Planning for Ostara

March is in full swing, and it is truly lovely outside. The temperatures are going to hit 85 degrees today without much humidity… For this Georgia Peach, it truly is a miracle. I have a cup of coff…

Source: Planning for Ostara

Planning for Ostara

March is in full swing, and it is truly lovely outside. The temperatures are going to hit 85 degrees today without much humidity… For this Georgia Peach, it truly is a miracle. I have a cup of coffee by my side and the windows open, enjoying the breeze and listening to the wind chimes jingle. The neighborhood has been taken over with tulips and daffodils. Spring is here.

Ostara, the Spring Equinox, falls on Sunday, March 20^th this year. Because our family is primarily Christian, we normally forgo celebrating the equinox on its given day and celebrate Easter instead. The many crossovers allow me to participate with my family while still being mindful of the Wheel of the Year, so it is a win-win. However, this year I want to bend my traditions just a little bit.

Due to my living situation with my in-laws, I have noticed that I have begun to (unfortunately) lose a good bit of my spirituality… I guess that happens when your living quarters are somewhat confined to your bedroom. That being said, I feel like it is important for me to make the most of every holiday, for me to give myself something to look forward to.

Spring is a time for abundance and fertility. March Hares emerge and conceive their litters and the warm weather encourages hens to lay their eggs. Flowers are blooming and it is time to sow our crops. Days are growing longer and warmer. Keeping all of this in mind, Cody and I have come up with our own way to celebrate this busy, beautiful turn of the wheel.

Coloring Eggs:

When I was a child, coloring eggs was a favorite of mine. What kid didn’t love it? While the boy and I may be a little too old to get away with doing this by ourselves, there are plenty of neighborhood kids that love to come over and pay us a visit (they love our dogs) so the day before we are going to buy a mess of eggs from a local farmer’s market and let the children color them and take a few home. Because this is an “egg heavy” season, with what is left over we will make a frittata dinner and egg breads- which will probably be another great “Kitchen Witchery” post!

Starting our garden:

Cody and I won’t be leaving his parents’ house until mid to late June, so my usual plans of starting my balcony garden is foiled. However, Cody had the wonderful idea of buying a small lemon tree to care for until we move. From there, we will simply take it with us; they stay small so they are ideal for apartment living. On Ostara, we will decorate a pot to plant it in, putting all of our energy into the vessel that will hold our fruit.

Share the love with neighbors:

While our living situation is far from perfect, we are fortunate enough to really like our neighbors. To promote happiness among our neighbors, we will be buying carnations in bulk and passing them out to our loved ones.

Unplug:

We spend enough time staring at our phones, and not enough time bringing our attention back to the earth and one another. When Cody gets home from work, we are both turning off our phones and heading outside. We will have dinner in the back yard, drink our wine, listen to the wind chimes, and enjoy the beautiful weather.

 Over all, I am very excited to be celebrating Ostara with my love.

What are you doing for the Spring Equinox?

Daily Magickal Applications for Wednesday

Daily Magickal Applications for Wednesday To the Romans, this day was called Dies Mercurii, or “Mercury’s day” Mercury was a popular character in the Roman pantheon. A messenger of the gods, he pre…

Source: Daily Magickal Applications for Wednesday

Home

My Day doesn’t begin until I have downed at least half a pot of coffee, so while I am working on my addiction of the hot brown, I wanted to spend some time with you all.

I normally like to be out of bed no later than 9:00am. For some, that is still pretty late. For me, it is still pretty early. My mind wouldn’t shut up last night, all it wanted to do was think about thinks I could not yet control. From “what if our wedding guest hate the food?” to “how will we arrange our furniture when we move?” I stayed awake, staring at the ceiling… it is noon now and I’m disgusted to say that I am just now starting my day, but I didn’t actually fall asleep until 6:00 or so.

So, what is on the agenda today? I have given myself an hour of “play time” on the computer, which means I get an hour of screwing around on here, writing to you guys. Then I am in serious need of folding laundry and doing school work. When I am done with that, I am going to workout, shower, and read until my fiancé gets home. I’ll make us some dinner and then cap the night off with a small walk around the neighborhood.
These things are nice.
But when I am living in someone else’s house, it just doesn’t hold that same charm.

In an older post, I spoke about how I spent a small amount of time in the hospital immediately following us moving into my in-laws. I’m not sure if I deleted it yesterday or not, but let us just say it was very negative. I had a panic attack… it was the result of me realizing that this is just not going to be a good living situation, but unfortunately, it is our only option. I am grateful that we have a place to live while WITH OUR PETS we are saving our money, but this is probably the hardest thing that the boy and I will ever have to do. To put things plainly, his parents are borderline hoarders and I have a diminishing relationship with his mother. This is rough, more taxing than I could have possibly imagined… it is testing my relationships with my fiancé, his parents, and the god and goddess. I am constantly stressed that I am going to do or say the wrong thing and that will lead to trouble… So I keep to myself. I don’t have friends over the way I use to, I don’t paint the way I use to, I don’t sleep well anymore…

But, nothing is permanent. We will get through this, and we will smile because we made it. This situation could have broken many couples… especially with a sick dog thrown in the mix, but we are making it.

About a week ago, I was writing in my book of shadows about my plans for Imbolc, when my train of thought began to take off somewhere else. I started writing about our living situation and how it was difficult for me to be myself. In it, I wrote, “I always thought that home was where ever I was with my man… But I was very wrong about that. Home is where we are together AND can be ourselves.”

Yes, we are together now. And I am still so very in love with him and thank the divine for him every night before I close my eyes…but just because he is next to me in bed does not mean that I am “home.”

Home is where he showers with the bathroom door open, even though he knows there is a very good chance that I will throw ice water on him.
Home is where we cook dinner together while LOUDLY singing Frank Sinatra, often taking small breaks between chopping and sautéing to dance.
Home is where we great each other by the front door with a cup of coffee… or a glass of scotch, depending on how bad our days were.
Home is where we made a fort out of couch cushions and go camping in the living room.
Home is where we host small dinner parties and drink too much wine with our friends.
Home is where we bust out the N64 and have Mario Kart competitions… the loser cleans the cat box for the next month.
Home is where we lay in our living room floor together while I paint and he reads.

We are very far from home right now… But at least we are on our way.

We have so much to be thankful for… The health of our dogs and cats, a roof over our head, money in our checking account, friends that support us… But we won’t be complete until we find our home.

Just a little bit longer, we will eventually get there.

Now, I need to get some school work done…

-D

 

What is to come

After writing about what I went through with my pup, I went through the blog and did a little bit of “spring cleaning.” I wiped out about half of my posts; they were nothing but me whining a bit and contained no real information. Nobody wants to read that.

I’ve been better now than I have been in a long time. I have been spending a considerable amount of time “working on me” in addition to taking the proper medications I need for my anxiety disorders. That being said, while I still have bad days here and there, I have an overall better attitude. This makes it easier for me to write something worth while every now and again.

I’ve decided that I am going to break my blog up into seven different categories:

• Witchy Tips: Small little things that you  can do to bring the magical into your mundane life. These tiny require little to no effort and are meant to give you a small little spiritual boost.
• Correspondences: This will cover examples of ways to use crystals, herbs, and colors into your magical practices.
• Holidays: This sections will detail Sabbats and Esbats, what they are about and ways to celebrate them.
• Kitchen Witchery: Any kind of “do it yourself” project. From making soaps and candles, to potions, to dinner for your family… If I make it in the kitchen, I will post it here.
• Outdoors: Ways to honor the Elements and their Spirits.
• Spells: Duh, you know what spells are.
• My Life: All other little updates here and there.

It is my hope that by confining my posts to these categories, my blog will be more organized, therefore more interesting to read.

Now, back to “spring cleaning.” I have a mound of negative shit to sort through.

Also, here is a picture of my cat, Pip, cause no witch is complete without a cat or two by her side. He is cute as shit, isn’t he?

-D

Our Story

I had every intention of keeping up this blog. I enjoy writing and it is a stress reliever for me. Moving in with my in-laws was hard, still living here is even harder… I was doing okay, though… we were chugging along and we were doing okay. But, shit happens… So this is the story of why I was away.

My fiancé and I knew that before we moved out of this house and back on our own, a few things needed to happen: work on our debts, get a new computer, go to the doctor… Things like that. First and foremost, our Cattle Dog Mix, Saphira, needed to be spay. After her sister getting incredibly ill from not being fixed (and us going into massive debt because of it… hence, why I live with my in-laws…), we thought that getting her taken care of as soon as possible would be in the best interest for everyone involved. We love our fur babies as if they were our own flesh and blood, we wanted to avoid any illness at all cost. Two weeks after we moved in with my fiancé’s parents, we ponied up the money to have her spay.

While it was expensive, overall the surgery went really well. We go to a wonderful veterinary practice and they take great care of our fur kids, so I was confident in their abilities. When I picked her up from the hospital, her surgeon pulled me into an exam room to go over her medication and what to expect. At one point she looked at me sternly and said, “Alright, D. She did great, she really did… But we did find something pretty odd in there and I wanted to talk to you about it really quickly. On her ovaries, we saw many cyst-like nodules, which isn’t uncommon for adult dogs her age. What is a little weird, however, is that they do not contain the fluid in them that most cysts would.” She then lightened up and said, “Personally, I think it is just a mass of cysts, but because I have never seen it before, I do want to give you the option to have it biopsied… just in case.”

After talking to my fiancé, we decided to send it off. We didn’t think much of it, but we wanted to be sure that IF it was cancer (which we were almost sure it wasn’t), that it is completely gone.
But, we just knew it wasn’t cancer. After all, this is a happy and healthy pup who loves to go for runs and play all day… she is fine.

Two days before Christmas, I got a phone call from the our vet. I answered it, expecting them to remind me to pick up my dog’s medication, completely forgetting about her biopsy. I was overall feeling pretty cheerful; I was in the middle of reading a great book, I had just opened an early Christmas gift that was beautiful, my fiancé was done with work early and was on his way home… But I knew something was wrong when I heard the words “Do you have a few minutes so that we can talk?”

I looked down at Saphira, who was sprawled across the bed, snoring in delight, and knew that I was going to get some very bad news.

Cancer… A very aggressive form of cancer… If caught within the first few months there is a chance that chemo could work, but her type is very rare in dogs, so it isn’t easily detected. In fact, it is usually only detected in the middle of a spay. It spreads from the ovaries very quickly, affecting the lungs, causing the dog to slowly die from drowning in fluids. I know that my vet gave me really helpful information and was trying to help me wrap my brain around what was happening, but all I my brain allowed me to hear was “Your baby has cancer and she is going to be in pain and die.”

After a few hours of bawling my eyes out, I collected myself enough to decide that I wasn’t going to accept this as a death sentence. I called my vet back and made an appointment for the following week… I needed some time to clear my head enough so that I could properly wrap my head around all of the information that I would be getting. My vet was able to answer whatever little questions I had, but most importantly put me in touch with an oncologist that could further educate us on our next steps.

We went to Dr. Hamilton, the oncologist who preformed the biopsy,  with hopes that he could help us figure out treatment options that could keep her as happy and healthy as long as possible… at six years old, there was still so much spunk in her, we weren’t ready to let that go.
After blood work and a few chest x-rays, Dr. Hamilton came back in our room and slowly shook his head. My fiancé and I exchange wary glances at once another and grabbed each other’s hands, fearing for the worst. He let out a sigh and ran his hands through his hair and said, “I have never been able to say this in regards to this type of cancer… We can’t find it anywhere else in her body.”

It took a minute for that news to register in my brain, so instead of celebrating, I just stared at the man and stammered, “what?” while my fiancé plopped to the floor and cradled our dog.

We were lucky. We couldn’t find the cancer… but that didn’t mean she was out of the woods just yet.

The cancer she had was incredible aggressive, so we had two options. 1. Cross our fingers and hope it doesn’t come back. 2. Undergo chemotherapy to help prevent it from coming back.

As you can probably guess, we chose chemo.
Dogs handle chemo much better than humans do. There is no hair loss, their appetite doesn’t suffer (except for the day of treatments), there is no nausea (again, except for the day of)… But man oh man is it expensive. Our dog was worth it to us, but we had to really work to rearrange our money to afford this. We were paying more monthly in her vet bills than we were paying for rent every month- so much for saving money so we can move out!

We cut of bills- unfortunately meaning that we went without internet. We picked up extra shifts at work. We prayed. We finally made it.

Last week, Saphira had her last chemo treatment. Last week, her oncologist gave me a huge bear hug and said “you did it kid. She did it.”

We are back to life as normal, she and I just went on a run. We have another follow up appointment in June, and a few more following that, but it is just so we can be sure everything is working the way it is supposed to.

I’m looking forward to writing more often, but I can’t say that I am sorry that I as away for so long… We beat cancer and our dog is the healthiest she has ever been. I would do it again in a heartbeat if that meant my babies are well.

Blessings
-D