Big Ass Weekend!!!!

So it's been a great Memorial Day weekend. It started off on Friday when we came home, had dinner and I filled Avon orders. I got my new Avon pin for selling over 500 dollars worth of Avon in just two campaigns. It's so fun. I can't tell you how strange it is to be an Avon lady when I can remember wanting to be one when I was a little kid and the happy recipient of those little lipstick samples my mom would get with her orders back then. In those days they were in little white tubes and you could clearly read their names on the bottom There were also fragrance samples, but what I remember most are the lipsticks. Anway, the merit pin was fun. Thank the Goddess that my husband discouraged me from wearing it to the movie we went to later! Ha ha ha! I was excited to get it and had a moment of duffessness when I thought it would look cool to wear it to the movies! WTF? A big-ass Avon pin in gold....just as an ornament! Not at a convention! Or even to deliver orders, but to a movie! Now you gotta be a dyed-in-the wool convert for something like that. Anyway, I saw the light very quickly and avoided that bit of embarrassment - and saved him as well. So we then went to see X-Men III - I have to say that I was kind of disappointed. It really wasn't as good as I was expecting it to be. But I refused to read a review on it before it came out. X-Men is something I hae to judge for myself. Anyway, it was great to go to it on its opening night, even if our tickets were for the 11:30 show! We didn't even get home 'til almost 2:00

Then Saturday we got up at a decent hour and my husband went to his favoritie Toy store, the Harbor Freight Tools in Everett. I hung out with Andrea the daughter - then we did the grocery shopping - big job....and we got a movie (that sucked), but it was still a pretty good day. The husband was working on his truck most of the evening, and then my son and his wife came over for a while.

The next morning my hubby got up and went off to the autocross practice in Bremerton. Shortly after that, I took Andrea to the last session of her driving school with what must be the most dufus ass instructor I've ever encountered.....but at least she has her permit and has passed her written driving test. So .... then she came home and was sitting there all bored and stuff....and her sister-in-law came over. :) I made us some vodka crans (not the 16 year old, but me and the 25 year old) and we all three sat around and talked and had a great afternoon. We played with Avon a little....looked through the catalogs and I did my daughter-in-law's makeup. Here are some before and after pics.




Polly Before


I gave her a choice between "going out at night" make-up a and a day look. Polly chose the day look and here's what we came up with. Not that we didn't have absolutely lovely material to work with already, but she did look absolutely beautiful with some under eye concealer, some pressed powder, a light bronzer on her cheeks and some neutral colored eyeshadow with a touch of Heaven Blue on the sides. She also had berry lipliner and a color shine mauve on her lips. She looked just beautiful. The pictures don't do it justice. Not to mention the fact that we had to wait until my camera batteries charged so I could take the "after" picture.




Shortly after that, my husband returned from his auto-cross practice, and I made chicken curry for everyong. My son came over to pick up the Polly, as she had had a bit to drink, but by the time they left, everything was just fine and she drove on her own.

So today I got up and went to the AutoCross (not practice) with my husband. To my great surprise, my son, Tim Allen, turned up to go with us! I couldn't have been more surprised or grateful. Surprised because he never comes to anything it seems, and grateful because he kept me excellent company while my husband was going about his autocross business. It was a wonderful day, albeit very long. From the time we left the driveway until we got home it was nine and a half hours! When we got home, my son took my husband 4-bying. They aren't home yet and it's 10:00 p.m. Great way to spend a weekend. I sure loved talking to my son for as long as I did. It was wonderful. I really have no idea when the last time was we even sat down and had a conversation that lasted ten minutes. much less roughly 7 hours. He's come out to be a great guy. I also enjoyed hanging out with Polly and Andrea. It's been a great weekend of reconnecting with my kids and I've loved it. As I type these words. Polly is sitting over in the big chair and Andrea is sitting next to me on the couch as the X Men II movie plays on the DVD player.

Well....happy Memorial Day weekend to all who read this. This one has definitely been one that I've been remembering the things that are important. Those who are here with me and living and lovin today. I know that my ancestors are important and this is a day to honor them....but what better way to honor your ancestors than to honor their progeny?

Let's see what next week brings.

Bright Blessings to all who read this.

Asradel

X-MEN III IS OUT TODAY!!!!!!

Wooo Hooo! I can't wait. I'm going to a late show this evening. I do not think I can possibly wait until tomorrow. I love the X-Men movies and this one promises to be the ever-lovin' shiz-nitz baby! Too bad I don't have some Wolverine attire to wear. It's like I told the husband, though...I'd probably just wind up lookin' like Freddy Krueger with a fucked-up hair cut. Oh well. I guess I'll leave the Wolverine'in to Hugh Jackman, that sexy hunka stuff there....and well, there are going to be many many moments of "oooooooo" and "ahhhhhh" during this movie, I just KNOW IT! I wasn't this exited about any release of any of the three LOTR movies. I just think I like the characters better, ya know? They are all fucked up in addition to being super-mutants. We got the oober-Christer dude who can teleport his ass all over the place, but has blue skin and sharp teeth....alrighty then....and we've got the chick who can kill people just by touching them, but how much would THAT suck. Geezuz! Talk about no way to please yourself but BY yourself...that's pretty sad. And then, of course, there's the dude who can armor himself like a pill-bug and walk through walls.

And of course.....well....we know that Jean Gray will be back with this 3d iteration and oooooo-la-la.....

Oh! Oh! and then there's that crazy self-absorbed teenager who can turn the Earth into a blazing inferno....and then there's the ultimate bad guy....Magneto....now THAT sum-bitch is a cool dude. I hear that in X-III, he moves the Golden Gate bridge and wraps it around something or throws it at something....Wow! I can't wait to get out of here and get into a movie line!

That's pretty much the focus of my day....waiting for the ability to go see X-III. I don't even know what else we have planned for the weekend. Not that it much matters....I DO know that I am going to go and watch my huzband drive his car around a lot of cones on Monday....but Saturday and Sunday can be spent in a lazy haze....

Happy Memorial Day Weekend to Everyone out there!

Hope it's a good one for you and whatever you want you get lots of!

Az

Big Day

Husband had his wisdom teeth removed this morning- I took him there and stayed with him - he had the easiest extraction of anyone I've ever known or heard of. He was in and out and had four of them extracted in 40 minutes. Gotta be some kinda record. Well, after that we went and got his Percocet and antibiotics prescriptions filled and then we came home. We both slept for a while then I left at 3:00 to meet my witch sister and friend, Iris at Travelers in Seattle. I had a really lovely time. She is such a wonderful person and I really miss seeing her since circmstances changed and seeing her is such a rare event. Anyway we had a wonderful time of sharing. She bought me dinner at an Indian restaurant a few blocks from Travelers and and just had the best time talking. I had to leave all too soon though so I could come home and take Kristopher to the Thesis exhibition of our friend Jaime Forero who was graduating this art photography class that has taken him six years to get done with. Then we went over to a great little bar in Ballard that we've been to several times before. I'll get some pictures of that place up here soon. My friend JenBaby takes pics all the time at places like the Last Supper Club and the other clubs she goes to. I don't see why I couldn't take a few of this place. Anyway...I'll pile the camera in the car the next time we go there.

I'm going to bed pretty soon, but I wanted to check in and officially thank the God and Goddess for such a wonderful day. I think blogging is a good way to do it too. If the Lady or Lord wants to use you as an example for someone, well, they dan do so with a website. ;)

Bright blessings, and good night,

Asradel

What's Happenin? A Revelation of Sorts....

So it's officially the middle of May and the sun is out and it's damn hard to come in to work every day. However, I am reminded of the fact that I have a cushy job where I can keep long, manicured fingernails and where I get to hang out with people who bathe regularly, etc... That is a good thing, in my estimation. Also, I am much less in debt these days thanks to a refinancing of our house - a very good move indeed.

However, last night as I was standing at the gas pump filling my 1994 Saturn's 12 gallon tank and watching the meter tick over to 33.33 (a most auspicious number in and of itself - witchy friends who are reading this should ponder that a moment), I had a sort of revelation if you will. The crux of that moment of clarity and long vision showed me that economically things in this country are going to get much much worse before they get better. It was a crazy moment of being able to see where prices were going and why. I tell you now....we are in for a helluva ride. We have only begun to see the edges of how high prices are going to get. The fuel prices are going to be echoed in every corner of the market very soon, and it's scary. The great depression of the 1930s caught people by surprise, and, though the Federal Reserve has made provisions so that there will not be a run on banks like there was during that time, they have not been able to compensate for everything. I for one am going to react to my vision in the following ways:

1) Not going to make any major purchases that obligate me for long-term payments unless it is real estate or unimproved land for at least the next 2 years.

2) Going to cut the extra spending in half and increase the amount of money that I keep in my 401K plan. While there is some risk associated with the 401K, it will have my money growing rather than sitting still, and I can take the tax break on that money.

3) Going to listen to my husband and stock up on dry goods as emergency rations for food, etc.....

Lately my husband has gotten on a jag abou emergency preparedness - now while I do not subscribe to the theory of complete governmental or political breakdown, my vision at the gas pump has me thinking that there is going to be some form of societal storm to ride out. So, I'm gonna play along with him and that way I know that if the bottom drops out, we will at least have beans and rice to live on if we need to.

For those of you who are reading this, I'm not trying to scare anyone. I fact, I only shared the vision I had with my daughter, and that only because she was in the car when I had it. It was only a moment and it wasn't concrete enough for me to describe in terms like the Book of Revelation or anything - only a tremendous feeling of certainty and brief moment of clarity. If you are reading this blog, maybe it was because you were meant to as well. So that you could prepare yourself by stopping extraneous spending and tryign to get yourself into a state of preparedness. That never hurts anyway. Did you know that I heard that the Mormons believe that if the man of the household has not provided for back-up emergency food for his family for at least one year, he is being remiss in his duty to his family and to the church? Yep. One more thing the Mormon's threw in that actually has value.

Okay then....I don't have any pictures to go with this post. I don't know what I would put up anyway unless it was a gas pump with a big Jesus streak behind it.

Bright Blessings to all who read this,
Asradel

Banks are the Axis of Pure Evil and TGIF

Okay... I'm a fairly reasonable person and normally am pretty fair-minded about businesses making their money - but right now my ass is chapped to an exponential degree because my ass-clown bank decided to rear-rape me for $280 in insufficient funds charges. Was my account deficient the money? No. Not if you count the check that I deposited that day. Not at all. Well, did they credit my account with the deposit? Hell no. They credited my account with $100 of the deposit and held the rest for 2 days while they watched 8 separate instruments come in while they were holding an artificial balance on my account that reflected only $100 of my larger deposit.

Now get this: the check that I deposited that they were holding was a check from an escrow account that was backed with US Bank funds from the refinance of my house! My head's gonna explode! WTF? I've worked in the legal support field for a very long time. Too long for me to actually wanna recall here - but I know, as do most people in the legal and financial world, that an ESCROW check is as good as cash. But not to them! No! Anyway, after going and fighting with the customer service manager and the bank branch manager, I was able to get back $210 of my dollars, but not the total amount. I will be writing a letter to the bank today in an effort to get back the additional $70, which I will promptly turn around and spend on a witch doll that I don't need but want very much.

So, I hope you all have a great weekend planned. Asradel here is going to help the husband get the truck loaded to take to the dump. Believe me...I'm totally STOKED about this. :) Not really. My life hasn't spiralled quite THAT low yet.

Oh! And by the way! I am going to start selling Avon products as of today. The district rep is coming downtown to meet me and give me my "getting started" kit. So, if any of you out there who lurke on my blog want a catalog, lemme know.

Bright blessings!

Post Tarot Camp

Hey ya'll! This is my first time to write on my blog after my sojourn over to NYC for The Reader's Conference 2006. I wish I could have taken all of ya with me. We had such a good time! I got to hang out with my heros and heroines of the Tarot elite and could hardly believe my good luck. I have some pics here to share with you. The pic that's up above is one of me about to go out to the Rachael Pollack portion of the Tarot weekend. Look at me cheesin' there.

So, I got to NYC on Friday morning about 9:30 a.m., and should have been completely knackered from my trip, but I wasn't. I was so excited to just be there that I was bright eyed and somewhat bushy tailed. I registered and then went out and talked to one of the other attendees in the gazebo while the conference organizers were getting all the stuff together for us to go into the main room. The first session was about what we were all going to learn while we were there and from whom. I was star-struck!

We had a lunch break at which time I finally got to take a shower, and I was so glad! Flying overnight and having nowhere to lay my head was a different experience for me. :) I'm a "shower a day kinda gal."

Above is a pic of me with Bob Place. He spoke about doing 3 card readings in a way that I was totally unfamiliar with, and I got a lot out of his lecture. I am a big fan of the Alchemical Tarot. I'm a sad Panda that I don't actually own the deck, but had to borrow one from my Magus in order to get to better know Bob's work before the class. Anyway, it didn't take anything away from my enjoyment of the artwork (I just didn't want to give it back!). But I bought the Tarot of the Saints by Bob while I was there. Mind you, I didn't feel I could part with enough money to buy the English edition, but he had the "Tarot el Santos" which he was selling for half price that I scooped up with a high degree of zeal. Who knows? Maybe I'll take Spanish. :)



So we were all seated at big round tables in this ballroom type area at the Marriott, and one of the women at my table was the one you see me with in the picture above. Her name is Elinor, and I just LOVE her. She and I hit it off big time. I guess she's been a student of Ruth Ann's and Wald's (Tarot School - Email me if you want the link to their site) for quite some time and she knew everyone. She was my reading partner on one of the lessons and we had a nice dynamic.

Later that evening, I went out to dinner at a diner with Rachael Pollack, her agent Zoe, Robert Place, Elinor and I guess that was the group. Anyway, it felt kind of surreal to be sitting next to Rachael, who's work I had admired for quite some time. Nice, conversational style writing that works very well with me.

I DID wind up adding to my Tarot collection while I was there. I purchased an "Animal Wisdom" Tarot by Lisa Hunt. It's a nice one, but wasn't the prize of the weekend. Rather, a Tarot of a Moongarden deck was the prize that I was so happy to walk away with for the weekend. It was given to me by a gal from England named "Gaynor." Poor Gaynor....I didn't give her a moment's peace about this deck after seeing it in front of her at the table and her saying that "she didn't like it." I bugged her mercilessly to sell it to me. In the end, she wound up giving it to me for a card reading. What a great trade. The husband and I are planning to go to England for about a week in September. Maybe there will be a look-up opportunity while I'm over there. I sure hope so. Gaynor's a kick in the ass. Here we are:

There is so much more to tell about Tarot camp, and I'm not really in a mood to write too much of a play-by-play at the moment....perhaps later. Or at least I will put some stuff on my static website for you to look at. There was really a lot of good information given at this event. A couple more pics and I promise I'll be done here.

Next is a picture of me and Lon du Marquette - the author of "The Chicken Kabbala" and "The Thoth Tarot" and about a dozen other books, Lon is revered around the world as a ceremonial magician, a mystic and an all-round nice guy. He taught us to sing the name of "Ganesh" to the tune of pop goes the weasel three times through in order to reach the mystical number of repitition, 108. :) That's just how this dude rolls!

Now the pictures of me with these various folks are not the most flattering for me, and normally I wouldn't be sharing them at all, but I'm just too proud of the great learning time I had to be held back from sharing by some neurotic need to look good in pictures. I just DON'T and that's certainly not a new revelation.

Anyway, that was Lon above, and for those of you who are Mary Greer fans - eat your heart out that we had a nice round-table session with Mary on Sunday morning. I can't remember for the life of me what the heck we talked about, because the fecker was at 7:30 in the morning, and I never actually got off of west coast time while I was on the East coast, but I did my best.

Here's a picture of me and Mary Greer after I purchased and got her to sign her latest offering "21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card" - I haven't read it yet, but the premise is BRILLIANT. Very apprapo and I believe it will be a nice catalyst for me to take my own reading in some other directions that I'm not even able to think of quite yet.


And last, but not least is a picture of me with Eileen, my first reading partner. She and I did the initial reading for the conference with each other, and the last reading for the conference with each other. She's a real mensch too. I wanted to purchase Lon's Thoth Tarot book, but had tapped my funds out buying all sorts of other good stuff at the conference. Well, Eileen won the book in a raffle drawing on Sunday before we all headed out of there, and she GAVE IT TO ME! Thanks Eileen! :) She had already purchased one for herself the day before. I dashed out the door immediately to catch Lon so he could sign it for me. He wound up drawing a little charicature of himself on the inside cover, which I thought was a very nice touch. Aliester Crowley was probably rolling over, wherever he is. :)

So that's about all I have time to write at the moment. I have a lovely and very special house guest arriving on my doorstep this evening, and, as you witchy types already know, this weekend isn't the one to be staying in the house messing with the computer. It's Beltaine for Heaven's Sake! Time to get out there and really enjoy the gifts of the heavenly father and the earthly mother. Time to really get down with some gettin' down!

So, Happy Beltaine to all of you! And, you lurkers out there....you know who you are - You are welcome here any and every time.

Love, and hugs,
Asradel
The Good Witch of the West

My Sister Elizabeth

I don't usually write expose type pieces on here, but my good sister (see the pic of me and her together on previous posts) just emailed me about my wicked idiot crazy sister, and well, I just needed to blow off some steam.

I have a sister who is ten years older than me, and I have to tell you, she is nuttier than Opra's shit after a fruitcake binge. She lives in a little po-dunk town in Oklahoma with her one and only son who weights upwards of 625 pounds. I'm not sure, but I think they are on intimate terms. Yes....you heard me....I'm talkin straight out of "Deliverence." It makes me really sick to think about it, but oh well....I guess they deserve each other. He is also whacked in the head - due in no small part to his mothers ministrations.

My sister is so lazy that she doesn't want to work at all. Well, hell! Who does you stupid cooze?! I'm sure that I could find lots of other things to do besides work, but we are called upon as citizens of this country as well as this world to do our part and carry our own weight if we can. Well, not her....she has to be carried by other people. In the spirit of wanting to be handed something and feeling like she is owed something, my idiot sister (see picture inset) decided that she needed to get Social Security disability. Well, it just so happens that my niece, who is truly incapacitated from a surgery gone terribly wrong, is a bright go-getter who knows her way around the social system from her own experiences. Well, to make a long story short, my idiot sister (see picture - which is an amazing likeness, by the way) used my niece to get full disability from the government, on the premise that she is useless and stupid, and yet could not be bothered to compensate my niece in any way. An attorney who does that kind of work would have ass-raped her for over $5,000. But, I tell you as a former paralegal who worked for attorneys who did this kind of work, they wouldn't have been able to get her near that kind of money. Her's was a case where she MAY have gotten a 33% declaration with an attorney, and she STILL would have owed them a butt-load of cash for getting her that. Oh noo.....my niece got her an obscene benefit and when asked if she was going to compensate my niece in ANY way, my idiot sister (see extaordinary likeness of her in insert photo) got pissy and made my niece sign a waiver that said she got NOTHING for her efforts. That poor young woman (my niece) has been through the ringer, has not gotten an even break for about four friggin' years now, and needs all the help she can get herself - but does that cow of sister of mine care? No. In fact, she forwarded the email that my good sister (see previous posts for pictures of my cute sister), the mother of the bright niece, sent inquiring as to what the niece may be getting from it, to the niece telling her "you deal with your mother on this one." Well, I know that I'm rambling and no one on the planet except those people who know the players will be able to follow this, but I just had to vent.

I know that my crazy sister has no life to speak of. I know that she has no friends - except for the ones she pretends to be friends with so she can get a ride to the free cheese dispensary once a month - I know that the only man in her life is her twisted sex-crazed attention-starved son whom she has completely ruined and who also has no friends, but this is a prison of her own making and I find it really hard to feel sorry that she's in it. It just doesn't seem fair to my niece.

Okay....that's done. Whew! Friday's a good day for a rant.

Az

Beauty for the Sake of Beauty

Alrighty then....well, it's just 9 short days until my tarot conference in NYC. I'm getting very excited about it and have been doing a massive amount of reading for people in preparation for attending. I still feel like there's a great deal to do, but I'm trying to be more organic about it. I decided just today that I am taking my smallest suitcase and saving my back rather than taking a bunch of decks and trying to commit self-mutilation by carrying some big-ass suitcase.
So the image that I'm pulling in here has nothing to do with anything I'm writing or doing...it's just so friggin' beautiful that I could not resist. The colors are evocative of deep emotions with me. I would love to have a room painted in these colors, and then, of course, there are the forms. Anyway, it's glorious. I wish I knew who did it. All that I DO know is that it came off of WebShots.


So, my boss is playing golf this afternoon and it's a lazy time around here. I need to be writing documentation on some processes, but I find myself day-dreaming. It's 3:30 and I'm ready to go home already. :)

So anyway, Tarot conference on the brain is where I'm at. I'm making another robe for my circle life. It is going to be the prettiest yet. A nice deep amethyst color with grapes and grapeleaves for contrast. I will be stylin' next full moon circle. :)

That's about it. I just wanted to get a post in because I don't like to let my blog get too stale.

Later gator!

I kidnapped a friggin' gnome!

Well, it seemed like we needed some sport around this office. Therefore, I took it upon myself to swipe the private property of one of my co-workers....a natty little gnome named Weezle-stix. Weezle-stix was just minding his own business sitting in the mailroom when I came along and nabbed him. Here is the first picture his owner got with the first note.

You can't recognize that he's a gnome except for the pointed hat and little shoes sticking out from where I slipped the bag over his head. I'm sure his owner is worried about him! But, we have to have some entertainment around here, and so he made an unwitting sacrifice to the cause.

Happy Friday everyone! It's almost time to go to the house!

Az

Out of the Convent and Back to Work

Well, I spent the last day of my vacation, Tuesday, March 20th, in a convent. Here is a picture of it from the outside. It is a wonderful, beautiful place, and I got to spend from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. there.
I had a wonderful view. I spent my day writing in my journal, working on my Tarot book and cards...meditating and just enjoying the atmosphere. There was another group there that day, but I couldn't really hear them except when they were having lunch. Beyond that, it felt like I was all alone. It was so peaceful and quiet. The original plan was that I was going to be in one of the upstairs rooms with a desk and a wing chair, but the good sisters had forgotten that they would be having a guest stay in that room so I had to suffer with one of the enormous downstairs room. Here was my little setup and my view.
Rough huh? I brought my lunch so I didn't even have to leave the grounds for that. It was cold and rainy so I spent the day inside, which is kind of a shame because the grounds are so beautiful. But it was so cozy. Those leaded glass windows are just incredible. The hardware on them is so old and lovely. You can really begin to understand as you look at the stone casements for the windows and the leaded glass windows themselves the phrase "they sure don't make 'em like they used to." I cannot even imagine what that property would go for on the real estate market. It's almost obscene to think of it as ever being up for sale. I know that there are a lot fewer sisters than there used to be, and that the Catholic church is a business.....I hope that whatever diocese this convent is in is a rich one and can afford to keep them there. I know that the house itself was donated by a Boeing-rich family back in the 1930s, and so they don't have to pay for the land or the house unless they have leveraged it for other funds, but it has to cost quite a bit of money just to keep up with the maintenance and the grounds.

Anyway, back to my day. One of the things I did while I was here with all of this time to myself was to lay out a tarot mandala. This is my DruidCraft deck and this is an exercise recommended in the book. It takes so much floor space and so much time to set up that I didn't think I would get to do it. But I did it on my nunnery day! There were really some insights and illuminations that came from it too. Plus, it took a pretty cool picture. Check it out.


Another thing that the good sisters have going for them is that they have unencrypted wireless internet access, so while I was there, and yes....of course I took the laptop. I can't get very far from a keyboard these days. I really dont think I would know what to do with myself if I did. Anyway, I was able to hook up to the Internet, email my husband, and what was even better, MY CIRCLE MATES right there from the Convent. I did try to put up a blog entry from there, but something happened and I lost it and I decided that I wasn't about to waste all my convent time looking at a computer when I could look right in front of me and through antique leaded glass windows see a gorgeous vision of the Puget Sound and the ferries crossing back and forth fucking around with trying to get a blog post written. That stuff is better done from places like I am occupying now. The friggin sofa at home with the idiot box with nothing on it playing in the background. Yep, there are plenty of THESE moments to write things on the computer.

So, yeah....I'll be going back to the convent as soon as I can. I think it is soul-restorative and wonderful to be there, and hopefully the good sisters will have me back. Just wanted to share some of that day here on my blog.

Bright Blessings all ya'll.

Sister Mary Asradel

Home Again

So it's the Monday after my return to Lynnwood. We had a very full weekend lined up and it went by in a blur. Yesterday, my hubby went racing while I stayed home with my girl and we watched videos and went out to a coffee place. Saturday afternoon I had an unexpected visit from my son and his girlfriend and a friend of the family for some years, Scott Reynolds. Here is a photo of all of them along with Andrea. I'm a lucky woman.
After Saturday's lunch with my brother-in-law's new fiance and her family, we came home to our visitors who were only hear for about a half hour, then I had to take a nap before I feel down. After my nap, and believe me, I didn't want to get up, it was time to go to circle. I didn't get in until 1:00 a.m. and brother was I ever tired. So today was for cleaning the house and making some headway toward this place looking human again. My daughter has a surprise coming to her when I leave her a note telling her that she has to clean her bathroom and bedroom this afternoon while I am off cloistering in the convent in Woodway.

Alrighty then....time to sign off now. By the way, here's me on the plane on the way home.

Here at Eva's

Eva, that's my sister there with me....ell, she gave me some perfume today, because I told her that I smell bad, and therefore, cannot get full time employment nor enjoy any of the other benefits of being in polite society. She caved in, gave me the perfume AND the lotion as well as 20 bucks and a bottle of pain killers! Now how's THAT for makin' out great the last day of vacation. Booo Yahhh!


So now we're gonna go to Ditch Witch! I can't wait. We're gonna get the coolest shirts and other ditch witch crap you ever saw. :)
Hooo Rayyy!

Well, we got back from the Ditch Witch place where the guy must've thought we were cute 'cause he gave us free stuff. My crippled up old sister up there couldn't walk the stairs and so we had to be taken the back way like freight down to the basement where all the shirts and shit are....anyway, it was fun and we got a lot of stuff. Again, the sister bought all my stuff. She's pretty sweet, even if it's really painful for me to admit it. I'm gonna hate to leave.

Oklahoma

I'm writing this post from the sofa of my Mom's house in Perry, Oklahoma. We are watching Harry Potter. I explained briefly the plot line as Part IV started and mom wanted to know how I got all of that from the 10 minutes the movie had been on. By the way, this is my Mommy:



She just put on her glasses to better see mad-eye Moody. :)

I have been so happy to be here and so very glad to have been able to come at a time when I was needed. The Goddess works in mysterious ways, and listening to the inner spidey sense is always a good thing. Since the beginning of the year I have felt like I needed to come and see my Mommy. The time-frame just worked out perfectly for me to come here when I was most needed. My sister just had a surgery on March 1, and my mom just got out of the hospital too. I have been able to help in what I consider small ways, but they are so glad I'm here. It really makes me feel good. I told my sister that I knew she would do the same for me.

It occurred to me while I was sitting in my little bedroom that you won't always get to visit your mother. There will come a time when that will no longer be possible - and there is really no other feeling or place like it in the world. A place where you can go and feel at home, or at least to a certain degree, no matter how old you get or how many miles separate you. So, I'm really enjoying my time here and will be coming back more frequently now that I know it's only going to cost $250 to get here and back.

So, that's what I've got to say about that. Mother is asleep now....Harry Potter has just gotten going good. She's nodding off.....oh well....nightie-night mommy. Your daughter is going to stay up and play on the Internet and work on her Web Page - concepts that you have no notion of, and really don't need to know about. You've lived your whole life without this computer stuff, and there is absolutely no need to crowd it in at this late date.

Day Before Vacation

Today is my last day in the office before a 10-day vacation, most of which is going to be spent in the state of my youth, Oklahoma. Now there isn't a great deal to see or do in Oklahhoma, unless, of course, there have been some vast improvements over the years that I am unaware of.

However, my mother and my sister still live there so it should be a good time. I have never just made a trip back by myself. I've actually only been back, well, this will be the third time in 12 years that I have been back to visit. Neither of the prior times was I on my own. I had at least my daughter with me, and the very last time I went, I had my husband with me. I wanted my mom and sister to at least meet the man I am married to. It just seemed strange somehow to be married to someone your family wouldn't even recognize if they came up and knocked on the door. But this trip, this one is for me. I want to see my Mom, since she's actually getting up there in years and have some time to talk to her and relax that I'm not having to worry about entertaining someone else. My sister just had a surgery so she'll be glad to have me there as a go-fer. ;) I don't mine either. For my part, I'll be glad to have a break from my everyday life and to see my family.

So that's it! Anyone reading this post, I wish you good friends, strong families and good times.

Az

Goddess's Gift of Artistic Talent

The Tarot has long been a passion of mine. I read cards when I was a kid....then again as a teenager, then kept the fire of inquisitiveness all through my 20s, 30s and now my 40s. I have acquired quite a few decks and told quite a few fortunes using the Tarot. I collect different decks and study their images to see what the artists' interpretations are of the 78 doors of wisdom. It's a wonderful passion to have. To read tarot cards for people and to study their images and absorb the interpretations of hundreds of different artists, but now, I've got a new high. :)

Well, my friend, Holly Glenn, whom I work with and at one time lived with (in that plantonic "roommate" way), has begun her own Tarot deck. It is wonderful! I am posting her first card here, and also a link to her website is on the right side of this page under my favorite links so you can watch the progress of this deck. :) This will be the one and only time I post one of her images here - you'll have to check her website to get a fix of her latest.

Look at that card! Look at that face! Full of knowing and intelligence yet as innocent and fresh as friggin' spring rain. Strength. This card depicts the purest of that attribute. The ability to know, to reason, to maintain and direct with reason those impulses which, if not controled could utterly consume you. To feel gently confident and aware of the world around you. Look how keen her eyes are. There is nothing that will get past her, and yet there isn't a drop of menace in her. She simply doesn't need it.

Isn't it amazing? And I have to say that this is a really cool experience for me because, well, I've been collecting and looking into artist's interpretations of these 78 mysterious cards for friggin' 25 years now - and now here is an artist that I know and care about making her own interpretations of these cards tangible to me. It really is difficult to describe the experience. I saw one of her cards "in progress" this morning - the Death card, and it blew me away. It was so surreal to see this card whose incarnation I had studied in dozens of different decks to now be presented through her fresh eyes. It's a knockout.

I'll be writing the book for this deck. She didn't ask me to, I volunteered. I will start it when she is halfway through the majors. It will be a labor of love and an honor to participate in the project. I'm really looking forward to it.

So, the Goddess's gift of artistic talent definitely has been given to Holly - she is the vessel through which moves the divine force of creation. But that gift is also a gift to those of us who it touches and moves.

So....
Thank you Goddess...
Thank you Holly....

This is going to be a lot of fun.

Az

Ode to a Brownie....

Brownie, oh brownie,
How sweet and chocolaty...
brownie, oh brownie,
Oh what you do to me....
Brownie, oh brownie,
with tiny bits of green,
Brownie, oh brownie,
You make me feel so serene...
Brownie, oh brownie,
If only I could have another,
Brownie, oh brownie,
Please don't tell my mother.

Okay...well the above SUCKS ASS. But the confection that inspired this entry was WICKED WONDERFUL! It was given to me by a friend last night. I loved it! Thank you GOD, GODDESS and M! (You know who you are.)

The only problem was that I didn't heed the advice I was given along with the heavenly confection. And, thinking that it wasn't working after 45 minutes, gobbled up the whole thing. Man....did I ever get a surprise about 3/4 of an hour after that....HE-LLO! WOW! I thought the Care Bears were dancing around the living room! (not really, but, had they shown up, it would not have been much of a surprise.) Woooo! I felt like if I leaned forward, I'd fall over and just keep falling and falling and falling. I could feel every muscle in my body, tense, relax then tense again....and I had non-stop chatter in my head. Straight trippin, that's the only way to say it, baby.....

Thanks again! Sure cleared out the cobwebs in my head too!

Az

Happy Friggin' Valentine's Day Ya'll

Well, here we are again, another Hallmark Holiday. I have my problems with these things that feed the florists and the card manufacturers....but then again, there is a place for it in society. Especially a society like the one we live in today where it's hard enough to remember to say hello and be there for your family that LIVES IN YOUR HOUSE , much less have time to acknowledge your friends, your extended family, your parents, etc... Valentines Day is a good holiday for not only acknowledging your sweetheart, but taking the time to say "Be My Valentine" to all your friends as well. Remember how we used to do it in school, with all the cheesy valentines and the white bags and the construction paper? That was pretty cool. So, I've made you all a Valentine to remind you of those times. Here it is:


Happy Valentines' Day ya'll, and may you get a great big kiss from that special someone or someone(s) on your heart throb list. I know I will be getting my share! OH! Was that out loud?

Peaceful Musings after 1:00 a.m.

That crazy Canuck buddy of mine says I have "a nice ass." Well, that's mighty sweet of you Gwynnie, and I wish you Goddess-speed in your travels and will see you next in March.

So my little "church group" bid farewell to some of our number this even. They are forming their own group and will no longer be part of our core family. It was a bittersweet time. We are all happy that they will have their own group since they had to travel such a long way to attend services with ours. But we will miss their energy and their presence. Ah, but the wheel turns, doesn't it my friends?

The wind was really blowing today. I took my daughter out for a little quality mom and daughter time today and we went to a park in Edmonds where we got out of the car and experienced the power of the wind and watched the big Douglas Firs sway back and forth bending with the breath of the great Mother.



Today's picture is of a special spot that I have about 3 miles from home. It's a place I've been going to for years and I call it my "cathedral" - it is my cathedral in the real world like my web page is in the virtual world. It's very peaceful there and the beauty is so overwhelming that it brings tears to your eyes.

Well, it's after 1:00 am, and there's not much more to say. But yet, Gwynn, you did say I have a nice butt, and for that , I thank you! ;)

Bright Blessings,
Az

Do What You Love, and No Tellin' What You'll Wind Up Drivin'

Hi-deee Ho! Well, it's January 24, 2006 and all is right with the world. I am at work, lunch time just beginning for me - the first part of which I will take to write a few words on ye olde blogspot. The picture you see here was taken on Sunday when my daughter and I went out for coffee and were driving around together. I mortified my 16-year old by chasing these old dudes down and leaping from the car and asking if I could take their picture. This is the result:


The camera, however, did not capture the look of absolute joy that was on these guys' faces. This is an accomplishment for them. They are building this car themselves, it is a work in progress and you could tell that them taking it out for a spin was some kind of victory dance. Maybe it was the first time it had been out of the garage. I regret not sticking around and asking them more questions about it, but hindsight is always 20/20. At the time it seemed enough just to get the picture. It was also pretty amusing to have my daughter all hunkered down in her seat, writhing in her embarrassment over her over-bold mom. :) She is also a Saggitarius, but not yet a full-grown one. Time will show her the nads she needs to do stuff like this, and how much fun it can be.

I just wanted to show off these old geezers who are making a cool little car and totally enjoying themselves.

Ciao and blessed be, baby!

2006 is Well Under Way

I haven't read a single piece of news since the beginning of the year and I can't actually say that I intend to. Keeping up with current events was one of my loosely formulated notions which passed for a sort of resolution this year. Let's see, I want to keep more informated (yeah....) about what is going on in the world around me, lose 20 pounds of fat and take on 100 pounds of confidence - you know...THAT sort of thing.

Keeping up with current events, however, is a double-edged sword and I know it is. I remember from the days when I was politically active and, by virtue of being vocal and interested, wound up being a delegate to the state convention for the party I was interested in at the time (no...I can't tell you which one that was because I can't fucking stand the idea of ever having been so sheared off at the ears as to have been a registered, card-carrying Republican. Blech, kak!)

But, again, as ever, I digress....back to the double-edged sword: I think you can actually cause your blood pressure to rise to dangerous levels by keeping up with what's going on out there. Those bumper stickers that say "if you're not pissed off, you're not paying attention" are absolutely 100% CORRECT. And, who the hell needs that kind of grief in their lives. My life is full and busy without knowing what's going on, but then there's a rub there. The rub is that this friggin' country could be invaded tomorrow and I wouldn't have any idea what was going on. I wouldn't be able to see it coming, because I've had my head in the sand so long I don't know which way the wind is coming from.

What is the point of this discussion....absolutely none. Like the rest of this blog, it is a wank. A way to get it out of my head. Blogger is a penseive for the masses - Professor Dumbledore's got nothin' on us, baby. Instead of sticking a wand up by our ears and trailing the thoughts out of our heads into smoking cauldrons, we put them on blogspots where they are never read nor accessed by anyone (except perhaps those who are with homeland security and are completely bored out of their skulls from having to look at this idiotic drivel all day) except perhaps by ourselves. We may want to go in and look at these thoughts again someday, and that's what the blogger is good for.

Thank you, blogger. I appreciate the fact that I can divest myself of my mental crappola in a public forum and come back and see it later.

Az

Another Phase Complete

Well, the picture here is of me with a group of friends who have completed a year-long class. It was a journey of learning about lots of esoteric stuff and about each other. It was an experience in committment without monetary or tangible personal gain of any kind and it was a great time. I will miss seeing these crazy people and wish them all well on their respective life paths.

This weekend also FINALLY saw the end of the Christmas 2005 happenings. Thank goodness! Kristopher's family was not all in the area for the actual holiday so they wound up scheduling their gift giving event and dinner for January 7 - and we showed up for a while, but had to leave quite early (and before Aunt Pat's beautiful roast came out of the oven which was a shame) to go to our last class.

We got gift cards to Trader Joes, which we turned into food today, and gift cards to Half Price books which we promptly burned through this evening. I got another Astrology book. This one has TABS. :) and a book on a Bardic journey. One of my new year's resolutions is to read a lot more - a thing that is made even easier by riding the bus to work every day, which was another of my new years resolutions in order to save money (the husband and I were spending an obscene amount of money on parking) and also I want to learn a lot more about astrology this year. It's going to be a bumper year for witchcraft in general, I think. Lots of cool stuff to do.

I had lunch today with my friend Karen and her friend Linda (whom I knew from being in one of Karen's fashion shows). We had such a good time and I did a little shopping at Victoria's Secret which made me feel very girlie indeed.

It was a great day. My husband tells me it is time to go to bed and the clock on the wall is chiming midnight to back him up. Blessed be all, and to all a good night.

Az

Welcome to 2006

Wooo Hooo! It's 2006, and I think it's going to be a really great year. I woke up on New Year's Day and the first thought in my mind was the following:

2004 was a year for betrayal and pain
2005 was a year for coping and managing
2006 is going to be a year for healing and growing.

I feel like this was a message from the Goddess within, which is why I've chosen this image to post. I was going to write a blog entry about the New Year's party that Kristopher and I attended, which was held at our friends' Jaime and Melanie's house, and post a picture of my drunken husband standing beside his friend the host and another one where he appears to be finishing off a half-gallon of vodka, but I ultimately decided that I would share this story instead.

Maybe I'll post the drunk pictures later - but right now I feel like 2006 is going to be about something finer. It's going to be about spiritual and personal growth - it's going to be about wounds healing and becoming faint memories, it's going to be about helping people and giving attention to family and friends and spouses and children.

Blessed be to all who read this. I know it's corny, but fuck it....sometimes life just gets you all mushy inside.

Az

Christmas 2005 Fades into History....

Well, the Christmas and Yule holidays are done. We all had a great time, and, like most of the holidays since we've owned our house, the event was held here. That's pretty cool, and I love it, but I am indeed glad it is done.

Andrea, Kristopher and I all agreed to open one present on the night before Christmas Eve when everyone else was due to make their appearance. Mostly because I thought Kristopher was going to explode from excitment, which I found very adorable and endearing.

Here is a picture of him opening his remote control Evo, which was a 1/14th scale model of the car from 2 fast 2 Furious. I thought he would love it, and he did. Take a look at his face:


Next, we have a picture of Andie opening her pre-Christmas eve gift. It is a charm bracelet with all manner of kitty charms on it. Andie volunteers for the Purrfect Pals organization and sure loves her kitty friends. It was a very appropriate bracelet for her and I think she liked it quite a bit.


After this festive bit of present opening, oh! and I opened one too, it's just that I was taking the pictures and didn't get a photo of the beautiful amethyst earrings purchased for me by my sweetie. Anyway, we headed over to our friends' house where we took and polished off a bottle of Vanilla Rum. It was definitely some good stuff.

So, the next day brought Christmas Eve and the rest of the family. Kristopher's mother, his brother and my son and daughter-in-law.

This next picture is of my grown son, Tim, opening a Nerf gun that I got him. He is an autonomous adult with bills and a wife and all the rest of the hassle that the rest of us have, but he's still my little boy, and I thought he could use a toy. And, from the look on his face, I think maybe....just maybe, he agrees.


There aren't a lot of pictures of me, and that I am quite okay with. However, I didn't want to get left out of the festivities altogether, so here is one of the nifty presents that I got from my mother-in-law and my brother-in-law combined. I am holding it up like a trophy:


And, last but not least, a photo of Kristoper with his brother and his mother sitting on our sofa.


Christmas was a great time, and one that shall go down as one of the better ones I've had in my 40 years. However, I must say that I am not unhappy that it is over and done with. It is a lot of work every year, but well worth it.

I will tell you, however, (whomever is reading this if anyone) that I rested on Christmas day itself, but the next day (today) busied myself the entire day wrapping and putting away every Yule decoration in the house including the outside lights and wreaths. NO sense in dragging the holiday on any longer than it already goes, and, for the most part, that stuff had been up in our home since about December 1. So, in my book, it was time. I drive around the neighborhoods and see the die-hard Yulers with their decorations on that will be lit until New Year's Eve, and I am grateful for them, but still can't seem to stand that for myself. I think it is the same gene that makes me put everything in the suitcase away as soon as I am back from a trip and get the suitcase tucked back in the attic or the rafters or wherever it came from.

Anyway, OCD nothwithstanding, I must say, in the words of Tiny Tim in A Chistmas Carol....God Bless Us, Every One. And I mean that. May we all be blessed with the good sense and manners to be thankful for the things we have, and may we be blessed with the spirit of generosity to share those things with those less fortunate than ourselves and with the inate understanding of how to make our world a better place.

I'll be talkin' to you.

Az

Krikey! It's almost Christmas!

Well, I'm back again. I thought I was gonna wait until after the gift-giving madness to put up another post, but why wait. The fun just never stops! Work today has been about as hectic as I've seen it in a long while - and we were counting on some blow off time with the supervisor gone! :)

My friend and co-worker had to run out of here like his clothes were on fire because he got online and found out that someone was making big withdrawals from his bank account and when he tried to call his bank to get it corrected, they kept hanging up on him. Poor bastard. It's not like he and his wife have a lot of money either. I hope it get straightened out quickly and doesn't cost him a lot of money. He's such a nice guy....what a friggin' drag man.


So, I'm posting a new picture today - largely because I don't really want the Willy Nelson Bush-Face to be the first thing I see when I log on. Maybe that's what spurs these super-bloggers. They take a look at the shit they've posted and decide that they need to bury it!

This picture expresses pretty much how most people feel after the year-end holidays are done. I was very fortunate this year in that I got an abundance of holiday spirit - and not that it couldn't get squished....I'm pretty sure that a run in with something like my co-worker is looking at would squish it really good for me....but the normal flurry isn't going to squish it or put out its light in any way. So, I'm thankful. I'm thankful for the return of the light....the promise of longer days and shorter periods of darkness. The promise of spring and of the summer to follow. Yeah....all that good witchy stuff.

Stay tuned. I'll write more later.

One Down, One to Go

Hello all....I am checking in after getting one Yule celebration done and while looking forward to another.

My witchy family had their doin's last night and it was a good time. I got a siler Bacchus wine caddy that slips over a bottle of wine and lets you pour it as if it had a handle. It's pretty cool. We had a good Yule service as well. Jumped and chanted and carried on like fools. It was a goo dtime.

Yule is the time of year when we Wiccans celebrate the return of the light to earth. The "birth" if you will, of the son of the Goddess - the son who will eventually grow up to be her consort at the time of Beltaine. It's a great time.

I'm including a rather obscene picture here that was sent sent to me and to the husband by a friend of ours. It was one of a whole album that of people who did body painting for a painted body jamboree in Florida. I'll bet this chick didn't get any sex while she had this thing on! :)

Anyway, just wanted to say "hi."

Happy Holidays again....
Az

Bizarre Universe

I've been intending to write a post about one of the wierdest things that has ever happened to me, but I've been crazy-busy like everyone else and so have just now found the time.

Allow me to tell you a little story about a funny thing that happened to me on the way back from singing at Pike Market on Friday, December 2.

I was with my good friend Susan and we were walking down the street together, back toward our office. Susan was wearing reindeer antlers on her head even though we were about five blocks from where we had been perfoming and she bqsically just looked like a middle aged woman wearing huge antlers and walking down the street. We were talking about how ridiculous she looked when we were approached by a beautiful, young, African American woman. She was dressed stylishly in suede cloth pants, nice boots, and a tailored jacket. Her hair was long and straight, she was wearing a spunky little hat on her head and she walked right up to me and said, "you look like a nice person. You deserve a gift." And she handed me this:


Okay. I'm thinking 'this is weird.' But the tea basket was nice so I extended my hands and took it from her - then I asked her why. She looked at me and she looked at Susan and she said, "well, it was a gift for my husband. But he's out to lunch with his secretary who he's having an affair with, so you get it." I was so stunned. I didn't know what to say. So, she leaves it in my hands, waves goodbye to Susan and I and says "have a nice day." When I found my voice again I called down the street after her that if she wanted to kick his ass, I had some time. But I don't think she heard me. At any rate, it was an odd thing to happen to me - at least I thought it was odd and it was extra coincidental and synergistic since I had done battle on the same side of an affair as she was on and looked at it much differently.

I tucked the tea basket under my arm and Susan and I went back to work. For several days it sat in my office unopened. I wasn't sure that I wanted to keep it, given its origins and I certainly didn't want to keep it if it was destined for someone else. (we witches put a lot of stock in the purpose and patterns of things)

Okay....here's what I noodled out that this was about, or at least the meaning I assigned to it.

1. It showed me that there is a different way to look at things. That you can know that someone is betraying you and you can hold your head high and just go on about your life - not allowing the betrayal to get you down. (No, I am not so naive as to believe that this young woman didn't later get upset and do a lot of crying or had not already done a lot of crying on the subject before she tea'd me - but she was definitely going to be A-Okay no matter what happened, and THAT is what I think I was meant to see.

2. She was gorgeous. All I could think about was how beautiful she was and what kind of moron would be double-dealin her. This made me feel better about the whole self-image thing that gets crushed when someone has an affair on you. I am not physically inadequate - I am not unlovely....my husband's bad decision was just that - a bad decision and it would have been that way no matter WHAT I looked like.

3. She was the embodiment of the Goddess - showing me in a real life example what strength and self confidence can look like in a situation like this.

So...that was enough for me. I decided to keep the tea basket for my own and absorb at least these lessons as I ate and drank its contents.

I've been getting steadily better since August - and this was another good-sized stepping stone. How very odd....I would really love to thank this young woman. And I do. I thank her in words and feelings woven into the great tapestry that is our collective destiny. I thank her by drinking tea out of the little gold teapot that came in the basket and thinking of her and wishing her well. I thank her by growing in self-confidence and scraping off another layer of hopelessness and helplessness and arming myself with the shield and sword of confidence and healing.

It is definitely a bizarre universe, and I for one am grateful.

Blessed Be.

And then there is that

Can you believe it's already December?????

Hi everyone! Well, with Thanksgiving behind us, we still have a lot of holiday-ing to do. today marks the first day of the official month of Christmas. While I am a pagan and don't celebrate Christmas in the Christian sense of the word, I certainly enjoy celebrating the secular elements of Christmas and combining them with the witch's sabbat of Yule - which is the celebration of the returning of the light. Lemme tell ya, at this lattitude, the return of the light is something to celebrate indeed! And it goes really fast. It seems like one day you're watching it get dark at 3:00 p.m., and then, just after Yule, it starts to get later and later. Living in the Pacific Northwest is a wonderful thing. Our house is totally decked-out for the holidays.
We have lights and garlands and a beautiful tree that already has PRESENTS UNDER IT! YAY!

My birthday is nestled in December pretty soon. I dont want to make a big fuss, but I guess we're going to have some friends over, which is just dandy with me. So long as I don't ahve to do any of the cooking, buying or cleaning up after. I love being a Saggitarius. It makes life plenty interesting to be of the sign known for mutable fire. That means that you're passionate about things, but you're not a pit-bull when it comes to getting and idea stuck in your head.

I'm sitting at work now about to finish up for the day, but thought I'd check in with my blog spot on this the first day of the official month of Yule.

Blessed Be Everyone! I'll upload some pictures of the Holiday window I'm painting when I get the design more firmly set in my head.

Az

Turkey Day 2005 - call it a Wrap!

Excellent. Thanksgiving 2005 went off without a hitch. We had 15 people here in our little castle in Lynnwood - all to a sit-down style dinner with linen napkins, water glasses and salad forks, baby. It was a good time all the way around. Today is the infamous "busiest shopping day of the year" - which means that I will be avoiding all retail establishments as though they were giving away e-bola at the door. My daughter, who is turning 16 years old tomorrow, wants to go get her nails done anyway - so I guess I gotta be down for that.

I've got all of the Fall decorations in a bag and am preparing to take them out to the garage and put up the Yule decorations. It is an endless parade of decorative stuff around this house from the beginning of October onward. :) Maybe one of these days I will hit the pinnacle and have stuff up for every different sabbat of the witches wheel year. The ones that come in the fall are so similar that you can pretty much leave up the same stuff from August on through until you change the stuff to Yule and just basically stack the Halloween stuff in on top of it. Maybe that's what I'll do in 2006.

Yesterday, my husband's grandmother stamped me with her seal of approval. :) Nice to know the family likes you and wants to keep you around. I've added some pics here of my loving family on Thanksgiving. The first picture is of my brother in law and his fiance. Aren't they cute? Got engaged about 2 weeks before Thanksgiving. I told my brother-in-law that it was just like hi yto rig it so that T-Day dinner with the fam is his engagement party! He countered with a "no it isn't. we already had our engagement party ....friends only." Ouch! OOooooOoOo... Wow! Happy Turkey Day mutha-fucka!



The two psychos basting the turkey are my children- Andie and Tim Allen. This is also a photo I'd like to call "best thing about the holidays."
The large man with the knife standing above the turkey is my husband.
I avoided taking pictures of the rest of the family to keep from embarrassing them on the internet. I'll leave that job to my daugther's blog at MySpace AndieBabe>

Happy Holidaze all ya'll. I'll be writin' atcha.

Az

For Fuck's Sake!

This has been one of the longest weeks in many, many a moon. First, the furnace went out, and this is after our having just gotten all new top-o-the-line windows and doors installed in our little Lynnwood castle. So, the husband stayed home the first day with it while a technician came out - we came home later that evening nad it was fuck-all cold in the house again, so I wound up staying out the following day with it, only to have a service man show up at the tail end of the day and tell me that he wasn't prepared to do the job, and that I needed to find someone to "camp out" on it. Doesn't that sound good? Doesnt' that sound like a metric butt-load of money? Anyway, so the next day the husband stayed home from his job again. It's like parents alternating over who's staying home with the sick kid, only there's no sick kid....just endless waiting for the service guy. The good news is that the next one who came out DID in fact come prepared to work and did the whole job for a mere $100. We got off light.

So, I'm here at work now, trying to get prepared for a major week ahead of me and well, frankly, I just can't seem to strap it on to care. My computers in my training room are not working properly. Looks like it might even be some weekend warrior action for me. Oh joy. :( I wish someone would pay me what I make doing by computer job for weaving baskets or drumming or something. :) That'll be the day, huh? I'm not likely to hold my breath for it though.

Have a great weekend.
Az

Rainy Day People

Howdy,
Well, the rain has come to Seattle in earnest. Some feel it more than others, but most are just a little more sleepy, just a little more reluctant to leave their warm beds for the cold, soggy commute, and maybe even a little more depressed or at least contemplative. I am all of the above. But, as a computer trainer, I do have some down time where I can catch up on my reading (of things like the Outlook 2003 manual) - not that interesting, but still, it feels good to be able to get to some of that stuff. In my tradition of witchcraft, Samhain (Halloween to those in the secular world) is the new year. It marks a time of reflection and contemplation of the accomplishments of the year before and of the seeds you wish to sow for the coming year. I think of friends and family - of all the people I've known who have influenced me and touched my heart. Some of it makes me sad, some makes me laugh, but all of it makes me feel extremely lucky. Especially that little red-head in the picture here. Well, she's not a red-head anymore. This was taken last summer at a company picnic - but I don't have very many pictures of us together so it will have to do. She's a wonderful little muffin and I can't believe she's turning 16 on November 26. She's going to have a birthday party with a bunch of her friends on the 19th - so I'm sure she'll feel like she's all grown up then - but she's still just a baby.

So that's about it. I have to get back to my riveting work now as my lunch break is just about over, but I wanted to check in post-Halloween (which, by the way was a gas) - we went to a Halloween wedding, went to a Halloween party, decked out the house and went in costume to work. Can't beat that! If I were writing this post from my other machine I'd stick up a picture or two. Might have to do that later anyway, even though Halloween is gone for another year. Anyway, Blessed Be, and be sure to check out my website for my Thanksgiving page which will have all kinds of recipes and after the event, some pics for the family to see.

Halloween is coming

I'm getting so excited that Halloween is right around the corner.
Today is October 20th - or for at least another 45 mintues it is. Tomorrow is my husand's birthday and I have taken the day off with him. I'm hoping he has a really good one. I have made apumpkin cake for him and will be icing it with a lovely cream cheese icing made from scratch - as was the pumpkin cake. HIs mother, brother and his girlfriend are going to join us for a dinner of cornbread and stew. I'm excited to have a little party for him and we'll even eat off of cool little Halloween plates and I'll have the table all decked out with some little Halloween favors.

So that's about it. I just finished one of my big project windows last night and am waiting fo rit to dry. It is a Halloween theme window and I'll be sure to put up a picture of it when I have it. 'Til then, nighty night.

Today is Thursday

So I finally took the 15 minutes that was necessary in order to figure out how to get the hideous pink off of my blog. Yay! I work in the tech field (and am at work now, as a matter of fact) but have been so busy I haven't had time to farkle around with it. My company is in the process of rolling out new software to all the end users (about a thousand of us)and we have BEEN working on this crap for about a year now. It's only an advance to another version of the production software, but all of these programs have to work in concert and have to work well enough that we don't have people calling the Help Desk and screeching that we have deliberately sabbotaged their work. This is a challenge. As I see my co-workers become more and more apathetic about whether we EVER get anything done or not, I think I am gaining a broader view of why there is so much apathy in government and politics in general. There are just too many people involved to get the cart moving. We've proven time and time again historically that war can motivate us as a unit - bring us together and help us reach heights of productivity that we didn't believe possible. What the hell is up with that? We have to have a war to come together as a people? We have to have a threat to our homeland to find the wherewithall to give a damn? Yeah...I guess that's it. Maybe that's what that micro-brained re-tard in the Whitehouse was thinking when he declared war on Iraq. (Okay....you're right...I'm giving him too much credit. We all know what that was about....yep...money). Okay then, what am I talking about today? Nothing really. I guess I need to go back to my work and try to polish the stuff that I do have for the day when we do roll the product out. I guess I'd better practice what I preach and fight apathy with all my brain cells. But it's getting harder every day.

My Friend Karen

Well, one of my really good friends left the company that I work for on Friday. It was time....there were issues....there were things there should not have been in 2005. There were things that should not have been in the Pacific Northwest - a chunk of America that never knew slavery and supposedly not the prejudices we faced, attempted to overcome and are still licking the wounds from in the South. But happen they did. The reality is that we have a long way to go before the majority of the world is color blind. We have a long way to go before people understand that there are some wounds that you can't poke with a stick and expect them to not hurt. A long way indeed.

My friend called me today and she told me that she was happy - she sounded happy and I am happy for her. There's a picture of her here in this post - she's the beautiful African American woman wedged between the two over-fed whities. I teased her on the phone today and told her that I was going to upload this picture to the Internet and tell the world (well, the three people that read my blog) that she left so she could avoid getting whatever it was that caused these two white women to puff up like this. ;) (No, I don't eat cornstarch!)

KL, we are sisters, you and I. We've seen things and felt things that let us know where the other one is comin' from in our hearts and in our heads. You've held me and told me it's going to be alright when I thought my world was caving in on me. I've prayed for you in my way, and you have prayed for me in yours. We've seen fire and rain, baby....and I'm so very happy for you that you have removed yourself from a situation that was simply bringing you down. Praise the Great Power that moves the moon, and sets all the planets in motion - I'm looking at my fireplace with a big roaring fire in it at the moment. I am sending you the good vibe. That means my love, and my sincerest wish and prayer for you to have a successful and enriching life. Not that I'm not gonna kick your ass if you don't call me now and then, because I will. But I'm setting my wish for you here in cyberspace so it's recorded somewhere. Like a spell, I have set my good thoughts and wishes for you in motion by writing these words.

Blessed be -

On the Lighter Side

So I went to my daughter's school this evening for an open ouse. It was pretty cool. My daughter is fifteen yearsl old and goes to a pretty large high school - she has six classes a day on a campus the size of a small airport. Her first class in the morning, very early - like 7:30 - is an English class. This English class is taught in a sort of portable barn-like building attached to the greenhouse at the school. It is separate from the main building and seems kind of cold and dank. Th teacher is a native San Franciscan who is kind of a hippy, dopy chick type. She's a drama teacher most of the time, but teaches english as well. She was nice enough, but I could tell that, as an English teacher, there was quite a bit lacking. Oh well, hopefully she will make it through the curriculum of Holocaust victims, Lord of the Flies and Midsummer Night's Dream.

Her next class is Integrated math with a very sensible seeming Asian guy for a teacher. Not too much you can bullshit about in math. you either get it or you don't, byou either do the work or you don't. Nice enough guy.

Third period finds her in Spanish class with a young male teacher who has them build up points for class by collecting pesos (pesos are the measure of credit given for doing extra curricular stuff like watching the Spanish channel). She seems like she's going to do fine in that class.

Next was Chef's class where she has an anal retentive hun for a teacher who is a "portions" Nazi. Very bizarre. My daughter has been cooking and learning and doing very well with all the stuff she does, but she only got shit for cdredit because we put the recipes up on a web-site, and apparently they needed to be "typed, double spaced, one sheet of paper." Okay then.....

Next was her World civics teacher who just about made me crack up - what a SPAZ this guy is. I doubt she's going to learn much of anything in that class. He was just all over the place. He didn't string together a coherant sentence the whole time we were in there. He was so nervous and spastic that it was comical.

And last but not least was her chemisty teacher who was like a wet piece of white bread.

It reminded me of my high school days. Some teachers good....most atrocious. These people are influencing our kids lives and most of them are there just to collect a paycheck (I'm not faulting them for that....we've all got to make a living) and some are there to feed their own egos and others are there because they simply don't know what else to do with their lives. Then, there are a rare few who really care....who really get fired up about teaching....who really have the capactiy the will and the drive to make a difference in these kids lives. And to those, I met two of them tonight...potentially three...I say thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for showing my kid something positive and giving her the idea and the fire to follow her dreams and her heart. And to you others I say, have a heart....reevealuate what you're doing....wake up....look at how important you are to the kids you teach. Look at the potential you have to shape the future for all of us through them. Wake up! Wake up!

Goodnight everybody,
Az

Evil Exists in the World

Today's post is inspired by a conversation I had with a very dear and very wonderful friend of mine. She has talked me down out of many an emotional tree, and for that I can never thank her enough.

About 16 months ago, I found out that my husband had been having an ongoing affair with what I thought was one of my friends and who definitely was a co-worker and had been for five years. My husband and I had only been married about a year and a half at the time, and I was deeply in love with him and convinced that he was my knight in shining armor after a 20-year-long bad marriage that felt more like a jail sentence than a loving union. When I found out what my husband had been doing, it almost killed me. Literally. I had to start taking tranquilizers, I found myself lost in my own neighborhood without any idea how I had gotten to that street or how to get back to my own house - I was a strung-out mess. My husband was remorseful and wanted another chance - because my own past was quite checkered and I'd done my share of bad things, I felt that, karmically, I owed it to the Universe to grant that one chance. My husband and I have been picking up the pieces ever since. His infidelity is still a dominant thought in my mind, however, and I'm not sure that I will ever be entirely free of it. The unwashed slut that was my co-worker and supposed "friend" hi-tailed her ass out of this company and went to work for another law firm here in town, got herself fired after three months for gross incompetence, then started working at a local beauty salon as a hair sweep-up and phone girl, then started selling parquet wood floors, then, lo and behold, found herself back here in downtown Seattle where she took another job as a legal secretary in a lawfirm.....next-friggin-door. So, after months of healing and feeling better and better.....thinking that it was all done and being so very happy to be moving forward.....I saw the "creature" (that's what I call her now...."the creature" and use the term "it" when speaking about it, rather than the feminine pronouns of "she" or "her."

I had been aware that the day would come when I would spot it....I just didn't know when, and for 15 months had been very fortunate ineed. However, the time had come and the spotting was done. I found myself fighting off shock and dismay. A cadre of emotions welled up inside me and were put down. I felt physically ill - dizzy, short of breath. Everything was fresh again. Everything was new and terrible again. I began to think of all my progress as having been a sham....I flailed about for answers. Days went by and I headed down into a black hole of depression and absolute RAGE. This is where my conversation with my girlfriend Chris comes in.

I had the brilliant idea last night that what I really needed to do was to have some closure on the other side of the equation of the betrayal that I was a victim of a year and a half ago. I needed to find out how someone could pretent to be your friend and could look you right in the face and say, "Maryellen, you know that I love you and I would never do anything to hurt you," when she sees you falling apart over the fact that you believe your husband is pulling away from you. I believed that answers for questions like, "how could you do this to me? We've been friends for five-friggin' years?" would somehow help me in my healing and recovery process and perhaps, just perhaps, put to rest some of this enormous rage that I have to wrestle with on an almost daily basis. However, there was something inside of me that told me this would not be a good idea. To send and email to the creature soliciting reasons behind why it could be so cruel, would alert the creature to the fact that I was still thinking about this stuff. This knowledge would, in some ways, give "it" power over me - and I didn't think I wanted to do that. So I called Chris to help talk me out of my newly planned course of action.

She asked me what I hoped to gain by emailing the creature.....I told her "closure" - and we talked a bit more, and she said that she didn't think I would get the answers I needed or was seeking. She said that what had happened and how the creature was able to do what it did was due to the simple fact that "evil exists in the world, and she (the creature) operates on the basest level of instinct and the most gutteral sphere of human nature." And that's true. It does. I didn't see it because I give people the benefit of the doubt. I assume goodness in people and, unless they show me differently, will continue to assume that goodness for the duration of our association. Never in my life have I been so grossly and rudely awakened to the possibility of evil and treachery so great. I am not going to go into the details of their affair here, but suffice to say, it had a hard-nosed counselor near tears and sitting on the edge of her chair saying that she simply did not know how I was going to get past all of it and come out to a place of forgiveness. And counselors just don't say that shit. They pretty much know how things are and that splitting up a marriage is one of the hardest exercises to which you can subject the psyche that exisits in the modern world.

So, anyway....yes Virginia.....evil exists in the world. And sometimes it slimes you. You cannot reason with it....you cannot plead with it....it has no more sense or congnisense than a lobotomy patient who endlessly masterbates all day. Evil such as the creature is cold, calculating and a slave to the self-serving attitude that causes wars. All you can do if it has touched you is to try to wipe it off and move on with your life. Move on and love. Love everyone who will love you back. Spread that love around. I try....I am trying....as I write these words I still struggle to understand even while I know there is no understanding what happened to me....but I try.

Heavy writing today, huh?

Blessed be, and may this never, ever happen to you. But if it does, may you find a way out and to the other side where there waits forgiveness which will set everyone free.

Az

Too Much Going On

I remember when I was bored . . . when I didn't have anything to do. Now there are too many things to do and not enough time to do them in. I wish I could go without sleep without becoming completely goofy for loss of 3 to 4 hours of it.
Check out my web page at http://www.theinvoker.com. I want you to see my new window project. This is a single pane of the 4-pane window I leaded and painted. Well, gotta go to bed now so I can get up and do it all again tomorrow. Ciao!

Katrina.....YOU BITCH!

Well, New Orleans....will it ever be the same? I can guarantee you that it won't, and maybe it shouldn't. But I'm not worried about Bourbon Street or the rest of the French Quarter or any of the other touristy-schmouristy crap down there. What I am worried about is all of those people. Those poor people who found themselves wading around in a bowl of human feces and dead bodies. I can't seem to get them off my mind. I'm also mindful of how much time it took our illustrious government to respond to their desperate need and situation. You can bet your ass that if they had been white middle-class citizens they would have been friggin' air lifted out of there as soon as the winds died down. I find it really scary to realize we are essentially living in a caste system here in the United States. Probably the reason it's been so long in dawning on me is that I was born into the privileged class. I'm sure, had I been born black, or hispanic, I would have realized this a very long time ago indeed.

So what is the point of this blog entry. Not one really. I just pray for the people of New Orleans. That they have the strength and courage they need to pick up their lives and move on from this point. That's really all they can do. I pray that the people who are holding on to their homesteads down there realize that they are holding on to death and decay, and that they let go and get the help they need.

Blessed be to the people ravaged by Katrina. Blessed be and may light cover you and may the Goddess see you through these incredibly trying times.

My.....my.....my....September already

So I'm sitting here on my cranberry colored camel-backed sofa typing away on my laptop as my husband sits on the other end of the same cranberry-colored camel-backed sofa typing on his laptop. It's Friday evening and we're waiting for our friends to come over so we can "do something." What this something is that we are going to do is anybody's guess.

Everyone, including myself, is bummed and upset about the poor hurricaine victims in Louisiana and Mississippi. It is incredible to see that kind of devestation on your own lawn....the few photos that I have seen of it look like the aftermath of the bombing of a 3d world country. Or, perhaps...oh...I dunno....maybe reminiscent of some of the photos coming back from Iraq in recent memory.

These times they are a'changin'. Our economy is in the sewer -or, if not quite there yet, well on its way. Gasoline is over $3 a gallon here in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, the cost of living is going up faster than wages, interest rates are rising along with unemployment, and well....we are headed for tough times.

We will weather these tough times and life will go on, but I have to say that I am really not looking forward to what the leeward side of a second Republican presidential term brings. I've seen this several times in my life already. Once with Ronald Regan, and once with Big Daddy Bush, and now with Junior. Each time, prices rose, wages stayed static, people became worried and didn't spend money (which just drove the process further into the abyss). **sigh** Hang on, those of you who don't remember, you'll get to see what I'm talking about soon enough - and for those of you who do remember - well, here we go again.

Pray for the hurricaine victims though. They need our support now. No matter how tough it may seem for you because you don't have the cash to go out and party tonight, or maybe you can't afford that new dress or car....if you're reading this blog, chances are you have a roof over your head and your house isn't under water, and you have electricity and you don't have dead bodies lying around in the street.

Blessed be, everyone. I don't mean to bring anyone down. I'm just kind of in a funk right now myself.

Last Day of Vacation

The worst thing about vacations is having them end. This sucks. I've been home just about enough time to get relaxed a little bit and get my bearings and now I'm going back to work. Suck-age abounds.

Our exchange student, Yuka, leaves for Japan tomorrow. We're going to miss her. Very strange to have a person you don't know come into your house and stay for three weeks, then just be suddenly gone. I'm wearing the shirt she brought for me from Japan. It has a Kanji character on it that means "Samari" but I have a piece of paper where she has written many more Kanji symbols for more ordinary and pertinent things like "garden" and so forth. I will use them in my art work. Right now I'm in the process of making painted glass windows anchored to a planter for the back patio. I haven't gotten very far on the project today because I've wanted to be available to drive the girls wherever they wanted to go - and that I did. I will work on them some more tomorrow. There's a lot of prep work before I get to the actual design. I think I'll take some pictures in the process I think. My husband takes pictures every step of the way in his work as a blacksmith and on his art projects as a metal smith (one in the same thing, actually for him anyway).

So it's just about time for the man to get home on this fine, fine Friday. We're sending Yuka back to Japan with her last dinner being a Tex-Mex creation by yours truly - just some tacos, rice, beans, salsa, guacamole - y'know.....'merican food.

It occurs to me that by the time I get back to work on Monday I will have been gone from the office for 11 days - it'll feel like no time at all because I've been working from home - but those are the hazards of keeping up with the job so you don't have a heart attack when you return from all the pile-up.

Another Day

Well, we've made it through another day with our Japanese exchangee. She is very sweet, and very helpful around the house - but it is also quite strange and surprisingly taxing to have someone living in the house who does not speak much English, and thus has some difficulty communicating.
For instance, this evening I asked her to take some watermelon rinds to the the large trash container in the back yard - explaining "the gray can" and when I looked up from the dishes, she was hucking them around the yard as she had seen me do with bread and small corn cobs for the squirrels. It was quite amusing.
And, there's the added pleasure of having her interact with our teenage daughter who is so concentrated on how much attention she gets vs. how much attention the exchange student gets that she renders an accounting several times a day. It is absolutely exhausting. But we haven't signed on for a whole year, thank goodness, and our little Yuka will be winging her way back to Japan in just two short weeks. Well, gotta go....I have to take some cookies out of the oven. She seems to love cookies beyond all other types of food, and when I make them, I feel like I am at least letting her know that I want to please her if I can.
Blessed be to any and all who read this post. Az

Okay, WTF?

Alrighty then....I've been wondering whether blogging is actually worth it or if anyone looks or reads or whatever - and then today a co-worker sent me a link to her husbands blogspot and I have to tell you - that thing is FLIPPIN' AWESOME. So, I'm going to take a page out of this dude's book and diversify a bit. I'm not just going to talk about witchcraft and Wicca - I think I'll just talk about anything I darn well please. Work, love, the state of mashed potatoes. Whatever! My teenage daughter, or our Japanese exchangee - whatever I feel like. Then I might be more interested in keeping up these posts. Let's see how it goes.