-27T18:43:00.005-05:00

"I wanna play cowboy. You be cow, Mama"

"Eating hurts! No eat people! Eating people hurts!"

"Mean dinosaurs go in jail" ... "What about the good dinosaurs, Cam?" ... "No. Not good dinosaurs. Only mean dinosaurs go in jail."

"Apple butter, apple butter" (This is funny, because he was sitting in the bath, splashing as he yelled "apple butter" over and over. Even funnier that he won't try it and thinks it's gross "Apple butter, bleh!")

Animal friends

2010-07-22T14:58:00.002-05:00

For the last week or so, Cam and I have had an animal visitor at our place. He just showed up one day and has been hanging out ever since. Who came to call? Our very own praying mantis! I've been calling him Manny; how original, right?

Yesterday, I left the house to get Camden from preschool, and saw Manny on Cam's bike. "Manny," I said, "Cam's gonna want to go to the park, and he's gonna want to ride his bike. You'd better climb back over to the charcoal bag." Of course, praying mantises probably don't speak very good English. But they're excellent at staying still. So he was still there when we got back. And Camden wanted to go to the park, and Camden wanted to ride the bike. Of course.

So I picked up the brush for the grill, and started pushing it at Manny. I was kinda worried he'd fly away (praying mantises can fly, can't they?) or that he'd attack me. After a little convincing, I managed to get Manny onto the brush, and I set him over on the pumpkin plant.

This morning I looked for him, and to my dismay, I couldn't find him. I was certain he'd gotten pissed off and left. An hour or so later, though, I found him hiding under a leaf. Hurrah! Except, now he's hiding somewhere else.

I think I'm attached to this praying mantis. And I think that's unhealthy. lol But it's going to be a sad day when he does decide to fly the coop. I just might cry.

Little pick-me-ups

2010-07-21T11:01:00.002-05:00

I like to do things for myself that make me smile. Generally these things are a bit more, and a bit less, than buying myself a candy bar.

I don't have a printer at home. So when I need something printed, say a paper or some music I've been working on, I'll email the file to myself and print it at school. (Yes, I have a junk drive. Sometimes, though, I can't find it or I think I'll forget it, as I seem to do quite often, so I email. Much safer!) Anyway, it's really boring getting an email from yourself that contains nothing but a file to download. So I write to myself. lol Nothing too in depth or lengthy, because I know how my day is going/has gone. But always a little note that says something along the lines of:

You're beautiful.

Have a wonderful day!

You're better than you think you are.

Smile, because it makes you about ten times as lovely.

You're well on your way to making your dreams come true.

While I generally know what my email is going to say (sometimes, I do forget!) it's still nice. I tell myself these things because they make me smile, and they make me feel good. I also have a habit of telling these things/similar things to my friends or other people that I know well enough to talk to.

So, dear readers. How do you brighten your day? How do you brighten the day of others?

Rained out

2010-07-20T17:10:00.002-05:00

Yesterday morning at a bright and cheery 7.45 in the morning, I left my apartment for school in high spirits. My professor had left some music out for me to pick up, and I was going to work on some arranging. As I sat down in the computer lab and opened Finale (music program) in walks a fellow student with an umbrella? "Is it raining?" I asked him in ABSOLUTE HORROR. Because, you see, I live about a mile away from school -- and I walked. He said no, it's not raining, but it will be. I figured there was nothing to do except finish up my work as quickly as possible and hope to the gods I made it home before it started pouring.

I step out of the music building to a very pleasant cool breeze. Uh oh. I look to the eastern skies -- cloudy, but not too much. My gaze swings over to the western skies, and I kid you not, my reaction was to say (loudly) "Holy shit!" and start running. It was black. Black! At nine o'clock in the morning! Not only that, but it was already sprinkling! "Please, please, please let me make it home!" I begged to whoever would listen.

I'm not quite in shape enough to run all the way home. I think I made it about three blocks before I gave up on the running and settled for a quick walk. Every time I crossed a street, I would look to the west, trying to gauge how fast the storm was coming. And every time I crossed the street, I would pick up my pace and usually utter some expletive or another. lol

Luckily, the gods/weather spirits heard my pleas. It actually stopped sprinkling during my walk home. And the rain didn't hit until I'd been home for about five minutes. And then it stormed. And it stopped. And come nightfall, it stormed some more.

This morning in class, everyone was talking about how they'd stayed up all night because of the storms, listening to the thunder and reports on tornado warnings.

And I slept through it all! As did my mother (who's visiting for a day) and Camden.

Journaling in July - Page 3

2010-07-17T12:53:00.004-05:00

If you've been reading my blog for a while, or if you've gone and read all of my past entries, you know I'm a musician. And if you've done neither of those things.... Well, I'm a musician. I'm entering into my fourth year of music study at college and am well on my way to being an elementary music teacher. Excitement! When I was in high school, thinking about what I wanted to do with my life, all I could think was "music." But I like music and I like children (usually) and elementary music ed seems like more of a "fun" job than, say, working in an office or even teaching high school band. So, in short, this week's spread is my music page, "Music: My soul, my life."

While it's nearly impossible to see in both the small and large picture, there is a poem winding around the treble clef that merges into the eighth note. It reads

Whenever I can't breathe
I can put my music on
The melodies take me away
Making me feel strong

On a high and windy cliffside
All alone and safe
This is where I go
It is my own special place

I can't take credit for the poem. Unfortunately, I can't really give credit for it, either. I found it online and can't remember where. Oops.

Working on the art journal has made me feel really creative. I've started digital scrapbooking. While a few people I've talked to have felt that this is "cheating" as far as scrapbooking goes, I disagree. Especially since these days so many photo memories are digital. Plus, I am far more artistic on a computer with premade fonts and such that can be edited and tweaked in any number of ways than I am trying to do it myself, by hand. Plus, you can get much more scrapping stuff for free in digital form than in non-digital form.

At the moment I have about a dozen pages or so. I'm hoping to do at least 50 (of the entire family, not just Camden) by Christmas and put them on a cd for my parents.

Blog Buttons

2010-07-14T12:33:00.002-05:00

Okay, so I just realised, about 10 months into this blog :), that I don't have a place for my readers to leave their buttons! Don't I feel like a slacker? Yes, yes I do. Anyway, that's what this post is for.

If you want your button on my scrolling blogroll over there ------> leave the code in a comment, or a link to where I can find the code. And I'll add your button!

Monsters Revisited

2010-07-11T10:41:00.004-05:00

It's almost hard to believe that it's been almost six months ago that Camden made friends with his monsters lurking in the dark. And about a month ago, two new monsters joined the party, which brings the count up to four! And you know, he hasn't been afraid of things going bump in the night once since we first spoke to them. He still doesn't care for the pitch black because he can't see, and I can't really blame him for that!

In the same vein of news: I think I'm making some of my own monster friends. Or dragon friends, to be more exact. Earlier this week as I was driving to my parents' house, I saw a cat-sized purple dragon curled up on the dashboard. Not very clearly; I still have some mental blocks against that sort of thing. But I saw him there, saw him raise his head to look at me then lay it back down as he basked in the sunlight. And last night, as I was lying down for bed, I felt something in my hair, up against my head. The visual image I got was a small shadowed dragon, just a little bigger than a mouse, making a nest in my hair. At some point she shared her name with me, and I heard her calling the purple dragon, so I learned his name, too. This morning when I woke up, my hair was a mess! Not knotted or anything, just lying completely in the wrong direction where the little one had been sleeping. lol

So, dearest readers, I ask you: do you have any monsters of your own lurking in the dark? Or in the bright gardens? Or in your cupboards, eating all your food?

Journaling in July - Page 2

2010-07-10T20:47:00.003-05:00

This week, I lost one of my Sisters (not a blood relative, but one who was a member of a group of women on an online community I am a part of) to cancer. Her name was Padra. Her real name was Tricia. We all thought she had beat it. It was breast cancer. I remember some point last year, she had posted about having the breast reconstruction surgery done. And then just last week, or the week before, we all found out she was not doing well. She was moved to a hospice earlier this week and died the same day.

I barely knew this woman. And I cannot help but feel my life is worse for not having known her well; my life is worse because I will never get that chance. Those who knew her, though, always spoke of her smile. She had a smile for everyone. So my journal page this week is in her honour. I only wish that I was slightly more talented (or had any talent at all) when it came to visual arts.

For my Sister, Padra Sedai. The Light shine on you, and the Creator shelter you. The last embrace of the mother welcome you home.

Happy home-going, Sister.

A little on tarot

2010-07-08T17:59:00.004-05:00

While each card has a symbolism and story specific to itself, you can draw the same general symbolism from the card by knowing some basics about the suit and also which number or court card it is.

Suits:

Wands are associated with air. The wands suit deals with career, projects, and inspiration.

Cups are associated with water. This suit deals with emotions, relationships, and creativity.

Swords are associated with fire and deal with challenges, intellect, and ways of thinking.

Pentacles have earth associations and deal with the physical world, money, and resources.

Minor Arcana cards:

The number cards show different situations of every day life.

Aces-new beginnings, opportunity
2-balance duality crossroads, choice
3-full expression of the suit, achievement
4-structure, stability, stagnation
5-instability, conflict, loss, opportunity for change
6- communication, problem solving, cooperation
7- reflection, assessment, motives
8-movement, action, change, power
9-fruition, attainment
10- completion end of cycle

The court cards bring personality to the aforementioned situations. They can represent other people or the querent, or usually just a facet of a person.

Pages-novices, eager, enthusiastic, sometimes shallow; can indicate a message the querent will receive
Knights-extremists, very focused, can be unbalanced or fanatical; may represent fast moving situations
Queen-mature and expressive; one who nurtures; prone to obsession
King-mature and expressive; one who organises and controls external matters, sometimes at the expense of internal or personal matters

Journaling in July - Page 1

2010-07-03T13:15:00.003-05:00

Here's my first page for Journaling in July! It's based around the idea of knot magic (because, as we all know, I'm a fan). Click the photo above for a better view.

The book I'm using is a 6x9 inch leather bound journal with graph paper. It also has a handy bookmark string! You can't really tell from this picture, but I've distressed the long edge of the pages by cutting 3-4 pages at a time with those nifty crafting scissors that cut neat designs. This book is a cross between a journal, a spell book, a prayer book, and a book of shadows.

I started this page by painting some disconnected lines in dark green and purple, then added some dark blue spirals. Then I added the words in yarn/string, the little sayings, magazine clippings, and finally the black yarn around the one. The next few pages in the journal are going to be devoted to, what else, knot magic.

And I already have another idea in mind for my pages this coming week. :) Happy journaling!

Advertising 2 blogs

2010-07-02T14:19:00.003-05:00

So I've been meaning to make this post for a few days, but I've been putting it off in favour of doing homework and being productive! (Yay for me!) And watching 30Rock. (Not so yay for me!)

The first blog (and giveaway!) is one that I found a few months ago called Handmade by Jessica who is a fantastic artist. She's just posted a tutorial on carving stamps! And she's trying to get some knowledge out there about her blog, so she's giving away a few stamps she's made herself (!) to some lucky winner!

And also!

If you happen to be following The Whimsical Cottage you know she's running a blog party.

And if you happen to be participating in said blog party (which involves making pages in an art journal!), you just might be interested in the link above to Jessica's blog so you can possibly win some nifty one-of-a-kind rubber stamps.

Happy creating, either way! :)

What I've learned this day

2010-07-02T11:40:00.003-05:00

Today, I learned a very important lesson. One that I'm surprised isn't brought up, as far as I can tell.

Anyway, if you are planning on doing a knot spell that requires you to untie the knots to release the energy...

Don't be a dummy and tie the knots so tight you can't untie them.

... We shall see if cutting the knots with ~~ceremonial~~ sewing scissors releases the energies just as well. lol

Heritage

2010-06-30T12:52:00.003-05:00

Like any good American, I'm a full-blooded mutt. :) I have German and Scottish blood in my from my mother's side (prolly others too), and Welsh blood from my dad's side (and others!) I think I also had ancestors from Norway, although I could just be making stuff up. lol

While my mom and sister have done some work on building a family tree, I've never really cared that much. It was enough for me to know where my roots are. However, learning the stories of how my roots moved from Europe to the US are fascinating. For example:

Four brothers came to the US from Germany looking for, what else, opportunity and the American Dream. However, for one reason or another, they chose to go their separate ways. Each took a different spelling of their name (my line is Stoll) and went off to settle in different parts of the United States.

That is my family history. Other people may have stories of what happened in the civil war or underground railroad or even Revolutionary War. But I don't have any stories like that, not that I've been told, anyway. However, I think the story I do have is AMAZING! I know that when my mom is looking up family members for the family tree, she's tracking down those missing brothers. And sometimes I can't help but wonder, how many other people are our there with this same history, this story of four brothers coming from der Mutterland and going their separate ways with different names?

Fun Day!

2010-06-27T13:19:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, Camden and I had a "fun day." Well, we took a break from the "fun" to go grocery shopping, because that's what we do on Saturday mornings, but the rest was geared towards fun! After shopping, Cam and I went to the park (he rode his bike; I walked) and played until it was too blasted hot to move. So we came back home and played with his cars and read books. He watched a couple of episodes of the Backyardigans.

And in the afternoon, after a lunch of chicken nuggets, we went to the movies! The last time I can honestly remember going to watch a movie was over three years ago, when Meet the Robinsons was in theatres. Oddly enough, that was the last time Camden had been to the movies, too. But Toy Story 3 is out, and having loved the first two, I absolutely had to see it, so I thought it would be a fun treat. Oh, Cam really liked the Toy Story movies also, so I figured he would enjoy the new one, too. ^_^ So we went and enjoyed the movie very much (except that Camden started getting tired about halfway through, and he was also getting bothered with the 3D glasses, and the fact that I was crying like a baby through the whole last half hour. lol)

Once home, we continued our playing until dinner time, when I grilled some hotdogs (Cam's absolute favourites.) I like my hotdogs practically burnt, so I made some that were nice and black, though most of them were normal not-quite-so-charred grilled hotdogs (for Camden.) Except that when I let him pick out his hotdog, he chose one of the burnt ones! It makes me happy to see that he takes after me (and, I believe, his great-uncle Mike.) Dinner was followed by more park time, except that this time we both walked. :)

However, the day was not all fun and games. :( When I gave him his bath, I noticed a razor in the bathtub and moved it to the sink counter, so he wouldn't hurt himself. Well, wouldn't you know it; later on he was messing around in the bathroom, and somehow brought his hand straight down on the blades. He sliced a bit off one of his fingers and bled quite a bit, but no worries. He told me this morning, it was a "little bit better."

One of the better parts of the day, though, was him going to bed. I read him a few books, turned on the night light, covered him up, gave him kisses, and left. Five minutes later I walked by on my way to the bathroom, and we was fast asleep. Can I just say that never happens?