Rain Dance

It is some kind of nasty where I live right now.  Apparently, the wind got so bad last night while we were under a tornado watch, that it knocked out the power and broke the umbrella we had on the porch.

All I want to do today is curl up and sleep.  I have my coffee, but it's offering very little help right now.

Draco, of course, is still out of town and I have had some very spiritual things happening to me lately that I'm still trying to sort out and I'm not quite ready to talk about.  Until I get it sorted, the Card of the Day feature is on hold.

I have made many decisions lately, both personal and for my family.

I mentioned us moving before, and we are still going to, but things have changed a smidge.  The apartment that Mini-Me is moving out of, we won't be taking.  After giving it a good looking over, we decided that it was just too small for us and we would like something bigger.  A large part of that is to do with our business, which I have also made some decisions about.

I have decided to close the business for the moment.  Honestly, I haven't been doing that much business and it's just not quite what I really want.  I will be opening another business at a later date, but for now, I need to get us moved and possibly find a part-time job.  Once all of that is settled, I am going to take stock of what I have, what I want to do and I'll be adding some stuff and then I'll go from there.  We'll see what happens.

Now that word is starting to circulate about our move, people are coming around and trying to help.  L is taking it better than I thought she would, and her family now understands why.  It's like I told L's mom yesterday (which is where I spent practicallly my entire day), we're not leaving because there's a problem or we're not happy.  The simple truth is that we haven't had our own place in about 3 years now, and it's beyond time for us to get out on our own and do it again.  I know it will be hard and a little more expensive, but the things worth having in life are never easy.

Draco and I need our own space to grow and explore our relationship now that we have an empty nest, we need space to practice our religion without the worry of how it will effect anyone but us.  We need to be able to laugh, love and fight loudly if that's what we need or want to do.  Those are things that it's hard to do when you live with other people.

Our time here has been wonderful for the most part, and we still love L and Little Diva to pieces and they will continue to be a big part of our lives going into the future.  We still plan to get together regularly, include them in family things and have them play a big part in our lives.  I'm grateful for everything the God and Goddess has given us in our relationship with L and I don't plan to loose it.

Our next hurdle will be this coming month.  We have a lot of money to put together in just a few weeks all while we try to sort the issue of after living with other people for 3 years, we don't really have much in the way of household stuff of our own.  

I'm tickled though, about a set of dishes L gave me yesterday from her stash at her Mom's house.  The plates and blowls have herbs on them and they are awesome!  

Well, that's it for now.  Mabye later today I can pull one of the plates out of the box and take a pictuer to include.

Finding the Joy

Today's card caught me off guard, considering everything that's been happening.  There have been a few things going on behind the scenes here, that I have intentionally not mentioned.  Today was the day I had planned to mention some of it anyway, and I get this card:

The Six of Cups.  It means joy.  Usually revisiting something that we know made us happy.  This plays right into what has been going on.

Herbal Tarot by Michael Tierra

Everyone knows that Draco and I have enjoyed our time with L and Little Diva.  L is a wonderful friend, and as far as living with other people go, I couldn't have asked for a much better situation than what we've had here.  It's absolutely been a far cry from what we went through staying with my parents during my Mom's illness where I felt that I was a constant target for someone.

Time moves on, though, and Draco and I are becoming an "older couple".  Life is forcing me to accept the onset of my Crone phase, and I'm finally beginning to do it gracefully, but as time moves on, situations, needs and wants change.

Draco and I have not had our own place in something like 3 years now.

We gave up our last place to go stay with my family to try to help out when Mom had her heart attack and then she got sick and we haven't had our own place since.

It's time.  Really it's beyond time.

It just so happens that Mini-Me is looking to change her living situation as well.  She's had a small, 1 bedroom apartment, fully furnished, right down the road from us, and she's looking at something closer to the heart of town, and closer to her friends.  She's been trying to move for about a month now and hasn't been able to pull together the resources to do it.  She even has a roommate lined up to help her with the bills.  I'm happy for her, but it got me to thinking about the apartment she would be leaving behind.

It is rather small, but Draco is gone most of the week and during that time, it's just Dutchess and I.  My body has moved into the Crone phase ahead of the rest of me, and it's harder for me to do extensive housework than it used to be.  I don't want a lot that I have to clean.

Also, I'm becoming something of a minimalist.  I would rather be surrounded by the things that I love, that bring me joy and make me smile, than to have a ton of stuff I don't care about.

Add to that, I've been having some odd dreams about a cottage-type setting.  It was small, cozy, rustic...and honestly, I think with some TLC and the right witch's decorative hand, that little apartment could be awfully close to what I've been dreaming.

I feel that the Goddess and God have spoken to me on this and that this is the right direction to move in, or to at least try.

Because of Mini-Me's financial situation, it may be a little bit tricky, but we intend to try.

Our obligations to L hold us here through the end of the month, but after that, we will be able to do whatever we want to do.  We will be focusing the next few weeks on helping Mini-Me prepare for the move as well as trying to prepare ourselves.

I have to say that although it will be an adjustment to be on our own again after all this time, and I will miss L and Little Diva terribly, I am excited and looking forward to this next Phase in life.  I will try to be around as much as possible and keep the updates flowing.  Wish us luck!

)0( Love & Light )0(

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• Phases: The Next Step

New Vibe On Life

Today is update post, but I'm also going to be trying something new.  Each day (I'm going to try to post everyday) I'm going to draw a card from my Tarot deck for myself.  Regardless of what I post, I am going to include the card I drew and what I feel it means for me.  Here's today's card...

The Herbal Tarot By Michael Tierra

The Six of Swords is a positive card.  It represents finding solutions to problems.  This is a good card for me today, as I have had a lot on my mind lately.  I'm thankful to know that even though I have not reached the shore yet, my journey towards solving some issues may be at hand.  It could also have something to do with the topic that is most on my mind this morning.

A note about Vervain.  Vervain has been used in the treatment of ulcers and I happen to have a bleeding ulcer that's been acting up.  No small coincidence there!  Guess I need to get a handle on that!

I have decided that it's time for me to start thinking seriously about my health.  Since the death of my Grandfather some years ago, I have not been much of a "modern medicine" kind of girl.  What happened with my Mother this year, seemed to cement that for me.  Instead, I turn to herbalism most of the time for remedies to what ails us and I know that living a healthier life-style helps those herbs (and my body) do what it's supposed to do.

With that said, I have joined up with Get Off Your Broom to do the Fall Into Fitness Challenge!

This challenge is a little different, in that it will have a Pagan twist to it.  We'll be doing Element work as we go and doing Pagan challenges as well.  I'm all excited to be joining up to do this!  Check-ins are on Sundays and it will run to November 30th.  I hope you'll come and join me in this challenge to get healthy!  At the very least, leave me some comment luv on Sundays to help cheer me on!

And, I've joined SparkPeople to help me keep track of things like calories.  If you're a member, you can find me there!

So, that's today's post.  Hopefully, tomorrow I will get this up a little earlier, but life off the computer has interfered today in the form of Mini-Me's 19th birthday and L's Mom having surgery.

Hope everyone has had a Blessed Day! )0(

Mediation and Week in Review

It seems like I've been writing all week without really publishing anything.  I have weeks like that sometimes.  It seems like every time I sit down and try to put a post together, I have to get up and run off to do something and don't make it back to the computer.

There were a few things that happened to me this week that I wanted to write about, like my experience at a UU church last Sunday, and my ride with my Dad Monday that turned out to be a family history lesson.  Some of the things Mini-Me is going through...

Now I find myself staring at the end of my week.  Draco comes home today and I can tell it's going to be a crazy weekend.  I don't know when or if I'll have another chance to write before the beginning of next week.

I hope to be able to finish the posts I started on those other topics and maybe get them up over the weekend.

Today, I have other things in mind, though.

Even though I decided to make this a Pagan blog when I opened it, I find that I don't actually write much about Pagan stuff.  This has been on my mind a good bit lately and I had to ask myself why.

There have been a few Pagan Meme's I've run across, but I just skipped over them instead of writing anything.  For a while, I couldn't put my finger on why, but after giving it some thought, I think I figured it out.

I know that although I have been Pagan for going on 20 years, I haven't always been what you'd call a "practicing Pagan".  I lived by the Rede and Rule of Three and have always had an altar set up, but that altar has largely sat and gathered dust.  I fell out of practice years ago and have only recently taken up my wand again.

I think I have feared sounding stupid, or saying something wrong.  I tend to forget that religion is a largely personal thing.  You can share the general idea with others, but what you get from it is intensely personal.  I can't say that my experiences are right or wrong, or that someone else's are either.  What I get from it, may not be what you get from it.  That's one of the reasons I left main-stream religion.  I wasn't getting the same thing from it others were, but there, you're expected to.  In Paganism, it's our differences that makes us unique and we are supposed to embrace those differences.

I admit that after so many years of being out of practice, I feel like a beginner all over again most days, so I'm going to share my journey here on my blog.

So, with that said, I'd like to discuss something new I'm learning.

The church we attend offers activities throughout the week and one of those is Meditation classes.  It caught my eye on the calendar recently and I've thought about going, but I hesitated.  I don't know if it's something they're teaching, or something they expect you to have experience with before you go, and I don't like to look silly, so when I saw a book on meditation (Living Healthy Through Meditation it's still free today, by the way) for free through the Facebook page  Pagan eBooks for Free, I decided I had to download it.

I began reading it last night and even tried one of the basic techniques.

I've tried mediation in the past, and ended up disappointed.  I don't know if I was doing it wrong or maybe if it was my ADD getting in the way, but I couldn't seem to muster the ability to focus my attention, without focusing on anything.  I have a vivid imagination and a busy thought process and the whole "empty mind" thing was hard for me.

The techniques offered in this book are much better than some of the others I tried in the past and I was actually able to achieve a meditative state for a short time.  This may not sound like much, but for someone that's been trying for almost 20 years without much in the way of results, it's huge!

I woke up this morning feeling more grounded as well.  Grounding and centering have been my go-to's for managing stress ever since I learned the techniques, but I felt grounded without the need to ground (if that makes sense).

I also found that I feel more in tune with nature this morning as well.  My stress level seems to have dropped noticeably, and my ability to focus this morning is better than normal.

If I can experience benefits like these from just a few minutes of meditation, I can't wait to see how much I can achieve by being able to hold it longer!

I will try to remember to post occasional updates on my journey with mediation, but I really wanted to share this book with you.

Don't worry about religious tones if you're not Pagan.  This book is not religious that I've seen so far, it's just good techniques for meditation that anyone can try!

Blessings!

In Review: Blue Moon

We didn't get a chance to really "celebrate" the full moon yesterday as we'd hoped.  Our day went full-blast from 9:30 am until I finally fell into an exhausted sleep somewhere around 11pm.  Yesterday's events made me feel like the energies of the Full Moon (and Blue Moon) were present in my entire day though.

Most of our day was devoted to cars and cell phones.

I found a car that I liked, that is in our price range, but they wouldn't take my trade-in.  This morning, we'll be heading out to see if we can sell our car in a different way.  Unfortunately, this also means that I'm probably going to be without a car until next weekend.  The place we're going to try to sell it to does a bank draft and it's the weekend, so no telling how long it'll take the draft to clear.

Draco did get me a new phone yesterday since mine was acting like it'd been possessed by demons.  I got a T-Mobile My Touch and I absolutely love it!

In an unexpected turn yesterday, I saw my Dad.  Wasn't expecting to, but when I got my new phone, I got a new number and although I considered not even worrying about it, I couldn't make myself not call him and give him my number for emergencies.  He actually sounded much better.  Draco had left one of his old phones that he needed for work, so when Dad said he wanted company, I figured we'd give it a shot.

We did get Draco's phone, but more importantly, I saw Dad acting more like Dad than I have in I couldn't tell you how long.  He truly laughed, without the aid of Xanax or alcohol, for the first time since before mom got sick.

Apparently, he finally broke down and went to the doctor and discussed his medication with him (something I tried to get him to do when we were living there and he wouldn't.) and got his medication changed.  He's no longer on Xanax and what he is on seems to be helping much more.  No more slurred speech or staggering (in some people, the side-effects of Xanax can mimic alcohol and this was the case with Dad).

He was alert and making sense when he talked.  He could remember numbers and conversations clearly.  The house was clean, he was showered and shaved and Sabrina (my Mom's familiar even though she never accepted that) appeared to be taken care of and is even getting around better on that leg finally.

I have to say, though, beyond my Dad and my Sister, I'm just really not interested.  Even if any of the rest of the family were to try to reach out now, I just really don't want to deal with it.  I don't approve of or agree with a lot of the things going on in some of their lives and don't really want to be a part of it anymore.

More than that, where the hell were they when Mom died and I needed support?  Too wrapped up in their own shit to be bothered, I suppose.

No, I didn't expect anyone to come running and handle everything, I did all that either by myself or with the support of my little sister and Aunt D (I'm still very grateful for everything Aunt D did to help me because I truly had no one else to help me make decisions), but a phone call to say "Are you ok" would have been nice.

Unfortunately, the majority of my family are selfish assholes that could care less about anyone but themselves.  They want to act like they give a damn when it suits them but when you really need them, they're in the wind so fast it'll make your head spin.

That's ok, I really don't need that kind of "caring".  Let them stay gone from my life.  I wish them luck, and don't wish anything bad on them, I just don't need the heartache anymore.  Loosing Mom and realizing I had no one but my Sister was enough for me.

Funny though, how the 2 girls of the family that have always been the outcasts that got talked about like they were shit half the time, were the ones that stepped up and took care of Mom in her final moments and took care of Dad when it was the hardest.  Just goes to show, you can't judge a book by it's cover.

So, some things came full-circle, some issues got resolved, and we are prepared to embark on some new beginnings.  Although it wasn't how I'd intended to spend the Full Moon, I think it turned out to be a nice celebration anyway.

How did you spend the Full Moon?

PYHO: What Hurts The Most

I'm a day late with this link-up and I know I probably won't get much return readership because of it, but this is a Meme I've been considering doing for a while now.  From now on, Wednesdays will be my PYHO day, where I share something close to the heart, something that is bothering me or weighing on my heart and mind.  Please be gentle...I am a Pisces afterall...

I think that everyone has a need to feel important.  You read all the self-help stuff, inspirational quotes and such that tell you to "love yourself", "be important to you", etc, and all of that is fine and well, but it truly isn't the same as feeling loved and important to someone else.

These are feelings that we're supposed to get from our family, be it the one that raised us, or the ones we raise and most especially from our partner.

I never had it as a child growing up.  It was missing in my first marriage.  I had hoped that my 2nd marriage would be different, and sometimes it is, but lately...well, lately I'm just not feeling it anymore.

My husband works out of town Sunday through Thursday.  He's worked for this company before, and they worked out of town on a job for almost a year and it was a spectacular disaster.  Granted, at the time, we were pretty young and I was going through what I didn't know at the time was a false pregnancy, I got diagnosed again with Hypertension and I had a handful of other health problems flaring up.  I needed him home and he couldn't be and it caused a lot of arguments.

Fast forward to last May, when he brought up working for the company again.  I wasn't over-joyed with the idea.  I remember what it was like before.  But, we're both older and I thought life had settled down some since then.  He basically told me that this kind of work (which isn't what he'd been doing since leaving the company) was the only kind of work that had ever made him happy.  What was I supposed to say?

I told him that if it was what he wanted, go for it, but we'd really have to work together to make things work with him being gone all the time.  He agreed.

Since then though, when he's gone during the week, it's almost like he has a different life.  One that doesn't include me.  Our communication, even at night when the work is done and their at the house they're renting down there for the night, is next to non-existent.  We barely talk.  When we do, he's distracted and talking to the guys he works with, one in particular.  I've tried and tried to feel like we're still connected, still a team, even when he's gone, but he just doesn't seem to be interested.  And we're fighting again.  A lot.

I've tried targeting shows we normally would watch together if he were home and asking him if we can watch them together now and either talk on the phone or text while we watch...give me some kind of feeling of connection.  He says he will, then gets tied up doing stuff "with the guys" and is a no-show, or is late, or he falls asleep.  He'll put his phone on charge and forget about it for hours and won't answer texts or phone calls and say he lost track of time.

When I confront him with it, he claims it was an honest mistake or whatever and gets mad at me for being upset or feeling let down.  When I say we won't make those kinds of plans anymore since he's obviously too busy, he insists that we do and promises that next time will be different, but it never is.

I've even suggested that maybe we needed to separate (which I really don't want), even just for a while, while he decides what he wants because it feels like he's no longer in this with me and he freaks out and begs me not to leave.

 I don't know what to do anymore.  He's the love of my life, and our relationship has SO many good points to it when he's not working away from home.  I kept telling myself that it was only until the end of the year and I could suffer through it, but now I hear rumors from one of the other guys wives that the company is planning to bid on another job there, which means another year (or more) of them working there.  I honestly don't know if I can take another year.

He says he needs to work for them for 3 years to get the experience he needs to apply for the same kind of work locally, but I just don't see me being able to do it if it continues to be like this.

I'm at a loss and seriously don't know what to do anymore.

I know that no one can tell me what to do about my life, or my marriage, but I just needed to get it off my chest and I really don't have anyone to talk to about things anymore, so I figured I'd do it here.

An Unexpected Make-Over

Last night, I was working on a post and doing a little site-work.  I wanted to put in a comment system instead of just using the one I had, so I started trying to install one.

Let me tell you, while I enjoy using IntenseDebate on other people's sites, it is a pain in the tush to install!  I'm sitting here minding my own business and it tells me I need to save my template and copy and paste this and that and before I knew it, my html had gone screwy!

Luckily, my good friend @PonderingMama was up and watching her Twitter and came and bailed me out.  Somehow, I ended up getting a make-over I had no idea I wanted or needed until she did it.  I love the new look of the site and all my social media.

Now, I'm all excited to get started with blogging again!

I got a little frustrated because there aren't a lot of meme's out there to get involved in for Pagans (at least that I could find) and I felt that getting my site out there and gaining a readership wasn't happening the way I wanted.  Then, I had some personal stuff going on that I will talk about in other posts over the next few day, and before I knew it, the blog was sitting here unloved and unused.  

Now, I have a new look that I'm all excited about and I'm thinking about going back to the Meme's that I was doing before a few days a week and then just blogging in general the rest of the week.

I'm so excited to be getting started again!  I hope you are, too!