Reflections

I can't say that I'm sad to see 2009 come to an end, but while I could lament about all the terrible things that happened over the past twelve months I would much rather reflect on the the positive aspects of the year.

Spiritually, the past twelve months have been prosperous. I've grown ever more confident and comfortable when discussing my beliefs with others and am officially and completely out of whatever broom closet I may have been in. I've had the pleasure of meeting so many other pagans and have had the opportunity to learn about other paths and beliefs that I would never have been able to do other wise.

Artistically, I took a huge leap of faith and opened an Etsy shop to take the first steps in supporting myself through something I truly love to do. I also had the opportunity to visit several captivating abandoned places which I enjoyed exploring and photographing.

Tonight however, isn't just the close of a year, but the close of a decade. A decade that held so much growth and change for me. Over the past decade I got my driver's license, became an adult, graduated high school, became old enough to drink. I moved to another state (and consequently back home again), dated a few different people... one who introduced me to my love of photography and the abandoned and is one of the best friends I've ever had, and another whom I subsequently married. I fell to the alcoholism and saved myself from it all on my own. Three atrocious Star Wars prequels came out. I made the first steps down my chosen pagan path. I moved out of my parent's home. I got my first tattoo... quickly followed by 12 more. I've lost friends and loved ones and gained a whole lot of weight. ;)

To celebrate, a brief glimpse at the past twelve months:

So while I will be happy to see 2009 go the way of the dodo, I will look back on the past ten years with fondness and possibly a twinge or two of sadness. So, I'll raise a glass at midnight to acknowledge where I came from as well as where I'm going.

Goodbye, Old Friend

It's never easy saying goodbye to someone you love. Even if you know goodbye is coming and think you've brought yourself to terms with it, the Sadness is inevitable.

When I was 13 the dog I grew up with, Lady, was being ravaged by cancer. We got the call from the veterinarian in the middle of the night saying most of her internal organs were being consumed. My mother and father made the decision to let her go right then and there. I was never able to say goodbye and it wreaked havoc on my tiny heart for months.

About a year later we swung by an animal adoption day for a local pound on a lark and met the sweetest mutt puppy in the whole entire world. We brought her home and my sister, who was 5 at the time, named her Laura after my best friend.

Laura was beyond a doubt, the happiest dog on the planet. She was always smiling and would dance, on her toes, when excited. She was great to wrestle and was always willing to cuddle and lend an ear when you needed someone to just listen. She had epilepsy and gained a remarkable amount of weight from the medication she was on (also probably due to her love of cheese which we kids frequently snuck to her) but she would still dance and flop on her back looking for a belly rub whenever we came home from school, work or a weekend at a friends.

When I moved out three years ago, I missed Laura tremendously and enjoyed visiting my dad's house so I could visit with her. Christmas was always the best time to visit because my father always gets catering and there were always lots of cheese sneakings to be had.

When I pulled into my dad's driveway on Christmas Eve this year with my husband and sister in tow, I expected Laura to come darting out of the house to greet us. When she failed to do so a dark feeling swept over me and as my love and sister bounded into the house with armloads of gifts I stood a moment under the stars (oh, how I miss those country stars) I heard a whimper and a whine and my heart broke. There, on the edge of the forest, lay Laura. If I had parked on the opposite side of the driveway I would have hit her. I tried to lift her, but her legs were jelly and I screamed for my husband as I cried. I made the call to the veterinarian, bundled my husband and sister back into the car and drove to town with our dear old friend.

While she was lying on the table with her head in my hands, Laura looked at me with eyes that told me not to cry anymore, she was awfully tired and ready to go. She was all smiles until the very end. I sobbed the whole ride home, but I'm happy that I was there with her and was able to say goodbye.

My heart aches and there is a void in my life where she was, but I know she's at peace and that she will be waiting for me, with a smile, a dance and a piece of cheese at the rainbow bridge.

Oh Yule-mas tree, Oh Yule-mas tree...

The Yule tree is my favourite part of the holiday season. There's something inherently magical about gathering the family and going off into the field in search of the perfect tree to bring into your home. I've always had a soft spot for blue spruce and the stereotypical holiday tree, the douglas fir.

When my love and I moved in together and were about to celebrate our first holidays together, our adventure in tree finding involved hitting several stores to find a mid range tree in life-like plastic. At first, the fact that we didn't have a real tree bothered me, but when I pulled the tree out of the closet for it's third holiday this year I felt a sort of sentimental joy at seeing it again.

My lovely and I spent an evening putting it up, hanging lights around the living room and putting the ornaments on. Each ornament we unwrapped was a memory, I can tell you where each unique ornament came from. The round baubles have less of a story, I bought them all at Lowe's. ;)

My dears, let me introduce you to my Yule tree:

For a closer look at some of the ornaments...


I spy with my little eye, the King of the Island of Misfit Toys, Batman and a familiar friend, Kitty Katan.


Hiding amongst the baubles and candy canes is the ornament we picked up while we were on our anniversary in Hershey, PA.


The left side of the tree is home to the Bumble, The Misfit jack-in-the-box, A Jolly Elf I picked up at Macy's when we visited Santa a little over a week ago, an ornament from Disney, NYC that I picked up in 2008 during my first outing to the Rockefeller tree. In the way back you may notice that these ornies are neighbors to my good friend, Jack Splat the Pumpkin Brat.


I searched high, searched low, gave up hope... but when I found them today, onto my tree the Wild Things did go!


The top of the tree houses the star of the show, although it doesn't outshine a vintage Santa that was sent to me from Ireland or Santa Cthulhu who is the first ornament I made for our tree way back in 2007.

There are many more ornaments; this is just a small sampling. I hope you enjoyed your visit with our Yule tree.

Herb Infused Dough Ornaments

Did you ever make salt dough ornaments as a kid? These are basically the same thing, with a little bit of an extra kick!

Recipe:

4 cups of all purpose flour
1 cup of salt
1 cup of water

Herbs to pull what you want to fill your home with during the holiday season right to you.

This recipe will make approximately 30 ornaments. You can halve or double as needed.

Step 1:

Mix the flour and salt in a big bowl. Once they are thoroughly mixed slowly begin to add the water, mix as you add. Some people like to use a big wooden spoon, I use my hands and mix and knead the dough as if I were making bread. You want your dough to have a smooth texture... too crumbly or too sticky just won't work! If your dough is a bit on the crumbly side, go ahead and add a wee bit more water.

Step 2:

Once your dough is mixed it's time to pull put your herbs. I picked lavender for love and harmony, sage for patience and wisdom and cinnamon for prosperity. You can use more or less, I just decided to use three.

Separate your dough into equal portions that reflect the number of herbs you want to use. In this case, I have three herbs, so I split my dough into three balls.

Step 3:

Poke a hole into the center of your dough and fill it with the herb you are using in that batch. In this case I'm using the lavender. Fold the herb in and knead vigorously to spread it throughout the dough.

Step 4:

Once you've infused the dough with the herb, roll your ball of dough out to about 1/2" thickness on a sheet of waxed paper.

Step 5:

Grab your cookie cutters and get cutting! I chose to make my lavender dough into stars, but you can use any shapes you want. If you like your things to have a rougher feel, you can cut your shapes out free hand with a small pairing knife, just make sure you don't gouge your table! :)

Step 6:

Once you've cut your ornaments out, it's time to bake them. As you place each ornament onto an ungreased cookie sheet, poke a big hole near the top with a toothpick. Make sure it's slightly larger than you want it to be in the end as the ornaments tend to expand a wee bit while cooking.

Place the ornaments in the oven and bake for approximately 20 - 30 minutes at 350F. The ornaments will be hard to the touch once done. You can also stick a sewing pin in them to test doneness, if it comes out clean, they're done!

Step 7:
After they've cooled use a ribbon or thread to hang them. You can also paint them with acrylic paints, add glitter to them, or jazz them up however you'd like. Have fun with them and enjoy your herbal ornaments!

Keepsake Matchbox Shrine Tutorial

I hope you'll find my tutorial enjoyable and will give making your own keepsake matchbox a try. They're great gifts for others as well as yourself. Also, merry meet to those of you visiting from the Domestic Witch's Homemade Holidays!

Keepsake Matchbox Shrine

Supplies you will need:

* Matchbox
* Glues (stick and thick liquid)
* Craft Knife
* Cutting mat
* Ruler
* Scrapbooking or other papers
* Focal Picture
* Embellishments

Step 1

Cut out a piece of scrapbooking paper 2x the size of your matchbox's back side.

Glue the box into the center of the paper and trim the excess to create paper flaps to cover the walls of the box.

Step 2:

Fold flaps in and glue in place using your tacky glue.

Step 3:

Cut your photo down to fit inside your box.

Step 4:

Once trimmed, glue the photo inside with glue stick and set aside to dry.

Step 5:

While your interior dries, cover the outer matchbox in paper. Measure the box and trim the paper accordingly, then glue into place with your glue stick.

Set aside to dry completely, as you don't want the paper to shift and wrinkle while you work.

Step 6:

While the outer box is drying, take the embellishments for your interior box and glue them in place with your tacky glue.

For mine I used a foreign coil to symbolize my DH's love of travel and learning, a Seahorse charm to represent my love of the sea (and that my favourite element is water) and a lego to symbolize a combined interest.

Step 7:

Lastly, embellish the outside. I used a leaf, a wax seal of our initial, and a celtic love knot.

Once both boxes have dried, slip the inner box inside of the outer box and viola! You have matchbox keepsake. :)

A New York City Christmas

This season has always been a rough one for me to get excited about. I stopped believing in Santa at the ripe age of 7 when I woke up late Christmas Eve night and found my presents doing 'elf duty.' My parents filed for divorce on Christmas 10 years after that, so the warm fuzzies haven't exactly come easily for me for a long time. In attempts to get me jazzed up about the holidays, my husband and best friend (also known as the two greatest guys I could ever ask for) have gone above and beyond the call of duty to make the yuletide season fun for me the past few years. They even let me get greedy and have two holidays, since I celebrate Yule and they celebrate Christmas. You know their efforts have taken hold when I was cleaning the Thanksgiving table and pulling out the tree at the same time this year.

When we departed the train station yesterday, there were big fluffy snowflakes falling around us. Joe (the hubs), Michael (the best friend) and I were on our way into New York City to see Santa, the Rockefeller Tree, and gawk at all the lights and window displays as we walked up 5th Ave to FAO Schwartz in search of candy and merriment. Joe had taken me into the city to see the tree for the very first time and walk the circuit last year and we decided to repeat it and invite Michael to come with us this time.

The train ride into the city was uneventful, an hour and a half of me reading a book and the guys playing Nintendo DS and giggling together. When the train arrived we disembarked into freezing rain and hail, a far cry from the heralds of Yule magic that we left back in New Jersey. We headed directly for Macy's where we took in the Miracle on 34th street window displays before entering the store and taking the escalators to the topmost floor where we were sure Santa would be.:

Alas, the Jolly Man was not on the 9th floor, but Christmas Lane with all of it's glittery trees and shiny ornaments were. We wandered mesmerized for a bit and ended up buying some goodies:

We were informed by our cashier that Santa was on the 8th floor and so we headed back down the escalator and entered Santa Land, where we were greeted by many animatronic creatures, tall trees, and the biggest village set up I've ever seen.

This tree man made my pagan heart exquisitely happy.

We finally reached the 'Santa Forest' where we were directed to one of many tiny huts where multiple Santas lived. I'm sad to say we didn't get to visit with the real Santa Claus (the one that comes to town during the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade) but this Santa was good natured about us getting our photo taken with him:

Bff, Santa, Me and Hubs.

Before leaving the store I dropped off a letter I had written to Santa with my Yule wish on it and dropped it into his mailbox:

We walked the 17 blocks to Rockefeller center and were able to see the tree, but unable to get terribly close to it. Soggy, but happy we took quite a few photos:

Joe and myself.

Michael and Myself.

The Boys.

View of Rockefeller Plaza from the exit ramp.

We continued our journey up 5th ave to 58th street, where FAO Shwartz is located. Once inside we dried off a bit while gawking at all sorts of toys and their giant candy stash:

Hubs loves looking like he's having a terrible time when I take his photo...

After we had gotten our fill, we walked back down 5th ave with a stop at Bergdorf Goodman so I could drool over the window displays. This year they were all Alice in Wonderland inspired and were amazing. Had it been a drier night I would have spent at least half an hour staring at each minute detail:

The Lion and the Unicorn.

When I had satisfied my urge for eyecandy we headed down to Penn Station to catch the train home. We waited an hour for the train and when it came time to go I got up and had forgotten my purse on the chair. I turned around and sprinted back to get it, all in the course of less than 5 minutes, and unsurprisingly it was gone. Luckily the purse snatcher only got my debit and credit card, which I canceled as soon as I boarded the train, and my driver's license which I am going to go to the DMV and replace and report stolen tomorrow morning. My cell phone, MP3 player, Camera and cash were all on my person hidden within my coat to keep dry during our walk through the rain.

Despite the fact that very little was taken and I'm taking preventative measures to make sure my money and identity remain my own, it was still a terrible way to end an otherwise great day. If anyone has any advice to offer me as far as counter measures are concerned, I'm all ears.