Mariana Trench Level

Eh, I haven’t updated here in over a week, so I guess I’m about due for that. ::chuckles::

Yeah, depression came along and dumped my ass into the deep end. And then drug me all the way to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, where I’ve been basically chilling this whole time.

I’ll get around to posting my backlogged daily photos. You’ll get to see cute photos of me and my Geese Posse. Fuck man, they seriously give me LIFE right now. I’m able to pet some of them as long as I have food in my hand. They come when they SEE me. I don’t even have to call them now. ::chuckles:: I am hoping this continues through nesting season. I want the babies to come up to me! I’m already planning how to handle that situation so that I don’t break the trust I have with the adult geese and I don’t die in the process. ::smiles::

The Van Van Oil I started on the 1st is looking gorgeous. I can’t wait until the 31st when I get to open it up and see what it smells like. January’s Full Moon is swiftly approaching, and I have NO idea what oil to make. The clock is ticking and I’m hyper aware of it, but I have no inspiration. I dunno. I have an idea and have most of the oils needed to make it. I just need one more. I might go that way. Eh, went ahead and bought that particular oil. Even if I go a different way with this Full Moon’s oil, I can make the one I’m thinking about another time.

Eh, I’m all over the place. Depression, anxiety, and post-migraine brain fog is fabulous for that. I didn’t go to work today due to the aforementioned migraine. It started last night and didn’t break until about 5 pm today. It wasn’t the worst I’ve ever had, but damn, it just wouldn’t quit.

In positive news, I received a FABULOUS unexpected refund check from the hospital I had my ablation surgery done at 2 years ago. And when I say fabulous, I mean fabulous to the tune of $778. I damn near fell out of my chair when I saw that check. I even read where they write out the words of the check, just to make sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me in the number portion. Seven hundred seventy-eight hundred dollars. Woohoo! I almost wanted to call the hospital and ask what the check was for, but I elected to just keep my mouth shut and be grateful. No way I’m going to look this much needed gift horse in the mouth right now.

On the allergy attack that my quasi-supervisor triggered – I’m doing better. The hives are gone and the rash is finally gone. But now, I’m friggin’ scaly. Like a snake before it sheds. My skin is so dry. And when I look at myself in the mirror…you can SEE where I had the hives and the rash. It almost looks like scarring. ::shakes her head:: I’ve done a skin patch test, and a good lotion I have (scented) does not trigger a reaction, so I’ve been slathering that on like twice a day. If nothing else, at least I smell nice. ::rolls her eyes:: I still haven’t heard back from Worker’s Comp if they are going to pay for my doctor’s visit or comp me my missed hours ::sighs:: Guess I’ll give them a call/email tomorrow just to touch base and see where that is standing.

Relaxing Day

Today’s Photo:

This just tells you how insane last week was. I received this AMAZING besom from April sometime last week, but just now had the time and energy to open up the box and really look at it. It’s just gorgeous! And the fact that it’s made by a truly amazing and dear friend just makes it even more magickal. I am truly blessed beyond belief.

Today was a fabulous, relaxing day. Exactly what I so desperately needed. I was supposed to do Tarot & Tea with Hazel Nut today, but her work ended up calling an emergency meeting and she had to cancel. So we are doing it tomorrow at 7 pm.

I did get a shower and changed the sheets on my bed. ::chuckles:: Yay me for adulting.

Leviathan was out, looking cute:

Gah, I just adore my lavender lady. ::smiles::

A Good Sunday

Today’s Photo:

These are the Theater of Star washi tapes I was talking about yesterday. Aren’t they lovely? ::smiles::

Welp, Ravioli has been handed off to my cousin Lauren. I will certainly miss that little lizard, but I know she’s going to a great home. Lauren’s son make her keep his birthday decorations up for Ravioli, so she could enjoy them as well. ::smiles:: I mean, how cute is that?

I now have a mostly cleared off art table in my room, which is nice. I will clean the rest of it off tomorrow. And I’m thinking this may be where I organize my essential oils and herbs. And later on, where I have the stuff to pack up my oils that I create and sell as well. Which reminds me, I need to go to the Dollar Tree and pick up some cheap bins to help keep shit organized. I’ve begun compiling a list of supplies I already have, but that needs to be finished as well.

I won’t get all of that done tomorrow, as I already have plans. Hazel Nut and I will be a LONG OVERDUE Tarot and Tea tomorrow afternoon. And, since we are supposed to get rain Tuesday and Wednesday, I want to gather acorns tomorrow, while it is still nice. I should be able to gather a big bag of the Burr Oak acorns easily tomorrow. I am looking forward embarking on my nutty endeavor of mine to learn how to process acorns.

Journals and Dragons

 written: January 16

Photo for today:

Part of my journal entry from today.

I woke up bright and early at 8:30 am. On my day off. ::grumbles:: Oh well. I figured I might as well get up and get some things done. I deposited our two Christmas checks – woohoo for Christmas money. And then, as a reward for being a responsible adult, I went to Michael’s.

I was planning on only picking up a silver pen and a gold pen. But, I came across a new Recollections collect – it’s called Theater of Stars. And it has a real witchy vibe going on. So I picked up the sticker book and the matching washi tape. I know, I know, I sure as shit do not need MORE washi tape…but I couldn’t resist. So yeah, I need to put my washi tapes in the bin Hubs bought me.

Oh, and while we are talking washi tape – the washi tape I ordered came in. The two rolls of book washi tape will go to work with me. They are for my coworkers, Abby and Clarissa. You can’t bullet journal and work in a library and not have book washi tape. ::chuckles::

Tomorrow, Ravioli will be traveling on to her forever home. I am going to miss the lil dragon. She’s rather cute and I have become fond of her. Maybe, at some point in the future, I’ll get a bearded dragon of my own.

Still Here

 written: January 15

Photo for today:

And thus, construction begins in my part of the Library. They’ve already gutted the two bathrooms down in my area. Who knows what it will look like when I get back in there Tuesday. ::chuckles:: I’m just hoping it all goes smoothly as possible and is done as quickly as possible.

I got the bulk of the coloring packets made up for our passive program. It’s fairly easy – just a 4 pack of crayons and a coloring sheet in a white paper bag. And then the bag is sealed shut with one of three stickers – a princess, a dino, or a lego – depending on what coloring sheet is inside. I just need some more white bags to finish up the last of the lego coloring sheets, and I’ll be completely done.

I am seriously looking forward to this three day weekend. I fucking need it so bad. I need a long weekend to just REST and get my head back on straight. Sucks having a major mental break down at the beginning of a work week.

Which, thinking back to that, I’m seriously glad I didn’t cut. The blade I have on me all the time is razor sharp. And with as out of control as I was that day…there’s no way I would have cut myself without requiring stitches. There would have been zero self control. I would have just flayed my arm up, and then freaked out because of the damage I did. ::shakes her head:: Yeah, that was a VERY BAD day.

But I made it through it. Without resorting to non-suicidal self-injurious behavior. And that’s MASSIVE win. I don’t think I’ve ever been tested that hard since I stopped doing that. Hell, even the insanity in 2020 didn’t test me as hard as that one day. ::shakes her head:: But I’m still here. I’m still standing. And I’m still fighting.

Weary

 written: January 14th

Photo for today:

My ADORABLE mini-stamps from the Sniggle Sloth arrived today. It’s a Canada Goose in flight and Sekhmet. I must admit, I was completely shocked when I saw they had a Sekhmet stamp. One doesn’t typically come across Sekhmet that often. Isis? Sure. Ra? Possibly. Even Anubis is more popular. Sekhmet is one of those who tends to not reside in the limelight. She could care less about popularity. ::chuckles::

I did my preliminary work on this moon’s New Moon Charm. I’m not pleased with it just yet. It seems.....very....unfinished. I’ll have to tweak it more. Once I get that figured out and settled, I’ll share a photo of that.

I’m still very much in survival mode in regards to work. I’m just so damn tired. Thus far, Quasi-Supervisor is playing very nicely. And as long as he’s civil, we can maintain this working relationship for as long as needs be.

Tired as Shit

And today.

Photo for today:

Annette made and sent me this awesome Canada geese stickers. I friggin’ LOVE them so much.

Yeah…so....today.
Soooooo many fucking meetings.
I had the story time by the park this morning. I had three people show up total. Two of those were the most un-enthusiastic kiddos I have ever met. I read one story and attempted one song before I just called it quits because they wanted NOTHING to do with the program. Hell, they weren’t even all that excited to go feed the ducks afterwards. ::shrugs:: Ya win some, ya lose some. At least it got me out of the library for an hour. ::chuckles::

Then it was into a meeting about our upcoming programs. Director sat in on that one, as it was between me and Quasi-supervisor. ::shrugs:: Honestly, he was really good today. And as long as he’s super civil, I can be super civil. And we can work together beautifully that way. But I’ll never trust him again. And we sure as shit won’t ever be pals. No matter how many meetings HR puts us through. That bridge has been burned to the ground and then the ground has been napalmed, and then salted for good measure.

Then it was a meeting about a new on-line platform we are using for reading challenges and a February reading challenge we are setting up to do. Honestly, I was nodding off during that. I was so exhausted. Having spent the past two days on the craziest emotional roller coaster I’ve endured in AGES, that’s to be expected.

I am still planning to apply to the other library.

The Shit Flies Off

 written: January 12th

So…Tuesday, January 12th

Photo for the day:

Fabulous Ms. Ravioli this morning.

So um yeah, to say that I wasn’t looking forward to coming into work today would be the understatement of the LIFETIME today. But hey, I gotta make that money. Plus, I gotta play my part, as I polish up my resume and apply to another library that’s offering starting pay that is almost double what I’m currently making.

Director and I ended up having an impromptu meeting because the HR lady had let her know that I had emailed her to let her know I was not pleased with how the meeting went. And honestly, I think that was the best thing. We were able to talk very openly and honestly. I was able to bring up a lot of things to her that I was really struggling with, what I felt went wrong in the meeting, and what I was needing.

She mentioned she was concerned that she would end up loosing one or both of us (meaning me and Quasi-Supervisor). And she got teary-eyed at that point.

So yeah, she sees some of shit Quasi-supervisor is doing – raining on my parade at times. I told her about the complete cluster-fuck the holiday-in-a-bag program was because he moved up the date on me, without telling me. That left me scrambling to assemble 200 bags, by myself, in a week’s time. I told her that damn near broke me.

I’m feeling better about it now. A 20 minute conversation with her was worth soooooo much more than the hour plus with the HR lady.

Shit Hits The Fan

 written: January 11th

I have a lot to catch up on, so I’m back-dating the next few entries to keep them in Chronological order.

Monday, January 11th

Photo for the day:

After the absolute SHIT day (we will be getting to that shortly), it was so awesome to come home and see that Mom’s long-lost Christmas package finally arrived. ::smiles::

So yeah. Today. Where to begin?
I was hoping the three days since we had worked together would have given Quasi-supervisor three days to cool down. Instead....I’m pretty sure he just sat and stewed over the whole situation as he was in an even more foul mood when I got to work than when he left all abrupt on Thursday. ::rolls her eyes:: Grow the fuck up. I can’t STAND man-tantrums.

So we go into our HR meeting at 3 pm. Which Director tells us she has to leave at 3:30 for physical therapy. That was my first red flag. No, wait. Quasi-supervisor’s shitty mood was Red Flag #1. Director saying she had to duck out early of the meeting SHE SCHEDULED was Red Flag #2. I should have said then and there that we should reschedule.

So, I went into this meeting, thinking it was going to address the serious disrespect on his part to communicating with me. And for him flat out ignoring me telling him TWICE not to use a specific cleaner because I’m allergic to it – that then trigger a massive allergic reaction. Yeah, we touched on that. Briefly.

It eventually spiraled into him basically playing the victim, and talking about what a White Knight he is, to be swooping in all the time to “help” out. Bitch, if you could actually schedule some shit properly, I wouldn’t be scrambling all the time to get things done at the last minute.

And then he casually brought up how he’s doing the video story-times because I “have reservations about being on camera”. I wish we weren’t wearing masks, because I wish the HR lady could have seen my face on that one. She was like “why isn’t {Wolfie} doing on-line story times?” And that smug lil shit was like “oh, well....I’ll let {Wolfie} explain that.” So I had to then explain that I have a psycho ex that acts like any video of me talking about ANYTHING is actually me sending him messages that I want him back. Talk about a fucking sucker punch out of left field that had absolutely NOTHING TO DO WITH A DAMN THING WE WERE TALKING ABOUT.

Basically....it was an hour about how we need to communicate better, how I need to manage time better, and how we can be a better team. HR has assigned me a time management class and has assigned him a leadership communication class. That’s it.

I went out to my car, completely unhinged. It has been AGES since I’ve been that emotionally volatile. That is also the absolute closest I have come to cutting in the 14 years since I last did any form of self-injurious behavior. It took me a solid 30 minutes to even become semi-rational again. What was the point of having a meeting about me not being listened to if they weren’t going to FUCKING LISTEN TO ME in the meeting???

So yeah, I basically used my lunch hour to get myself out of that very dangerous headspace and chain smoke until I was calm-ish. I emailed the HR director letting her know I wasn’t pleased with how that went. That I felt the point was lost in the whole meeting and that again, I felt like I was not being heard at all. And then I had to finish my work shift.

Driving home, I lost my shit again and was rage crying because that’s when I realized he deliberately brought up the shit about my psycho ex simply to pull the rug out from under me. It was a deliberate stab. And, honestly? I think all of his shit has been deliberate. Every. Single. Thing.

Poor David, he got to see me come almost completely unhinged again when I got home. I wasn’t as bad as I was right after the meeting, but I wasn’t too far off. Hell, even Josey came over to check on me because I couldn’t breathe I was crying so hard.

Beastie

Photo for Saturday:

Me, trying to get a visual handle on my various goals and create a workable time frame to accomplish said goals. Between my birthday goals and my 101 goals, I have a lot to get done! ::chuckles:: AND one of my goals is to break my goals down by the month so I’m more likely to accomplish them. ::smiles:: So here’s hoping!

Work was pretty chill. I wrote up a little blurb about our Rexie and posted it to our chat forum for the Library. It will earn me major brownie points with the super higher ups, plus I want to get as many people involved in this little project as humanly possible. I mean, it’s a great fun little thing – writing and receiving postcards from a Red Dino – but I also want it to be a wild success just so I can strut about it as well. ::chuckles:: Yes, yes, I am that petty still.

Photo for Today:

Ms. Ravioli enjoying her basking lamp. Yes, I do still have the bearded dragon. The plan was to meet up half-way and hand her off to my cousin this morning. But we were slated to get wintery mix all night and all day, so we decided yesterday to postpone it for safety reasons. So the plan now is that we will meet up next Sunday. So yeah, I get to enjoy the little beastie for a whole week now. I’m rather excited to be honest. I’ve never cared for a lizard before. Definitely a different personality than Leviathan.

I just have to remind myself, I don’t get to keep Ravioli. I’m only holding her until next Sunday. Can’t get too attached. But I can definitely see the appeal now of having a bearded dragon. I may have to get one in the future at some point.

I was supposed to do a virtual ritual with the Coven. But the high priestess said she had no real idea on a ritual to do. And I’m very much in the “if you don’t have a purpose for it, then why are we meeting” mood. I’m not one of those witches who feels the need to DO a ritual just for ritual sake. Just because it’s the full moon doesn’t mean I HAVE to do a ritual. Sometimes, the best ritual is just to BE. Just bask in the current energies and relax and ground and connect with yourself.

Which, I do need to do some reflection and figure out what this New Moon Wishing Charm will center around. I have a few days yet before I’m out of the New Moon, and I have a few concepts I’m kicking around. Nothing has crystalized just yet though. And I flat out refuse to push it right now. It feels so.....wrong....to even contemplate pushing it or forcing it. This one has to flow. ::shrugs::

Speaking of going with the flow…it’s awesome when you are contemplating something and the universe gives you a sign that it’s a good idea. I watched a video on making a Road Opener oil a few days ago, and one of the ingredients required is dried orange peel. I don’t currently have any of that and sure as hell don’t want to BUY that ingredient. So I figured I would buy some oranges eventually and use that for the oil. Saturday, as my coworker and I were hashing out some ideas about the Rex, she had two oranges that she proceeded to peel and toss away the rinds…into my trashcan. All I had to do was retrieve the best pieces and bam! I have dried orange peels. ::smiles:: Ask, and thou shalt receive.

Dragons

Today’s photo:

I came across these stickers while hunting for something else. They are TOTALLY going to be used for the Rex’s letters when she gets to writing those in February. It’s a sticker pack for educators, so I have a couple of sheets, so I have PLENTY to use. ::grins::

Other than that…today has been....interesting. So many things planned, and almost nothing went according to plan. But not in a bad way. Just not what I had planned.

I dropped off the books I had to donate to one of the after school programs that I’m still in contact with. I feel bad because it was only 4 or 5 books, but man, Darlene was SO grateful. I just wish I could do more. And that pisses me off. Because the after school program has FIVE supervisors – THEY should be doing better. ::shakes her head:: But man, I’m so glad I got out.

I’ve been helping Jayden, a coworker, find a new home for her bearded dragon. Turns out, Lauren, my cousin, is over the moon excited about getting her. So that turned into a long phone conversation with my mom to get all the information squared away (Mom was the go-between for me and Lauren, while I was the go-between for me and Jayden…just how it worked out). Which then turned into me going and picking up the bearded dragon and bringing her home. Which is NOT AT ALL what I had even remotely planned. But hey. I’ve got a dragon chillin’ in my room now. So yeah.

Now I’m seeing about setting up a time with Lauren to give her the dragon. If that doesn’t work out quickly, Mom and I may get together on Sunday and then Mom can take the dragon to Lauren. So yeah, lots of things in the works. And I’m rocking a headache. Not a major one. Just one that makes thinking and whatnot a bit slower for me.

But I did get all caught up on my daily art journaling. Quite a few of those, I’m rather pleased with how they’ve turned out.

Geese

We’ll start this off with my daily photo:

MY GEESE CAME BACK TODAY!!!!!!

Ok, so hold onto your butts as today was quite the roller coaster ride.
Today was the first day this WEEK that there were ZERO jackhammers being used at our Library. Do you know how straight up blissful that is? Yeah, the Library is undergoing some MAJOR renovations, so it’s just a quiet lull for now. Soon the construction will begin INSIDE. But for now. I am enjoying NOT having jackhammers going.

Our new story time, in which Rexie the dinosaur puppet actually TALKS (that would be me), went quite well. I actually had quite a bit of fun with it.

Then, I got an email from the HR lady, saying she’d be having her talk with quasi-boss at 2 pm. So yeah, anxiety spiked up to a 15 on a scale of 1 to 10. He already knew something was up and was rather pissy most of the morning. I just focused on deep breathing, rote counting, and making sure I did everything that I needed to do for my job requirements…and then some.

Yeah, he was in a right foul mood after that meeting. BUT, my Archer & Olive notebook for work arrived, so that was a massive plus. And then I took a late lunch to see that my geese, who have been MIA for over a week due to all the construction noise, were out waiting in the parking lot. So I rushed back in to get food for them and spent time out with my geesie friends.

And apparently now, our little idea of having the Rexie write a postcard to another plush mascot at another library has TAKEN OFF. Like MASSIVELY. I think we now have close to 20 libraries that want to join in on this. ::laughs:: So, Emily, Clarissa, and I are all totally geeking out over it and just all around giddy about the whole thing.

I talked with the HR lady after her talk with quasi-supervisor to go over how that went. She asked, and stressed that I was under ZERO pressure here to agree to it, if I would be open to having an open discussion between Me, Quasi-Supervisor, Director, and HR, to clear the air and the lay out the new work relationship and see if that can still work. I’m sure as shit not looking forward to it, but it needs to be done. And honestly, why put it off. So I agreed, and she said that Director would set up the time for that.

So while we Three Amigas were geeking out about the Rexie thing, Director came through. We have our meeting on Monday at 3 pm. She also talked to Dustin about it as well.

Then Dustin comes out of his office and says we need to keep him in the loop on the whole Rexie thing. But just yesterday he was calling it “girlie” IN A STAFF MEETING. So like, which is it? So I updated him on what we currently had going on.

And then he just left without saying anything to us, and slammed the door so hard on the way out. We just looked at each other. I didn’t want to say anything about the HR thing, but I did mention that I wasn’t sure what to tell him about the Dinosaur thing and what not to. Like I’m not trying to purposely exclude him, but he’s made it very clear he isn’t interested in it. Clarissa straight up said “Well, since he said it was girlie in the supervisor meeting yesterday, I don’t feel like we should have to update him on much of anything. He’s kind of decided that for himself.”

But yeah. He can continue being a fucking stick in the mud all he wants. I’m not going to let him rain on my parade. I am enjoying the FUCK out of my job right now and I’m not going to let him steal that from me.

Petty? Me? Naw

Photo from Tuesday:

Why, yes, I DID do a cute page on the Rexie puppet’s outfits in my journal. Why you may ask? Because my quasi-supervisor said the Rexie was “girlie” in one of the supervisor meetings. So yeah, I’m embracing the fuck out of this now. I’m going balls to the walls on this. If he wants to be a fucking stick in the mud, then he can be a stick in the mud. I don’t have to join him there.

I also had a meeting with HR about filing a formal complaint against him. So that is said and done now. Needless to say the HR lady was BLOWN away by what I had to say. And I was seriously pulling my punches and being extremely diplomatic. So now, it’s just the fun waiting game. Waiting for her to have a talk with my quasi-supervisor and then seeing what, if any, the fallout will be for me. She’s given me her cell phone number in case there is any fallout. She wants to know immediately.

I’m not sharing today’s photo. It has too much personal information and by the time I blot out of that out, you wouldn’t be able to tell what it was. ::chuckles:: But I got my first official business cards for the library today. My director was so embarrassed that it’s been this long to get them. She could have sworn they had ordered me some when they first hired me (ya know, a year ago), but apparently, they just MADE the order, never PLACED the order. And what know what a shitshow 2020 was. So yeah, that all just kind of got swept to the side. Oh well. Doesn’t matter, as I have them now. ::smiles:: And I’m rather pleased. Tomorrow, I’ll find one of the acrylic displays we have and put it out on the Youth Desk, so my business cards can be out there as well as quasi-supervisor’s.

Journals

Almost missed my photo for today! But I just snapped it, so we are good to go.

It’s my 5 “New Year’s Resolutions”. Very loose definition of resolutions there. More like affirmations. I read these out loud to myself every day because I really want these mind sets to stick.

I spent most of my lunch break working in my art journal. I forgot my lunch AND my prescription antihistamine, so there wasn’t a whole lot else for me to do. Thank god I still had my bottle of Benadryl in my bag, or I would have been so miserable.

But it was nice to print out some photos I wanted to put in my journal. Plus I got to show off the 8x8 Archer & Olive journal to Clarissa and Abby up at work. AND Abby told me that she went ahead and ordered the Archer & Olive journals for us at work. Woohoo! I can’t wait. So excited! So yeah, when that one gets here, that will bring my collection up to FOUR Archer & Olive journals.

Mini Sun

I guess I’m unofficially doing the 365 Photo challenge again this year. ::smiles:: So here’s today’s photo. A mini sun:

I really like dandelions. They are just such…happy flowers.

I called my Mom, just to get another perspective on the situation with my quasi-supervisor. She’s always a wealth of information. Me, I’m a dog with a bone. Once you’ve managed to piss me off, I just don’t let things go. And I’m bitten down and won’t let go…so it’s hard for me to see a different perspective.

My Mom is good at playing to my strengths while also helping me to find a less…nuclear…tacit with dealing with things. Seriously, I am truly blessed to have her in my corner. Because without her....I would be a friggin’ loose cannon 80% of the time.

She did point out that honestly, he’s just a big man-baby who’s also probably super threatened by me. He’s probably feeling really shitty about using the cleaning product that caused my major allergic reaction and he’s joking about it as a way to diffuse the tension – because he doesn’t know how to deal with the tension any healthy way. Plus, while he does have more experience working in a library, I have WORLDS more experience working with actual children than he does. Hell, I have twice as many years just in the after school program I just left than he does at the library. And I’ve been a co-director of a private school before that, and a Montessori teacher, and worked for a few other day care places as well. So yeah, he should feel threatened. ::chuckles:: Plus, my Mom pointed out that I have a rather “strong female personality” which could also rub him the wrong way as well.

So, for now, I am going to be the Serpent. I’m going to sit back, and watch. Mom suggested I just keep note of any shit he does or says that pushes my buttons. Then, if it continues, I can bring that to my Director’s attention. Plus, I’ll also tell quasi-supervisor that his comments are not ok. But yeah, other than that, I’m going to sit back, and let this little boy run himself ragged. I don’t have to chase him down. He’ll hang himself soon enough.

And, hilarious enough, my Mom suggested I “do what I do” to help quasi-boss find a “better job”. I had to chuckle out loud at that. Yeah, I can do that. This way I can keep the director I like, the coworkers I like, AND my Canada geese hoard.

Art and Tome

FINALLY able to deposit D’s check for half of the bills AND pick up my prescriptions today. I’ll need to talk to my bank at some point to see what’s up with the ATM about depositing checks.

I did a small video for two of my groups, showing off the Archer & Olive notebooks. I have a B5 (that I use as a grimoire), an A5 (that is my current Bullet Journal), and now an 8x8 Square (that is my art journal for 2021). The video turned out kind of crappy because of Facebook being shitty. I’ll probably just end up doing some photos to compare the sizes better since that was distorted the most in the video. But, I’m still proud of myself for at least trying to do it.

I painted my cover page for the art journal. It’s a blue sun with 2021 also written in blue. I’m happy that my paints, that haven’t been touched in ages, still work. The page doesn’t feel done yet. Once it’s done, I’ll share a photo of it then.

For now, here’s a photo of what I’m currently reading:

It’s The Devil’s Tome: A Book of Modern Satanic Ritual, by Shiva Honey. It’s even autographed. I should do a spread in one of my journals, listing all the books that I have, that are autographed by their authors. I don’t have a huge collection, but I have a nice beginning.

Anyways, The Devil’s Tome is seriously stretching my brain. It’s about non-theistic ritual use in Satanism. I love that the author uses scientific papers to back up the positive impacts of rituals, regardless of “religious intents”, on participants. She makes a great case for the fact that ritual does not require supernatural or deity belief to still have a powerful and positive impact on the participant’s life/psyche.

I strongly suspect some of this is going to find its way into my personal practice. Plus, some might find its way into any Coven rituals I’m put in charge of writing and leading. ::rubs her paws together:: Could prove to be quite fun.

Day 01

Well, I ended up taking my angry lil ass to bed last night at 11 pm. I was still extremely pissed about work stuff and felt it wasn’t right to continue to inflict my grumpiness on my husband.

And then I slept until 1 pm today. Apparently fighting off this allergy attack is EXHAUSTING my body. Which is probably compounding my grumpiness. ::chuckles::

Instead, I am taking a page from one of my dear, long-time friends, and wrote a few things on my FaceBook account that I’m grateful for. Jennifer K. has been doing that daily for a few years now, and honestly, I look forward to reading those every day. So I think it might be a good thing for me to add to my own writings.

It’s been a lovely, quiet day here at home. I did get around to finally making my Van Van Oil today. All that’s left is to shake it and empower it daily for the next 31 days.

Here’s what it looks like right now:

I can’t wait to see what it looks like on day 31.

In the course of gathering up all the supplies I needed, I have come to realize that I have GOT to organize my witch supplies better. I came across all sorts of things that I had completely forgotten I had!

Hopefully, tomorrow, while I’m out and about running various errands, I can run by the Dollar Tree, and pick up some cheap baskets and bins. I can use those to begin getting some sort of grip on organizing my herbs, oils, and essential oils. I also need to create some tracker spreads in my grimoire and most likely my bullet journal as well, as to what supplies I do have.

And to finish off this entry, a photo of me and Josey pup. ::smiles::

I hope 2021 is a kinder year to us all.