Acorn Assault

I was just assaulted by an acorn!  There really is nothing quite like having a massive acorn drop down about 10 - 12 feet to strike you in the chest to really wake you up.  And leave it to an acorn the size of my thumbnail to remind me, "Hey!  You are outside.  The weather is GLORIOUS!  THIS is what matters.  You are spending too much time up in your head instead of bathing in the beauty that is a damn nearly perfect Texas autumn day!"

New Moons tend to make me more introspective, as does autumn in general.  So yeah, I have been spending too much time up in my head, ignoring everything else that is going on around me.  I have been simultaneously obsessing and avoiding anything to do with my Grad School application.  ::laughs::  All that is left is to finish up my resume and SUBMIT and it's done.  And yet, I am panicking at the massive change this will signal in my life and just avoiding it.  But at the same time, I have already paid the $75 application fee and I am way too frugal to just "let that go".  I mean, SEVENTY-FIVE dollars!  And when you are making what I am making (less than $20k a year), that is a BIG deal.  So yes, I will get it done, but I am just flailing around right now to process.  Yeah, because I don't adult very well sometimes.  ::laughs::

But luckily, I do not have very much left to do.  The hardest part is stream-lining my resume.  The original reads like a damn novel because I wanted to include all my major job duties from almost 20 years of work experience.  Needless to say, I am culling that out quite a bit.  And, not every single one of my duties in my past jobs have any sort of application to my graduate degree, so I can leave those off. 

Honestly, I just work better if I have a pen in my hand and paper in front of me.  Call me old school, but I don't really care for trying to do this all on the computer.  I wish I had the set up in my room to have a printer.  Then I would just print this stuff out and scribble all over it to my heart's content.  I feel I do a better job that way.  And hell, all those papers I wrote for my under-grad degree -- the rough drafts were all HAND-written.  Yes, even the 12 page TYPED research paper on shape-shifters was originally hand written.  ::laughs::

I haven't really been spending a lot of time on my genealogy either, which is shocking -- given how obsessed I was in the beginning.  I would like to print some of the various photos from my ancestors to use in my Samhain observation.  Maybe once I get my resume completed and everything submitted for the Grad Application, I can start working on that. 

A dear friend of mine confided that Samhain is one of her least favorite Sabbats of the Witches' Year and I felt the overwhelming need to agree with her.  Completely out of the blue.  And I had to stop myself.  She isn't going to care if I adore Samhain.  She isn't going to stop talking to me just because I feel the opposite of her on this Sabbat.  It is completely ok to have a difference of opinion.  We aren't attempting to sway the other.  Just merely stating our individual stances on the Sabbat.  That is the type of disagreement I like.  A difference in opinion that doesn't escalate into a "I'm right, You're wrong" argument.

As for me, Samhain is a time to honor the dead.  Other than a handful of ancestors I directly know and a handful of friends that have passed on, none of the other deceased are welcomed with open arms into my home that night.  I have no problem tipping my hat to them all in acknowledgement.  But I won't set out a plate specifically for them.  I typically put the jack-o-lantern out on the balcony with a small offering of food for any Spirits wandering that night.  I invite specific Spirits into my ceremony. But after that, they are to return to wherever they were before.

And for me, Samhain is mostly a day of fun.  It's a day to dress up.  To play harmless pranks.  To hang out with the living and celebrate life.  It's a day to rejoice in the fact that the sweltering hot Texas summers are starting to come to a close.  It's a day to celebrate the coming cooler weather.  I get excited just thinking about it!