The Pagan Mom Blog

I have no idea what to call this post lol. It’s a hodge podge so far in my head.

So far girls have been back in school since yesterday. Mon & Tues they were out because the schools were too overly concerned and called it off. Nothing happened on either day. This Saturday they have a makeup day. Ironically I find out from the news and a recorded phone call but NOTHING has been said about a time frame. I have no idea if this is a normal day of school. Other counties that are doing school this Saturday have announced on the news and online the time frame. I am now thinking that the city district is just too chicken to commit because they think we will get snow. It’s supposed to be in the 50’s this weekend. So freaking frustrating. I get being concerned for safety but this overly protective bs is for the birds. I am considering homeschool once again because at least then I don’t have to worry about snow days. And I could do year round like I want for my kids anyway. BUT, I have got to get myself established with working at home in order to do this. AND it has to be something that I can do when the kids & I move out.

Which brings me to the marital situation. Nothing has changed. He started trying to tell me he was reading these articles on mental disorders and how insomnia is related (I already knew and this is by far not old news). Basically I took away from that whole thing that he was trying to see if I was having a mental breakdown. Perhaps I am, it doesn’t negate the fact that there is marital bullshit to deal with. And when I informed him that marital stress contributes to mental issues he didn’t have a dam thing to say to it. At this rate he isn’t going to find anything out until I am packing the bags. He will not discuss it. And if he doesn’t care enough to discuss it I am not going to waste my time chasing him down to force him to discuss it.

Work has been nuts. Usually is but this year the boss is stuck at home because it has been snowing hard at his house. They live north of us on a mountain. So that’s where all the snow people have been freaking out over has been. Now people are upset because I cannot keep up with the phone. Hubs has been out dealing with his appointments and I have been by myself. With two phone lines. Piles of work to do. And when the phone rings it’s not one line that will ring but both. One guy even came over to the office because he claimed he called several times and there was no answer. He acted perturbed that I don’t have superwoman qualities.

Enough of the bitching though, it’s not all horrible. Hours at work have been awesome. I had a night out the other night at a Haiti Benefit. $5 glasses of wine (although they didn’t have my Reisling!), free chocolate truffles, and a String Quartet. It was awesome. Tonight I have a meeting with TedXAvl. I am a volunteer in their Hospitality department. What this means, I don’t know. LOL! No the organization offers a night of speaking about Technology, Entertainment, and Development. This event will happen in September so we are in planning mode.

I am also doing the March for Babies walk this year. Actually its me and Molly that are doing it. I haven’t done this fundraiser in a long time but I decided we are gonna do it this year. So if you can help there is a handy button to the right you can click to help us out. If you want to help out but strapped for cash, then please join a local walk. Every little penny helps!

Which brings me to my motivation to get fit. I have 65 days to get myself to where I can handle that walk. So once I get the hubs to order more heating oil in our house (we are out again!) I am going to start doing pilates and the 30 Day Shred video. After tax season I am going to order P90X. It is a tough workout but I think it will do nicely for what I want, which is to shed the awful fat from my body and get toned. And once it warms up I will start walking again. My Droid works nicely as an MP3 player so that will help out alot.

All of this also leads to another volunteering gig I am lining up. We have a street festival here called Bele Chere. It’s 3 days of music, awesome food, craft booths, and 300,000 people crammed into our city streets. I volunteered once before in the Children’s Area. This year I am shooting for a roving volunteer. Basically I walk around and give help to whomever needs it. Whether it is finding a specific booth or band or helping them navigate to their car or finding their hotel. I like that idea better because I will work with one other person and we can roam around while helping others. Children’s Area wasn’t bad last time I just don’t want to be stuck in one place like that. I had sort of a traumatic experience last time. I had tried avoiding working on facepainting because I have no cool drawing skills. But that last day someone bailed on us and I gave in and helped that table. I was there for 7 hours. For the most part kids gave me easy tasks. Once in awhile I got something that I had no clue what it even was lol. But the worst was this sweet little boy, maybe all of 7 years old. He wanted superman emblem on his cheek (the one thing I could do extremely well!). So I was hard at work and we were chatting. I can’t remember the specific question but it was something like “Why can’t I do this, so and so can!” I responded “I don’t know, maybe you should ask your mom and dad”. That’s when the kid looked at me so serious, but not sad,  ”My mom died when I was a baby”. Talk about feeling like a huge pile of poo! And what do you say to that? I apologized to him for it and he seemed ok but I just felt horrible. Like I was supposed to start asking all the kids if their parents were alive just so I could be sure I didn’t commit that faux pas again. Fortunatley his dad overheard it and later came up to me and said not to feel bad. I still did. So yea, I will try my hand in another area this year and see how that goes.

So what is going on with you all????

I am so sorry I haven’t been around. With the weather monkeying up my work schedule I just haven’t had time to sit down and write anything. And to be honest by the time I got home I didn’t want to touch a computer lol.

In regards to my last post, for now I am going to continue as I have so far. If it becomes an issue at work I will deal with it then. Not sure what I would do, things are different when you work in a family business. I mean if I sued my father in law over religious discrimination, it would make for bad ju ju with the family. But I don’t see that kind of situation coming up so I am not worried about that. I think it just hurt to think that someone might suddenly change their opinion of me based upon a bumper sticker. Only thing I can do is remain professional, I am not about to try real hard to win someone over.

Moving on to other events, the weather prevented me from enjoying my weekend at Knit Inn 2010. That was frustrating because I REALLY was looking forward to the classes I had signed up for. On the upside I was able to get down there yesterday for the last class, a designing shawls class. I am a visual learner and unfortunatley this was not a hands on class. BUT, I did learn quite a few things. So I am currently designing a basic shawl just to get started. I have several ideas floating around in the head and will eventually get to work on those. I want to get the hang of the basics first. I am still trying to work down my stash and getting there somewhat. When I design the next shawl then I will buy more yarn. Or maybe when I get cracking on one of my projects in my queue in Ravelry.  Whichever I get to first lol.

That’s about it around here. Just doing what I got to do to keep up with work deadlins and keeping kids fed. Ya know, the boring stuff lol.

Coming out as pagan is always a difficult task. Some are lucky and their families and friends are supportive. Others have a much harder time with the people surrounding them. Often you find pagans online who often ask should I? When should I do it? And the ever elusive how do I do it?

I have never really announced it outloud. My family knows and doesn’t seem bothered by it. At least they have never said a word about it. This could be due to the fact that I am not very close to them and we talk maybe a few times a year. My friends know and the type of people I tend to be friends with, it doesn’t cause any issues. My husband’s family…..well I am not sure if they know or not. I have never come right out and said it but if they did ask I would totally confess. They have seen the altar in my home but I am not sure if they knew it was an altar lol. My father in law has seen tweetdeck open on my computer at work and my name is PaganMomBlog on twitter. And I have noticed that when the discussion of religion has come up, primarily the Christian religion, he will usually ask my husband a question. Not in a snotty sort of way but that kind of way of “you beleive like I do so let me ask you”. And then again perhaps I am reading into it.

Lately I have wondered if I should come completely out to my inlaws. I am concerned in the area of work. At work no one knows. Our clientele is on the elderly side and being in the south the automatic assumption is that they are all Baptists. I know, it’s an unfair judgment but it’s habit. One I am working on. I do know that some of them are Unitarian Universalists (which means very accepting) and I know exactly who those people are. But others  I worry about. I don’t want the business to lose clientele because someone has issue with my personal life.

So why is this coming up now, after 6 years of working there? I saw the look about a week ago. One of our clients has a business near my home and often in the mornings on the way in I swing by and pick things up or drop things off. This particular morning I got there before they open. I saw our client coming up behind my vehicle. Which she was staring at hard. And then that look came on her face. That look of “oh my god” and then I could see her trying to process it ” is she? noooo she couldn’t be”. Then she looked at me, that soul searching look and it was a desperate look. What was it that caused such a look? A bumper sticker. It says “Mother Grove” and has some slogan about honoring the goddess. No pentacles, no “my other car is a broomstick” sticker….just that word goddess glaring at her. I could tell that suddenly she was very uncomfortable. I handled her the way I always had. Cheerful and smiling. I told her what she needed to do with paperwork. I noticed that normally a woman who spent 30 minutes chatting my head off suddenly wanted to get as far away as possible. I haven’t heard  anything about this as of yet. My father in law is an adorable man. I can’t imagine anyone disliking him so I think if she had confronted him he might have been able to smooth things over. But the mere idea that he would have to do that bothers me. My religious beleifs should have no bearing on how well I can do my job.

So I am not sure what to do. I have this fear that if I came out to my inlaws that it would make things bad between us. I love them as if they were my own flesh and blood and for them to be upset would hurt me greatly. I think that is what makes this the most difficult. I don’t want people hurt. And I don’t feel forced into a closet, I have always wanted to live my beleifs without being an “in your face” pagan.

And perhaps I have blown out of proportion. Maybe there is some other reason she made the faces and wanted to rush into her store. Unfortunatley experience and intuition tells me otherwise.

P.S. I will be taking tomorrow off. This week is kicking my butt and I haven’t been getting up at 5am but 6 am. So I am going to listen to the body and “sleep in” and not worry about getting a post up. I will be back Friday for my Follow Friday post.

Tax time is in full swing. Yesterday was absolutely exhausting. When we got home and fed kids pizza that we picked up along the way, I checked my Farmville and then laid down. I think I was asleep by 8:30. The good thing is that my hours are going to fly through the roof. When I had stepped out to pick up lunch for us from Subway, 6 people came by and dropped off their info for their returns. The boss looked at the growing stack and asked me if I was sure I didn’t want the part time temp to handle the administrative aspect. I am sure, I really want the hours. So this morning I am ready to go to work and get cracking. But. Kids have a 2 hr delay due to the sleet coming through. So I have to wait. Now I am waiting to hear from the school. Given that the kids keep missing days and they have already taken Good Friday as a makeup, they are now discussing starting to use Spring Break. They are going to call parents and see what they want. I am sure we can figure out my answer…….take the Spring Break days. Those have always been a pain for us. But I doubt that it will happen. I think more parents will vote for the use of Saturdays (which my kids will not want lol). Saturdays wouldn’t affect us much because Alex will still be home. Kyle usually stays and works from home on Saturdays so that  can come to the office.

With regard to the knitting classes this weekend, Kyle and the kids will go down with me Sunday as long as it isn’t snowing. No matter what if it snows I am not going. But Sunday it’s not supposed to and it’s supposed to be above freezing which means melting. And Sunday is the designing class which I am really thrilled about.

Tomorrow Claire gets her glasses….finally! It’s been almost a full year since she had a pair. Hopefully next month I can buy a second pair for her so that in the event she breaks a pair she has a backup. I also need to get a new pair for me because I haven’t been seen in two years. I am afraid Alex needs glasses as well, so I need to get him checked.

In other news, Megadeth is coming to Asheville in March. YAY! They are bringing with them Testament and Exodus. Talk about a blast from the past! I am totally going, friend of mine got our tickets already. Shinedown will also be coming April 1. Not too sure about that one. Tickets go on sale Friday and once my friend finds out how much they are we will talk about it. I really can’t afford it if it’s more than $40. We will see.

That’s about it in my exciting life. I need to check my farm andget ready for work. What are you all up to today?

The weather this winter is seriously messing things up badly. Usually we will get our nasty weather in March. And when it comes it is mostly in the form of ice. This is bad enough. Once in awhile we get snow but it has never been enough for us to make a snowman or even wet enough for it to stay together.  We got 15 inches in December, 10-12 this last weekend. And you know what???? MORE is coming next weekend? Not sure on accumulation but just thinking about the possibilities is enough to anger anyone. If i lived up north I would totally expect this. But I don’t and that entitles me to a little bit of whining. You see next weekend I am supposed to be in South Carolina for a knitting event. This was super important to me because one of the classes I signed up for was a designing class. I want to design my own prayer/meditation shawls and hopefully sell them on the side. So this class was really important! Some of you may wonder what all the fuss is so here is the issue. First off I don’t drive well in snow. I can do it but I reserve it for when I must and walking is too far and I am not driving more than 15-20 minutes. Greeneville is 2 hours away. Secondly we always have ice with our snow. No one can drive on ice, I don’t care what they say. Thirdly, to get out of Asheville means going down mountainsides. No matter which way I go it is a must. The grades are seriously steep. They have special runoff roads for truckers in case they lose control. My own car slows down trying to make it up the grade. Coming down means almost constantly braking. Imagine hitting a patch of ice? Yea, I am not happy about this. I may try to go just Sunday, that’s the designer class. It isn’t supposed to actually snow on that day so the roads might get cleared up.

Along with all of this snow comes alot of school closings. This won’t affect Beltane as I will pull my girls out of school for that. But it could mean they will be in school most of June at this rate. As of now they have to go to school on Good Friday. That has quite a few people up in arms but really it makes me happy. For one we don’t do anything for Good Friday. Secondly Easter comes right around tax deadline and Good Friday has always thrown a wrench into the workday. Now I just need to get someone to take Lil Man off our hands so I can work. Especially now that I am doing the work of two people instead of just my own.

So there was my whining. It will all get worked out, it always does.

Monday night I had an appointment at Freaks & Geeks Tattoo Sideshow. They are located right down the street from my house. The cool thing is they were doing a special Haiti tattoo where all proceeds went straight to releif efforts and it was affordable in terms of tattoo’s….$50. It’s an adorable tattoo too!

In the banner I think I am going to add “pwisans”. According to a Haitian Creole dictionary it means strength. It felt fitting to honor the Haitians with that because they are some very strong people. As much as any of us complain about our hardships, none of us can compare to the suffering most Haitians endure. At least here in the US we have organizations who work hard to help the less fortunate. We also have a welfare system that does attempt to help those who need it. In Haiti they have nothing like that. If you have no money, home or food….you are stuck. In order to survive you must be strong, including before the tragic earthquake. So, it seems fitting.

Now, besides having this particular work done, I am going back next week to have another tat designed. It will actually be specifically related to this blog. I think it will be crook & flail in background, an ankh in the foreground and “The Pagan Mom Blog” around it. I am hoping to use royal blue and gold as the colors for the tat. My plan is to redesign the look of the blog and subsequently change my blog button so that the tat becomes the logo.  Talk about branding lol! I won’t have to worry about running into that tattoo on anyone else!

One thing about getting a tat is, I always worry about conversing with the artist. I am sure that some of them, if not most, are really intelligent enough to talk and work at the same time. Unfortunatley I am so aware of the loud buzzing needle and need to follow the stencil that’s on my body. It doesn’t seem quite the appropriate time to have a chat. So I kinda tend to be real quiet unless they speak first. At least then I know I am not distracting them, ya know?

The other odd thing I think about while in the chair is the paperwork involved. If you have never had ink done you do fill out paperwork. One of the things they need you to disclose is if you have certain illnesses that can be passed on through blood. SoI wonder, how often are people honest that they have Herpes, HIV/AIDS, or Hepatitis? And really, if you had a disease that could be passed on by bodily fluids….would you really have work done? Now Galen, the guy who did my work, was very sanitary. I pay close attention to that because I sure as hell don’t want to catch anything. And really, if I did have a disease I don’t think I would have any done. I mean the fear of passing it on to some stranger who is just trying to stay in business and enjoy the work they do would be overwhelming. I am not trying to pass on judgment to anyone who might have had Hepatitis and got ink. I am just curious on what their thought process was about doing it. And I really want to know if they REALLY disclosed their illnes. Makes ya wonder!

I have decided that today’s post will feature no bitching, crying or moaning. May be a short post but I am sticking by that lol!

First my girls got more college invites yesterday. This program is called Super Saturdays and is offered at University North Carolina – Asheville. All kids enrolled in the gifted program in the city schools get the invites. They get to choose a class to take and every Saturday for 6 weeks and I take them over for that class. Last time Molly did Physics. This time they aren’t aiming as high. Molly wants to take a cartooning course where they learn animation. Claire is opting for a sculpting course. This is Claire’s first year being in the gifted program and oh my is she so excited. Molly has been mean and told her she isn’t smart like Molly. While that is sort of true, Molly made it sound like poor Claire isn’t smart. The reality is, they are smart in seperate ways so I am really glad she is in the program holding her own. Anywho this program is $69 per class. We e-filed and got our bank loan yesterday so I am paying off a bunch of my own personal debt today. I should be able to pay for their classes next week. They don’t start until April or May I think.

Work has gotten busy. It amazes me how it almost seems like overnight when this happens. One week I am struggling to find anything to do and then BAM I am struggling to find 2 minutes just to pee. But this is good. I should be making lots of money and stowing some away for a rainy day. I have decided anything over my normal weekly pay (from the last few months) will go into the bank between the joint and personal accounts. That way I am contributing to both household bills and stocking up.

With the rise of work comes the lack of internet time. Since I still get up at 5 am I have an hour and a half before kids are up to spend on email and blogging. So the blog shouldn’t be affected but I might decide to stay in bed on occasion and skip out being online all together. If you follow me on twitter, I probably will respond to @replies during the work day (if I see them) but I really won’t tweet until I get home in the evening and after the kids have their computer time after dinner.

I am also currently working on a local commentary about our transit system. This will be published at Associated Content. I got in a bit of a tiff yesterday on Twitter with our transit system. I won’t go into detail but I think that they just absolutely ignore the needs of citizens and whoever I talked to doesn’t use transit to understand. Plus I was in ’super bitchy overload’ yesterday and they got a real nasty side of me.   A bit unfair and I am feeling better today so it will be time for me to be objective and maybe get them to understand what I was saying. We  shall see.

So that is all I got going on here at the moment that won’t reduce me to tears. Check back tomorrow for my Twitter Five!

You have heard that question, “What would you do if you had a million dollars?”. I am pretty sure everyone has thought about what they would do if a massive amount of money came to them. It’s easy to spend that money if you are the average person. I often wonder, what would I do with my time?

I started thinking about this today. Assuming that I got a couple million and paid off the debt, and maybe even bought a house in a community we were checking out recently….how would I spend my time? In my scenario, I don’t have to work. Now, it’s no hidden secret I am a workaholic of sorts. I am always doing something so it’s not like I wouldn’t work, I would just work differently and not a traditional 9-5 like I do now.

Mr. P would probably start a consulting business dealing with Quickbooks. He knows the program inside and out and has helped people do setup with QB. As for me, I am on the fence as to whether or not I would really leave accounting behind. If I didn’t, I would only take on a client or two and did basic bookkeeping for them. I would work from home as would Mr. P. That is something I have always really wanted to do. With slight bookkeeping, I wouldn’t be very busy and that is awesome. I would spend a couple mornings a week writing articles for Associated Content and Modern Pagan. One day a week I would spend canning. Another day would be devoted to beading and jewelry making. Another for candles, another for soap, another would be a  craft day and yet another would be devoted to knitting. I would take up gardening finally since I would be able to devote time to it. I would be a handmaking fool. What we couldn’t eat/use I would sell. Perhaps at a local market and maybe online. Spending my time being creative is what I would thrive for.

So what would you do? I know some of you are stay at home moms, would anything change? Would it change if your kids were older and in school (I know that that has a huge factor in my dream world lol)?

I found this disturbing article on Yahoo yesterday. Basically a man was fired. Depending on who you ask will depend on the reason. He says it was because the pin he wore said “One Nation Under God”. The company says that he was fired for not following company policy which states ONLY company pins could be worn as part of uniform.

Now me being the capitalist I am, I would have to say that if someone does not comply with uniform rules and are heavily defiant about it….they should get fired. BUT. The man claims he has been wearing it since March 2008. A year and a half and NOW the company wants to fire him? The man also claims that he had recently started bringing the bible to read on his lunch break. And it wasn’t until then that his button was an issue. IF all of that is true than the company has just discriminated against this man because of religion.

I have worked with people who have brought their bibles to work. I have worked with people who wear religious pins and religious jewelry. I personally don’t see what the problem is with it. Now if a company wants to say that there are uniform rules, fine. I am totally ok with that too. But you don’t wait a year and a half to fire someone over it.

Please read the full article (I am too lazy to c&p it here, sorry) and share your thoughts on the issue!