Unpacking and A $10 Bedroom Makeover

In our very first (and only) apartment back home in New Jersey our bedroom was more of a catch-all then a space of sleepy sexy zen. All the totes of crap that we couldn't fit elsewhere, my altar, my TV armoire, my china cabinet and our bed somehow all fit in there, but it was far from organized and anything but decorated.

When we moved down here, I swore not to let that continue and have finally managed to finish putting all of the totes of clothes, blankets, towels and miscellany neatly into the closets where they belong and decorated my bedroom.

Before:

Because Gods know, moving boxes are mighty romantic, haphazard clothes are relaxing and cleaning polish and white walls put me in the sexiest of moods, I overhauled my room. And did so for the price of $10 worth of awesome curtains.

After:

This was the wall with all the totes and clothes stacked up along it. Now it's only home to our old leather trunk and hamper.

Got rid of those moving boxes and redecorated the top of the TV armoire.


The finishing touch was rediscovering an old romantic renaissance print I had and framing it above the bed. It's not off center, that big white space at the bottom has the paintings title and artist name in elegant script

All of my decorations were things that I already had around the house. I put the china cabinet in the dining room where it belongs and I adore my bedroom. I'm so much more relaxed when I go in there to lay down and read or sleep, it's like a big, blue sigh of relief at the end of the day.

Grimoire, Book of Shadows or a Haphazard Mess?

When the decade ended, one of my resolutions for this year was to organize my beliefs, knowledge, spells, charms, mythologies, etc. into a cohesive grimoire instead of having them scribbled down in various books, slips of paper and witches day planners (Yes, I have those, as geeky as that may sound).

I lamented over the book I should use for quite a while but then a book literally jumped off the shelf at me while I was browsing the journal section of the book store and despite it's significant lack of subtlety (there will be no keeping people from touching this if they spot it) I knew it was perfect for me.

While warm oranges and reds very rarely find themselves in my favor, they worked so well with the swirling birds that I fell in love the moment it hit my arm.

However, I have two issues with the book. The first is that it's bound. I can't add to it over time and as such will be sort of limiting what it can contain due to space constraints. It has 96 double sides pages so I can fit a good deal of information in it. My second issue is that the pages are a hair too thin to hold up well to paint of any sort. If it were just a wee bit more sturdy I could watercolor it until I ran out of paint, but as it is when I paint in it the color bleeds to the other side, rendering my pages 1 sided.

All that being said, my work on this book has sort of stagnated at 2 pages over the past 5 months. I drew my Earth Mother in the book and began a page in my deity section, so it wouldn't be terribly difficult for me to start again in another book and repurpose this one into a sketch book or tarot diary.

The dilemma comes in again; what sort of book should I use? Also, what sections do I want to include? Every time I peek at a book done by someone else, I tend to pick up a new idea or two and if this continues, my book will need 400+ pages!

The things that I know I will include, without a doubt are:

* Book Blessing - preferably written by myself, but as I prefer poetic spellwork and blessings and am not much of a poet myself, I may bend on that.
* My personal creed
* My vow to the Earth Mother
* Wheel of the Year Myth and sabbat information
* Deities
* Moon Phases - correspondences and rituals
* The Elements - Correspondences ad information
* My Altar tools and setup - Misc. information on the tools I use and why. Not paraphrased from a book.
* Casting of the circle - Again, my method and quarter calls. I can't use most incense, so I need to improvise.
* Spellworkings - I'm not sure how I'll categorize this yet. Perhaps by method and intention? Such as Oils, Incense, Sachets, Rituals and then subcategories for intent under each heading.
* Divination - by pendulum, runes, scrying, tea leaves
* Correspondences - Colors, Gemstones, Days of the Week, Bric-a-Brac
* Runes and Symbology

Things I would like to add, but think may require their own books:
* Herbal correspondences and workings
* Tarot

So, now that I've shared, I'd like to hear from you. Do you have a BoS or Grimoire? Do you have a haphazard mess of notes and scribbles? If you do, what sort of book do you have? What sections did you include and why?

Is there anything I'm missing that you think I should include? Why?

The Woodland Family

Ah, what a week. I've been so busy with work (part time, my foot!), the lovely and I were both sick at different points and when I had free time and was healthy I squirreled myself away to work on some custom art for an etsy customer, which I'll share with you all. :)

A wonderful woman bought my horned god painting, which I loved so much after it was finished that I almost unlisted it to keep for myself:

Once she received him, she had asked me if I would make a goddess to complement him. I love when people ask me to do custom work so I accepted and asked for any details she'd like me to include. When I logged in the next day, she had sent me the sweetest message telling me that my horned god reminded her a great deal of her son and asked me if I could render portraits of the rest of her family as horned gods and goddesses. I was so touched I couldn't help but agree!

Her request was that the women have antlers and her other son goat horns and that when all four are grouped together they'll be facing center. She said once she frames them, she'll send me a picture of the grouping. I can't wait to see them all framed together and had a lot of fun working on these, especially since fauns and horned ones are a current recurring theme in my artsy ideas recently.

Tales From Shangri La

Good Morning, er.. afternoon, lovelies. Day one of trying to get a morning routine together was less than spectacular, but to be fair, it's rainy and chilly and my bed was oh so comfy! I did get up at a human hour, eat breakfast, feed the kitties, clean the kitchen and update my shop, so it wasn't a total bust.

Now, I'd like to point you all to an interesting and new blog by a good friend of mine, Tales From Shangri La. I've known Rusty (in person no less!) for 7 or so years. We met in a college art class and he re-introduced me to the fun and beauty of photography, which I had abandoned after high school. In fact, he gave me my first SLR and took me on my very first photography expeditions to abandoned places. We've both always been fascinated by history and the beauty found in decay, but he has easily 3 times the amount of locations under his belt and the boy can do his research.

Some examples of Rusty's work...

He recently began a blog to document the places he visits, to share their beauty and history with others and create a sort of cyber memorial to them. His abandoned photos and histories have been published in quite a few issues of Weird NJ Magazine. The photos he shares are large, to highlight the minute details of the shot and he highlights each place by only showing one entry per page. Navigation can be found at the bottom. I highly recommend looking at his entry regarding the Overbrook Asylum in Essex, NJ. This location is fairly well known and has been visited by the show Ghost Hunters. There's a sort of eerie solitude present in the photos.

If you enjoy quirk, strange history, interesting places or great looking photos, stop by and say hello.

Morning Rituals

My husband, as well as anyone who has known me for a while, can tell you that I am not a morning person. When I roll out of bed, I'm sluggish, my eyes feel heavy and I am the poster child for procrastination.

For some reason, working the morning shift has always been my way of combating this. I get out of bed, shower, grab my stuff and sprint out the door with just enough time to get to work. When I get off of my shift in the afternoon, I'm awake and ready to get stuff done around the house. I've never developed a morning ritual and have always had weekend mornings that would make sloths mock me, but I stay up extra late at night on these days to make up for my extra sleepy time. This routine has gotten me through the last 10 years of my life, without any issue.

Enter the new part-time job and its great big scheduling monkey wrench. In order to be employed, I have to be able to work mornings and evenings. I tell my boss I prefer mornings, and she says no big deal. I look at this week's schedule and... I go into work at 4pm every single day. Now, this may not seem like a problem for someone who isn't a morning person except, for me, it really is.

Due to my sloth-like movements in the morning and my tendency to lump on the couch until it's time to go to work, these late afternoon shifts destroy my entire day. I end up lounging around until 12:30 - 1pm or so, realize I have to leave the house in a few very short hours and don't manage to accomplish anything because I don't want to start anything, get into my groove and have to cut it short to go to work. You can see how this is problematic.

So, I'm on a quest to try to change my tendency to slug around in the morning so I can have productive days even when my work schedule is less than optimal. I'm thinking I need to establish some sort of morning ritual: get up do x, y, z.. don't loaf past this time... etc.

But, I have no idea where to start. So my lovelies, what do you all do in the morning to get yourselves motivated and productive? Do you have a morning ritual, what does it look like? Do you have any tips for combating this things before it becomes a week-long issue? Coffee is already an integral part of my day, so at least I've got that much figured out.

An update on Chico the naughty cat

I picked the husband up from work when my training shift was over today to take Chico (pictured above, with Molly, who is only a year older but twice his size) to the vet. They poked him, they prodded him, they updated his vaccinations, then listened to his little heart beating, took an ultrasound of his kidneys and stole the urine right out of his bladder with a large needle.

A hefty vet bill later and I have to bring them a stool sample because they suspect he may have a virus, but were very vague about exactly what sort. Apparently, they found bacteria in his urine and his white cell count is off. They sent us home with drops to hopefully clear that all up and several recommendations to help us keep him from using the carpet outside of his litter box as a litter box.

They said the fact that it's been about 6 weeks since we moved and he's only peed in the apartment twice and only in the last two weeks, doesn't look like trouble behavior, especially since it's been happening near the box and he isn't spraying, just urinating. They said it's possibly a combination of the new litter we tried and an infection, probably caused by the litter. They also said it could be that I don't feed him enough wet food. Apparently some cats don't digest dry food as well as others and I probably have one of them. As if my cats aren't spoiled enough already.

So, I'm a bit more hopeful right now. I'll be paying several bills late, but for now I get to continue to love on my cat and enjoy his company.

Of cats and crying

I know a lot of you have cats. Do any of you have problem cats? The kind that no matter what you do, you can't get them to quit their bad behaviors? I do. His name is Chico and between my dad and I we've raised this feral kitten since he was found outside my dad's house.

He's adorable, soft, sweet... and on occasion, he pees all over everything. When we were in the apartment in NJ, he started peeing on furniture in the apartment after he was neutered. We used Feliway to get him to stop. When we moved, we brought several bottles of the stuff to plug into the walls to keep our apartment pee free and keep the cats calm.

Unfortunately, someone started peeing again. Feliway's in place, the vet says prescribing him any sort of medication won't help. He peed right in from of the hubs and I this morning and my husband lost it. I have never seen him so angry. It was all I could do to keep him from tossing Chico outside. He went to work and I'm home, cleaning cat pee, crying my eyes out, supposed to be getting ready for work and knowing, deep down, that I'm going to have to give my beloved cat up for adoption, because we don't have a safe outdoor space to let him run free in (we're right off a major highway) and I can't let him destroy my apartment. He's not going to stop if the things that kept him from doing it before... aren't doing anything now.

I'm going to take him to the vet and make sure he doesn't have an infection or anything, since he's peeing, not marking. But if not..

I'm at my wit's end and my heart is breaking.

Tree of Life - A Work in Progress

I shared this over on the Pagan Artist's Network blog, but thought I should share my work in progress with all of you as well.

I've had a large 24"x30" canvas with a half assed sketch sitting in my closet for over a year now. I've had no intention of carrying out the previous painting, because I no longer liked the idea halfway through the sketch. I decided it was high time to use it and have begun to paint my own rendition of the tree of life over it. No sketching required.

This is my first large scale acrylic painting in almost 10 years and honestly, I feel a bit rusty. I'd like to blend more blues into the sky, I'm only about 1/4 of the way done with the bark work and then there's the underground portion that I have no idea how I plan to tackle. I know that I plan on painting a golden acorn attached to a single shiny oak leaf at the end of one of the roots towards the center.

But how to paint the cavern below the tree... all black? Black and grey? Black and grey and brown? Hmm...

We're all mad here...

Grab your top hat and tea cup and join myself and a slew of bloggers for A Fanciful Twists third annual mad tea party!

Will you be attending? And if so, how mad will your tea party be? Will there be giveaways, photos, art or videos? Oh the brainstorming I must do!

Beltane Festivities

Beltane was a very laid back and peaceful kind of day. The weather held out and the only rain we had was a fleeting drizzle. While I'd someday love to attend a festival like this or this, and hope to someday find one nearby and not across the ocean, I was happy just to sit barefoot in the park. There were some noisy mating ducks nearby at one point, which made me chuckle, because the children in the park were making their parents uncomfortable with their pointing and asking what the green duck was doing to the brown one. Oh, that frisky Beltide magic.

The park is usually pretty quiet, but apparently they had some Rubber Duck fundraiser going on, where they race rubber ducks in the river. We arrived for the end of it.

Two goofs in the park

I received so many compliments from strangers on my quilt!

Ducks corralled at the end of the race way

We found four leaf clovers as we were leaving the park.

After several hours in the park, we came home and I kicked back with a glass (or two) of chilled honeyed mead before performing a simple candle ritual that I wrote up a few days ago.

I took two candles, a green one for the Goddess and a yellow one for the God and carved the triple moon and horned god symbols into the appropriate candle. I placed them in candle holders beside each other and as I lit them, said:
'As I light these candles, I pay homage to the Lord and Lady, they burn in union as the Maiden and the God are joined in union, may their flames burn long and bright.

As they burn down, may my home be blessed with fertility (of the spirit and creativity) and love. As I will it, so mote it be.'

I hope you all had a beautiful sabbat.