Samhain... :)

Celebrated on October 31, Halloween (also known as Samhain), is the Witches' New Year's Eve [this is taken from a Wiccan book - it's also the Celtic New Year!] and third harvest. It is a time to play with our shadow selves and sit in the woods between the worlds of light and darkness, knowing all things are possible. Nature is recessing into the quiet barrenness of winter. It is a season to acknowledge that both light and darkness are necessary to our growth. Remember departed loved ones and their gifts, harvest strength, trust the mirror reflecting your light, salute health, believe in enchantment, and tell stories as the veil between the mundane and magickal worlds is at its thinnest. Symbols of the holiday are pumpkins, skeletons, marigolds, fall leaves, pomegranates, and witch hats. Herbs and other plants associated with this sabbat include apple, broom, milk thistle, mint, mullein, nutmeg, oak, sage and wormwood.

Well, I have to say, for our Samhain, it wasn't the kind of day that really got me thinking all sorts of eerie, spooky thoughts. It was a bright, sunshiny day, plus 16, and beautiful outside. I ended up missing the bus home and didn't get home until after 6:00, but it wasn't too late to hand out a few treats to the 20 or so kids we got. I just closed the lights and hid the pumpkins as the older crowds are now coming to the door, and the last ones were eyeing our 'masterpieces'... Come to think of it, I didn't even take pictures of our pumpkins this year! Luc made a great one, sewing the eyes and mouth with gardening twine, to look like a kind of Texas Chainsaw Massacre doll head.. Pretty freaky.

We had a good Halloween gathering on the weekend though, just a small group of us got together, but we all got dressed up and had a little too much fun with the camera.. ;0) The picture above is of our Halloween feast, complete with a "brain" (shrimp), spiders, worms in dirt (candy worms in oreo cookie crumbs), and roasted pumpkin seeds. We served our guests a nice desert of cat poop to finish it off... :)

Even 'Jiggs' got in on the fun. :)

Anyway, tonight I wish I could have a bit of time to 'ring in' the "mini new year". However, I'm stalling because I have to get through a horrendous pile of work first. Ick.

While I do still celebrate the New Year on January first as my main 'starting over point' (as we basically celebrate the end of the year with xmas and New Years parties, going out with a 'bang' and then starts my 'quiet month' where I'm not allowed to start anything new), I do still like to acknowledge the 'change' I feel at Halloween. Last night, Tigger and I were walking through the neighbourhood, and it was like my whole 'being' just took a great big siiiiigh.. The air was still, the trees were dark and still, everything had a slightly surreal peacefulness hanging over it, that seemed to just slow down whatever crazy ticking time-keeper is always driving me mad inside. It was really nice and I thought to myself 'thank goodness we're finally in a resting period'. Not that we actually are, but there's something in the stillness that I find so calming.

Our lives are anything but calm at the moment, but it's a good busy, not a stressful busy. Luc just accepted a new job in Ottawa, which he's busy studying for, so that marks a rather large change in our lives. He's going from the job he got out of college, in the tiny town of Shawville, to a job in a mid-sized, faster-paced international company based in the city. It will hopefully offer him rewarding challenges, better benefits, and he'll be closer to home (though with the traffic, the commuting time doesn't actually lessen very much!). So we're pretty excited about that, though I know he'll be sad to leave where he works now, and they'll miss him a lot.

We also sold the car, last Thursday, which happened in the blink of an eye (after about 8 months of waiting). So far, it hasn't had a negative impact on us having one car again, so hopefully we'll be able to make it through to next Spring and get some of our debts paid off. My poor cavalier can't keep being treated like an suv for much longer - she hauled two bales of straw home on Monday night, which was quite the 'endeavour' (for the car, and for ME!)

I'm already turning my attention to the xmas 'season'.. Sick eh? ;) I bought a present for my sister the other day. I can't wait to dress up the house for it. We have a million other things we have to do first, but it's fun to think of where I'll put the tree. :)

Anyway, guess I better go get this work done, so I still have a job!

Happy Halloween everyone - enjoy your evenings, be safe, and remember to take some time out to reflect on your year, what you 'harvested' and revel in the glory of having a quiet moment to take it all in before the craziness starts again. :)

S

Well, it's been a while since I've posted, as there hasn't been much to say, really. I've been playing 'catch-up' with life, and am still picking up loose ends, but at least it's a bit more calm now...

I have found, of late, that I've stumbled across some fascinating blogs that are really, truly worth a look (when you're not supposed to be working - they're addictive!)... One is Pruned - http://pruned.blogspot.com/ (which is where this picture was borrowed from)... For someone like moi, who is not very good with geography, geology, or understanding anything that is going on around the world (I chalk it up to selfish oblivion :) ), this blog is packed with interesting tidbits of the weird, awe-inspiring, or thought-provoking things going on around the planet(s) (they have a story on Mars with photos as well). The author seems to have more than enough knowledge to make insightful commentary on just about anything going on, from the 'uncovering' of Greenland (thanks to Global Warming) and its economical possibilities, to the most stunning architectural endeavours recently created by humans, working WITH nature, that will either leave you breathless, or dead, to idiots who dump red paint in ancient fountains to protest miniscule issues surrounding the film festival. Actually, I found this site originally because I'd done a google image search on Hong Kong's 'The Arch' development, where an apartment just sold for a whopping $14 million (over that actually). I ended up clicking on an image called 'the Escalators of Hong Kong' or something like that (I get distracted easily) and was taken into an unrelated story in this blog, where it was reviewing a book that was written on a major hurricane in 1900, after which, the surviving population built a wall and raised all their buildings up on stilts by HAND to protect against another one. That led me to looking through the articles posted, and honestly you can waste quite a bit of time reading it. :)
Anyway, so there's my pitch for someone's blog that is actually interesting... ;) I wish I could write something like what this person has, however it would take WAY too much time and I'd actually have to find a topic worth writing about that I actually KNOW something about. So instead, I stick to my ramblings about my life, sorry guys.. ;)

Hmmmm... I really don't have any purpose for blogging at the moment. I am just really fidgety. I have work to do, which I've been picking away at, but it is very very hard to stay focused on it (it's very very boring work)...

Sigh...

I find myself making lists again. Lists of jobs I want but never will get, projects to do (both fun and not) that I never seem to have time or energy for, and things I want but can't afford - xmas gifts for people, bales of straw for Tigger, wool to make scarves, mitts, maybe some cuter projects like bags and things, a holly tree because I promised myself I'd get one for our yard, curtains and/or blinds for the living room windows because we currently are living in a fishbowl, cute rainboots, a new, longer Fall jacket, stockings and socks to wear in my dressier shoes because bare feet are too cold, new glasses because I wouldn't mind having a pair to give my eyes a break from the constant half-blindness of contacts.. No shopping for me!! Nope, our budget is stretched tightly over the small mountain of debt we have.

Oh well... I find the worst thing is that, where I was finally starting to feel like I knew who I was months and months ago, for some reason, something huge shifted and I find myself staring at a girl I don't even know. And the more I realize who I am, for some reason, the more depressed I become...

Blah...

Whining...

Enough...

S

Well, back at work (and not working - so I'll try to keep this short and sweet) after a long weekend (was it really a long one?? Didn't feel like it!!)
:) We had serious reason to celebrate, however... After a final four or five hour stint at the apartment on Friday evening, followed by a clean-up on Saturday morning, we happily handed over the keys to the new tenants, who oooh'd and aaaah'd (okay maybe not quite, but they were impressed) at how it looked. That joyous moment marked the start of a new freedom for us and we are both SO HAPPY that it's over. :) I then went and picked up Pru, my sister's GSD, to babysit her until Monday, which was fun, as she and Tigger kept each other amused all weekend. :)
Sunday was spent with me running errands (five stores later, I decided to call it quits and go home, only to get a phone call half-way home from my frantic mother who had just added two more guests to our thanksgiving dinner invitees)... So I unloaded the car (which involved plunking various grocery bags infront of the door and ringing the doorbell repeatedly, to summon Luc who was trying to sleep, while holding the cell phone glued to my ear while my Mom yacked and my neighbour mowed his lawn right next to me, while dodging the turkey that escaped its bag and was rolling down the driveway and onto his grass)....
By now, Luc was finally up (he was napping) and went outside to clean up the yard, which I later ruined because I removed two small trees that had been bothering me, but wasn't strong enough to pull up the stumps, so now there are leaves, small branches, and holes in the lawn that he'd cleaned up... ;) Finally, I settled in to do my baking - two pumpkin pies, two apple crumb pies, and a pumpkin cheesecake loaf (which was a HIT at dinner)... I finally made it to bed at 11:00 pm and was up again at 8:30 to put turkey #1 into the over (we cooked two).
Anyway, all in all, we had a very nice visit with various relatives, and everyone left well-fed and showering the cook with praise (yay! I didn't burn anything!!). We won't mention the squash that wasn't ready and didn't get eaten or the brussel sprouts that are still in the freezer.. ;)

Anyway, I do love Thanksgiving and this time we had a lot to be thankful for (mostly to do with the apartment)... ;) That being said, I'm a little glad that it's over as it marked the end of an insane six (or more) months for us. Yes, we still have things to do at the apartments, and our own house has been sadly neglected, but that's all things we can chip away at slowly.

Now I can start looking forward to Halloween and Christmas... Yes, Christmas. We did the family gift draw and now I can start focussing on what I want to buy for everyone (because of necessary budget 'constraints' I want to get it done EARLY this year)... I'm also starting to get the hang of this knitting business (wore one of my scarves to work today) and discovered that I have the wrong wool for what I want to make. So hopefully I'll be able to hunt down some nicer stuff over the next little while and start making some neat gifts for people.. (Maybe). ;)

Well, gotta get back to work. If you're bored and broke, here's a blog I enjoy reading - stumbled upon it the other day. It's great common-sense and she's got a writing style that makes her posts very enjoyable to read: http://budgetingbabe.blogspot.com/

xo