Karate Bug

So, about a month ago we signed our Jilly-Bug up for karate. She had gone with a friend to Buddy Day at the studio in town and fallen in love with it. Keep in mind, she has been telling us for years that she has "karate skills". This proclamation is always followed by a volley of kicks and flailing of arms that is reminiscent of someone who has just walked into a spider web.
A few days later, we received a postcard from the studio offering half off a 3 class trial and a free uniform. We signed up for the 3 classes, and she really did well. You could see her enthusiasm, as well as her rapt attention to the instructors. We signed her up as a full student.
In the last month, she had worked her tiny butt off and earned her 1st tip. I have learned that she needs 2 tips before she can test for her yellow belt, which should be in July.
So this makes me hope we can put Mojo in the "Little Dragons" class when she turns four. If I knew I had a babysitter to take them too, I would take the adult classes. Until then, three cheers for Jilly!

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Help get this Kickstarted!

I saw this browsing through Reddit today and thought I would give it a little share.

Spiral Rhythm is trying to raise funds on Kickstarter to get their album published. Click over and find out more!

and the "war" rages on

I don't get it, and honestly need someone to explain it to me.

I waited until today to watch the Fox News video. There were several things that caused this delay, but the foremost was I just did not really want to see it.

I knew how pissed off I would get and just did not have the strength to deal.

For anyone else who was hanging out under a rock with me until today, here is the piece of crap video that passes for "news" over at Fox.

Let me tell you the specific thing I don't understand.

It's not the intolerance, or even the ignorance. I don't expect such rabid right-wing mouthpieces to actually have any idea about the Pagan faiths. Why would they? I don't expect them to have the knowledge, just to acknowledge that Paganism is a group of religions that has the right to exist.

It is the absolute and overblown attitude that, although these types of "Christians" are the loudest to demand respect, to give respect to any other faith is somehow damaging to their faith. That is what drives me batshit.

I do not understand this, I never have and unless someone provides a good explaination  I never expect to. I have no grasp of this notion. I do not understand why dismissing the faith of others in some way validates your own.

Do not misunderstand, I have no issue with poking a little fun. I personally found the line about liking to burn incense funny, and I am certainly not above poking a little fun at other religions.

I do, however, find it to be a big leap from joking to ridicule. It is also a big leap to holding the position that you hold the only correct position, and so broker no tolerance for the belief or practice of any other faith.

Freedom of religion, not freedom for your religion. Just because you think we're weird, or even wrong, does not grant you the right to decide our holidays are not worthy of observation.

If you want respect, if you really want to end the "war on Christians", maybe you should stop picking fights.

Star Gazing Events for 2013

Feathering the nest

Here we are, day 4 in our tiny new home, and it's the first day that the Hubs went in to work and left Mojo, the dogs, and I here to really settle in. Yesterday Hubs and I fixed the leaking water line, and so we had the place completely torn apart. We could barely walk around, let alone get anything organized. So, today I put everything away, and threw out or rearranged the things left by the former owners. I found a spot for everything we brought, and cleared out spaces for more of our stuff to come out of the storage unit where it is now.

It has been extremely calming to me. I feel very in control of my little corner of the universe. Everything is clean and put away, and I could get up and put my hands on anything in 30 seconds. I pulled all the crumbling wallpaper off the walls in the bathroom and kitchen, and am hoping my Mom and I can paint when she comes up here this weekend. 

I am actually dreading going back to Hereford next week. It's like I have a little bubble of safety here and am afraid to go back to my Mom's where I have less control. We agreed that it will be best for Mojo and I to go back and forth until Jilly finishes school, but I am not feeling it right now. Maybe when the novelty wears off I will feel differently, but I have already felt the positive mental shift I was hoping for with downsizing to the RV and I am clinging to it for dear life.

Yesterday was rough, because of several reasons that include the place being torn up and having no where to really go to get away from it, and not really eating because I couldn't get to the "kitchen". There was also issues with having to move my Dad into a new Memory Care facility. Melted down on a nuclear level.The best hour I had yesterday was spent in the laundry room at the club house, enjoying the quiet and reading magazines.

But for now I am sitting in my comfy little nest, listening to the light rain and looking at the mountains that surround the Gila Valley.

Allegro Adventures

OK, I think we have gone off the deep end.

As you may have read, we hit some severe bumps in the road the middle of last year and are just now getting  our heads above water. The Hubs is in training for a job, but has been living in a hotel up there during the week, then driving back to us on the weekends. Well, kids, this is an example of why it's expensive to be poor. 

He couldn't get an apartment because he did not yet have a pay stub proving he was employed, and so we were spending what would amount to rent on a Studio apartment for a week in a cheap hotel. Add food and gas to that, and we were killing ourselves to get through till his first good paycheck.

My answer was we should buy an RV and he could park it up in Safford. I have been fascinated for quite a while by the idea of downsizing drastically to the Tiny House style of living. I also have wanted desperately to own something, anything, as far as housing that was ours and could not he taken away. He could stay there, with the girls and I splitting our time between there and Hereford until Jilly was done with school. Then we would all cram into it for as long as possible until we got a nice little nest egg saved up and were able to buy either a house or some land to build a house. Even this plan seemed unattainable for a while, until we found it!

Not only was she cheap, the former owner let us have her with a handshake and a payment plan!

We drove her up to Safford yesterday and planted her on a nice corner lot in a lovely RV park.

This is a great view of Mt Graham we have sitting outside.

This is a shot of the interior before I really got going unpacking and making it homey.

 I wanted to make the girls a nice little area to play, I think it turned out cute!

 Kitchen mid-unpacking

Malcolm made himself sight at home on the couch. It folds out into a bed for the girls.

View through the kitchen back into the bed and bath

All in all, I am so super excited! I don't know if this makes me financially smart, or just White Trash, but I'm happy, and for the first time in my life have something that is mine to call home that no one can take away! We are going into what will be the most profitable career the Hubs has ever had with the least amount of bills we have ever had. I will take being a little crowded in exchange for that.

Taking the Veil

For the last 2-3 years,  have been fascinated with the practice of Veiling or Head Covering for spiritual purposes. I am not a particularly modest, shy, or submissive person, and so thought it was a lovely and meaningful practice, but not for me. I could think of no personal reason to Veil.

Fast forward to now. Nearly every facet of my life needs a positive change. We need to move forward as a family, and I need to move forward in every role I play. Woman, Pagan, Mother, Wife, Daughter, Sister, Friend, Provider, I have either failed, turned away from, or ignored them at some point since September. 

We are battling back. My family is strong and loving, we are a tight little nest of love and support, but swirling around us is a tempest of bad decisions that have shattered our 'outward' life. We had to retreat. We are regrouping and rebuilding. We put everything in storage, got released from our lease thanks to the kindness of our landlords, and moved in with my parents. My family of four humans and two dogs is now residing in the two guest bedrooms in my step father's home. It is a good fall back position, we get along great with my parents and they are glad to have us here both for the time with my girls and because they love my cooking. No matter how nice of an arrangement, I am still a 37 year old mother and wife who had to move back in with Mommy. It's tough medicine to take.

At this time, all I can control is myself, and that control has been badly damaged over the past four months. The Hubs just got the official word yesterday that he got a job driving a truck for a copper mine in Eastern Arizona and will start within the next two weeks. The girls and I will stay here while he moves for the new job until we have enough money banked to officially move. It's good to have something to celebrate, to have a plan and a clear way to begin it's execution. Anxiety and depression have taken my confidence and a lot of my self love. I have lost my ability to earn a living and provide for my family in a financial way. This is a blow. Although I have been a SAHM in the past, it was by choice, not because I lost my dream business and all of my grooming tools and was forced back home. This has begun to pass, and I have once again begun to find joy in cooking for my family sewing, crafting,and keeping house. My Mom said the other day she realizes why men love wives because she loves to come home to a clean house and a warm meal!

Add these issues to the fact I am at my heaviest weight outside of pregnancy and have been in a spiritual crisis...I'm just a hot mess.

So now, the Veil. 

Because Hestia placed her hand on me to lead me forward into the next part of my life. Although The Morrigan is still my patron goddess, She feels I need more care than strength at this time and has blessed me with the gift of following Hestia as well. To honor each goddess, I will Veil, by my own choice, until I feel called to stop.

Because I want to be reminded to become self contained. I want to be calm. I want to be confident. I want to be focused. I want to look inward for answers instead of  trying to do what others want or expect or to  buy them. I want to be poised, centered, and a regal woman worthy of my ideal of a Priestess, because I have fallen far from that ideal in my mind.

Because I want to make my body a Temple. I want to be mindful of what I do to and for myself. I want to remember I am beautiful, so much so I must contain it. I am exceptional, and not for public consumption. I will become the woman I have always seen inside myself, a reflection of the goddess.

Because I have been fascinated for the last 2-3 years and have been buying scarves in that time. My heart knew I would be called, just not when or why.

So today I put on my Veil, Blessed Be.