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