PLEASE NOTE - THIS POST HAS RACIAL THEMES THAT MAY BE OFFENSIVE TO SOME.
READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.
My bloggy godmother Aine has just been all up in my brain today. She's just posted a Witch's Circle discussion post, and it just so happens to be about something that's been on my mind off and on recently.
Here's the short background on me. ( Short as in shorter than the usual version, but probably not that short at all.)
I was born and raised right here in New York City. I've traveled up and down the eastern coast of the states, but New York has always been home. I love to travel, but this is where I hang my hat. As for heritage, I'm so mixed it's not funny. Typical, as they don't call my city a melting pot for nothing.
I am half Inca Peruvian, on my mother's side and a weird mix of Puerto Rican French on my father's side. These pieces of me are very specifically divided up with neon lines. I'm the sort of person who compartmentalizes everything, and the make-up of my blood is no different.
When I say I'm half Inca Peruvian, I mean it. My mother is a native, child to some natives, who all come from a remote little no where in the jungle. She is an Inca as I know them. They call themselves Indian now, but we all know that's just a word the Europeans brought with them. It's not even the right word, Christopher Columbus was just a confused son of a bitch. My mother's mother spoke Quechua, one of the two native tongues of Peru. My mother did too, until tragedy best saved for another day because this is supposed to be the short version.
My mother sung me Peruvian lullabies when I was a child. Half-Spanish, half-Quechua. She told me fairy tales about the children of the sun and taught me endless dances set to pan-pipes and sorrowful sounding flutes. Such large parts of my childhood never melded with anyone else's because she was so different. She came from such a different place. Peru is still, and always will be, a magical wonder to me.
I've talked about her before. My five-foot nothing pocket mother. She's a tiny thing, with no boundaries and all the grace of a bull in a china shop. She's primal and wise and ... too many things to put into words. At once she'll give you the feeling that where she truly belongs is back in her lands, surrounded by rainforests, calling out the sun, reading futures in wine and making life's every need with her own two hands.
In the next she's the woman who had it writ in stone that I marry a white man with blonde hair and blue eyes, preferably of German descent, with a military career. At least once a week we debate the merits or lack thereof, of coming to this country to start a new life, leaving all she knew behind. If it were up to me, I'd be there right now, tending sheep.
I grew up with that duality, and an extra side helping of my non-Spanish speaking Father who wanted me to go to Harvard and become a lawyer. The Great White Hope. Sadly, my parents were suckers. They were so ready to turn their backs on where they came from in order to produce a child belonging to this country.
They were screwed. Not initially though, and even now not completely. As a child, I took for fact all they said. I learned perfect English, and have not a trace of an accent. I got good grades and prepared for my own military career. The American Way was the Right way. I had a longing for all things White.
As a teenager, I wanted to be a goth kid. That was how I identified. Now here in NYC there are all kinds of goth kids. Spanish, Black, Indian. We all club together in the city with our dark eyeliner. But good God do we stick out like sore thumbs. We're the odd men and women out in the sea of white boys and girls, with their pale eyes and pale skin. They don't need an extra dusting of Urban Decay to look the part. They wake up in the morning, throw on a band t-shirt and they are the part.
This was and still is a theme that recurs throughout my life.
Very lately, I've noticed how it creeps into this witch-y path I walk.
I haven't been a devoted Christian since age thirteen when my life went to hell in a handbasket. Even before then, when I was a Christian, pagan paths called to me. How could they not, given the way my mother raised me?
I believe in the existence of many deities. I am drawn to the magic in nature. I dream things that'll happen to me. I see shades. There's no denying, at least for me, that part of life.
So why have I had such a hard time coming to this path? I think, because I was trying to do it the white way.
Go back a few posts and you'll see some pictures of me. I am not white. I sometimes wish I was, but I'm not. I can't even pass for white. Couldn't if my life depended on it. ( I've got Southern in-laws now, and someday my life will depend on it. At which point I will be dead.)
So what am I doing, boning up on the Celtic ways? I've got no business dabbling in Irish things, and British things, and Euro things. I am not any of the above.
As recently as last year, I was wracking my brain trying to figure out why I couldn't keep up with the pagan days and all they entail. Why was I such a failure? Why couldn't I Winter Solstice with everyone else?
Because my Winter Solstice happens on the 24th of June. That is when my people report to the sun-father, and ask his blessings. My people kill a llama and burn its heart. We divine in a drink made of purple corn. We just do it differently. Never better or worse, because those terms don't apply. Just different.
I'm different. My path is different. I think in Spanish, and speak in English, and then I wonder why incantations just feel wrong. I'm the product of migration. My mother got it into her head to cross a hemisphere and start over, and I flail about lost with no grounding and no understanding why I feel upside down.
Thank something or other for Bloggy Godmothers.
-Angelwick.
P.S. I epically failed at answering the questions in Aine's post, but I just feel too stupid to answer them. I apologize.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Mastering Intent
Aine's recent post about feeling some creepy energy sent me off into a thought spiral that I couldn't jot down quite fast enough.
For the most part energy has been on the mind because I've got endless questions that I fear I already know the answer to. There's nothing worse than being able to look just that far forward, the feeling of thinking you know what the answer is but not really knowing if you're right or not. I've blogged about it before, I don't exactly have a plethora of people in my life that I can turn to about these things. I actually miss the sort of witch-y community I knew.
I live in an ancient building. Like most things and places that are old, there are the usual creaks and groans of old age, and then there are the unusual ones. It's not just the creaks and groans though, it's the shadows you see out of the corner of your eyes, the nightmares that have nothing to do with personal fears, and other strange occurrences. Funnily enough, for a place that has so many different people in it, it's pretty much accepted fact that the building is haunted. Neighbors from all walks of life, past many language barriers, all have stories of their apartments having ghosts in them, or other such stories. Things go missing only to appear in another room. Things that sound like the works of fairies.
One neighbor in particular has had feelings of being ..hmm.. I don't know the right words. I believe her words were something like ' a witch riding her back '. It's a night time happening that dispels with prayer.
So, what's behind it all?
I personally don't think that there's only one answer. I think it's a little bit of everything. Energy in different forms, with different intentions. Some of it is even most likely self-manifested. Give something enough thought and you'll just about bring it into existence.
I relay the following story a little cautiously.. I know, and can imagine the many reasons why, it will upset some. So.. I'll warn now. It's about a family member dying from cancer. If that's a personal trigger, it might be safer to just walk away from this entry now.
Some years ago, my aunt passed away from ovarian cancer. The cancer, as I imagine it is for everyone who receives such a diagnosis, was a shock. She was quite advanced in years. QUITE. Not dropping numbers here, out of love for her, but let us just say that even before the cancer news, she'd already had all her ducks in a row in terms of final wishes.
Healthwise? She was actually pretty healthy for her age. She was ninety-percent independent, and lived on her own. She cooked her own meals, unless I was bringing dinner over, and only had a handful of hours a day with her home attendant to do things like shopping. She lived on the third floor of a walk up, and always managed to make it up and down just fine.
For almost a year before her diagnosis, she talked to my mother and I about knowing that something was wrong. She felt like something was wrong, but couldn't tell us what. She thought maybe it was her stomach. She had a very good team of doctors taking care of her health, but so far no one had found anything. After some time, she became frustrated with them. An emotion I am too familiar with.
In private however, my mother talked to me about the possibility that my aunt was going to make herself sick. Not quite Munchhausen's, but intent and thought. I rebelled. My mother and I weren't on great terms at that point in my life, and my aunt was.. just about everything to me. She was a mother and a friend and a therapist and even escape from some of the darker days.
So I didn't want to hear that she was making herself sick. Until it came true. I was the first person she told. I was in the back of ambulances with her when she became sick, I slept on her couch, she took care of me and I took care of her. I put my heart and soul in it. I wouldn't lose her to this. No way.
I didn't even think about the things my mother had said until one day when my aunt looked over at me very smug and told me that she'd been right. She gave a small I Told You So speech, which I handled well, if only because we shared the plight of always being in hospitals and doctor's offices and I know what emotions that sort of life brings up.
I didn't mind the I Told You So, I knew it wasn't personal. She just needed to vent.
Except she seemed so damn happy to be right. I couldn't help it, I thought about my mother, her words, and lost myself in a dark spiral of doubt. Could she really have given herself a disease?
Now, raised as I was raised, believing what I believe with no fanaticism whatsoever, I believed then as I believe now that it's possible. Not that it's fact, but that it could be.
I know Cancer is a disease. I know it's not a germ you pick up at a playground, like catching a cold. I also know that it's a mystery. If we had it all figured out, and if I wasn't a conspiracy theorist about our government and pharmaceutical companies, we could cure it.
The knowing and the believing are not mutually exclusive, they exist in the same place inside me. I don't know if my aunt wished herself into illness. I only know that she could have if she wanted to. I believe that thoughts can be that powerful. It is with thought that we manipulate energy around us. Thought is usually the beginning of all things.
So.. given everything that I believe.. I become stuck when it comes to the goings on of my own home. What do I do about the shadows and bumps in the night?
Punky is from The South. She's from the kind of South that has to be capitalized, that's how southern she is. So naturally she believes in a good old fashioned sage-ing. This is apparently all the rage down there when your house needs a little spiritual cleaning up. Even though I've never done it, I'm familiar with the process.
Satan was from a totally different place with a similar custom. In his case you'd burn incense and carry it around the house, waving the smoke with your hand. It's supposed to dispel negative energies, and rid the home of unwanted guests.
Me personally? I was raised Christian, and know the power of smoke. Consider this if you will, in the bible it says you can burn something here on Earth and the aroma would reach God. These days I've strayed too far from that path to call myself a Christian anymore, but I still believe in the power of smoke, for lack of a better word.
The hangup is that I believe you have to do these things with unwavering conviction, or not only will they not work, they'll backfire. I'm all kinds of wavery. I don't have the sort of strength necessary within myself to do these things as they should be done.
Physically I'm a big believer in Man Up and Walk It Off. Hell, I push myself to walk three miles a day on broken and aching knees. I also know that the worst thing that'll happen is that I'll fall and go to the hospital.
The worst thing, in terms of spiritually stirring the pot here at home, won't just be a trip to the hospital. It could be much much worse and make for very unpleasant living situations.
So how does one master intent? My money would be to start out with some meditation. Always a good idea to look inwards, except that right now I'm in a place that makes me scared to look inside. I've been dealing with too much doctor bullshit. I'm all fucked up about it. Sometimes it makes me into a person that I don't want to be.
So.. temporarily, I'm lost.
-Angelwick
For the most part energy has been on the mind because I've got endless questions that I fear I already know the answer to. There's nothing worse than being able to look just that far forward, the feeling of thinking you know what the answer is but not really knowing if you're right or not. I've blogged about it before, I don't exactly have a plethora of people in my life that I can turn to about these things. I actually miss the sort of witch-y community I knew.
I live in an ancient building. Like most things and places that are old, there are the usual creaks and groans of old age, and then there are the unusual ones. It's not just the creaks and groans though, it's the shadows you see out of the corner of your eyes, the nightmares that have nothing to do with personal fears, and other strange occurrences. Funnily enough, for a place that has so many different people in it, it's pretty much accepted fact that the building is haunted. Neighbors from all walks of life, past many language barriers, all have stories of their apartments having ghosts in them, or other such stories. Things go missing only to appear in another room. Things that sound like the works of fairies.
One neighbor in particular has had feelings of being ..hmm.. I don't know the right words. I believe her words were something like ' a witch riding her back '. It's a night time happening that dispels with prayer.
So, what's behind it all?
I personally don't think that there's only one answer. I think it's a little bit of everything. Energy in different forms, with different intentions. Some of it is even most likely self-manifested. Give something enough thought and you'll just about bring it into existence.
I relay the following story a little cautiously.. I know, and can imagine the many reasons why, it will upset some. So.. I'll warn now. It's about a family member dying from cancer. If that's a personal trigger, it might be safer to just walk away from this entry now.
Some years ago, my aunt passed away from ovarian cancer. The cancer, as I imagine it is for everyone who receives such a diagnosis, was a shock. She was quite advanced in years. QUITE. Not dropping numbers here, out of love for her, but let us just say that even before the cancer news, she'd already had all her ducks in a row in terms of final wishes.
Healthwise? She was actually pretty healthy for her age. She was ninety-percent independent, and lived on her own. She cooked her own meals, unless I was bringing dinner over, and only had a handful of hours a day with her home attendant to do things like shopping. She lived on the third floor of a walk up, and always managed to make it up and down just fine.
For almost a year before her diagnosis, she talked to my mother and I about knowing that something was wrong. She felt like something was wrong, but couldn't tell us what. She thought maybe it was her stomach. She had a very good team of doctors taking care of her health, but so far no one had found anything. After some time, she became frustrated with them. An emotion I am too familiar with.
In private however, my mother talked to me about the possibility that my aunt was going to make herself sick. Not quite Munchhausen's, but intent and thought. I rebelled. My mother and I weren't on great terms at that point in my life, and my aunt was.. just about everything to me. She was a mother and a friend and a therapist and even escape from some of the darker days.
So I didn't want to hear that she was making herself sick. Until it came true. I was the first person she told. I was in the back of ambulances with her when she became sick, I slept on her couch, she took care of me and I took care of her. I put my heart and soul in it. I wouldn't lose her to this. No way.
I didn't even think about the things my mother had said until one day when my aunt looked over at me very smug and told me that she'd been right. She gave a small I Told You So speech, which I handled well, if only because we shared the plight of always being in hospitals and doctor's offices and I know what emotions that sort of life brings up.
I didn't mind the I Told You So, I knew it wasn't personal. She just needed to vent.
Except she seemed so damn happy to be right. I couldn't help it, I thought about my mother, her words, and lost myself in a dark spiral of doubt. Could she really have given herself a disease?
Now, raised as I was raised, believing what I believe with no fanaticism whatsoever, I believed then as I believe now that it's possible. Not that it's fact, but that it could be.
I know Cancer is a disease. I know it's not a germ you pick up at a playground, like catching a cold. I also know that it's a mystery. If we had it all figured out, and if I wasn't a conspiracy theorist about our government and pharmaceutical companies, we could cure it.
The knowing and the believing are not mutually exclusive, they exist in the same place inside me. I don't know if my aunt wished herself into illness. I only know that she could have if she wanted to. I believe that thoughts can be that powerful. It is with thought that we manipulate energy around us. Thought is usually the beginning of all things.
So.. given everything that I believe.. I become stuck when it comes to the goings on of my own home. What do I do about the shadows and bumps in the night?
Punky is from The South. She's from the kind of South that has to be capitalized, that's how southern she is. So naturally she believes in a good old fashioned sage-ing. This is apparently all the rage down there when your house needs a little spiritual cleaning up. Even though I've never done it, I'm familiar with the process.
Satan was from a totally different place with a similar custom. In his case you'd burn incense and carry it around the house, waving the smoke with your hand. It's supposed to dispel negative energies, and rid the home of unwanted guests.
Me personally? I was raised Christian, and know the power of smoke. Consider this if you will, in the bible it says you can burn something here on Earth and the aroma would reach God. These days I've strayed too far from that path to call myself a Christian anymore, but I still believe in the power of smoke, for lack of a better word.
The hangup is that I believe you have to do these things with unwavering conviction, or not only will they not work, they'll backfire. I'm all kinds of wavery. I don't have the sort of strength necessary within myself to do these things as they should be done.
Physically I'm a big believer in Man Up and Walk It Off. Hell, I push myself to walk three miles a day on broken and aching knees. I also know that the worst thing that'll happen is that I'll fall and go to the hospital.
The worst thing, in terms of spiritually stirring the pot here at home, won't just be a trip to the hospital. It could be much much worse and make for very unpleasant living situations.
So how does one master intent? My money would be to start out with some meditation. Always a good idea to look inwards, except that right now I'm in a place that makes me scared to look inside. I've been dealing with too much doctor bullshit. I'm all fucked up about it. Sometimes it makes me into a person that I don't want to be.
So.. temporarily, I'm lost.
-Angelwick
Saturday, January 28, 2012
I think I know what's wrong with me..
I am such a pansy. Woke up a couple of hours ago and thought, well... today really is the day that I have nothing to blog about. Didn't cook anything, haven't done anything... nothing to post about.
So I settled for reading other peoples blogs. Frugality has been high on the mind since it's the end of the month. Settled up my January finances yesterday, and am planning on a bank trip today. Lucky for me, I've been on a roll, finding tons of blog content with inspirational tips and ideas for saving money in tons of ways.
Why that put me in mind of a spell my Bloggy Godmother tweeted about... I have no clue. My brain is a strange strange place.
A couple of months ago I intended to join some witch-y discussions that were being hosted by Aine @ The Deepest Well. I flaked. Now I'm actually really sorry that I didn't stick around for them. I might have been able to figure this out much sooner.
I asked Aine about spellwork and what actually constitutes a spell. From my research, I've noted that it usually involves a fair bit of writing. Spells and the rituals that often accompany them are highly personal and tailor-fit kind of things. You're the one with the purpose, you're the one doing the work, so most if not all of it is up to you.
Yes, there's the pre-written stuff, but having never used it I can't really comment on how that works.
My own personal problem with spellwork has been the words. I am utterly incapable of incantations. They have never ever felt right to me, not even when I'm the one writing them. Hence, I asked Miss Aine if spell-work could be done like an Anne of Green Gables prayer.
For those of you ( HA! As if anyone is reading.) who haven't seen the movies, Anne is an orphan who isn't big on prayer, and doesn't know how to do it. She tells the woman teaching her " If I wanted to pray, I would just go out into a field and FEEL a prayer."
The quote is not verbatim, and yes she's very over-dramatic, but that is in a nutshell how I've felt about spellwork. Mind you, I just have no clue if it would work. Hence my turning to Aine, my bloggy godmother.
Of course, half the problem has been not knowing what the problem is. I have no idea why spell words and I clash. I do have a theory all of a sudden.
I speak English. Actually, I speak so much English these days that I'm forgetting my Spanish. However.... I think in Spanish. I think in Spanish and speak in English. Punky always says she feels sorry for me, because it sounds difficult. It's actually about as difficult as breathing. I don't think about it, that's just how my brain works.
Spanish was my first language. I spoke it, read it and wrote it long before I ever stepped into an american public school.
So there we are. Maybe the hang-up is in trying to do something so primal while patching it all through a radio translator known as my brain.
Any thoughts class?
-Angelwick
So I settled for reading other peoples blogs. Frugality has been high on the mind since it's the end of the month. Settled up my January finances yesterday, and am planning on a bank trip today. Lucky for me, I've been on a roll, finding tons of blog content with inspirational tips and ideas for saving money in tons of ways.
Why that put me in mind of a spell my Bloggy Godmother tweeted about... I have no clue. My brain is a strange strange place.
A couple of months ago I intended to join some witch-y discussions that were being hosted by Aine @ The Deepest Well. I flaked. Now I'm actually really sorry that I didn't stick around for them. I might have been able to figure this out much sooner.
I asked Aine about spellwork and what actually constitutes a spell. From my research, I've noted that it usually involves a fair bit of writing. Spells and the rituals that often accompany them are highly personal and tailor-fit kind of things. You're the one with the purpose, you're the one doing the work, so most if not all of it is up to you.
Yes, there's the pre-written stuff, but having never used it I can't really comment on how that works.
My own personal problem with spellwork has been the words. I am utterly incapable of incantations. They have never ever felt right to me, not even when I'm the one writing them. Hence, I asked Miss Aine if spell-work could be done like an Anne of Green Gables prayer.
For those of you ( HA! As if anyone is reading.) who haven't seen the movies, Anne is an orphan who isn't big on prayer, and doesn't know how to do it. She tells the woman teaching her " If I wanted to pray, I would just go out into a field and FEEL a prayer."
The quote is not verbatim, and yes she's very over-dramatic, but that is in a nutshell how I've felt about spellwork. Mind you, I just have no clue if it would work. Hence my turning to Aine, my bloggy godmother.
Of course, half the problem has been not knowing what the problem is. I have no idea why spell words and I clash. I do have a theory all of a sudden.
I speak English. Actually, I speak so much English these days that I'm forgetting my Spanish. However.... I think in Spanish. I think in Spanish and speak in English. Punky always says she feels sorry for me, because it sounds difficult. It's actually about as difficult as breathing. I don't think about it, that's just how my brain works.
Spanish was my first language. I spoke it, read it and wrote it long before I ever stepped into an american public school.
So there we are. Maybe the hang-up is in trying to do something so primal while patching it all through a radio translator known as my brain.
Any thoughts class?
-Angelwick
Friday, January 27, 2012
Feeling the drag and Miss Aine's Giveaway.
It's that time of the week/month/year when I just don't feel like there's anything good to write about it. This time it isn't even true. So, I'm trying to work through the drag the same way I've been trying to work through the aches and the munchies in order to meet my weight loss goal.
Saw my doctor yesterday. This visit went well, he was in a better mood than last visit. The usual poking and prodding didn't really reveal anything specific. Which.. hey.. what's he supposed to see under skin and muscle? I told him about avoiding the E.R. since they'd just take an x-ray. He agreed that the E.R. wasn't the right place, but had me take the x-rays all the same. I'm not exactly keyed up to hear back about them though, cause the issue is in the tendons or ligaments. Bone pics won't show much, if anything. It hurt to bend my knee into the correct position for the x-rays though.
On the brighter side, I really like my doctor. He's new-ish to the position, and aside from one instance of yelling at me, he's everything I need in a PCP. Sure, he's a little rough around the edges, but I don't need him to be my best friend. I've had doctors be my buddies and do crap for my health. He's the opposite. Cut and dry, right to the problems, and then, miracle of miracles, right to the scripts. No game playing. It's such a weight off my shoulders.
He's ordered an MRI of my knee, which is exactly what I need, and I didn't even have to tell him to. We're waiting on approval from my insurance, which should come sometime next week. Already made my appointments to the ortho specialist.
He upped my pain meds, but I haven't hit them yet. I'm doing the whole Pain is Fear Leaving the Body thing and just pushing through. Planning on sneaking out of the house when Punky is asleep for another two mile walk. It's not like it'll be a secret for long, she'll know as soon as she hears me come home and I'll get scolded, but I'm motivated in the moment and I'm trying to hold on to it for as long as I can ride it out. Lords and Ladies know that it'll go away soon enough and I'll have to be dragged out of bed.
I'm just trying to be as effective as possible while I've got the wind to do it.
Other news. Pinterest.com has eaten my life. I advise all people stay away from it. Though.. if anyone has a spare invite, I wouldn't mind one.
One of my bloggy godmother's is having a giveaway! I really want to figure out how to do a blogroll or a sidebar with icons so I can pimp her blog properly, but in the meantime I'm mentioning her here.
Aine writes at : http://deepestwell.blogspot.com/
She's giving away a tarot reading via e-mail. I've tossed my hat into the ring, but I'm all about more people getting in there. She's amazing.
Dinner was take-out last night. Pizza. It was supposed to be a pick-me-up. I behaved like a champ. One slice only. It was hard, but I made it through. I'm excited about the upcoming food shopping that needs to be done. We have discovered that Punky likes black beans. YAY. Another food to add to the list.
That's pretty much it over here. Sitting around in Princess Leia Buns with socks in my hair because Punky and I read somewhere about this making it curly. We shall see. Found an interesting tutorial about gardening in a shoe organizer, which I might just have to try out. Also been trying to branch out on blogger, follow some other people, maybe if I'm lucky some of them will wander over here too and I won't feel like I'm talking to myself all the time.
Full of positive energy for now..
-Angelwick
Saw my doctor yesterday. This visit went well, he was in a better mood than last visit. The usual poking and prodding didn't really reveal anything specific. Which.. hey.. what's he supposed to see under skin and muscle? I told him about avoiding the E.R. since they'd just take an x-ray. He agreed that the E.R. wasn't the right place, but had me take the x-rays all the same. I'm not exactly keyed up to hear back about them though, cause the issue is in the tendons or ligaments. Bone pics won't show much, if anything. It hurt to bend my knee into the correct position for the x-rays though.
On the brighter side, I really like my doctor. He's new-ish to the position, and aside from one instance of yelling at me, he's everything I need in a PCP. Sure, he's a little rough around the edges, but I don't need him to be my best friend. I've had doctors be my buddies and do crap for my health. He's the opposite. Cut and dry, right to the problems, and then, miracle of miracles, right to the scripts. No game playing. It's such a weight off my shoulders.
He's ordered an MRI of my knee, which is exactly what I need, and I didn't even have to tell him to. We're waiting on approval from my insurance, which should come sometime next week. Already made my appointments to the ortho specialist.
He upped my pain meds, but I haven't hit them yet. I'm doing the whole Pain is Fear Leaving the Body thing and just pushing through. Planning on sneaking out of the house when Punky is asleep for another two mile walk. It's not like it'll be a secret for long, she'll know as soon as she hears me come home and I'll get scolded, but I'm motivated in the moment and I'm trying to hold on to it for as long as I can ride it out. Lords and Ladies know that it'll go away soon enough and I'll have to be dragged out of bed.
I'm just trying to be as effective as possible while I've got the wind to do it.
Other news. Pinterest.com has eaten my life. I advise all people stay away from it. Though.. if anyone has a spare invite, I wouldn't mind one.
One of my bloggy godmother's is having a giveaway! I really want to figure out how to do a blogroll or a sidebar with icons so I can pimp her blog properly, but in the meantime I'm mentioning her here.
Aine writes at : http://deepestwell.blogspot.com/
She's giving away a tarot reading via e-mail. I've tossed my hat into the ring, but I'm all about more people getting in there. She's amazing.
Dinner was take-out last night. Pizza. It was supposed to be a pick-me-up. I behaved like a champ. One slice only. It was hard, but I made it through. I'm excited about the upcoming food shopping that needs to be done. We have discovered that Punky likes black beans. YAY. Another food to add to the list.
That's pretty much it over here. Sitting around in Princess Leia Buns with socks in my hair because Punky and I read somewhere about this making it curly. We shall see. Found an interesting tutorial about gardening in a shoe organizer, which I might just have to try out. Also been trying to branch out on blogger, follow some other people, maybe if I'm lucky some of them will wander over here too and I won't feel like I'm talking to myself all the time.
Full of positive energy for now..
-Angelwick
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Dinner and the closing of January.
Since January is wrapping up, I whipped out the handy dandy monthly planner and set to updating it. Mostly, it was the addition of medical appointments and re-reading bill paying reminders.
This month I knock off another card into the paid in full pile. Children's Place. Mind you, all I owe is 26.00 dollars. I picked The Brat up a coat there last month and put it on the card just to keep it in use. I've only used it one other time, and it was only for like 30.00 dollars.
The Bullseye card is the one I really need to focus on now. It's not maxed out or anything, but I don't want it to be either. I came closer than I ever wanted to in December. Come the first week of February I'll be grinding away at the balance. Estimated time? Four months. That's only because I do need to keep up on my two other cards. Just over minimum payment on those though.
If I really wanted to, I could just dig into the savings and pay them all off and be in the clear, but I rather tighten the belt and pay them off month to month. It'll hopefully teach me to be even more careful.
The final breakdown? I have seven credit cards. Five of them are store cards. Bullseye. Children's Place. And the three fat stores. Two of them are just regular credit cards. One of them is secured, the other one unsecured. Out of the seven, three are paid in full, one is about to be. Not bad by my standards.
January will close out in a few days with a savings of 450.00 dollars for the month. Not quite the ideal amount, but I keep telling myself that something is better than nothing. Looking at the calendar, February is another 450.00 month.
Just under a thousand dollars in the first two months of the year doesn't sound like a bad deal does it?
March will be a six hundred dollar month. But.. I'm getting ahead of myself.
Yesterday I got gung-ho about getting some walking done if I couldn't get to the gym. I wound up hurting myself pretty bad. Bad enough that today I'm off to the doctor. So... those of you who know my masochistic tendencies.. might be able to guess what I did.
I decided to wobble around on my busted knee and cook dinner and have Punky take pictures for blogging purposes. Dinner last night? Beef and broccoli with white rice.
A liberal handful of this stuff. >.>; I so don't do measurements.
So.. we get this. Which gets manhandled into
This.
Got my olive oil handy.
Got it working in my pan.
Mm.. Yummy smells.
Generous helping of soy sauce.
Tossed in some broccoli. It wasn't as chopped as I like it. Will improve next time.
Yummy white rice.
Dinner is served.
This month I knock off another card into the paid in full pile. Children's Place. Mind you, all I owe is 26.00 dollars. I picked The Brat up a coat there last month and put it on the card just to keep it in use. I've only used it one other time, and it was only for like 30.00 dollars.
The Bullseye card is the one I really need to focus on now. It's not maxed out or anything, but I don't want it to be either. I came closer than I ever wanted to in December. Come the first week of February I'll be grinding away at the balance. Estimated time? Four months. That's only because I do need to keep up on my two other cards. Just over minimum payment on those though.
If I really wanted to, I could just dig into the savings and pay them all off and be in the clear, but I rather tighten the belt and pay them off month to month. It'll hopefully teach me to be even more careful.
The final breakdown? I have seven credit cards. Five of them are store cards. Bullseye. Children's Place. And the three fat stores. Two of them are just regular credit cards. One of them is secured, the other one unsecured. Out of the seven, three are paid in full, one is about to be. Not bad by my standards.
January will close out in a few days with a savings of 450.00 dollars for the month. Not quite the ideal amount, but I keep telling myself that something is better than nothing. Looking at the calendar, February is another 450.00 month.
Just under a thousand dollars in the first two months of the year doesn't sound like a bad deal does it?
March will be a six hundred dollar month. But.. I'm getting ahead of myself.
Yesterday I got gung-ho about getting some walking done if I couldn't get to the gym. I wound up hurting myself pretty bad. Bad enough that today I'm off to the doctor. So... those of you who know my masochistic tendencies.. might be able to guess what I did.
I decided to wobble around on my busted knee and cook dinner and have Punky take pictures for blogging purposes. Dinner last night? Beef and broccoli with white rice.
Started out with some steak that Punky helpfully sliced thin for me.
Seasoned with some of this.
-Angelwick
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