Anniversary

Photo for the day:

 

Josey, worshiping the space heater. ::chuckles:: I have to turn it down or off at times because she’ll lay right there until she’s bright pink. ::laughs:: Crazy ass dog.

Today started bright and early with a text from my mom…letting me know that Aunt Kathy passed away earlier this morning. Her health had been horrible for a while now and the doctors had only given her a few months to live. Yeah well, ain’t no man telling Aunt Kathy what she can and cannot do. She passed away in her sleep. I am sad that I wasn’t able to see her before she passed. And mom told me that Aunt Kathy wanted to be cremated and no service, so I’m not sure what will be done. Uncle Jake and mom are going to talk to the funeral home tomorrow, so we’ll know more after that.

On a less depressing note, happy 8th anniversary to my husband and I! Hard to believe we’ve made it 8 years married, 10 total years together. We did dinner last night at Red Lobster, so we opted to keep today low-key. We snagged ice cream from Marble Slab again. So damn delicious. Me, I kept it simple – vanilla ice cream with rainbow sprinkles and white chocolate chips. David went with birthday cake ice cream with Oreos and chocolate chip cookie dough. It was SO packed in there. And then a family of like 40 showed up and I could wait to get out of there fast enough. The shop is only big enough for probably 20 people total.

Pluto & Oils

So apparently Pluto was being a right cunt yesterday, hence the crazy emotional crap I was going through:



And given that the vast majority of my planets (in my astrological chart) are in Scorpio…and Scorpio is ruled by Pluto….when Pluto is being a little bitch, it wreaks HAVOCK on me.

But now that Pluto has gone direct once again, all of that can mellow back out. Thank god.

Photo for the day:

 

My bottle of Samhain scented oil arrived today from Sage Goddess. At first whiff, I was so incredibly disappointed. It’s almost too damn sweet – pumpkin and ginger and sugar. I decided to test it out today before making my final decision. After about 30 minutes of the sugary sweet aroma, it really mellowed out into something deeper and less sweet. I almost kind of like it. I’ll wear it a few more times before making my final decision on it.

BUT. It reminds me now that I should not purchase any of Sage Goddess’s perfume oils unless I have received a sample of it AND like said sample. No more just ordering because it sounds interesting. ::shakes her head:: Yeah, Lioness was AWFUL and Samhain? While not quite AWFUL…it ain’t all that great either. So I’m thinking the month of October, I’ll focus on testing out the ass ton of samples I have from Sage Goddess and noting which ones I like AND which ones I do NOT. I made a spreadsheet for all the ones that I currently have, so I’ll just add notes to that as I go.

Tomorrow is Hubs & I’s EIGHTH wedding anniversary (TEN years together total, if you count our year of dating and year of engagement). We celebrated a little bit early and did dinner at Red Lobster. So delicious. Tomorrow we plan to go pick up two buntlets at Nothing Bundt Store – one Red Velvet and one Confetti. ::smiles:: Looking forward to that.

Thankful Thursday #39

Photo for today:



Raindrops on roses. ::smiles::

I received my 300th postcard from Postcrossing today:



Woohoo! It’s from Lithuania.

I am thankful…
1. Our new aide, Alexia, started yesterday AND she has prior work experience with children. Sweet baby cheesus, it’s a damn MIRACLE. Thus far, she seems to fit in very well AND knows what she is doing.
2. Glorious rain that finally fell, after days of oppressive heat and humidity.
3. Received my 300th postcard today. Makes me happy.
4. Truly beautiful Mabon altar and celebration I had on Monday. I’m glad I pushed it from Friday to Monday – I feel it made all the difference in the world.
5. That I am still holding strong to my vow not to engage in self-injurious behavior. The compulsion has picked back up here recently, but thus far, it’s just the desire. No real impulse to act on it.
6. That the Last Unicorn Tarot kickstarter is doing so well. It would be nice if we hit the $100K mark, as I would love a special card signed by Peter S. Beagle.
7. Domino’s pizza for dinner – I really didn’t feel like cooking, so I was thrilled when David suggested it.
8. Practicing various forms of self-care in hopes of alleviating this damn depression. Though, to be honest, I think it’s just going to linger until my MoonTime.
9. Remembering that I need new tires BEFORE I can get my car inspected. Would suck to drive all the way down to my lil hometown, only to fail the inspection. ::laughs:: Well, it wouldn’t be a complete bust, as I would get to see my mom. So yeah, four new tires coming up!
10. Got the maternal grandfather’s Family Tree of Ancestors up – all 80 pages pieced together, makes for a family tree that is 4.5 feet TALL and 11.25 feet LONG. The other branches of ancestors are much smaller.
11. For my massive bedroom and that I have a solid 16 feet of wall space on which I can easily (ish) hang up said massive family tree.

Yeah, it was rough getting through this list of thankfuls. My mind just isn’t playing nice currently. But I am glad that I pushed through and wrote it. Hell, even came up with an extra one for shits-n-giggles.

Storms

written: Sept 27th

Photo for the day:



The impending storm, slowly coming in. I lit a stick of “Sea Glass” incense (by DazeyMae Treasures) for the Harpies. I’m still seeking the aroma that keeps them happy. They seem “happy enough” with just about anything I offer them…but I would rather find something they REALLY like. Maybe a coffee incense – given that they requested that as the sacrifice in our very first deal?

Either way, the storm came in. Just steady rain. But still, enjoyable rain. Josey thought I had lost my damn mind, as I was standing out in it. But gods, I needed that.

Ancestors

Photo for the day:



Holy Ancestor Tree, Batman! And this isn’t even all of my ancestors! This is just the branch of my maternal grandfather’s side. ::chuckles:: EIGHTY pages…roughly 11.25 feet long and 4.5 feet tall. Yeah, that took more than a hot minute to piece it all together and get it up on the wall. The plan now, is over Winter Break, to correct the errors that I know are there and gather as much information on each ancestor as I can. (If we are being honest, I’ll be fucking proud if I just correct the errors…the rest of that is extremely ambitious).

I am not doing ok, mentally, at the moment. I know it’s mostly stress related….and hormonal related. ::sighs:: Doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck any less just because I know what is causing me to bottom out.

Luckily our new aide, Alexia, is supposed to start tomorrow. I was talking it over with Jessica – that it’s going to suck for the next month….because I’ve got to train Alexia now. ::sighs:: But hopefully, once I get her caught up, I can turn my full attention onto Jesse and whip his lil ass into shape. And if not? Well, then, I will be happy to shuffle him off to a new campus. I do not give a flying fuck at this point. In theory, we also have ANOTHER aide waiting for clearance. She was formerly a school crossing guard for the district. So maybe I shouldn’t even bother too much with Jesse, as I’m pretty damn sure he’s already in the process of being moved off my campus anyways. Gail’s hinted at that being the reason why I’m getting the second aide…but we’ll see.

Blessed Mabon

Blessed Mabon! I’m just a few days “late”, but damn, look at how amazing my altar turned out:



With the lights on:

 

Going from left to right:

Deer antler (shed)
Leaf candle holder with a Black Candle (for the waning year)
Galaxy Coyote skull
Silver candle holder with an Owl feather (symbol for the waning year)
Roses from my rosebush
Gold candle holder with a Hawk feather (symbol for the waxing year)
Mabon Candle from Bella de Luna
Mabon incense from Divine Scentsations
Buffalo bone bowl with acorns, a “baby” pinecone, and two sweetgum pods
Another deer antler (shed)
Leaf candle holder with a White Candle (for the waxing year)
My athame

Inspiration also from that 2015 Mabon, Nicky (a very good friend) had talked about how in her Coven’s Mabon, each participant was told to draw two Tarot cards – one of the year past and one for the year ahead. I elected to use my Messenger Oracle by Ravynn Phelan.



For the year past I drew “Time to Reflect” and for the year ahead I drew ”Hear the Ancients”.

One final shot of my Mabon Altar:

Updated Wolf Altar & Mabon in the Works

written: Sept 24th

Photo for today:



Just a photo of my updated “Dream Wolf Altar Territory”. The new goddess statue fits in quite nicely.
I set up my Mabon Altar today and I am REALLY liking the way it’s turned out. I can’t wait for my celebration tomorrow. Given that I’ve had to skip or seriously gloss over previous rituals/celebrations, I am really going all out of this one. Holy crap, the altar is stunning. I gained quite a bit of inspiration from my 2015 Mabon Altar, so some of that symbolism will be carried over. I really need to sit down and go through ALL my photos and pull out all the altar photos from over the years. I need to print those out and add them to my working Grimoire/Almanac. It’s just a massive task and I haven’t gotten around to it. One of these days….

I finished up my essay for class today. And there are NO readings this week. He’ll be giving us our Midterm essay questions on Wednesday. We’ll have two weeks to work on that before we have to turn it in.