Plant post

well, my tomatos and impatient aren't doing so well. Iv'e been a bad plant mommy and hadn't watered them in a week so everybody's leaves were pretty soft but the primrose wasn't even wilted! I just keep telling the impatient just a few more months (ok 5 more months) and it will be warm again and it can go outside and get all the sun it wants....after spring. I find myself not minding the cold and the snow so much this year. yeah, I freeze my butt off every night at my computer and have to wrap my comforter off my bed round me so I don't die of shivering (a slight exaggeration...but only a teeny one) but I still don't really mind it. I'm thinking about borrowing my roomates turtle UV lamp for an hour and sitting my plants under it cause she isn't using it. It might help the dumpster plant and my tomatos who are growing tall but rather sparsely...well one of them is, the other is growing over (and trying to poke my sleeping blueberry bush) and I don't have a thing to prop it up with. The blueberry is definitely asleep with most of its leaves still attached but all dry and easy to pull off (I tried yesterday just to see). Everybody else is growing nicely as far as i can tell much to my pleasure.

So similar...yet, so different

It amazes me that there are so many, many similarities between christianity and paganism. There are so many similarities, yes I realize many of these are because they were originally pagan traditions. BUT both religions have evolved for years as separate entities and lately I've seen traditions in the pagan community borrowed from the Christians (they may have been orriginally borrowed from us...I don't know). Once a person can look past the bullshit and see that each is only following thier path you can see that there are so many similarities. Why the hell are we fighting? (A topic I will not be discussing) Ok so everyone new plan! Religious tolerance and such.

I suppose this is a necessary environmental type post

And the expected disscussion on decorations for this time of year commences:
People don't use excessive amounts of lights, its gross and ugly and sucks up your money, and uses up way to much of that energy creating coal and gas and stuff. And don't leave it on for 5 million hours a night it has the same effect as using too many. If you want to get lights get the LED ones, those are the most energy efficient currently, but don't light up the whole front yard. A few strands here and there on the outside of the house is sufficient and I'll even understand if you use some on a christmas tree. Ok this really wasn't meant to sound like a rant but there it is.

Saturday morning in a warm building with some tea, could there be better?

Probably but currently this is heaven.
This could just be the after effects of a good and entertaining (in a bad way) concert talking and the pride I tend to feel in supporting good local bands but its ok. I am going to start a new project of sorts. Well, actually its an ongoing project but I haven't talked about it yet. I've gotten into this habbit of saying prayers morning and night. Every morning I say the same prayer asking for help during the day with certain things (I borrowed two prayers and mashed them together it just worked so well together I couldn't help it). At night I thank the Gods for all the good things that happened during the day. Sometimes the list is fairly extensive and sometimes its just "thanks for my apt and my kitties sleeping next to me and all my friends who keep me sane and good co-op food Yay God (sorry had a summer camp moment there)". Sometimes when going through the morning prayer I rush through it and don't really think about what I am saying, sometimes I even find myself thinking about other things when I say it and then I don't remember saying half the prayer, then I am reminded of how I used to laugh at the people in church because when they said thier prayers (especially the Our Father) they never sounded like they meant them, it was just something to say because the priest says ok its time to say this. They sounded like the borg from startrek, all monotone and not remotely enthusiastic all saying it together because they are supposed to. My goal is to really focus on the words and mean them, and if I don't mean them to not say them at all. Its like this game we played in my acting class you were supposed to make your partner do something and if your partner wasn't feeling it they weren't supposed to do it, you had to make them want to do whatever it was.
I find it so hard sometimes (ok all the time, my mind almost never stops) to focus on one thing, to be in that moment only. Its a little funny, the idea of being entirely in this moment, nowhere else, not letting the mind wander to what you are making for dinner or plans for the next day, fully commiting every ounce of you to one thing, even focusing on one breath at a time seems like such a new and novel concept in paganism but it's really not a new idea at all. The budhists had it first and mainstream is just discovering it now (ok not mainstream but people write articles amazed at how amazing this idea is). Anyway so the goal is to sit there in front of my altar and say my prayer and be THERE and not be distracted by my own brain and MEAN what I say (not that I don't mean it now, I just don't like the idea of getting into such a habbit that I sound like the borg saying a prayer I wrote....errr compiled. I think there is a bit of buddhism squeezing its way into my eclectic witchery, not that its a bad thing they have lots of good ideas. (oh snap more stuff from India....really ought to get on that researching Hinduism. Oh the things I could do if I didn't always have class)

well....we are attempting to get back to regularly scheduled broadcasts

Well, today is a plant post day......I think I've talked about all the plants I have. I repotted my amarylises and one is already growing....I think. We shall see. I thought I would talk about the gardens I would have if I get a house. All the trees would be fruiting or nut bearing trees (unless I randomly live in the woods, in which case there will be beech and maple trees predominantly) and a lilac bush or five. And I would have a veggie garden (that might double as a community garden) and an herb garden and then an animal friendly garden for birds and butterflies and little four footed ones to shelter in and find food (not that the 4 footed cousins won't do that to all of them). I want to buy as little produce from the grocery store as possible. Yeah, I have lots of projects in mind. And just to help everything along I just might raise bees in there too. And I would have heirloom veggies from seedsavers and stuff from the local farmers market during the season...oh! and chickens (no roosters). That way I can have eggs I know are animal friendly cause I will take care of them and not kill them when they get too old to produce, nope I'll keep them and love on them till they die. Then they will go in my garden to feed the plants. Which is a thought that doesn't bother me one bit...is that odd? And I don't see that as animal exploitation because I would be adopting them from somewhere and using only what they discard anyway. And I will have a stand of sunflowers to use as bird feeders in winter (unless the chickadees get to them first which is very possible). And on my off days (when I'm not working) I will go to a horse barn and ask if I can muck out a stall and keep the poo to put in my gardens aaaaand I'm going to compost with wormys probably (it sounds like the easiest way) and use the wormy poo on my plants too. My yard will be so pretty!!! And will hardly have to be mowed except in the very begining.

My environmental econ prof would be so proud of me

Back to your regularly scheduled programing
My school just built this new fancy ass dorm building, it is considerably more eco-friendly then the other ones we have here on campus. It has motion sensored lights (I'm not sure if that helps cause you have to have the sensor on all the time). It has this lecture hall that is super fancy with electronics and chalk boards (cause you can solve the worlds CO2 problem by making chalk CaCO3 (so says the environ econ prof)....lots and lots of chalk , not to mention that dry erase markers give off funny chemicals and then you throw them away adding to the waste pile which doesn't happen with chalk). This building was also painted with low emission paint wich is supposed to be so much better for the world cause it doesn't emit as many bad chemicals (yay!). The chairs in the lecture hall have 4 screws in them (I think) and they come apart into 9 recyclable pieces and the carpet is made in such a way that there is minimal glueing to the floor (that is not toxic anyway) because they made it so there is a suction between carpet and floor, the carpet is layed down in squares not big sheets so you don't have to replace the whole thing if there is a problem you can just take out that square and replace it. The pattern in the carpet is such that if you remove a square and replace it no one would notice the difference anyway. This company the carpet came from is super cool because they are working towards zero waste to garbage dump, instead they put everything back into production which is pretty damn sweet (see what I learned in econ class). Oh! and the toilets are low flow and depending on if you go #1 or #2 you pull the handle in a certain direction and it will use more water or less which I thought was the coolest thing ever, I totally want one in my house. If the school ever gets off its lazy ass a portion of the roof could be a green roof which would be a good thing (they won't get off thier asses tho....I know them). Yay for environmentally friendly things!

Break from school distracted me

All 4 days of it. The other days of absence were due to exams

Yay Thanksgiving break! It was nice, the boy tried to help keep me sane during exams (if you want to be technical that was before break). I saw friends I haven't seen in forever and stayed out till ungodly hours of the night like college students are supposed to. I worked on my cookbook and will be attempting to make it a cooking Book of Shadows (from here on in BoS) of sorts. While also trying to decorate the current BoS which I haven't touched in a loooong time, I should work on that. I made an apple crisp that wasn't pretty for my contribution to the boyfriend's family thanksgiving dinner (they were nice enough to have me so I wasn't all by my lonesome that day). I was told it was tasty but I won't be using that recipe again (note to self: granola for crumbles in apple crisp is better then concocting something out of flour and stuff, it can't turn to mush in the oven). Currently I am addicted to Gack (japanese singer) I would love to know what he is saying but the songs are awesome even if I have no idea what the words are. Yeah, I have random tastes in music. I'm also in need of a new piercing....batch of piercings? The current idea is belly button I saw this cute picture on BME that looked like a fan it was 4 pokes in total, it was so cute! Also saw this pretty sweet combo of rings and a door knocker ring attached to the 3 other rings it was cool (I know bad description). Yeah I like piercings and tattoos and will at a later date be discussing a last hurrah/testing myself to the limits and beyond piercing.....much later, in about 5 months (I'm totally stoked and out of my flipping mind, only me would be excited about causing myself a fairly large amount of pain as a woohooo I got out of college and then go party some(anyone say masochist?).
I have 1 tattoo already a scorpion on my left hip a tribute to my leanings towards the Egyptian pantheons and a tribute to a specific Goddess who I have been very remiss in paying attention to (remember that stuff I talked about before, research and paying attention to those you want to worship?) yeah, the tattoo was before I thought about that. The tattoo is supposed to represent Selket a Goddess in the form of a scorpion who protects women (says something about my state of mind at the time huh? Not that I really needed protecting from anything) She was also an excuse to get a tattoo which I wanted badly, not that I regret it mind you, I love my tattoo.
I have 4 piercings all of which are unimpressive but a tribute in itself to my stubbornness (believe it or not I can be stubborn), my piercings take twice as long to heal and always get infected (my body won't bat an eye at scratches by rabbits and dogs and even cats (as long as they aren't barn cats(though technically the incident I reference was a puncture of my finger by barn cat claw...never pretty) but a puncture is a totally different story). They are in my ears. The thing is that before my first batch of piercings in my lobe took I had them pierced 2 or 3 times before. Each time they got problematic in some way and had to be taken out (I was also alot younger then, kiddie aged). By the time the first batch actually got to stay in I was in High school and had gotten them just cause I loved how piercings looked and was going to get it done right this time gosh darn it! (not with a gun, I won't go on the piercing rant I promise). A girls ears being pierced is a bit of a coming of age thing in a way (sometimes). Second batch (just behind the first batch) were gotten during the summer of my first year of college it was an I made it through my first year of college Go me! (same day I went to see wicked for the first time). I wanted to get something done to celebrate getting my first apt but I never did so one of (or all) the belly button pokes (if it is belly button I end up getting poked) will be for that (even if it is a year and a half late). I don't go and get my body poked with needles willy nilly the tattoos have to mean something and the piercings signify something important that happened in my life. I want my skin to be a roadmap of what I have done in my life, a way for me to remember all the firsts and major ending in my life.....(if thats the case I'm way behind...I just realized). I love the way piercings look and I won't fault a person for getting poked (pierced or tattooed) just cause, but me, something that causes pain and takes so long to heal has to mean something. Yeah, I have this big love affair with symbolism what can I say (grade school english teachers, I finally got it).