Injuries, Illness, and Exercise

I just realized it's been almost two years since I posted here.  Right before my health took a real dive, actually.  I won't go into details, but I grew very ill before having two surgical procedures in the Fall of 2015.

Once I recovered, I found out I'd developed Type II Diabetes from all the inactivity.  Needless to say, sitting in front of a computer blogging was the last thing on my mind.  I signed up for the local YMCA, discovered cardio kickboxing and water aerobics,  and took off to regain my health.

All was going really well until I was hiking the next Fall and broke my ankle.  Geez.  Another six months of inactivity.

But, finally, I recovered enough from that to start exercising again.  I went to a handful of aerobics classes and did a little weightlifting, then I promptly wrenched my knee getting out of a weightlifting machine.  Cue another six weeks of no exercise.

Once again, however, I've recovered enough to exercise.  I found out the pool, much as I love water aerobics, was disastrous for my skin.  And the cardio kickboxing classes had, for the most part, disappeared.  So I'm trying new things.  New to me, anyway.  I'm doing Zumba and Les Mill's BodyCombat.  I'm getting back to lifting.  I even tried Les Mill's BodyPump this morning.

I'm being careful with my knee, and my still-healing ankle, but I'm determined not to give up.  I WILL regain my health.  I WILL defeat the diabetes.  I WILL get back in shape.

Wish me luck.

And again

Not failed until I give up. I will not fail.

Old (Good) Habits

I spent a large part of today doing something I used to do all the time, but haven't done in a long, long time--reading other people's blogs.  Sure, I've read the occasional blog here and there, but once upon a time I made it a habit to keep up with a number of them.

Why was it a good habit?  Partially because I avoid any kind of official news source like the proverbial plague.  I tend to learn about things going on in the world through social media, including blogs.  Also because many, many times reading others' blogs would be inspiration for my own.  (I was writing more about the Craft then.  I'm willing to let myself go on this a while longer, as I try to establish a habit of writing again, about anything, but I do want to get back to that eventually.)  Lastly, it helped me connect to people in a non-threatening way that my very introverted self really needs.

I had a ton of things to do, so I felt guilty about doing it, but at the same time it felt good.  I'll definitely need to make more time for it in the future.

What habits have you let go that you wish you hadn't?

New Background Pic

NOW I remember why my blog has sat in the "construction" phase for over two years!  I set the generic background when we moved out of our house in Ontario, meaning to replace it with a picture of whatever house we got in Texas.  I took this picture when we first moved into this house, back in May of 2013. 

Then I started fooling with Blogger and templates.  I vaguely remembered it was a pain from back when I first set it up with a picture of the Ontario house.  Obviously I had blocked out most of the trauma.

I fooled with it for I don't know how long back in 2013 before giving up in frustration and disgust.  But I decided the blog had been in it's "temporary" state for way too long, and since I was actually writing in it again I should have a picture of where my life takes place now.

Aaarrrgh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Let's start with a myriad of computer problems, which those of you who know me know I've been having since I've become Wiccan.  So, I started the process already annoyed and frustrated.  And it only went downhill from there.  Sigh.

But, as you can see, I at least got so far as to get an image up there this time.  It's not exactly how I wanted it, but it's up there.  I feel some sense of accomplishment at that.

I know I should probably move away from Blogger, but I'm way to lazy to really look into it much.  Although I was really tempted this morning!

Grrrrr.

Doing my minimum 10 words or so today.  There, done!

A New Beginning

I can't believe it's been nearly a year since I was here.  Just over ten months.  The thing is, I really enjoy writing this, when I do it.  And it's easy.  So I have no idea why I just don't.

No matter.  I've been reading a book by Stephen Guise titled Mini Habits:  Smaller Habits, Bigger Results.  It's all about setting what the author calls "stupid small" goals to try and form habits that will turn into something larger.  The idea is to make them so small that you won't resist them and they won't cost you much willpower.  He claims he got into shape by setting a Mini Habit of one push-up a day, and he swears by the method, so I'm willing to give it a try.

I've set four Mini Habits for myself, which is the maximum he recommends at any one time.  He actually encourages people to do two or three, but as per usual I'm impatient.  :)

The first one has to do with starting a nature journal.  I've been wanting to do it since I moved here, and I'm hoping this will start me on that path.  The Mini Habit I will try to cultivate is simply to step outside for thirty seconds each day.  I tried it earlier, and it did make me wish I'd brought the journal with me, so tomorrow that is what I'll do.

The second stupid small habit I'm trying to acquire has to do with writing this blog.  I will achieve success by writing ten words each day, Monday through Thursday.  I can always do more, as I'm dong here, but I must do the minimum.

The third is being more creative in general.  The habit here is to go upstairs where most of my arts and crafts supplies are.  That's it.  I don't have to do anything once I'm there, I can simply turn around and come back downstairs if I so choose.  But most likely I won't.

Lastly, I want to cook more, so I have set myself the minimum goal of gathering the first ingredient.  Again, that's it.  If I choose to not go any further, to put whatever it is back up, I still win.  I'm hoping once I get over the resistance to starting I'll go ahead and make whatever it was I was planning.

According to the book, studies have shown that habits take anywhere from 18 to 254 days to form, depending on the habit, the person, how much they want to form it, and so on.  Much different from the 21 or 30 days most pop-psych books claim.

I guess I'll find out if it works somewhere between three and thirty-six weeks.

Aaaargh!!!!

I've had trouble with electronics ever since I started on my current Wiccan path.  Even a little before, actually. 

For instance, I used to LOVE wristwatches.  I own close to twenty of them, I love them so much.  But I no longer wear them.  They won't last more than a handful of days after I put a new battery into them before they just quit working.  They don't slow down, they don't do anything but just stop. Also, I can no longer install software.  I can't even be near when my DH installs it or it won't work for him, either.  I've had so much trouble with my iPhone (and, subsequently, with Apple customer service) that I've changed my password to a version of "I hate Apple."  My new car is having so many electrical troubles (and Chrysler's customer service has been nothing but a big joke so far) that DH and I are seriously considering pressing a Lemon lawsuit. 

There are lots and lots of instances like that, small and large, but I won't go on.  Suffice it to say that the modern world and I no longer get along too well.  I've learned to get around it, most of the time.  But today.  Oh, man, today.

A friend of mine posted on her blog for the first time in a long time, as I'm doing now.  It's on LiveJournal, and I haven't been there since she last posted.  I thought, cool!  I'll just go over there and see what she's got to say.  Wrong.  I tried to sign into LJ and it said my password was wrong.  No problem.  Maybe I just didn't remember it after so long.  I told it I forgot my password.  It got lost in the weeds.  Sigh.  I tried a number of other times, but same problem.  I finally got it to go to the reset screen, and went through the process of resetting my password.  Then it said accounts like mine didn't have passwords.  But if I tried to enter without any password it said I needed one.  Sigh again.  So I signed in through FaceBook (and don't even get me started about FB.)  It let me in, but wouldn't let me see my friend's post.  My friend checked, and yes, I did indeed have permission to see it.  Still couldn't.  Tried more password stuff. No avail.  I then spent an hour or so trying to log out.  Hah!  Still, I finally did it.  Then I went back in with my Google password.  Finally, SUCCESS!  Although, sorry, Jenn.  By that time it was just a teensy bit anti-climatic.  :)   

But, enough of my rant.  I'm very happy that she posted an entry today, and I hope it inspires me to start posting regularly again myself.  And I'd rather have magick than technology anyway.

But do any of my witchy friends have problems like this?

Trying to Get Back

I've just realized that I haven't posted anything here in months.  The next post after the last one was supposed to be about the interior of the house, but I didn't get to take pictures before the boxes filled every room, so it never happened.  Unfortunately, when I plan a post and don't get to it, I get this block about posting anything else, as well.  It has always taken major willpower for me to 'skip' the planned post and write about something else.

Of course, I'd been backing off on blogging for a while before this.  I've tried and tried and haven't been able to figure out why.  It's not that I don't want to do it, and it's certainly not that I don't have anything to write.  I just can't seem to find the words.

I suppose it could have something to do with the sleep apnea.  As many of you know, I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea a month or so ago.  Before that I'd been sleeping 14-16 hours a day and been exhausted the rest of the time anyway.  I'm doing much better now, though.  I've gotten my c-pap machine, and I'm now sleeping a much more normal 8 hours or so, and have tons of energy besides. 

We'll see if it extends to writing this blog.

STRESS

I've felt totally uninspired lately.  Even my pagan blog stuff has left me blank.  Luckily, last night the universe and my own subconscious conspired to give me something interesting about which to write.

Sometime around 3:30 this morning I had one of my infamous laughing mental breakdowns, therefore ensuring neither DH or I got any appreciable amount of sleep whatsoever.  What happens is I find something totally boring and mundane just hilarious.  Maybe it's funny in some dark and twisted way.  Or maybe it just causes that extra little bit of stress that sends me over the edge.  Either way, I start laughing.  And keep laughing.  I literally can't stop.  I eventually start to cry as well, but I don't stop laughing.  Oh, no.  I'm told by those who have observed it that the laughter is tinged with hysteria, and that the episodes are pretty darn frightening to watch.

These breakdowns have only happened a handful of times in my life, but they're pretty memorable.   They only occur when I've been under large amounts of stress for extended periods, and I guess I just hadn't realized just how stressed I've been.  Maybe that's why I've been so unable to be creative in any way. 

After I finally stopped laugh/crying, after I don't know how much time, I started thinking about what's stressing me out.  I came up with a short but distressing list, and I thought I'd share.

1. The sale of the house a few months ago.  And maybe the stress of NOT selling it the three years before that.
2. The moves, both the one out of that house and especially the one to Texas in a month or two. (And do I count leaving Canada, which I desperately do NOT want to do, here or as a separate entry?)
3. The vacation coming up (in a good way) and all the prep and planning and stuff to do before then.
4. The trouble shipping some art stuff to my mom.  (Loooong story.)
5. The upcoming citizenship stuff--waiting (and waiting and waiting) for Immigration Canada to move forward with it, waiting to take the test, finding all the old paperwork again, etc.
6. REALLY disliking the house we're temporarily renting while trying to be glad we have it (after the two we wanted to rent fell through.)
7. Slowly saying goodbye to all our friends here in Ontario.
8. Absolute lack of creativity.

And, on top of all that, yesterday we discovered some kind of lump on Kai's shoulder.  (Don't worry.  He's going to the vet in an hour.)

I'd already started trying to make myself journal again, due to some depression issues.  Now I need to push harder and get back into meditation and exercise before I start having anxiety attacks (which trnaslate as crying and pain in my chest) again.

Surprisingly, writing this post has actually made me feel better.

First

I've been looking for a way to get back into blogging regularly, not to mention getting more witchy on this blog, and I think I've found it!  The Pagan Blog Project is similar to a couple of things I've tried before, but I think it'll work better for me. 

ABC Wednesday's posts were mostly pictures, and since my posts are mostly text, it always made me feel inadequate and out of place. Being the only pagan blogger I ever found there didn't help, either.  Don't get me wrong--the people there were wonderfully friendly and supportive, and they have a GREAT project.  It simply didn't work for me.

Pagan Blog Prompts is also great, it gives me lots of inspiration.  But I rarely, if ever, actually seem to write it up.  Maybe my muse finds specific topics too limiting, I don't know.  Whatever the cause, I'm not writing.

In contrast, the Pagan Blog Project (PBP) is all about the Craft and it's at least as much about writing as it is about visual art.  It's also just limited by the first letter in a topic, so plenty of freedom for my muse.  I'm a little late jumping into it, as I just found it today, but I'm hoping I can actually stick with it to the end of the year!

I realize this first post isn't truly about anything spiritual or pagan, but my first post being on an 'F' Friday was too serendipitous to miss!  I promise next week will be much more on-topic.

I can't wait!

Life Update, Part 1

A LOT has happened since my last post (which is why this is the first post in almost a month, lol!)  Last time I was talking about "Little" Kai's 1st birthday.  (There'll be more on that next time.)  Since then, my fabulous, wonderful, astounding DH has accepted a job.  As I write this, I'm sitting in the tiny little studio apartment which is our temporary housing until the house sells and we buy a new one, hopefully sometime within the next 90 days.

It's a bit crowded here, what with 200+ lbs of dog and their accompanying enormous crates, but the good news is the place is about a five minute walk from DH's new place of employment.  Also good news--we just moved yesterday, but already the boys are greatly improving their loose-leash-while-together skills.  And they're starting to become accustomed to living in a multi-family residence, as opposed to their own private space.  That might take a bit longer--they're still a bit jittery when they hear a door open or voices out in the hall. 

The cats are still at the house, as we thought the stress of moving, a new place, cleaning staff, and close quarters with the dogs would be too much for them.  We'll visit them on weekends, and hopefully the close on both the old and new house will be fairly close together, so they won't have to deal with too much upheaval.

In the past month, we've been going through the whole "relocation" process, meeting with realtors (on both sides of the move), movers, repairmen, and so on.  All this, and we're just moving an hour or two down the road.  I'm not sure we've been treated this well even though we've moved three times over international borders, with two of those moves being across the continent, as well.  It almost seems a bit silly to be making all this fuss, but I sure do appreciate it!

The house isn't quite on the market yet, but we're meeting with the selling agent this Wednesday, so it will probably be up by next Monday.  At that point, all we can do is cross our fingers.  And do a ritual or two, of course.

Here's hoping to a quick sale!

A Tarot Blog

Introducing "A Witch's Journey Through the Tarot," a blog I just started with a more witchy bent.  Don't worry, though, I don't plan on giving up on this one, or on changing it.

"Through the Tarot's" purpose is to chronicle my quest for knowledge of tarot cards from the very beginning to Tarot Grandmaster.  It'll take time, and a lot of hard work, but I'm confident I can eventually get there.  Along the way, I'll start with books I already own and eventually progress to online courses and even real-life apprenticeships.  I'll talk about my lessons, occasionally write reviews of decks or accessories, and just have fun with it.

I'd been thinking about it for a while, but I just made the inaugural post yesterday.  (I'd gotten hung up for months on a title.)  How often I post there will depend on the lessons upon which I'm working, and whether I'm at a daily part of them, or a period or reflection or some such.  It will be fairly steady, though, without all the periods of nothing-worth-writing-about-going-on that this blog experiences. 

Come check it out, and please follow if you're interested!

To Garden or Not To Garden

Something to blog about from last week's Pagan Blog Prompts:

I loved my potted herbs last year, I really did.  But keeping them going inside over the winter didn't work--the house is in general too dark for houseplants, and the puppy gates we have up to protect both our puppies and our stuff (not to mention the cats) make watering where there IS sunlight extremely difficult.  Add to that the fact that I have at best a brown thumb, and it spells failure.

Oh, that I had even a touch of my late aunt Juana's green thumb.  She could grow anything, and I mean ANYTHING in her South Texas garden--and she made it look easy!  The only thing I ever really tried growing on my own when I lived in Texas was a fern, which I killed.  LOL.  (DH and I (mostly DH) did have a small vegetable garden there once.  We (he) had a successful crop of tomatoes and jalapeños.)

I guess I didn't really like gardening until I became a Witch.  Or until I realized I was a Witch, that is.  At that point, as I became more and more aware of the cycle of life around me, and wanted to be outside more and more, I realized that I did actually WANT a garden.  I changed from a few flowering plants, grown mostly to "pretty-up" the house, to a combination of flowers, vegetables, and herbs.  I even got to where I didn't mind dirt under my fingernails, at least not much!  And I did pretty well at it--nothing died!!!

I did have problems, though.  I had to restrict myself to container gardening--the ever-present possibility that we will be able to put the house on the market keeps me from digging up the now-disliked lawn.  And I had to place those containers where they wouldn't get knocked over or otherwise damaged by two rambunctious, rapidly-growing puppies, which limited the amount of space with a proper amount of sunlight.

I got around those problems last year, but I don't think I'm willing to struggle with them again this year.  DH and I have talked about using fencing to cut the yard in half--one side for the dogs, the other for a garden--but there's that ever-present "what if the market improves" feeling.  And we're looking at a community garden plot, but we're not sure we'll be able to swing it financially in time to actually get a plot for this year. 

All of which makes me think that this year maybe I should be thinking about gardening, researching plants, and planning for next year instead of actually trying to garden.  The dogs will be older, and presumably calmer by then, our financial situation will hopefully be better, and maybe, just maybe, we will have sold the house by then, or maybe even decided not to do so.

Anybody know how long it takes grass to grow and re-establish itself in Southern Ontario?

Back to Your Semi-Regularly Scheduled Reading

Alright--I've been off for almost a month, it's pretty much time to get back to my regular schedule, and to my computer!  You see, around our house, we have holidays starting at the Winter Solstice (around December 21st), through New Year's Eve and Day, and continuing through both DH's and my birthdays in the first half of January.  We still have our anniversary in the first week of February,  but that's usually a weekend or less--not nearly so disruptive.  And then there's Valentine's Day, which some Pagans refer to as Aphrodite's Day, but that, too, takes a weekend at most, if we even choose to celebrate it.

It actually used to be worse, when we DID celebrate US Thanksgiving.  At that point, our holiday season would start in the last week of November, and continue through all the Christmas parties and New Year's celebrations and birthday merriment right through until now.

Combine all the revelry during the holiday season, and add to that the amount of vacation DH usually takes at this time of year, and you can imagine how different our lives are for this past month!  Nonetheless, I'm determined to get back to normal!  I caught up on a bunch of personal tasks yesterday, and today I'm getting back to this!

Of course, I'm simply trying to get back in the habit, such as it was.  I don't have anything earth-shattering or particularly insightful to say. 

Maybe tomorrow.  :)

Big Changes

Don't worry--there's nothing wrong with your screen!  In honor of this blog's 2nd anniversary today, I'm giving it a facelift, so it will change constantly throughout the day. 

Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause!

More Housekeeping

I'm sorry, Readers, but I've had to enable comment moderation on this blog.  It received its first spam comment a few days ago, which I deleted.  I hoped it was a one-time occurrence.  Then another spam comment appeared, which I also deleted.  While I was debating what distasteful step I wanted to take, the exact same spam which I had deleted a day or two was posted yet again.

I had the choice of limiting comments to registered users, which is annoying to me when I visit a blog to which I'm not actually subscribed, forcing word verification for comments, with which many people have trouble, or moderating comments, which will mean more attention from me.  I chose the third option as the least unpleasant one.

I sincerely hope this step doesn't discourage any valid comments.

No Awards, Please

A friend gave me my first blogging awards yesterday, and although I'm very grateful to her for thinking of me, I have to refuse them.  I had no idea how much work they were!  I just don't know enough bloggers, I think.

As a result, I've decided to make this blog award-free, as so many of the bloggers I follow have done.    So please don't be offended--I appreciate the recognition, I really do.  I just don't have time to follow through on them.

And Now for More Serious Stuff . . .

Well, sort'a.  We're near to the middle of  the month, and the Domestic Witch's Halloween 2010 Blog Party,  so I've decided to switch from the fun, frivolous, fantastical holiday of Halloween to the biggest Witch holiday of the year, Samhain.  And I thought I'd begin the new topic by writing about our first experience with it, last year.

It wasn't the first time I'd heard the word.  I think the first time I heard it was in the 1978 "Halloween" movie, or maybe the novelization thereof.  You know, the one with Michael Myers and Jamie Lee Curtis?  If I remember correctly, the evil spirit of Samhain had possessed the innocent young Michael, or some such nonsense.  Not that it's not a GREAT movie--I just object to their ignorant use of the concept of Samhain.

Being entirely ignorant of Celtic or Wiccan holidays myself, that was the last I heard of it, until I became Wiccan myself, in January of 2009.  Learning about the new holidays that were now part of my life, I came to the chapter on Samhain--and was ecstatic!  Imagine, a religion that celebrated Halloween as much as I did!  How exciting!  How wonderful!

But, I didn't want to give up the Halloween angle, either.  So, last year, DH and I attempted to celebrate both.  Now, I'm told it can be done, and often is.  I plan to do it this year.  But last year, last year was a disaster.  Why?  I think because we are SO experienced at Halloween, it completely threw us to try and combine it with anything else, perhaps most with something so similar.  We ended up doing both badly, and were quite frustrated and unsatisfied, both from the festive side AND the spiritual side.

We learned from our mistakes, I hope.  And we've thought about it a lot, and planned a lot.  I'm confident that this year we can treat costumed children AND honor our ancestors, and do both well.

Wish us luck!

On the 1st Day of Halloween. . .

This post, late as it may be, is my first one for The Domestic Witch's 2010 Halloween Blog Party.  I'm going to attempt to post every weekday in October about Halloween/Samhain--the mundane, the magickal, and even the magical.  :)

Starting out, I thought I'd talk about the Halloween parties of my past.  This includes everything from the first one I threw to the biggest one I've ever thrown. 

The first one was at my mom's house when I was 13.  It was quite possibly the first Halloween party I ever attended.  (Nobody in the small Texas town where I grew up was as into Halloween as I was.)  It was certainly the first costume party to which I'd ever gone.  I still have some of those decorations, although they're more like mementos now, much too fragile to actually be used.

I continued to throw, and go to, Halloween parties all through my high school, university, and young adult days.  One memorable year I attended four different parties on October 31st.  The guests changed, as did the size of the guest list and the themes, but they all celebrated my favorite, favorite, favorite holiday. 

Then I met my DH, and to my delight he loves Halloween as much as I do.  We began throwing one every year.  We started small, with less than a dozen guests, in Cedar Park, Texas.  At our last one, in Vancouver, BC, we invited close to 200 people.  (I hope those of you who were there remember it as well as I do.)  By this time, we had more Halloween decorations than we'd ever need--and still do.  We've not gotten rid of any of them.

We were forced to move, to California, and were so unhappy the two Halloweens we were there we didn't even THINK about throwing a party.  (Although we did spend one Oct 31 in Death Valley, in costume.)  And for each of the five Octobers we've been in Ontario (2010 makes six), something or other has gotten in the way of having one.  We did seriously consider having a party this year, but life once again interfered, this time in the form of financial and health problems.

But there's always hope for next year.

J is for Jack-of-Hearts

(ABC Wednesday)

Okay, so my post today is actually on tarot cards, or maybe on divination.  I’m lucky I got this close!

The origins of tarot cards are murky at best—no one knows for sure from where or from whom they came.  One theory is that they developed from practicing divination with regular playing cards.  It makes as much, if not more, sense than other theories I’ve read about.

I found a couple of good websites on this topic while looking for a Craft topic that began with ‘J.’  The first was from Serena’s Tarot, and the second from Buzzle.com.  Serena's Tarot gave a good, brief overview of using playing cards for tarot readings, while Buzzle.com gave a slightly more in-depth look.

Both sources agreed that the hearts suite in general focuses on emotions.  In particular, the Jack of Hearts represents someone close to the querent:  a childhood friend, a best friend or a close relation.

That's about all I know about the topic.  It seems to be fairly simple, but if you want to learn more, check out the the websites I mentioned.

(And stay away from the Jack of Diamonds.)