The Pagan Mom Blog

I have often joked that you know when you have hit blogger superstardom, when you receive hatemail and a possible stalker. We here at PMB are so excited to announce that we have finally acheived this!!! WOHOOO!!! Break out the balloons and cookies!

Ok so I got this email and honestly, I laughed. Then I wondered, should I just hit the delete button? Should I post about it? What? Then there was something said in the email that made me think, yea…..I am totally going to post it here. So without further ado here is the email (scroll down to where I nitpick it if you want to skip the email):

I tried to call you while you were at ingles, but you had already left. I saw you on four square and just thought I would give you a shout. Dont forget to wipe!
Oh, BTW, it is really stupid to put your mastercard on your phone. Tell your father-in-law that the best way to make online purchases is to buy a pre-paid credit card, load it using cash and then use it to make online purchases. NEVER EVER save credit card data on ANYTHING! (read your blog

I love four square. It gives me the energy to get up an fuck with people. stupid people who love to tell the whole fucking world where they are and what they are doing. Then they blame hackers. But it was their own stupidity and they go on un-aware of their own ignorance until yet again another “hacker” causes mischief in their petty little lives. These people should learn how to think. And another thing…….

OH, My…. was I blogging out loud again? I meant for that to go to my blog site. Sorry for the confusion!

Now, let’s discuss….shall we?
I tried to call you while you were at ingles, but you had already left. I saw you on four square and just thought I would give you a shout. Dont forget to wipe! Hmmmm. Ok so yea I checked in on foursquare saying I had visited Ingles. Of COURSE I already left. I don’t check in when I am physically there.  I am constantly amused by people who assume that you must be at the store to check in. Hell, I have been known to come home after work and check in to 4 different places I had visited that day. The only exception to my rule is drive thrus and if I am at a local event. Besides, there is a much easier and 100% more obvious way to know where I will be. If this person had paid any attention they could have figured out it wasn’t foursquare! Lastly, I have no idea what the “Don’t forget to wipe” statement is supposed to imply. I am going with the idea it’s for a shock factor. Who knows?

Oh, BTW, it is really stupid to put your mastercard on your phone. Tell your father-in-law that the best way to make online purchases is to buy a pre-paid credit card, load it using cash and then use it to make online purchases. NEVER EVER save credit card data on ANYTHING! (read your blog first let’s clarify that I was NOT discussing my father in law. He uses the internet for email. Nothing more. I was discussing my husband and having gone back and re-read the post I can see where the individual made the connection. I am taking that as a blogger lesson and will work to make sure that my posts are clearer. Secondly, this is what we call “preaching to the choir”. I thought it was pretty clear that I was unhappy about the idiot things my husband has done. So by the time I got here I was laughing even harder than when I started out and thinking, “no shit sherlock”.

I love four square. It gives me the energy to get up an fuck with people. stupid people who love to tell the whole fucking world where they are and what they are doing. Then they blame hackers. I wasn’t quite sure how to break this up so I decided not to. I love foursquare myself. I find alot of new local places to hang out at thanks to my local tweeters. I often meet up with them thanks to foursquare. And yes, I do love telling people what I do. That’s why this is being posted. This is life, real life, and I don’t hide from it. I share the good, bad, and ugly. You can either like it or not. You can read it or not. But, Mr. Stalker, it is very hypocritical to show such nasty hate for me sharing with the world what I do and yet say you love foursquare. And really, if that is what gets you up in the morning, I feel sorry for you. Maybe if you spent time going out and enjoying life you could be much happier? And don’t try to say that you ARE happy, people don’t use such strong language when they are truly happy with themselves. Now that last part, about the hackers. I would really love for someone to explain HOW blogging, tweeting, and checking in on foursquare after a store visit causes a hacker to put a virus on my work computer. Yea cause my tech friends and just about anyone with a basic computer understanding knows that it cannot happen that way. A virus is placed VIA email or infected website. Since I check all my email on my phone I can’t get it any othr way BUT by an infected website. For that matter, the website I suspect infected my work computer is (1) the only website I visit at work for the purpose of having some enjoyable music to listen to while I crunch numbers and (2) I visited daily. It also has been reported numerous times on their forums about the SAME virus I had for the last few weeks.

The rest of the email isn’t important enough to really tear apart. It shows a sad sad little person. I am guessing that they are either a young teenager or a shut in. I also suspect that I am probably not the only person they try to torment. Problem is, I have had some stalkers in my time. This person is nowhere CLOSE to being as terrifying. This person is really new at trying to be an annoyance. This person is also scared of me. Why email me? Why not comment right on the blog? It’s always been my policy to never block any comment unless it’s spam. If they are so big and bad then certainly they could respond in a public forum! Lastly, I know who this is. A good stalker makes it difficult to know. And this individual tried, they even had foresight to create a new email account just to send me an email. That really shows how much they love me! The email is hilarious, wholywhore@yahoo.com. Who names themselves wholy whore? And wholy isn’t even a word, did they mean wholly, holey, or holy?  But anywho, yea I know who this is. I apparently bruised their ego. Poor thing. If you can’t have a thick skin when involved in social media, it’s best to not even be involved.

So there it is folks…..I am famous now! One of my awesome lovely pagan sisters has already dubbed me “twitter ho”. I guess we can add foursquare ho and blogger ho to it too! WOHOOO!

I am a big beleiver that attitudes attract certain things. Positive attracts positive things in your life and of course negative attracts the negative. There are exceptions to that rule of course. Alot of it has to do with perception. And one cannot be positive all the time nor have positivity in their life all the time. But when things are going particularly rough or very well I think back on my attitude the few days prior I usually find a correlation. This week so far things have been wonderfully well at work. My attitude has been pretty positive at work. I walk in prepared to take on the workload, which never dwindles at this time of year, and I take all problems in stride and try not to take things personal. As a result I have had a somewhat smooth week. A few issues have arose but I don’t let it make me feel bad and I have been able to work through them just fine. Now at home it can be different. I have days where I stress too much about being around the hubs and as a result the evening is usually an unpleasant event. On days where I stick with being a positive person, I can let the things that bother me most slide off my back. It isn’t that I ignore them, I just place focus on my goals on how to fix the situation instead of focusing on what it is he is doing to piss me off, how often he does it, and how I wish I had a magic wand like Harry Potter and I could transform him into a perfect man.

Of course this type of thing isn’t on my mind all the time. It usually takes some long string of events (bad things happen in three’s!) for me to stop and consider what my role has been. And when that happens it is time for me to partake on some meditation.

I am currently on one form of meditation each night. It isn’t for spiritual needs but health. I am a chronic insomniac, we can thank the bipolar issues for that one. But when I am particularly stressed it gets worse. I go from my usual sleep 2-3 hours then wake up for 1 hour to up every hour for an hour with 3:30 – 4:oo am being the start of my day. So about two months ago I brought back a trick I learned when I was first diagnosed at 15. Basically I lay down and clear the mind (a feat within itself). I begin the muscle relaxtion by tightening up my feet for 30 seconds and then release. I move on to the calves, then the thighs, and work all the way up to my head. After that I tighten up every possible muscle and hold for 45 seconds and then release. I can usually fall asleep within 20 minutes after that. Last night I hit a record of falling asleep by 9pm and waking up the first time at 2am. I am quite proud of that! The nights where I sleep all night are the nights I have been drinking. As tempting as that sounds, I can’t bring myself to drink every night for the sake of sleep. Besides, it’s not a good healthy sleep.

For spiritual purposes it’s a bit different. I like my privacy so I have to do this when I know no one will be around. I take notice of other people watching too much and little man would enjoy doing a flying leap across the room onto my back. So I do this one when I can and where I can. My preferred spot is in front of my altar. I don’t always cast a circle, I tend to save that for outdoor rituals, but I do visualize my own sacred space clean of all energy before I step into it. I typically have candles lit, at least a few tealights and a couple votives. I also do burn incense as it gives me something to focus on when my eyes are shut, my favorite right now is cinammon. I then sit, slow my breathing, clear my mind, and then focus on what it is I am wanting. I try to distinguish if it’s really necessary and thus becoming a need or if it’s a frivolous want. If I can distinguish it’s a true need I will carry on. Frivolous wants, imho, are to be dealt with in the mundane life. The needs carryover into our spiritual selves and have a greater impact. These to me are much more important. I continue on working out how to gain this need. What it is that I must do and how I will do it. This can now become a multiple day meditative project. Sometimes I need more time to figure things out. I do rely on the gods to help give me clues on what I should do. For personal reasons I never ask them to outright intervene but I do ask for guidance. At the end (even if I have come to no conclusion) I thank the gods and make an offering outside. Is it me or do the gods really enjoy libations being offered???

Moving along, there are times where I am working through something that has no real solution other than it’s time for me to just let it go. This has never been an easy task for me. When this has arisen I have a specific offering to make to the gods. I will sit and write about the particular feelings and situation that I need to let go of. I pour all of it out until I am completely drained (usually this is physically and mentally). At the end I make quick note of how I am letting it go and will no longer speak of that particular situation. I will then go outside and build a small fire (usually in my  grill because I still haven’t gotten around to making a fire pit for sacred use) and toss the pages into the fire and offer them up to the gods. For my Christian readers, this is my equivalent of “let go and let god”. As a side note: for those that cannot do a fire, burying the pages would be just as satisfying.

I do have one other form of “meditation” for the positive and negative. Retail therapy. Ok so it’s not really meditation but it helps. I save it for when I am frustrated with feeling unappreciated or have taken notice that I haven’t bought anything for me in a long while. I also keep the expense down low as the budget is tight and the kids needs do come first. Sometimes it is something as small as a candy bar, other times it’s a new shirt or maybe a new pair of shoes. There are times that we women must do something for ourselves and feel proud. We deserve it!

Ok so what is it that you like to do to attract the positive and work through the negative?

Or at least I am going to try not to have a pity party.

Last week sucked work wise. I took Tuesday as a sick day. I felt bad and slept all day. But I am not sure that I was sick. Then Wed we were closed due to a snowstorm that came plowing through. The snow is killing us here with our work! Thursday I come in to find that my computer was infected with a very bad virus. Amazingly my free anti-virus had “disappeared” and did not protect me. No, it wasn’t AVG (for those that recommended AVG as I tweeted about the situation), it was avant garde if I remember correctly. Hell it was so long ago when we put it on there I don’t remember. So we went to the store and bought McAfee. The guy at the shop was saying we would need to bring the computer in. So we bought McAfee for when it was fixed and to talk to the boss. We tried to fix it ourselves. This virus “XP Internet Security 2010″ had an anti-antivirus program countermeasure. Which means we could get McAfee started on the computer but it wouldn’t configure. So then we tried to turn on the comp in safe mode and we couldn’t do it. We think it was the virus. THEN we managed to get online and I called McAfee for help. McAfee still had not configured but it was on there enough to slow down the virus and let McAfee tech people get remote access and clear it out.  Yesterday at work I decided to go to playlist.com for some soothing music. I clicked “My playlists” and got a popup about Malware and McAfee took over and blocked the attempt. Now I know where I got the virus. I visit daily and after the massive crash 2 years ago I had been VERY careful about where I went. That’s another place to put on the “do not visit” list!

The father in law and I have been discussing the hubs. I am finding out way too much stuff this week and I have renewed anger. Here we go!
1. Not only does he have the Discover card but he reinstated his Mastercard! Both are maxed out!

2. His Mastercard is linked to Google checkout on his phone. He kept saying Alex was buying games on his phone. Been telling me that for weeks and every time I said he can’t without a credit card. At no point did he feel it necessary to tell me that he had in fact put a credit card on Google Checkout. I found out one morning when Alex came out with his phone and I took it from him. I saw his gmail (which he doesn’t use) had dozens of notifications. So me being the nosy wench I am, I looked. They were game receipts with his mastercard number on it. That’s how I found out he reinstated his mastercard. And he is an idiot for putting it on his phone! If it’s stolen or lost and someone gets it, they are going to have a field day trying to shop. And what if he did manage to get the card paid off. Free shopping for the next theif!

3. He is only working 20 hours a week. It’s tax time and he is working 20 hours a week. I know I am not the only one who sees issue with this. He is supposed to be getting corporate taxes done for his dad, whom in turn is having to do them all by hisself. I informed my father in law that he was welcome to fire hubs ass whenever he wanted. I get sick and tired of everyone else busting their ass and hubs does bare minimum because he knows he won’t suffer any consequences. He loses his job I will have him removed from the house. I am that fed up. Unfortunatley father in law doesn’t want to because he knows I can’t afford the kids on my own. And it’s true, I would have a major issue doing it on my own right now. But I am willing to take that risk.

4. Hubs tells the father in law (not me) that he is signing the car over to me. Let me back up for a minute. Our car is not legal. It hasn’t been legal in over a year. His mom recently borrowed the car and got  a ticket. She was pissed off and I don’t blame her. So his solution is to sign the car over to me. Why? Well as my father in law states “So it becomes your problem and not his”. Ok fine. When I get the car, which I told him must be 100% legal before I will put my name on the title, I will trade it in and get a new car that has a smaller gas tank, thus allowing me to afford gas. Now what he doesn’t know is that I will not be allowing him to drive my car. He wants to put more shit on me instead of growing up and being a man, fine. Ok. But he better figure out what he is going to do cause I am not going to allow him to benefit from me. I won’t drive him to work unless I am going to work. And his clients that he has to drive to see every Tuesday, well he isn’t using my car to do it and I am not driving him. He wants to make it difficult for me, I can make it difficult for him.

So with all of this coming up, last night the car started acting up again. He never did take it in to have brakes looked at like he promised 2 months ago. There is a high pitched squealing sound as I drive and then when I hit brakes it goes away, hence why we suspect brakes. As of last night we have a belt slipping. He will wait until it breaks down. Then he will take it to our usual mechanic (whom is no longer as dependable as he was and one I will not take my new car to) and then we will be without car cause hubs has issues with getting a loaner.

So it’s Monday. I am hoping it’s a better week. More hours, maybe some good news. It has to be better than last week!

*sigh* not much happening on the crafty aspect. I did finish the beading on my scarf but I am not revealing what it looks like yet cause I want to wait until it’s finished. I did get a lot of knitting done yesterday at the yard sale. The PTTO didn’t advertise it well and most people struggled to figure out where to get in (we were in the back of the bldg). So yea I was bored and knitted. Glad I had the foresight to bring it.

I am going to be getting some candy making stuff in the next week or so. For Ostara the kids and I will make daffodil lollipops. I need to check my molds, we might do some other flowers but daffodils seem most appropriate.

Outside of that not much going on. Hope you all are well!

I am squeezing this in before I run out the door for a marathon fundraising event. I was going to put this off for a week but no, I feel bad when I do that. So here it is, another Blog Of The Week. This week I picked Charm City Kim. Charm City is Baltimore, Md. My hometown. Now I love it here in Asheville and have absolutely NO desire to move back home. BUT, there are things about Baltimore that I miss dearly like Lexington Market. So Charm City Kim is like being able to peek in on the city while being 500 miles away. She barely describes her home and neighbors but being native, I know exactly what she is talking about. Inevitably I start cracking up over her neighbor tidbits. Kim is a runner and a vegetarian. She is like the skinny me if I could ever get motivated to run without someone behind me with a baseball bat AND lose that obsession with eating meat. Ok seriously, I am never going to be a runner but I love hearing about her marathons and sympathize when her knees give her hell. And I do like seeing the few recipes she has posted, I almost make them lol. Kim is real. She is like your next door neighbor. The friendly one though, not the crazy ones. So go check her out in her sacred space in the bloggy world. I think you just might like her.

One good thing about Twitter is following businesses. Not all businesses use twitter well but the following list are of those that I enjoy seeing their tweets or engaging in discussion with.

Fire Mountain Gems one of the best jewelry supply companies on the net. Often their tweets are about sales and videos teaching a technique. They do occasionally interact with their followers but only if that follower says something positive about the company. They are large and have a large following so having a friendly chat about a movie just may be too daunting of a task for them.

GaiasGifts beautiful jewelry inspired by nature. They do tweet about Congenital Heart Defect often in addition to business related tweets. Nice to see a company being passionate about a cause!

FaerieMade – talk about homemade goodness! She makes these wonderful soaps and lip balms. I LOVE the lip balms. She tweets often about her progress on projects, special sales coming up, when she will be selling at the downtown market (she is local in addition to online), and when she is on vacation and shipping has to be delayed.  

Little Debbie - I love Little Debbie snacks. I followed them because they were such a big supporter of Type-A-MomCon. They value the role of mom bloggers in the social media world, so yes they must be followed! I enjoy hearing about the contests. I love their polls that they post, I certainly feel like they are taking time to listen to their consumers. And I love the fact that they engage with their followers. It’s refreshing to know that they care.

AC Moore – My favoritest craft store ever! I visit almost on a weekly basis and to have them on Twitter is awesome. They tend to post about classes, coupons, and sales. Even better is they really engage with their market. A twitter pal of mine had a hard time finding something and they  stepped up and really tried to help her. Often they just talk to someone, it’s wonderful!

Ok so there they are, my top 5 for this week. I follow quite a few businesses so there will definetly be more in the future. I am sure you noticed I included some large companies, smaller companies will soon follow. I am paying close attention to the date of most recent tweets. Some businesses haven’t tweeted since Dec and I won’t be recommending them as they are sporadic and I have noticed they just haven’t gotten the hang of Twitter just yet.  Trust me, I am only going to recommend people that I think deserve the recommendation!

***In accordance with the FTC Guidelines, I have received a free copy of the book from Quirk books to read and review as per our agreement***

 Dawn of the Dreadfuls is the prequel to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I thoroughly enjoyed PPZ so when Quirk books was looking for bloggers to read Dawn of the Dreadfuls I jumped at it. If you read PPZ you will know that the Bennett family, most importantly Jane and Elizabeth, had made it their business to fight zombies (or Dreadfuls to the high society English). Dawn of the Dreadfuls goes back to when they began their training. What I love about the book is how they bring about zombies and the discussion of zombies into proper English life. Even the affect that it has on girls preparing to come out into high society. Naturally Mrs Bennett, well known as being a modern day pimp momma to the highest bidder, fights with her husband and The Master often over the position of her daughters fighting zombies since it is the most inappropriate thing for young ladies to do. It’s an honest reaction from what we expect of that time period. But there is a quirky, tongue-in-cheek, laughable edge to it. This is a fun book, not a book to analyze too hard. We have watched the evolution of zombie movies change over the years, this book is just another evolution to add to the mix.

For those of you with children aged at least 10, they will love this book. It does not of course replace having your children read the classics like Pride and Prejudice but it is a great fun read for them. My 10 year old has been reading PPZ and has been anxiously awaiting me to finish Dawn of Dreadfuls so she can start reading it. My 8 year old has not shown interest but if she did I would find it to be an appropriate read for her age.

More information on the book:
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies:
by Steve Hockensmith
Published by Quirk Books
on sale March 23, 2010
Paperback, $12.95
ISBN 978-1-59474-454-9

Now on to the best part of the review……there is a contest!! YAY!! In this contest you have the chance to win one of 50 Quirk Classics Prize Packs. Each prize pack holds a retail value of $100 and will include:
1. An advance copy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls
2. Audio books of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies AND Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters
3. a password redeemable online for sample audio chapters of Dawn of the Dreadfuls
4. An awesome Dawn of the Dreadfuls poster
5. A Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Journal
6. A box set of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Postcards

How awesome is that??? Now to enter the contest you go to Quirk Books Message Boards. Under Editor’s Notes you will see “Quirk Classics Contest – win one of 50 prize packs”. Go there and mention you read the review here at The Pagan Mom Blog. That’s it, you will be entered.

I wish you all the best of luck and look forward to seeing who wins the awesome prize pack!

Monday already? Time is flying by very quickly!

Exercise – hahahahhahaha what is that? Yea, I am working alot and well I am sleeping in until I absolutely must get up and get laundry worked on and breakfast cooked. By the time i get home in the evenings I am catching up with reading (which is a must, more on that in a minute) and researching stuff on homeschooling.

Reading – This week’s Witchy Wednesday is being postponed. I am doing a book review on Wednesday. It must be posted that day because there is a giveaway going on and it’s part of the review agreement I made. This one has been so exciting I can’t wait to get the blog post written for it.

Other Giveaways – I am going to be reviewing some educational software so keep your eyes peeled for that review AND giveaway! I should have that up by this weekend but absolutely no later than Monday next week.

Homeschooling – still doing alot of research. I found a website, Homeschool Helper, that has been a blessing. They have all kinds of forms for recordkeeping that I have printed off and organized into a binder. Last night the girls and I discussed the curriculum. They really enjoyed having the opportunity to have a voice in what they learned. Claire really wanted to learn more about the human body so that became our science course. Molly really wants to learn about the American Revolution so that is her history course. This morning I am calling my old high school to get the copy of transcript so I can send off the paperwork. At noon I am meeting with a woman from the local homeschool group, she is selling off her elementary curriculum books and I am buying all of it. After having looked at book prices online, I am getting an amazing deal for this stuff! Over the weekend I picked up some books at the Dollar Tree for Alex, basic phonics and math type books for the Kindergarten age. Once all of my paperwork gets in I am going to set about getting educator cards at various stores in town. I found about 4 places that have educator cards. I have my AC Moore’s card which should come in handy and I may go get a Michael’s card just in case. I don’t go there often but it might help to have an extra card anyway. Oh annnddd I found a site (not bookmarked on this comp so I email me for link) that you can create a teachers ID card and student ID cards. I am not going to make any student ones as of yet, not sure what we would use those for. But the teacher ID would be helpful to show to get some of my educator cards locally.

Yard Sale – this weekend I am participating at the girls’ school yard sale. I am not actually selling anything though. I am doing a March of Dimes table. My goal is to pickup loose change donations and recruit some walkers to join our efforts. We are working hard to meet our goal of $600 (as a team, my personal goal is $500) and I think we need more people involved to meet it.

Tonight is Girls Night Out. And we are going to my fave place in town…..La Carretta. MMMMMMM love their nachos! It will be nice to have some giggle time with the ladies.

So that is all that is going on around here. Hope you all are well. I think I won’t post tomorrow so I can prepare for the Review/Giveaway on Wednesday. See you then!

Todays post will be pictureless because I haven’t taken any lately. I am confident you all can picture things in your mind lol.

The shawl is coming along. I have one crescent moon done and the full moon started. With the schedule I have now I can get one or two rows done a day which makes for very slow progress. But it’s ok, I need the hours much more than finishing the shawl. I am however determined to have it done before Beltaine so I can take it on the camping trip and show it off.

We did make our spicy orange marmalade this past week. I am upset about it. I followed the orange marmalade instructions to a tee and it can now be used as an orange pepper glaze. It’s that freaking thin! I think that someone miswrote the instructions. Unfortunatley I am not a canning whiz and do not know how to change things up so that it will come out in marmalade form. Oh well.

I cannot wait for Spring to get here and the first thaw to hit. I am going to be planting tomatoes and strawberries with the kids (as a part of homeschooling) AND we are going to make some trips to various “pick your own” farms around WNC. I want to set up tours to make it educational and get some great organic fruits to can.

So what are you all creating???

I know I haven’t blogged in awhile on Saturdays but here I am. I totally OWE everyone the opprotunity to check out todays special blog. Cattails.me: The crazy stops here…every fifteen minutes is one I hold dear to my heart. Slight disclosure, I totally hang with the author of the blog. So call me biased if you must but seriously she writes with such raw passion that I am left with jaw wide open and wishing I was only 10% as eloquent as her. Sometimes I am left with a serious stitch in my side from laughing really hard, other times I am reaching for the tissues, and yet others I am nodding my head yelling “I get you sista!” So please, check her out. You won’t regret it!