Moonday Musings: Family and the Zoo

Saturday evening, for the first time since we left New Jersey for the South, my mom's car rolled in to my driveway with my step father, my sister and my niece in tow. And I was so happy to see every one!

We gave them the penny tour of our home, went out to get groceries for dinner, called my brother who lives just down the road and had a great time chatting and laughing. My family was smitten by Acorn, Khloe - who is now 3- kept referring to him as her best friend and telling us all how much she loves her best friend. Luna chased everyone around the yard as they stretched their legs after the long trip, my brother was dragged off in to the other room by Khloe to play legos and watch Barbie cartoons and I grossed out my mom and sister by telling them that I ate my placenta after we'd had a conversation about how incredible the human body is. To be fair, my sister brought it up by saying "Did you know you can eat that?" and I said, "Yup, because I did! Not with onions like a liver or anything, but powdered in capsules." Priceless reactions afterwards, lol! Everyone stayed up way later than they probably should have, given how early they'd gotten up, but my brother and his fiance haven't seen the rest of the family in 2 years and everyone wanted to hold my son and it was just good to catch up.

Also, we had "family portrait time" with my entirely uncooperative family. My brother's fiance did her very best to get a good picture, but mom my, brother and sister all HATE having their pictures taken and so, don't ever take them seriously. In the end, that's ok, because this is the one I'm going to print out, hang on my wall and give them all for Yuletide. ;)

Yesterday morning we were all up bright and early and Chris and Katelyn (my brother and fiance) drove over so we could all go to the zoo downtown together. It's a small, but really nice zoo and Katherine (my sister) was ridiculously excited to see the baby giraffe that lives there. It was Acorn's first trip to the zoo and it was amazing to see how inquisitive and attentive he was, even while he was riding in the Ergo on dad's chest. (I'm usually the baby wearer, but I've been dealing with a terrible bought of sciatica, so sadly, no snuggles were had by me). This time, folks were *slightly* more cooperative for photos. ;)

The Rogue's Gallery. My sister, Katherine, Brother Chris, Niece Khloe (who took to uncle Chris like you would NOT believe, but due to her obsession with Frozen, calls him "Hans"), Acorn, Joe, Me and Chris' fiance, Katelyn. Also, my mom's first time using a DSLR. Not bad mom, not bad at all.

Today, we'll take them downtown to walk Main Street, get some lunch, maybe do some shopping and visit the gorgeous park. They'll be leaving either tomorrow morning or Wednesday, they haven't decided yet. But either way, I wish they were staying longer. It's been nice having everyone here, having several extra hands to help with Acorn since my back is fucked up, I don't know when our next trip to NJ will be and there's so much more I'd like to show them.

I'll just have to keep my fingers and toes crossed that they feel up to making the long trip again sometime. :)

Apple Time

This week, it's been gorgeous here in the Land of Eternal Summer. Well, to this Northerner anyway. It's been cool, cloudy and breezy most days with the sun peeking out just enough to warm it up when the breeze is a bit chilly. Very Autumnal, I was overjoyed when we got to wear hoodies on Mabon!

In celebration of Autumn and to enjoy the beautiful weather, our trio hopped int he car this morning and hit up the local farm to pick apples. Acorn won't remember his first apple picking adventure, but we will. Plus, we snagged about 10 pounds of the juicy buggers to turn in to apple butter, apple pie, apple muffins... you know, autumn apple overload. :)

Joe did his "fatherly duties" as he puts it and took some videos of us in the field with the handy dandy camcorder he ordered a week ago. We never did the whole home movies thing in my family growing up, but he did. As far as this camera happy lady is concerned, the more captured memories the better!

We had a lovely morning, walking the orchard and finding apples to bring home and some to munch on. The bees found some to munch on too! Acorn had to settle for apple flavored milk, since he's far too little to actually eat them. Though he did help us pick some. ;)

Perspective and Homesickness

After the wonderful weekend, we entered another tough week. Nothing like the previous ones, but certainly not fun. The culmination of it being Wednesday, when I was finally able to get Luna in to the vet for a limp she's had for nearly two weeks. We'd have taken her in sooner, but with the stomach bugs floating around, I'm sure the vet wouldn't have been thrilled to see us.

So, we had to wait it out. And it became more frequent Tuesday, when I was stuck at my own doctor's office for several hours doing a prenatal glucose test and again unable to take her in. Wednesday when we went in, I was expecting to hear she'd pulled a muscle or somehow fractured something though we haven't seen her injure herself. She never goes outside alone (we don't have a fence) and she hasn't taken a fall off the couch or bed while we've been home with her. Doesn't rule it out, but we didn't see it.

Within 2 minutes of touching her leg, the vet had me come over and place my finger where his was and feel a wiggly piece of something floating in her rear knee. Turns out, that wiggly piece of something is her knee cap which no longer stays in place on its own. They took x-rays to rule out any scar tissue, arthritis or anything else that may be wrong and it turns out she has a deformity of her leg bone which kept the groove that holds her knee cap in place from forming properly. Which means the knee doesn't sit in place properly and is left to pop out as it chooses. So, chances are excellent this has always been an issue for my extremely active and jumpy pup, but due to Jack Russell pain thresholds and stubbornness, she hasn't let on until now. And has only done so now because she can no longer get it to pop back in to place and stay there. She's clever and tough as nails, I'd have cried like I was dying the first time it popped out, not popped it back in lord knows how many times and kept jumping.

So, my poor 2 year old needs knee surgery to grind away the bone and deepen the groove. Our vet office doesn't perform this surgery, so our doctor is working to get us scheduled in to the hospital they refer to and gave me his best shot in the dark estimate for costs, but obviously can't quote accurately without talking to them first. He also prescribed no walks except to potty in the yard, no running and no jumping until they get us in for surgery. I may have to hog tie my poor pup to keep her still when the painkiller and anti-inflamtory she's on wears off:

And, as is always the case, this expense is dropping on us now that I don't have a job any more. Just like with Chico's giant vet bills last month and several other unforeseen expenses. Unfortunately for me, I've always made my own way financially and have always been driven to contribute to our expenses and savings. It's not that I give a rats ass about money or fine things, I just don't want to be a burden to someone else... even my husband. Even before I got pregnant, we'd talked about having a parent at home, something which is incredibly important to both of us. Given that, the fact that I've never been a career person and the fact that day care would suck up my entire paycheck, I decided that I'd leave work a little before baby was born to get things ready and get my own shit together before I took on the job of full time mom.

But the transition has been tough on me. I'm not even going to sugar coat this; I feel lazy, worthless and like a gigantic burden. This is only made worse when something like a surgery costing a couple thousand dollars drops on our laps. It has nothing to do with how Joe sees it, because he admonishes me for feeling this way - reassuring me that it's nice to have me home, not stressed about work and able to take care of myself in the last stretch of baby growing. And I believe him, but my own fucked up sense of self guilt and self worth gets in my way. And so yesterday, I spent a good deal of time crying and feeling like shit.

Until I got to thinking about where we used to be, back when we lived in New Jersey and realized what a sad sack I'm being. You see, if we hadn't taken a risk and made a drastic change when Joe's job moved here to South Carolina a little over 4 years ago we wouldn't be in the situation we're in right now. And I don't mean that in a bad way.

When his job left, we were living in a 500 foot apartment with rent that was $200 more than the mortgage on our 1700 foot house per month. We both were working full time just to scrape by. If we'd stayed there, he may have had to take a job that was closer to NY and make the horrific 2 hour congested commute each way every day in his Jeep. We'd see each other from 7:30pm - 11:30 pm each night, if he got home on time. And if one of us didn't end up with a 2nd job. Our relationship would have become somewhat passive and neither one of us would have time for fun or hobbies, we'd have been unhappy. But let's say we stuck it out, because that's what you do when you love someone. You take the shit with the good.

When his car broke down completely (the back axle was no longer attached when we determined it was dead), we'd have had to try to find another beater car because we couldn't have afforded a car payment. We would have limped my old vehicle with it's 10k worth of needed repairs along too. We wouldn't have been able to afford the safe and reliable car we now have. We wouldn't have been able to replace his broken Jeep with a scooter and a truck. We'd be bleeding out any extra money we managed to scrape together in to gas and car repairs. We'd probably have some towing bills from breaking down on the side of the road.

We'd still be in that shitty apartment with the police station near the foot of it that tripled in size due to all the crime that goes on in it.

We'd never have gotten Luna or any other dog, because pets weren't allowed. We had the cats because you can hide them and they're quiet. Luna would most likely have ended up in a shelter.

When Chico got sick last month, we couldn't have afforded the bill and we'd have made the difficult and painful decision to put him to sleep.

And there's no way in Hell I'd be pregnant. We'd probably never have had a baby, because stability was a tremendously important factor in that decision making process for us. Along with the kid having a bedroom. An expensive luxury where we lived.

Perspective. A huge shift in the way I felt.

People love to ask me if I'm homesick. Especially now that I'm pregnant. They also love to remind me that New Jersey is amazing, that there are so many things I love there, that it's better than where I am now - as if I've somehow forgotten all of that.

I haven't.

But honestly, I'm not homesick anymore. Not really. Because while New Jersey was and will always be my home state and I miss certain things, I'm not oblivious to how shitty our situation was there. I'm not blind to how fucking ridiculously expensive it is to live there. I'm no longer surprised by friends and family who are trapped in shit living situations, in shit houses, in shit jobs... because of how impossible it is to change up there any more. And these aren't people who live beyond their means, these are people in modest homes or apartments trying to eek out an existence on 70+ hour a week jobs and constantly feeling like they're beating their heads against a brick wall.

Almost everyone I know back home is miserable. They're depressed. They're unhappy. They feel trapped and stuck and like they're pissing their lives away on monotonous, unchangeable bullshit. And they can't get out; because as taxes keep soaring and the cost of living becomes even more insane their wages don't increase. And then they pick up second or third jobs and don't have time to even see the place they're pissing their money in to except to sleep.

So, no. I'm not homesick. Because that's not the same atmosphere I grew up in. The one I grew up in was filled with just as many hardworking people, just as many modest and sometimes a little beat to hell homes. But there were weekends on the beach. There were hikes in the mountains. There was time for laughter, relaxation, relationships. And those weren't luxuries just a few people could enjoy.

Don't get me wrong, I miss the kitsch. I miss the beach. I miss the unwavering Jersey Pride and fuck you attitudes. I miss longer Springs and Autumns. I miss being within an hour of the mountains, the coast, and the city. I miss not being asked why I don't sound like someone from that terrible "Jersey Shore" show (uhhh... because I'm from New Jersey, not New York). But I don't miss the life we'd most likely have lived had we stayed.

And I sure as hell wouldn't give up the one I have now.

Snowpocalypse 2014

It's no secret that snow here in South Carolina is pretty rate, I've been lucky to see an inch or two of the white stuff each Winter since we moved here four years ago. It's also no big secret that they are totally unprepared for when the stuff falls - an inch is enough to shut down town for at least a day.

So this week, when we got around 7 inches of snow, everything was closed for 3 days (I was lucky and got 4 off). So we spent a lot of time home, enjoying the white stuff from the comfort of our fire warmed home instead of white knuckled behind the wheel of a car. If there's one giant perk to having moved here from New Jersey it's that I no longer have bosses who say "I don't give a shit that there's two feet of snow and it's still falling.. get your ass to work or you're fired."

So now, for the first time in forever, I actually appreciated this little bit of Winter. It was too fluffy for snowmen, so we chased Luna around in it, caught flakes on our tongues and I took photos instead. :) These were taken towards evening, so are a little grey. Ah well.

Luna loves our neighbor, Hank the horse. She runs over to his fence and if he's outside he'll come over and touch noses with her through the fence - or over it, if one of us lifts her up.

And today, in the manner of the crazy Southern weather, it's in the 60's and the snow is all gone. Go figure. ;)

Christmas Wrap-Up

We had a great time on our trip to NJ to visit with our families for Christmas. We haven't gone up in a few years, because it's a long trip to make for a short stay, so when we do make it up, it's always a lot of fun. We went from house to house, visiting our relatives and saw our closest friends as well. But the real highlight, was getting to spend Christmas morning with my 2 year old niece, Khloe. While Christmas morning is always a lot of fun, it's way better with a little kid around; nothing matches the look on their face when they see that Santa arrived. And Santa brought quite the haul to my mom's house, for the 7 of us who were there Christmas morning!

We headed out the day after Christmas to come back and enjoy our last three days off quietly at home. Because while it's always nice to visit and see people, it's even better to come back home. ;) We hit a snag though, about 45 minutes into our trip when a bit of snow caused a massive pileup, entirely shutting down a huge part of the highway. We were more or less parked for 6 hours. We would creep forward every so often, but it took us 6 hours to go a total of 4 miles. So creep may even be a bit generous of a word. Eventually though, we made it through and Joe (because he is stubborn and doesn't like stopping if he isn't tired) got us home around midnight; after a whopping 16.5 hours in the car.

When I got up Friday, we had our gift exchange and late Yulemas together. Joe surprised me with scratch made pancakes for breakfast and a warm fire in the hearth. And we exchanged gifts, which I didn't take many pictures of this year, but we both were super thrilled with the reactions from each other as well as what we received. My highlights this year are a broom he made for me with a large handle from one of our fallen pine branches and bristles made from fallen twigs from various trees in our yard (I don't have a photo yet because, I've been slacking) and the original soundtrack to the movie Legend performed by Tangerine Dream on vinyl. It's been like my unicorn for years; I've only ever found 1 copy of it on CD when I was 14 and haven't seen it since. I've always regretted not picking it up but Joe, through diligent internet searching, found me a vinyl copy in great condition! And since our turntable has a usb output, we're going to put it on my ipod for in car listening. ;)

Tonight we'll farewell the old year and welcome in the new with friends and I'll post my welcomes and farewells here as well. I hope everyone had a fabulous holiday and stays happy and safe tonight!

Scots, Shrubs and Foxes - Oh My!

We had quite the busy holiday weekend over here. I'm back at work today, sitting at my desk, wishing I could have a weekend to recover from my weekend. My muscles are sore, my feet are achy but it's the sort of sore and achy that makes you smile despite the discomfort, because you know the aches were well worth it.

Except the itchy sunburn. The itchy sunburn totally sucks and was not worth the 2 minutes it would have taken me to slather on some damn sunscreen. But, I digress.

The weekend kicked off with sighting the Super Full Moon on the horizon on our evening stroll with Luna. Under her bright light, I collected fresh roses from the garden and offered up rum and wine, smoke and flowers at my altar. Feeling moved to hum a melody in deep, vibrational tones, I relaxed by candle and moon light and let my mind empty itself of burden, obligation and thought for several minutes while I hummed. When I felt ready, I opened my eyes and lit my candles for the evening's work: a white one to honor the moon and a brown one for grounding and burying. As they burned down, I sipped my wine and pulled the oracle cards that will guide me this moon cycle.

Saturday morning saw us waking up early to head to the annual Highland games at a local university. This is the second time we've gone and the first time we've been able to make it in time for the opening ceremonies and they were spectacular! As if hundreds of pipers and drummers weren't enough to get me excited about a bunch of people chucking heavy objects all day long, members of the military parachuted in with flags from Scotland and the US to begin the second half of the ceremony. After the presentation of the flags, the singing of the national anthems, a 21 gun salute from the Marines and the playing of Taps by a lone bugleman, a single piper began Amazing Grace.

Bagpipes make me cry. I don't know why, there's just something about them that makes my eyes well up whenever I hear them. Amazing Grace on the pipes makes me bawl. I was holding it together pretty well, biting the inside of my cheek while the single piper played... and then the rest of them joined. Hundreds of pipers playing at once. There was no stopping the waterworks. I just stood there on the edge of the field and sobbed until they were done and the chucking of heavy objects began, the falconry exhibition began and the Scottish inspired rock music came flowing forth from the beer tent.

We spent nearly 6 hours there, strolling through the tents, watching events and exhibits and listening to music but it only felt like 2. Until we got in the car to come home and realized how much being in the sun had drained us and conked out on the couch when we got home. There's little I love more than a nice afternoon nap!

The rest of the weekend was spent doing work around the house, tie dying with my lady friends, seeing the new Star Trek, laying under the stars in the hammock (I saw a shooting star!) and grilling out. We're getting ready to paint the house for the first time since we moved in two years ago, but before we can do that we needed to clean up the shrubs (and weeds) that have sort of, kind of, taken over one entire side of the place. I'm not sure what the previous owners were thinking when they did some of their planting (I think this pretty frequently when I work in any of the gardens save the veggie patch) but some of the things they planted are WAY too big or WAY too invasive for the areas they put them in and it's taken a lot of work to even get just the first half of the stuff cleaned out.

Yesterday we were able to say goodbye to some of the shabby shrubs, prune off a lot of branches on the crabapple and bradford pear trees and begin the arduous task of tearing out ivy, kudzu and Gods only know what else that's been growing under the shade of those awful bushes. It required the truck and we sacrificed a few straps in the process but we removed all but one incredibly tenacious azalea bush, which is crazy because it's half dead from lack of sun. That bastard is getting chainsawed and pick axed out.

Eventually, the plan is to plant a small cottage inspired garden in the front corner of the house with foxgloves, hollyhocks and lilies. Then I'm hoping to tuck some of those variously colored hostas along the shady side of the house for interest and to keep some of the weeds down. Slowly but surely we're making our little house our own.

The perfect end to the weekend? Sitting on a friend's patio, sipping cold beverages when a fox wandered out of the bushes. Honest to Gods, I've never seen a wild fox before. It's the little things, really.

A Little Catch Up

It's a beautiful, albeit cold, morning. The sun is shining, the robins are singing and hopping all over my back yard and I've had my morning coffee so I feel like a semi-functional member of the human race! All in all, a good day so far.

I haven't been the most intensely chatty person as of late and I worry that some folks will start to wonder if they've offended me somehow. I can assure all of you friends and lovelies that if I were upset, angry or apathetic towards you there would be no doubt. I would give you the courtesy and respect of letting you know and not beat around the bush about it and play games; which is something that I'm dealing with from someone I fancied to be a fairly good friend right now. We're dancing the dance of the awkward; I try to get somewhere and am met with total silence or short answers on his end. At this point, I'm ready to throw in the towel, put my hands up in the air and just say "Fuck it! I'm tired of putting forth all of this effort!" But something won't let me, whether it be my inexorable need to no longer give up on someone I care about until it's really over (hard lessons learned.) or that I feel in my gut that he's in a bad spot and will eventually come out of it and need a friend - whether he's willing to admit it and ask or not.

In my own case, my silence is more because I haven't been on the computer as often as I used to be and when I am, I read but rarely comment. With Spring busting out down here and my painting and spiritual practices re-awakening, I've had less and less time to sit my bum in a chair for a few hours. Which in all honesty, is probably a very good thing! But, I'm still around. Reading, listening and acting as a silent support.

Along the same vein, and I don't think I've mentioned this here before, back in the day (a decade plus a year or three ago) I was fairly active on a gaming forum and Livejournal. Those things, as odd as this will sound, helped me get through some of the darkest and toughest times of my life and all of the people I met and befriended there really helped me be comfortable in my own skin. Because as a depressed, awkward and socially anxious teen/young adult it was amazing to be able to open up to people, be yourself and have them like you. I've actually stayed in contact with some of these friends all these years and others have drifted off, some in the usual way and some in heart-rending fashion. Some have floated in to the far reaches of my memories and some I still think about and miss pretty regularly. (My missing Cactus.) Earlier this week, out of the blue, I got a message that a bunch of oldtimers from the forum had returned for a sort of reunion and was invited to join in and it's been really sort of incredible to see that we all turned out OK! We've gone out and traveled the world, helped rebuild lives and towns, saved lives, gotten married, made babies and all grown up in big ways. Nothing will make you feel more good about yourself than looking back on yourself in your late teens and taking note of how far you've come; honest. Having people who knew you back when you were 50 pounds lighter tell you that you still look great doesn't hurt either! Ha.

In other news, it was Luna's birthday earlier this week! My little dog face has gone 'round the sun once already! Where does the time go? It seems like just yesterday she was a measly 4 pounds of confusion and heart ache for me as I waded through what I'm now referring to as "post-Puppy Depression", aka, learning to live with something that requires a lot more from you than a cat or husband does! I'm pleased to say, our lives have gelled together a bit better now despite finding ourselves still occasionally scratching our heads about the logistics of some aspects of life with Dog and her still having some guarding/grumpy issues. Those things aside, I'm rather loving life with my furs. Now if I could just get the boys (aka cats) to finally see things my way... life would be grand!

On Luna's birthday, we took her on her first visit to Petsmart to pick out some new toys and then made her wear a party hat. She clearly enjoyed one more than the other! ;)

And in the most exciting news of all... I finally found another job! So I'll be leaving the hell that is the bank behind in just over a week's time to go work with a friend of mine as an administrative assistant. I'll have a set schedule for the first time in nearly five years and weekends off with the lovely. I'll work morning/early afternoon, so I'll have plenty of time to come home and paint, work out, play with dog face and take care of things around the house without feeling incredibly stressed and rushed as I hurry to cram all of that in to sporadic 1-3 hour increments throughout the week. While I'm really excited, I'm also sort of nervous... it's been a while since I was in admin, but luckily I'll have someone there to help me sweep out the cobwebs quickly enough!

It took 13 months, but I finally got to use a fake name at Starbucks! Scratch that one from the bucket-list!

What have you all been up to?

P.S. Finally broke out my DSLR for some play-time this morning! It's been way too long since we've spent quality time together and despite my fingers freezing off (that may be a light exaggeration.) it felt good to be snapping pictures again. I'm a bit rusty, so it'll take me some time to get more good shots than bad, but I'm pretty darn pleased with this one of one od my numerous Robin friends - even if it IS centered. Shut up, photo snobs. :P

A Very Merry Unbirthday to Me!

Feeling very Queenly in this picture!

Well loves, it's official. I need to change my profile from 20's to 30's - I'm officially in a new decade of my life. I'll be honest, it doesn't feel any different. At least, not yet. I keep hearing that the 30's are the best years and even my bestie who turned 30 in October said this has been the best year of her life so far, so we'll see where it goes.

The 20's were kicked out the door in truly mad, festive fashion because I threw myself a mad tea party to celebrate. I had an amazing time, surrounded by my friends - including Laura, my bestie of 26 years who flew in from NJ just for the night! She walked in the door and I completely lost my shit! Thank goodness the waterworks happened before I slathered on 20 pounds of makeup or I'd have been an even crazier looking hatter. ;-)

This lady flew 800 miles to see me for less than 24 hours. That's true love!

I sipped absinthe from a porcelain tea cup with "Gutter Slut" written on it in fancy script and sang and danced the night away in high style! It was hands down the best party I've ever thrown, our friends all had an amazing time, I felt like a mad Queen and as far as I know we escaped with a meager 1% of partiers awaking with hangovers!

When I woke in the morning to my official birthday, I had coffee with two of my favorite people on the planet. Who are also, apparently, better at surprises than I thought! Later in the afternoon we put Laura on a plane back to New Jersey and the cold icy weather and headed a bit further south to the shore, because I desperately needed to be at the ocean. It's been two years since I was last there, which is far too long for this witch!

***

Some of you may remember that on my 29th birthday, I created a list of 30 things I wanted to accomplish before 30. Well, sadly, I didn't even finish half of it. But that's O.K. because I'm going to keep working on it until I've checked them all off! So, here is my updated list, the things I've accomplished are in green:

Danni's 30 by 30 List
1. See a whale shark.
2. Fly a kite.
3. Be a healthy weight. - getting there!
4. Write a letter to myself to open in 10 years.
5. Get my passport.
6. Travel outside of the U.S.
7. Ride a horse.
8. Volunteer at an animal shelter.
9. Go to a drum circle.
10. Build a sheet fort.
11. Make a decision with a coin toss.
12. Have a Harry Potter movie-thon.
13. Ride in a hot air balloon. (For the record? I'm terrified of heights.) - bought tickets for this, have to set up a date!!
14. Complete a journal. - Almost there!
15. Lay out and watch cloud shapes.
16. Learn (or at least make a solid effort to learn) Spanish.
17. Go to a music festival.
18. Eat cake without using my hands.
19. Give belly dancing a shot.
20. Participate in the Color Run when it comes to Charlotte, NC.
21. Adopt a puppy.
22. Use a fake name at Starbucks - I go to Starbucks ALL THE TIME and in an entire year and multiple stores, not once has anyone asked my name!!

 23. Have a Red Dress photo shoot.
24. Put my toes in the ocean again.
25. Watch a meteor shower.
26. Stop caring and accept myself.
27. Be brave and bold hearted.
28. Paint my own version of Van Gogh's Starry night.
29. Sleep outside.
30. Be Happy - getting there!

***

Here are more pictures from the party. You know I have to share!

All these images are from the photobooth we set up in the house. Yup, photobooth!





My amazing cake made by my friend Jenn. I had originally asked for a plain white cake with some roses and red paint and she took creative control and I LOVED IT.

Welcome, Autumn!

Damn, did I miss this time of the year something fierce! I spent so much time being outside this weekend, reveling in the season, that despite setting up my altar I didn't touch it. I didn't perform my usual ritual, instead I spent time out in the sun, by firelight and with my fingers in the dirt.

And that was all the ritual I needed to connect with this part of the year. We spent Saturday evening at a friend's housewarming party where there was plenty of music, food and beer around a cozy campfire. The first of the season for us! The mosquitoes were even on their best behavior, I was only bitten twice - unusual for me.

Yesterday evening the perennial jungle of roses and rosemary in my gardens started being pruned back, the dead annuals have been pulled up and this year's baby mums have been planted. While I did that, hubby worked on tackling our very out of control hedgerows and butterfly bushes. We ate dinner and then took the recycling out. We don't have local pick-up, so we take it to a 24 hour bin drop-off site.

As you can see, even with all that pruning these bush roses are still massive

As we were driving home, where my camera/phone happened to be, I saw some bright shiny eyes and a slender form crossing the road ahead. I slowed down, thinking it was a deer and was beyond myself with excitement as the headlights illuminated a coyote! As he slunk back to the side of the road he was joined by another one. Now, I know for some of you this is no big deal... but I've never seen a coyote before. Ever! I just sat on the shoulder watching them for a bit as they wended through people's yards and out of my sight. I was completely enamored.

Making me rethink my plans for future backyard chickens - not in having them, but in housing them. We'll see what happens in the Spring.

I hope you all had a lovely Equinox and that so far, Fair Autumn is treating you very well!

The Cone of Shame

Yesterday was Miss Luna's 6 month UnBirthday. Unfortunately for her, she swapped out a party hat and cake for painkillers and this beauty:

The Cone of Shame! Please, keep the mocking to a minimum. After all, the wee princess still has her pride:

My poor, pouty girl was spayed Monday afternoon. No puppies for her! When they took her away from me at the vet's office along with her little stuffed toy, I barely made it to my car before I bawled my eyes out. Really, she was only going to be gone for one night and I couldn't handle it. I felt like a horrible fur-mommy, I just knew she was going to be upset about being in a weird place with weird people over-night. People told me she would ignore me the next day in a snooty fit of anger. I was worried to death until they called me to tell me she was awake and doing well; her surgery went smooth as can be.

Then in the morning, I was there at 10am on the nose to get my girl. When they brought her out, at first she was calm and just looking around and I felt my heart drop a little. But then, she saw me and she freaked out. She was so excited to see me she peed on the nurse and I couldn't help but laugh and maybe cry again - just a little bit. Then the nurses went over how I have to keep her from jumping and getting too excited and again, I laughed. Seriously, would you imagine this critter had just had a major surgery?

But she did. And in between snoozing and crawling on my lap and bumping into things with the cone she even found time to audition to be the next iconic Gramophone dog.

It's amazing to me, how very attached to this fur baby I've gotten since we brought her home to live with us in April. And how very far we've come from those miserable (seriously, I'm not going to pretend they were magical and wonderful) first weeks of potty training, crate training and getting used to a new 'person' to fit into our schedule. I wouldn't ever want to go back, but I'm happy we persevered.

Happy UnBirthday Loony Miss Luna!

A Day at the Lake

This past Saturday we took a day-trip to one of the local lakes, where our friend's father owns a home. We got up early in the morning, packed the car with a cooler, some swim suits, some doggie things and Miss Luna Petunia herself and headed southbound for a day trip.

When we pulled up to the small summer cottage, it made me ridiculously, awfully, knot in the belly homesick. Driving through the community was like driving through where I grew up and the house itself was eerily similar to the converted summer home I grew up in. Right down to the knotty pine paneling and cabinets in the kitchen. It also had that amazing effect that bodies of water tend to have on me; I could feel the stress just blowing away on the cool breezes, my body relaxed noticeably and I couldn't stop grinning. It had the same effect on Joe, who grew up in a very similar community on the edge of a lake.

When we first went down to the water, my friend and I went out onto the dock while Luna and Joe tried the water. Now, Luna is not a water loving dog. When you give her a bath, you may as well be trying to kill her and the kiddie pool we got for her is a big water dish - not something to play in. But I looked up and there she was, paddling as hard as her tiny legs would allow out to us on the dock! Future attempts to re-create her initial swim were hilarious failures. At one point she swam back to shore and sprinted around the yard in circles, refusing to get near any of us tricky people. Until she got tired, then she wanted whichever lap was closest.

Once we tuckered out the pup, we took a ride on the pontoon boat and lucky her, she was invited along. It turns out, I'm married to Panama Jack and my dog is a born sea-fairer! As we puttered about the lake, doing a good job emptying the cooler, my friend's father told us about some of the lake's history. It's man made and at the bottom there are still the remnants of houses and roadways from the town they flooded out long, long ago. An island in the center of the lake is called bomb island, as it was a place where they did practice runs during World War II. Nowadays though, it's the largest roosting place for the Purple Martin in all of North America. Apparently, at night you can watch several thousand birds come in to roost. We didn't get to see that this time, but hopefully one day we will and I'll be armed with my camera instead of my phone to get some pictures.

Not a square photo, lol.

To round out the day of beautiful sights and sounds, we were able to see both an eagle and an osprey hunting in the shallows while we sat on the porch eating dinner. As we drove home that night, with the scents of sunscreen and bug spray in the air, the sandy grit of spray in my hair and the first crackling feeling of sunburn on the edges of my face, I felt better than I have in months.

I'm not sure when, but one day, we'll move back to the edge of the water.