Just thought today I would post about some random updates. This past Thursday we had choir practice. We haven’t had a practice in forever! It was super nice getting out and away from the kids without escaping to the office lol. Anywho all of our songs have been in two pocket folders and that evening we were given white binders to put them in. You know the kind that has windows so you add something to the outside? I couldn’t wait to add my own personal design to it. Afterwards I sat at the computer googling pagan images to piece together. I started with the side because I had a specific vision for it. I did several triple moon goddess symbols and in between each I put various other symbols. Mostly protection, but one is actually a blessings symbol. For the front I did “Mother Grove Choir” at the top, a goddess symbol beneath that and in the center, then two musical notes (don’t ask me what, I don’t know notes) off to the side. The back features a pentacle and more musical notes. I then colored everything with colored pencils. Primarily used colors for the elements. I didn’t have anything really gray for Spirit so I subbed it out with purple. It turned out pretty well. So here it is.

Yesterday I had to go into the office so homeschooling went mobile for the day.

When the temps get a bit lower I am going to start taking te kids to Arboretum and Botanical Gardens for school days. The kids did excellent at getting their school work done while I worked on my payroll due that day.

In spirit of MrsB’s 31 Days of Halloween, I have been giving thought to doing a 12 Days of Yule Giveaway on the blog. I already have one donation in place for it so I am going to work at getting at least 11 more so that I can do that at the beginning of December. So if you hand make something or provide an online service of some sort email me.if you know someone who does, please  tell them about the event, please!I would love to feature you. IIn meantime I am going to have a special button made for the occasion.

Ok I must be off to get the kids ready for breakfast at Shoneys’ Hope you all have a great Saturday!

It’s 5:00 am. I haven’t been up this early in a long time. Can’t help it this morning though, I have had a hell of a dream and I need to get it out. I had a discussion with the hubs about dreams. He was contemplating how it was we knew when we were in dream state and when we were in reality. After all, right now I could be in dream state. My reply was that if my reality was really a dream state then shoot me now because it wasn’t worth dreaming about. This didn’t go over too well but fortunately he gave me the chance to explain. My dreams are quite vivid, sometimes so much I have to gain my bearings when I wake up. This morning for example. My reality of working, taking care of kids, and paying the bills is no glorious dream and not horrid enough for nightmare status. It’s pretty mundane. My dreams sound, feel, and smell different than my reality. In my dreams I am never quite sure how I got to where ever I was and I seem to know everyone personally. In reality I know how I arrived to my location and I don’t know everyone personally.

So let’s skip forward to my horrifying nightmare. This time no monsters or ghosts chasing me, this was definitely dealing with my subconscious fear. That fear is losing my children. I think all parents dream that sort of thing at least once. Why I chose to dream about this fear now, I have no idea. I dreamt about a plague of sorts. Perhaps as a result of too many zombie flicks. This particular plague caused you to die in 48 hours. First you had rashes appear, then blood would pour from your eyes. Then just before death you would vomit up all of your innards. Unlike zombie flicks though, no walking dead. And I dreamt all three of mine got this plague. Molly & Claire were the first. They never quite died in the dream but I had to deal with the fact that we were having our last moments knowing that Alex was showing the first rashes. I even remember sitting with a doctor as we discussed with the girls what they would wear in their funerals. They took it like such champs and made it clear what they wanted. Molly wanted one of my Scarefest tee shirts and Claire wanted a pink gown, like a prom dress. The sort of thing she would miss out. And as I was preparing to leave, Molly began with her blood tears. That is when I awoke. Alex was between me and Kyle and I curled up next to him kissing his head and letting the tears run down my face. Most of the dream is leaving me and I know I am leaving parts out because already the images  fading away. Except I can’t get rid of Molly looking at me with her blood tears. That part won’t go away and I  would really like it to. It hurts too much to see it and it’s like I can’t unsee it.

Part of me is angry as well. Why do I dream these things? Why does my subconscious feel the need to make me deal with this fear? Why can’t I just go through my life, living and waiting to see what happens? It’s not that I really believe my children are immune from death. It’s just not really necessary to worry about it until it happens, right?

I already checked in on Molly & Claire. I guess I should mention that Claire has a rash, heat rash on her thighs to be exact. Not the same thing that she had covering her arms and legs in my dream. But a rash that caused me to have to check in on them. Now I will sit here and finish my cigarette as I try to quit thinking about their faces smeared with blood tears as I stop my own tears.

As we all know, I love controversy. What can I say, it’s thrilling! And I recently received a comment from a George Sanders (whynovica@hotmail.com) that sparks up some controversy! The comment is as follows:

This is now really going too far! Novica will throw down to you an inexpensive $50 gift certificate so you can blog, or market and talk nicely, about them. The sad reality is that novica is just one of those greedy US companies that use a cheap selling concept to rake it in. This comes at the expense of poor, simple and uneducated artisans whom they squeeze to death, demanding extremely lower prices, consignment, asking for items and then rejecting them without any explanation. The only ones who can afford such business are large traders. Not mentioning the lack of transparency in regards of child labor and sustainability. They were featured in some Wake-Up VDO. And that’s what we people need to do: WAKE UP! If you want to participate, if you want to help deprived people and artisans, then look around and purchase from fair trade companies that really help artisans, or simply micro-loan.

So I want to clear the air on a number of things. First off this comment was received on my blog post about the Novica Giveaway I am running. Secondly, I didn’t approve it to be published in the comments section of the giveaway. My policy is usually one that I print any comment that is not of hate speech. Clearly the above does not constitute as hate speech. So why didn’t I allow for it to be published? Simple, I wanted to keep the comment thread clear for entrants only. I haven’t even responded to some of the comments that have been left…..and I have really wanted to. I have to keep track of these entries and clogging up the stream with personal opinions and idle chatter isn’t going to work out too well. So I want to keep it clean. I don’t want to come across as someone who is trying to keep from “the truth being known”. No, this definetly deserves a post of it’s own.

Next, I want to clarify that I received $150, not $50. I chose to split the money into two ($75) gift codes so that I could give away something to a lucky reader. I like to share things that way. It may be something inexpensive to the company or not. I don’t work on their finance team and can’t really say what their marketing budget is.

As for the issue of “so you can blog, or market and talk nicely, about them”. There may be some truth to that. You see when I work with a company and it turns out to be a not so nice adventure, I contact them first before I say anything. I have a duty to my readers to be honest but I also have a duty to the companies to say “Hey, you suck” before I post it over the internet. Contacting bloggers for review is a method of advertising for their company. It’s not like companies purposely set out to put out bad TV commercials for their product, they don’t necessarily want bad advertising online. The absolute truth is that bloggers DO have a lot of impact on a product. Women used to gather around the kitchen table talking about ring around the collar and how to get marker off the walls. Now we blog about it. Same impact, new method. And it’s smart for a company to work with us to find out how to improve a product when we tell them it sucks or to get the advertising by offering something free. It’s no different than attending a trade show and getting to try something out. Or the swag bags companies hand out at various conferences, conventions, and celeb-loaded events.

When it comes to products I make a point to LOOK for a con. I never set out to portray anything in an absolute positive light. My post about Novica is about my experience and I did post about something that was less than positive. And in past reviews of other products I have done the same. I stand by my post 100% and wouldn’t change it for the world. Because they wanted me to post about my experience and I have done so.

Now about this, “one of those greedy US companies“? Well here is a news flash. I am one of those greedy capitalists. As long as a company is working within our laws, then I support their right to conduct business. That doesn’t mean I like every single business currently running in the US. If I don’t like a company I keep it simple, I don’t shop there. Some companies are considered wonderful and have rubbed me the wrong way due to a poor experience with their customer service. Some companies don’t have practices that I care much for, like say Walmart. I don’t spend my time cruising the net looking for blogs about Walmart to inform people why I think they shouldn’t shop there. They have the right to spend their money where they can……and some people can only afford Walmart.

“If you want to participate, if you want to help deprived people and artisans, then look around and purchase from fair trade companies that really help artisans, or simply micro-loan.” Well let’s be flat out honest here, I never said in my post that I was trying to help deprived people and artisans. It’s not that I wouldn’t but when I checked out the website, what appealed to me was the ability to speak directly to artisans. I never went the “poor, deprived artisan” route because even just looking at the profile pictures you can tell these are not poor or deprived people.

“They were featured in some Wake-Up VDO” My problem with this statement is that you can’t even name the specific video. And I think you meant video, I googled “wake up vdo” and got nothing. Matter of fact I googled “documentary on Novica”, “I hate Novica”, and “the truth about Novica” and came up with nothing. How is it you haven’t cited sources? You want to inform us how bad they are but you haven’t backed it up. Nor did you make any recommendations on a fair trade site. If it was me that felt that passionately about my views I would offer some sort of alternative. But we got nothing to work with here.

My bottom line is if anyone has issue with a giveaway I am hosting, please email me. I would love to discuss it with you on a personal level. I felt someone was trying to sabotage a giveaway and I am not ok with that.

We have begun our homeschool year and it has thrown me off on my blogging. So I am going to start utilizing the ability to publish posts at a later time, so this is actually being setup the night before lol. Anywho I wasn’t sure what I wanted to blog about so I am just going to post the video I did about Egyptian Perception of the Soul. I have messed around with UStream a bit and I am having nothing but problems so I am going to just post vids up weekly over at YouTube (and here) to make things easier. So enjoy and hopefully I got something cool to blog about soon!

This weekend was a whirlwind of a lot of nothing. I volunteered to work at Bele Chere.I signed up like two months ago and for whatever reason, they felt they shouldn’t contact me until a couple of weeks ago. Previously they let me know they got the email and there was a meeting so I could get a quick lesson in understanding what was going on. I got nothing. So when my husband got word about a horse show he was  to work in I sat wondering if I was supposed to be at Bele Chere and when I was supposed to be there. See the horse show the hubs gets paid for, and paid nicely. So that is something we have to accommodate for. Needless to say I was surprised and irritated at an email arriving to me with my volunteer schedule about 10 days before festival time.

The festival itself can be a lot of fun. I used to go when a specific band used to come. They were never at a main stage, always some side street and oh em gee they were wonderful. The band was called Runa Pacha. I have no idea why they no longer come back, they were amazing! Anywho they were the only reason I used to go. Two years ago I volunteered when the girls’ day camp director asked me to. I worked in the children’s area. I ended up doing face painting, not exactly a specialty of mine. But it was busy and they were short. I got this one super sweet boy. I remember he asked me something, what it was I don’t remember. I just remember telling him he would have to ask his mom and dad. He stared at me in that innocent, but very matter of fact way, and said “my mom died when I was a baby”. Yea. What the hell do you say to that?? I mean, I know I couldn’t possibly know but it tore my heart out. His dad ended up coming over and talking to me which was awesome but man did I feel like a big pile of dog poo. So I hadn’t had a desire to work with kids’ again. Plus I am not a very patient person.

This year I worked the info booth. Well for a day. See they put me in the heart of downtown and there was no shade from the sun. And it was hot. I went through my water quickly and as busy as we were I could only sip through it when no one was around talking to me. Most people that came up were super nice. One guy actually asked me “I am looking for a performer who wears a hat and plays the guitar”. I stared for a second hoping for more information then asked if he had a name to go with the description. Man replied no. I said “well, I am sorry. I have no idea who that is”. He goes “Oh well I am sorry, I thought this was the info booth”. By now I am sweating enough for 4 people and out of my first round of water, which means I am cranky. So I said “Well I am sorry you think I know details about the hundreds of performers and hundreds of vendors”. He glared. Oh well. I didn’t care then and I don’t care now. I can’t believe he didn’t think that it might be a crazy request for me to magically know. My favorite part of the day was when our Westboro Church Wannabe’s showed up. I knew they were coming. And I felt the urge to wear my ankh, my pentacle ring, and my moon earrings. If I wasn’t required to wear a volunteer tee shirt, I would have been wearing my Pagan Mom Blog tee shirt. So since I didn’t really stand out and the crowd blocked me and the preacher…..I was spared his personal attacks. The hilarious part was a street performer was sharing the same space. She was a drummer and did this mime sort of thing. She only performed when people put money into her bucket. When she came back from her break to find these WBC Wannabe’s she immediately set up. One person put some money in her bucket right at the time the preacher was going at it with the bullhorn. She over powered him and drowned him out. It was hilarious because immediately 4 people ran up to put more money into her bucket. She was a smart girl. She probably made more money during the time they were there then the time before they showed up. That is capitalism at it’s finest!

Oh and I almost forgot about the beer woman. The beer woman cracked me up. She complained to us about the smell of beer. She actually said “all these people complain about cigarette smoke but all I can smell is beer AND IT’S DISGUSTING!’ She then proceeded to tell me that we should do something about it. Yea. Like I am going to tell 3000 people around the booth to stop drinking beer. Uh huh. Hold your breath lady. Bele Chere has always been a drinking festival. And Asheville is known as Beer City. Yea, they don’t have beer on Sunday but still…….people go for the beer and music. So if you are not a fan of beer drinking, smelling beer, and public drunkeness Bele Chere is not the place to be.

I wish I had gotten pictures but my phone was dying and I was slammed. I got off at 8:30 and headed out to get Kyle and Molly. Other two went to inlaws for the night. I had dinner with them at the horse show, big bbq dinner. I couldn’t finish it. We got home by 11:30pm and I had to have them back the next morning so I could work another shift at Bele Chere. That ended up not happening. Overnight I got amazingly nauseous and  extremely hot. By morning I ached all over. Someone could breathe near me and I moaned in pain. I got up long enough to take Kyle and Molly back to the horse show, came home, and promptly vomited. Not a nice mental picture but it felt really good. I figured I had heat exhaustion and decided not to bother going back. Wouldn’t do any good to be stuck in a little booth making myself ill. I thought I had kept myself well hydrated but looking back I could see that we were so busy I didn’t have time to drink water like I should have been. And I am one of those people that can’t be “rude” and drink water while someone is talking to me. It’s not that i didn’t drink either, I went through 2 bottles and a giant bottle of water that I had brought with me. I just apparently needed more. Or be out of the sun.

Anywho I will probably not volunteer next year. I might take the eldest, not sure. The kids area isn’t a place I like venturing into and the other two probably wouldn’t enjoy walking the hot streets looking at booths. As they get older we will probably go down and watch the music.

*Disclosure: I received a gift certificate code to shop at Novica in exchange of a review and hosting the giveaway. Receiving the gift certificate does not sway my review in any way.*

I was asked by the lovely people at Novica to review their site and host an amazing giveaway. Novica is in association with National Geographic and works to unite artists from around the world to buyers who are looking for unique handcrafted items. From their website:

“We want to give artists and artisans around the world a global platform to express their true artistic talents and to spur their creativity. And, we want to provide you with access to unique, hard-to-find items at great values that only the Internet infrastructure can allow.

At the deepest essence of our philosophy, we want to create a bridge between you and the many talented artisans across the globe.

We want you to know about who you’re buying from. We want you to feel that attachment to the product and to the hands that created it.

In the spirit of the Internet, let us bring you together.

NOVICA. The World is Your Market.”

One of the most amazing things about the site is that they have created a social forum to unite the artists with the buyers. You have the ability to really network and connect with an artist from across the globe and they have the ability to develop a personal relationship with their buyers. I think it’s simply a wonderful use of social media.

Buying from them is easy, once you figure out what you will get. I spent four days perusing and trying to narrow down what it was I was going to purchase. There are so many beautiful and wonderful items available, it is very difficult for one to narrow it down. I finally was able to settle on a pair of earrings.

And as a family gift to us all (aka a great homeschooling tool) I got us a drum.

Shopping was a breeze. I had a slight problem with my debit card and called Customer Service. They were extremely nice, patient, and helpful. The problem itself ended up being something on my end and only discovered that through their help. One thing to note about the use of a debit card on their site; there is the initial charge taken out of your account, it is put back into your account, and then taken back out once the item ships to you. It’s a precautionary measure to ensure the funds are available.

Now for the part I know that you all are waiting for. I am going to give one lucky reader a $75 gift certificate! Here is how you enter:

Leave a comment here about the must have item you must have from Home Decor or Jewelry. Be sure to include your email (if not linked to your name in comment) and your Twitter name (if you have one). 2 Entries

Extra Entries (they do not count if you do not leave a comment first!)

1. Blog about this giveaway including a link to this post,  put your post link in a separate comment and you will get 10 entries.  Be sure to encourage your readers to let me know that they came from your blog and you will get an extra 2 entries per referral in addition to your 10.

2. Tweet “I just entered to win $75 to go shopping http://bit.ly/aRaEZI  @PaganMomBlog” ONLY ONCE PER DAY and receive 5 extra entries. Any multiple tweets in a single day will not count.

3. Vlog about the giveaway, include a link to this post, and link your vlog in a seperate comment. You will get 10 extra entries. Encourage your viewers to let me know they came from your vlog and you will get 2 extra entries per referral in addition to your 10.

4. Become a fan (or already be a fan) of my facebook page and get 5 extra entries.

Now for the rules, because there are always rules aren’t there?

1. This giveaway ends Friday August 6, 2010 @ 11:59 pm EST. Winners will be announced by Sunday August 8, 2010 in addition to being emailed that they had won.

2. Winner will have 48 hours to claim their gift certificate code. After that time I will remove their names and entries and redraw for a new winner.

3. Winner will be chosen by Random.org

4. Gift certificate code expires 10/30/10 and does not cover shipping and handling (which isn’t much!)

5. Any questions about the giveaway, please email me @ thepaganmomblog@gmail.com.

***Disclaimer: Unlike my usual movie review, this time I am not going to be spoiling anything! I was not given any perks for doing this movie review, I even paid my way into the movie.”
I think that it’s important that people understand something about the movie Inception. It is not a light, fluffy, feel good movie. It’s not something silly that requires you to sit and shove popcorn in your face. It is designed to make you think. I love movies that make you think. Don’t get me wrong, I totally dive into silly and stupid movies so I don’t have to think too much. But a really good thinker movie is the stuff. I almost like them more than horror movies, just depends on my mood really.

I can’t remember the last time a movie really made me think. Even Avatar, with all of it’s symbolism, wasn’t much of a thinker movie in the sense that it laid it all out before you. Inception invites you to question and ponder. The ending leaves you having to decide for yourself what the outcome really was. Funny thing about that, the hubs and I don’t agree on what really happened at the end. We spent a good hour discussing our impressions. And of course we were able to find possible religious themes. LOL that seems to happen a lot when we see a movie.

Visually the movie is astounding. The trailers have nothing on what you will see in the movie. Not only is it the architecture but the action scenes were quite impressive. I love a good fight scene and they certainly brought new ideas to the table. Acting wise, DiCaprio was excellent. Far better in this than Shutter Island (I may post about that soon). I was not a DiCaprio fan when he was younger. But he has certainly grown into an amazing actor and he definetly shows his talent well in this movie. A couple of the other actors were not as good. I sort of felt them lacking in humor and convincingness. I almost fear what would the movie had been like if they had been up to par, it was an exhausting experience with the movie as is!

I definitely recommend seeing this film. Some are already saying it will be an Oscar-winner. That scares me because normally I don’t seem to enjoy movies that end up being Oscar-nominated. But anywho, it was wonderful. Just be prepared for a trippy mind ride. I was amazed at seeing some people angrily leaving and not coming back. The only thing I noticed were the people were of an older generation. I lean to thinking that they weren’t prepared for the complexity of the movie, which is why I am really aiming to strive the point home that it’s not just fluff entertainment!

For my most faithful of readers, I am sure I have made it clear on my nervousness to home school. I have pieced together curriculum and rewritten lesson plans over and over again and just couldn’t find anything that felt just right. I had certainly considered purchasing a full curriculum but we just can’t afford $500 for one right now. But then I was given a wonderful link on Twitter to Lesson Pathways. Since finding them I have signed up and felt like a big huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders. The lovely people at Lesson Pathways have no idea I am doing this post, nor have I received anything to do this post. I simply want to share with it for any other newbie homeschooling family out there.

From their About Us page:
” Like every homeschooling family and each class of students, Lesson Pathways is unique. Our tool works to harness the wealth of educational resources available online, creating ready-to-use learning Pathways parents and teachers can use to teach their students. Each Pathway unit is prescreened and intended to provide a week’s worth of educational resources. Our goal is to help homeschooling parents and classroom teachers spend less time searching for educational resources and more time engaging with and teaching their students.”

Sign up is easy. To start, it’s free. That’s right, FREE. Secondly, you can register for an account or you can sign in with your Facebook. One note about that, it will post whatever you do at Lesson Pathways onto your profile at Facebook. I know some people are not a fan of that sort of thing so I thought I would give a heads up.  Moving on, they have a section called “Students” where you enter in your kid(s) name and date of births. The Pathways section is where you can peruse what assignments they have and assign those to your child(ren). You can piece it together OR they have full curriculum that span 36 weeks to assign to your child(ren). The assignments they have cover the core subjects; math, science, social studies, and language arts. Kindergarten has a bit more than that with phonics being covered as well. Once you have assigned everything, you manage the assignments in the Planner section. You can move things around and mark them complete as you get them done.

Although I haven’t actually used the assignments yet, I have looked through them in preparation for our full school days starting next week. They do have a wonderful balance between actual paper work, activities,readings, videos and online games. This isn’t like a website that is chock full of worksheets, they really bring the vast amount of free online resources into one place and it’s just a blessing.

In addition to their curriculum for the kids, I am supplementing with a few of my own items that we have. Flash cards, home school books I had already purchased, and so on. Each morning the girls have brain teasers they have to complete. Molly is studying World Religions. And every afternoon the girls have free study so they can work on whatever they want as long as it is educational based. I feel like I can breathe now.

This morning I had about 4 different topics rolling around in my head. I decided to stick with the massive one that reared it’s ugly head last night. Our plans changed last night, the hubs decided we were going to go and have our night out alone first. We headed over to Biltmore Park which has become our favorite place to go. It reminds me  of big city living, the ability to just park and walk all over and do what you need/want to do. First we had dinner at Hickory Tavern and then we went to Barnes & Nobles. I wanted to get the Educator Card that is available for teachers and home schoolers. I also poked around B&N School for a bit and settled on a great World Religions book for grades 6-8. My only complaint about that book is it doesn’t discuss indigenous religions or neo-paganism. It covers Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Sikhism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Agnosticism, and Atheism.  I have my college World Religions book that I can use when they get older that dives a bit deeper into it all and includes indigenous and neo-paganism.

Anywho, I digress. I had also poked around the New Age section and picked up “A Wiccan Bible” by AJ Drew (so far a bit frustrated with it but that is another post). I didn’t look through the entire thing, mostly the Table of Contents and then skimmed the first few sections. I do this with a lot of books. So it was getting close to movie time and the hubs was tapping his foot in anticipation so I took my cue and headed for the counter. I have been buying pagan books for about 8 years now. In the beginning I would find a small local shop to buy from because I knew they wouldn’t judge me or stare. No one in 8 years has ever said anything. If I went to big box, I would scope out the cashier and if they looked remotely “cool” then I would buy my book. If they were older, no way. Long gone are those days, I figured about 3 years ago that the cashiers could shove it up their rear if they didn’t like what I was buying. In that time, no looks or staring. I pretty much chalked it up to the fact that I was immature enough to think that the books I bought mattered to other people. An easy assumption to make when living in the South, but still immature. So as I was checking out last night the woman at the register was very nice. I handed her my application for my Educator’s Card and she immediately said “Good for you!”. She continued with conversation when she saw our address, turns out she lived down the street at the bottom of the hill years ago. We reminisced about the old Catholic Church that used to sit across the street from my house, even giggling over their Friday Night partying (the hispanic community had gathered every Friday night in the Catholic Community Center).  I paid and we set  off to the car to lock up my bag. Then we headed to the movie. After that we stopped at the grocery store to pick up makings for frappes and headed home. It was probably about 10:30 when we got home. I couldn’t wait to tear into my book so I grabbed it and headed to bed. I then skimmed through each and every chapter just to get a deeper feel before starting in. That’s when I found it.

On the front of the card it said something about “Mind Game” and I saw some cards, the royals from all four suits. My immediate thought was it was an ad for tarot. I thought it was odd but got excited all at once. Oh how disappointed I was to discover it was a tract informing me of my inevitable eternal burning. Then I got pissed. Because not only was it absolutely ridiculous but some poor tree was killed for this useless propoganda! My first plan of action, and not one out of seriousness but my odd sense of humor to bring light of the situation, was that I should put a tarot card in every brand new bible at the book store. Or maybe a simple post it note with “Goddess loves you” somewhere inside.

The hubs took a look at it and was not a happy camper. He feels that it’s ridiculously passive aggressive and if  they wanted to tell me about burning in hell they should do it in my face. I agree. He then proceeded to recommend that I drag my butt back over today and file a complaint. Now that I am not so sure. First off I have no idea who did it. Was it some random stranger who felt the need to peruse the New Age section (which isn’t even remotely close to the Christianity section) and shove tracts in books? Or is this an employee who has to stock the shelves? Or even the sweet woman at the register who checked me out? She had the opportunity, when she scanned it she had it on the table below the counter and it was out of my sight for just a minute or two.

I chatted with a few people on Twitter about this. In all my years this was a first and I feel it’s delicate enough that it has to be talked about how to deal. I thought about how speaking up might not do a thing. Honestly, how can it be tracked? How would the manager know if one of his people did it or some random stranger? Could s/he stop it? Would s/he want to stop it? And am I falling back on the old standby “I should expect this treatment since I live in the south” mentality just a wee bit too hard?

My decision? I am going to talk to the manager. If they want to file it as an official complaint, fine. If  we are just going to chat and I make him/her aware of what is going on, fine. No matter the outcome something has to be said. My husband drove the point home when he said “You know, if you seriously did put tarot cards in the bibles at B&N, it would be all over the news”. And he is right. If it is not OK to put my religious propaganda in the books of the opposing view, why should I ignore it when it happens to me?

Now it’s your turn. Have you found tracts or any other religious propaganda in books you have bought? If so, what did you do? If not, what would you do if you did?

So yesterday I was expecting more of a roller coaster week and it ended up being a fairly smooth Monday. I think it was the stuff that arrived in the mail that made me feel a bit better. First my tee shirt I ordered to have for the shows and Type A Mom Conference arrived.

Then my earrings arrived, the same earrings I had just received the tracking info on. Not going to talk much about the earrings yet, they are in relation to a giveaway I am doing soon. And in the regular mail I got my $10 coupon to my favoritest store, AC Moore’s. When I went I ended up at the used book store which is one of my other favoritest places to go. I found a horror movie for $5, Mothman Prophecies. Thought the eldest might enjoy it. I also got a book on Egyptian Mysticism and a book of brain teasers for homeschooling. At AC Moore’s I found a cake pan that is of stars. I think I am going to make pentagram jello molds for Halloween/Samhain party. Kyle says no I will make cakes cause he is tired of me whining about my inability to make a cake that actually comes out of the pan. Amazing, after 15 years NOW he is going to share the secret on how I can make cakes. I also got some Vanna’s Glamour yarn, black with some shiny metallic stuff in it. I am thinking a shawl for Samhain.

I stocked up on some fruits at the store. We have a dehydrator and I am determined to make some dried fruit snacks this week for the kids to enjoy. I think it will get them to try other fruits also, they are a bit picky and stick with what they know. I also got the stuff for cupcakes that I promised little man. He wanted me to make his birthday cake, but you know that whole cake issue made me be mean mommy and say no. Cupcakes were the compromise.

Tonight we are taking the kids to Asheville Brew and View. I think every town in the US needs a pizza place that offers movies. Just saying. Then the hubs is taking me to see Inception come tomorrow night. About dam time I got some alone time with him. He has addressed a long standing issue of me not existing a whole hell of a lot in his life. He stayed up and watched Shutter Island with me last night and that was enough for me. I am not demanding a weekly date night, just some time you know? Anywho he mentioned it to me, not something I had to really beat out of him. And that is good.

Oh and another great thing, I got word on Twitter about a cool website called Lesson Pathways that offers 100% free curriculum for Elementary Aged kids. I have been reworking the kids lesson plans and I totally threw that out the window. I signed up and got their curriculum set for the year within 30 minutes. We will still go 6 weeks on and one 1 week off. That way if I need to adjust and add more stuff to their schedule than I can do that quickly. I still need to supplement with art and music and that is no problem for me. I also have tons of books for extra reading on a subject or add activities if they aren’t quite getting it. I cannot tell you how relieved I am at having the help of this site! So yea, yesterday turned around quite a bit and eased up on the roller coaster feeling for the week.

Ok so I am off to make some breakfast and get some chores done before playing games with the kidlets. Hope you all have a wonderful Tuesday!

This is going to be one emotional week, I can see it coming. We aren’t quite sure which way we are going around here. First there is the transitioning for the kids. As expected, things are getting tough. I am starting to have days where I wonder if I am just a horrible parent. I can’t get them to listen to the simplest of tasks and all three of them are acting like horrible brats. So far it hasn’t spilled over to when I have taken them out, it’s just at home. I can feel bald spots on the sides of my head where I grab in frustration. Patience is almost non-existent lately. But we are trying to get used to this whole thing. I am going back to a scheduled day, down to scheduling each hour some sort of activity even if it just says “free time”. I want to see if that will help the kids feel more calm about our day. I had been doing it quite relaxed with no real schedule and I am not so sure that it’s working for mine.

Spiritually I am in a slump. I know it happens every once in awhile but I hate how it feels. I have started using my tarot deck again on a daily basis, even if just sit and shuffle them. I spent some time last night researching some books that I want and building up my Amazon wishlist. I am dying for a new book, preferrably Egyptian. On a similar note I have been asked to join Temple Council and I don’t know what to do. I love the Temple. But. I am not solely goddess oriented. Here at home both God & Goddess are honored. At public rite and Temple the God is not to be honored, just the Goddess. That is OK but would I be able to effectively make things happen for the Temple given my difference in beliefs? And then my biggest concern is that I could do the job but others may feel that I am a threat given my difference in beliefs. I asked the cards and it basically gave me two outcomes and I am not sure which way to go still. I am going to try and see High Priestess soon and speak with her about my concerns before making the decision. It could be that I am making a bigger deal out of this than necessary. And it is still awesome they thought of me to be on Council, ya know?

This weekend is Bele Chere and I am volunteering. It’s usually pretty exhausting work but I do enjoy it. I am not much into checking out the bands anymore since my favorite one no longer comes and hasn’t been here in almost 15 years. I just enjoy the crowd really. Anywho I have a Friday night shift, then Sat & Sun morning. Hubs is working the Horse Show so getting our child care and travel situation figured out is getting to be a headache. On top of that I am supposed to have a show on Friday night on UStream. I may have to do that one on Saturday evening.  Seems like the easier option.

And all during this, we found out last night that the hubs aunt is in the hospital. She has intestinal blockage and hasn’t gone to the bathroom in about a week. I am extremely worried about her. I love her to death, she reminds me of one of my own aunts’. She is in her 80′s but she is a tough lady so I am hoping she pulls through and is around for another couple of years. I am hoping to find out more about what is going on later today when I call my mother in law. Last night I posted to Twitter some prayer/meditation/good vibes request and I appreciate all that stepped up.

Ok, it’s time to work so I am off. Hope you all have a great Monday.

Happy Sunday Morning. I know I don’t normally blog on weekends but with schedule changing I may start doing so more often. Yesterday we had our double birthday party. One of the biggest problems we faced was that we couldn’t reserve a pavillion at one of the parks. All of them were rented and the city only permits each one to be rented once per day. The one we decided to use was booked from 12-4. I contemplated an evening party because then we could have dinner and cake and all that jazz. But. We wouldn’t be able to force the people to leave at 4 if they didn’t want to. And who is to say that they wouldn’t decide to stick it out. So we decided on a 10am party. The upside, it wasn’t hot. It was quite comfortable, it got hot right around the time we were loading up to leave. The downside, a lot of no-shows. I expected it more this year because of the time, it still would have been nice for those people to call and say no. Oh well, more to add to the “do not invite” list.

Now all bitching aside, we had a nice time as usual. With a morning party we didn’t need a lot of food. We stuck with cheese and crackers. I also had some Fruita Bu (all natural fruit roll ups) on hand but most didn’t bother with those. We had juice for the kids and soda for the adults. The cake was amazing, my mother in law made Sandra Lee’s Volcano Cake

I love the cake, it was the coolest thing. The top had a hole just big enough for a votive holder. That’s where my father in law put a piece of dry ice and water into to make the smoke. All the kids loved it. My mother in law said it was extremely easy to make. I will stick with cupcakes lol.

For playing, the inlaws brought their bean bag toss. We brought a bat and some balls and bubbles. Of all things I didn’t get pics of anything but bubbles.

This year we managed to figure out how to squeeze the dog in the car. The back is usually where we put her but it was full of party stuff. And three kids fill up the backseat.  Definitely no room in the front with me and the hubs either. It was a tight fit but we got her in the backseat with the kids. Wouldn’t work for a trip more than 20 min away, but in town trips would be fine.

She has got to be the most camera shy dog ever.

All in all it was nice. A friend stopped by the house. She works 3rd and so a 10 am party is hard for her to attend. She brought by stuff for the boys and then even us girls. She found me some pirate silly bands.

I am not fanatical about the silly bands, that’s all my girls. But I have to admit these are cool and I will probably wear them out today lol.

Now that it’s July I am going into Halloween party pre-planning mode and we have to figure out what we will do for Claire in September. I think she wants Inflation Station I will get that finalized by next month.

It’s little man’s 5th birthday today! We are having his party tomorrow on daddy’s birthday, it’s a double party of course. Anyway enjoy this short slideshow I made in honor of my last baby.

Yesterday there was an amazing discussion on Facebook at Confession of A Pagan Soccer Mom’s page, it was on the Separation of Church & State. I thought it would make a great topic for today since it’s such a hot topic.

I personally see that some really don’t understand what the Separation is. And even worse I see people trying to use it to repress others that are different than them. This, to me, is a highly dangerous thing. Separation is simply that the government does not establish a state religion. I will argue that our government is skewed due to the high number of Christian members, but we do not have a state religion. Thus we are all supposed to be free to our religious beliefs, or even no beliefs.  We all have to remember that in the wake of denouncing the crown it was very important to Jefferson and other founding fathers that there was no re-creating England. England had a state religion and so many fled because they weren’t religiously free. This is why Separation came to be, we were starting anew. Over at WiseGeek there is an article that contains a portion of a letter from Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists. After he won the election in 1801, the Baptists contacted him because they feared that religious freedom wasn’t an inalienable right. Jefferson quickly made it clear how much of a right it was.

“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God; that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship; that the legislative powers of government reach actions only and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties. I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection and blessing of the common Father and Creator of man, and tender you for yourselves and your religious association assurances of my high respect and esteem.”

So our discussion yesterday centered around whether or not prayer should be permitted before town hall meetings or school board hearings. The most popular answer is a big fat no. But I disagree. My feeling is, if a tiny town hall meeting is about to commence and every single person in attendance is a church going Presbyterian who WANTS the prayer, than they should. It doesn’t mean that the government has suddenly adopted a state religion. It means a bunch of like minded people are having a prayer together. My problem with it at the same time is what if MY town hall wants to hold prayer given by a Rabbi. Our town is extremely diverse and it would ostracize many in attendance. In that scenario a moment of silence is more appropriate. That leaves it up to each individual to do what they want. Pray, meditate, pick their nose, or fart. There is no requirement to do anything but be respectful of each other. And isn’t that what we all demand? Just a bit of respect for our beliefs or lack thereof? Trust me there is no deity around that will be offended if you don’t pray out loud and there is no atheist who will explode because they have to stand for 30 seconds not saying a word.

Some people believe that the Separation means no prayer and no moment of silence. They argue that we are a secular society (without religion) and it has no place in public life. I am going to argue that we are NOT a secular society. Religion is everywhere. First off people of a religious or spiritual path, it’s not just a side of people. It IS people. I don’t stop being pagan just because I leave my house no more than a Christian stops being Christian when they leave their house. I am who I am 24/7. Secondly, to be a completely secular society, there would be no churches or temples or mosques or public rites. The Church of Wicca would not be permitted to rent space from the State Park for Beltane, after all if they did it could be viewed that the state decided Wicca was a state religion, right? Evangelicals would no longer be able to apply for permits to preach on a street corner, because it could be viewed that the city government just chose that particular denomination as a state religion. This would also mean no more Christmas parades or Presidential Easter Egg Hunts. It doesn’t matter if some people celebrate those holidays secularly, those holidays have history in religion and are celebrated by the religious. And what about religious jewelry? I would have to take off my pentacles and ankhs before stepping out in public, Christians would have to take off their crosses.

The one argument that really gets my goat, and causes me to have to go take a walk is, “I shouldn’t be bombarded with religion in public”. This tells me that someone needs help. I am struggling not to be mean about this but it’s just ridiculous. Just because it’s offensive to you doesn’t mean people have to stop being who they are. You don’t like my being pagan? Fine, go elsewhere. I am not going to stop being who I am just because you are overly sensitive. Don’t like the fact you can see the steeple of a nearby church out your apartment window? Fine. MOVE. The Separation doesn’t give people the right to take away other people’s right to their beliefs. It’s protecting our rights to believe or not.

I will support anyone who has beliefs or doesn’t. When atheists pay for a billboard along our highways, I cheer them on for using their Freedom of Speech. And when people fight against having a Islamic Mosque built in their town, I will side with the Muslims. Because I believe that we all have the inalienable right to Freedom of Religion. I would rather not see another Hitler take over and take away what people hold so dear.

One final note: as MrsB noted in our discussion yesterday on Facebook, this is a hard topic to discuss. This is not a black and white issue, there are so many things to take into consideration. As always, I highly encourage discussion here in the comments. I do ask for respect. Grownups can agree to disagree

I recently picked my tarot deck back up. I am not kidding when I say it had to be at least 6 months since I last used them let alone just shuffle them. I couldn’t get over how good they felt in my hands. My deck is The Egyptian Tarot.

I love the artwork of this deck. But. It’s a hard one for me to read. Actually I struggle with tarot because I have to rely more so on my instincts than an actual definitive meaning for each card. It’s one of those quirky things about me, I rely almost too much on logic than I do on my instincts. As of right now I read them the best I can. Then I refer to my book to see if there is a difference. I know, I know……some of you are going “OMG Throw the book away!”. But it comforts me and gives me confidence where I need it.

So above is a simple 3 card spread. The left card represents the past. The middle card represents the present. And the last card represents the future. As I shuffled I thought about my upcoming day. I still have lesson plans to work on and I am having Kelby Carr over with her kids to torture mine while we discuss Type A Mom Conference. The first card is the 8 of Pentacles and features a tree in the very middle. I see it as being thick and strong and I take away that it means strength. I have always been strong willed so it makes sense. The book itself talks about professional ability and confidence. I still lean more to strength but I am taking into consideration it could be related to the conference, since I am speaking about finances.

The middle card is the moon. It features a black dog in front of white pyramid and a white dog in front of a black pyramid, both facing each other. I see this as meaning seeking the balance. Or I am balancing something in my life (maybe my daily life?). Ironically the book says it means strange meetings, attraction to the occult (who me?), and long & difficult research. I can see the latter two, not so much the strange meetings.

The last card is The Emperor. I see this as an authority figure. The stone he is sitting on reminds me of stability, it’s not too small for him and then again not too large. The book mentions authority and stability as well as; unshakeable will, moral integrity, and a solution to material problems.

So what does all of this mean to me? Well I think it’s telling me that at one point I was pretty comfortable with myself professionally and as of late I have been seeking to balance that out with the changes in my life. In the future, when I have been able to balance it out and really get professionally comfortable again I will have the authority I so love to desire and fear at the same time.