Solo

written: February 06

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I received this AMAZING postcard from Germany via Postcrossing. And the person who sent it to me even works with the wild wolves in Germany! Too friggin’ cool!

You know you are completely out of it when you realize at 6 pm that you never took your thyroid medication OR anti-depressant. You know, things you do FIRST thing in the morning? ::shakes her head:: Yeah, still suffering from The Crud. But I did make it to the F. Library and had a pretty decent morning. First hour was my “special project” – weeding the picture books. Second hour was down in the Teens room with Courtney. Third hour was the Teens room on my own. While in the Teens room, I got to work on another “special project” – tagging books that are in a series with the number they are in the series. I don’t understand why authors/publishers don’t do this. It makes the reader’s life SO MUCH EASIER. But yeah, so I was putting number tags on various books in there for a while. Then, for the last 15 minutes or so, I just looked at books. I have a few now that I’ve put on my To Read List. I re-found Carrie Ryan’s series, The Forest of Hands and Teeth and now I really want to re-read it. Which, looking on Amazon, apparently Mrs. Ryan has added some more books and short-stories to the series. That’s going on my Wish List and hopefully in the fall I can start reading through them all again.

I need to re-do my schedule for my Practicum hours again. There is just no way I can do 14 hours of Practicum time on top of the after school program AND course work. I was beyond insane when I wrote that. ::laughs:: I really think I thought I could do that. I mean, the anti-depressant I’m on has given me an entirely new lease on life and I actually can keep up with normal people for the most part now. But holy hell, it isn’t speed. ::laughs::

And honestly, my work life and my down time really have to balance out, or I go spiraling down in a blaze of glory. The anti-depressant allows me to DO more, for sure. But I still have to have a balance of sorts, or I will crash and burn. So right now, I’m figuring out what that balance is between Practicum hours, work hours, school work hours, and down time. I’m sure I’ll have to do the same thing again when I get a library job. I know I’m not the only one who struggles with this, and it’s nice to know it isn’t “just me”. That I’m not just being a wimp and just need to suck it up and try harder. I do need to push myself at times. But I can’t do that all the time. My mental health just plummets when I push too far and too hard. I’m slowly learning how far is safe to push it, how long it will take for me to “rest and recharge” from pushing it, and how far is too far. All great fun things to figure out in your late 30’s! ::laughs::

The Crud

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BABY BROCCOLI! My lil broccoli plant is finally beginning to make broccoli. I am so excited.

Well, the headache from last night morphed into The Crud today. I dunno if it’s just allergies or if it’s a cold. I just hope it’s not the flu that’s going back around. I guess I should get the flu shot – it’s just that I don’t react well to vaccines, so I really don’t enjoy getting them. ::sighs:: I also have an issue with PAYING to feel like crap for a few days. But I guess it’s better than GETTING the flu. ::grumbles:: I wish my body would just play nice on normal things already. But at least the headache didn’t come back today.

The garnet chips that I love so much have come back into stock on Sage Goddess. They are only $4 for an ounce of them and I would love nothing more than to fill up the jar I have for them. I’m really debating on buying some more. I didn’t care for the free gift today (tumbled South African Sugilite). Maybe tomorrow’s free gift will be more inspiring. ::chuckles::

Postcard Art

written: February 04

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A very cool, hand-made postcard from Leida that I received today. My first, official LetterMo letter that I’ve received in the month of February.

Well, apparently summer has hit Texas. We hit 81 degrees today. Beautiful, but man, it was hot when I took Josey for a walk. At least the students got to stay out extra-long today. That was a serious blessing.

Circe & Pen Pals

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I found the MOST FABULOUS postcards today at Michael’s. And they were only $2 each! They are metallic and just all around awesome. I can’t wait to start mailing these out.

So if my dreams from last night are any indication, I think I’m on the right path again Spiritually. I dreamt all about being a witch and shapeshifting and changing the shapes of animals and controlling animals and all of that – all of which is under the domain of Circe. So I’m taking that as a good sign; that she’s heard the praises and the outreach I’ve been doing towards her, and that she’s receptive to it. Yay! Now to continue doing this and to see if she starts giving direction on what she prefers in the realm of working together.

Which, apparently the first step towards working together is for me to par down my plethora of “witchy stuff”. In the dream, I could barely move around my house (though it wasn’t my actual house) due to ALL THE STUFF I had. So yeah, I was already planning on clearing some stuff out, and I’m guessing Circe is telling me to give a move on that already. ::chuckles:: Hell, I think I’ve done really good not buying any new stuff, especially since Sage Goddess is down at the Tucson Gem and Mineral show, and she does “hey buy something today and get this free item” every day that she is down there.

LetterMo is going strong. I’m going to need to order some more of the stickers I had made up, as I’ve been going through them like crazy. It’s only February 3rd, and apparently I’ve already sent out 20 letters. ::laughs:: It’s easy when I have typed up my intro letter, so all I have to do is sign my name and mail it out. Once I start getting responses, then I’ll get back into the hand-writing aspect of it.

I made the mistake of going through the introductions on the LetterMo website. I’ve now sent out a pack of new friend requests. So I will probably be adding even more people to my letter list. ::laughs:: But I’m hoping to get some international pen pals out of it as well – one in South Africa and one in Wales. The one in Wales has already accepted my friend request, so I have a letter ready to go tomorrow to her.

Incense Plans

written: February 02

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Josey pup in her “Frog Dog” pose. ::laughs:: I also call this her “Seal Puppy” pose or her “Yoga Dog” pose. My silly ass pit bull.

I forgot to mention that yesterday was also World Serpent Day. Typically, I would try to get a good photo of Leviathan, but given that she was in her blue stage to begin the shedding process, I opted not to disturb her. In the blue stage, the snake’s eyes take on a milky blue coloration as the outer layer of the skin begins to separate from the newer layer underneath, and she is essentially blind at that point. Which, understandably, makes her very skittish and nervous. She did end up shedding around midnight last night, so I hope to get some nice photos of her in her fresh new skin soon.

I bought two of the herbs I need for my Banishing Incense that I received in a dream. Paycheck wasn’t much this go around, so I am having to space out buying the supplies. I mean, I could technically buy it all right now, and just toss it on one of my credit cards. But I’m trying really hard to get that under control and pay those off as swiftly as I can. So instead, I’m spacing it out, and buying what I can, when I can. Besides, no need to rush it. I’d rather take my time and gather the supplies with intention.

Witchy Flash of Inspiration: I should create a sigil specifically for this incense. I could set up a special working altar just for this incense. I could charge the items as I get them on top of the sigil. It would build quite a bit of power/energy in the items, as I slowly gather them up. It would probably be a good idea to put that same sigil on the jar(s) that I end up keeping the incense in. Just to keep that energy going.

While I was given this incense in a dream to banish my Psycho Ex, but I think it will be an incense/powder that will be used for just about any sort of banishing. I dunno if this is something I will be sharing with others at a later date or not. Guess I’ll wait and see how it works out for me. Maybe at that point, the Spirits/Deities who gave it to me will let me know.

Other than that, I paid bills. I wrote a few more letters for LetterMo. I’m slowly setting up the pages for February’s BaBuJo (bastardized bullet journal). I need to wrap up January’s pages. Hell, I need to start working in Leida’s journal. I haven’t done a damn thing in it yet. ::chuckles:: Me, forever the procrastinator.

Imbolc

written: February 01

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An awesome Imbolc package I received from Annette. She seriously finds THE COOLEST things ever. I need to step up my witch game here! ::chuckles::

First official day of LetterMo. Though I must admit, I’ve already mailed out a few letters to international buddies, so hopefully those letters will arrive before the month ends.

Payday was today, and it wasn’t an overly great one. But this should be the last one with the Winter Break on it, so hopefully the next one will be much better. Originally, I was planning to pick up another top for the library job, but I’ll have to really price hunt. Gotta keep it cheap this go around.

I didn’t work the F. Library this morning. It was so amazing to sleep in an extra hour and get up when my husband did. It was also amazing to have the time to leisurely take a hot shower and goof around on the internet. ::smiles:: I miss my mornings of ME time. Just a few more months of this crazy schedule, and then I should only have one job to juggle.

I finally wrote my Practicum Goals.
1. Learn how to create and implement community enrichment classes/programs
2. Learn how to best serve our patrons
3. Network with other librarian professionals
There are 3 steps under each one of these goals that breaks down how I plan to achieve these goals. I’ve submitted this and the January log of Practicum hours to my professor. So whoohoo for being done with this week’s assignments. I have one assignment due next Friday for the Resources class. I’ve got 90% of the reading done for it, so I just need to finish that up and do the assignment itself.

The high priestess of the TOK Coven sent out an email today about Imbolc that really resonated with me. It talked about having daily spiritual practice and that Imbolc is a key time to do yearly re-commitments to your path/practice. And it just resonated with me, as on my drive to my lil hometown this past weekend, I just spontaneously started saying a quick little prayer to Circe (a new-to-me deity/half-titaness) each time I saw a hawk. Just a quick little hello and offering up some praise. I figured that was a good way to peak her interest and to start off a new relationship on a good foot. Honestly, I should find a trigger for me doing the same for Sekhmet and the Harpies. And I need to get back into the habit of doing that as well. It’s time for me to start putting in the effort again.

I guess, because it all seemed to come so naturally to me, that I never did have to really put in any effort. And now, I’m being taught to stop taking it for granted. I need to start working at it again. I am pretty sure that’s the message behind the radio silence I have been experiencing here recently.

Invited to Lunch

written:  January 31

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A very cool gift from Sorrow (a pen pal). She included it in today’s letter, saying that she had some fabric laying around and decided to make this for me. She even made sure to put a “feather” on it for me. ::smiles:: It’s a table runner, but I think it will be a good altar cloth.

Library was beyond boring today. I did an hour-and-a-half of weeding and then watched one of the story times that I’ve already seen. ::sighs:: At least it was performed by a different librarian, so there was some change. But seriously, boring, boring, boring. But hey, I’ll take boring as long as it gets me the hours I need for my Practicum.

But one cool thing that happened today – the Children’s Librarian, Courtney, that I spent most of my first day with, invited me out to lunch. Sucks that I had to turn her down because I already have to do a mad dash to get home in time to eat lunch and make it to the after school program on time. And, I was genuinely bummed that I wasn’t able to go to lunch with her. I really like Courtney and enjoy any time I work with her. I want her level of confidence in her job. It’s a quiet, steady, no frills, no flashy look-at-me, level of just confidence. She knows her library. She knows her job. And she’s good at it. I hope to be like that in a few years.