Three More Days

Wow. It's almost November. That means it's almost NaNoWriMo. I'm nervous & excited all at once. I know I can do this, I've been writing most of my life. I used to love to write short stories when I was younger, but had such a hard time figuring out how to end a story that I just gave up. I guess it'll be easier with a novel - I have a longer space to tie loose ends up in.

It's not like I'll be jumping into something I've never done and expecting to make a living at it. This is for fun & to purge this story idea from my head. I dreamed it, before I fully committed to the idea of writing a book & now it won't leave me alone.

I think it's going to be a very important learning experience & I think I'll come away from it with a lot of valuable input. I'm really looking forward to starting!

What a Week!

I managed to get everything done but the chocolate lollipops, those were an epic fail & I gave up. Frustration isn't fun for me & I won't do things like that if I'm not enjoying myself. I didn't make the fudge exactly according to the directions, because I made it upside down & then realized I couldn't put the candy corn pieces on the top then. Oh well, it'll be good & festive & they can eat their candy corn off the fudge, it won't kill anyone.

I need to get pumpkins carved this morning, along with a bunch of other things that have to be done, like cleaning our bedroom (we hold ritual in there) and finished ritual prep and the normal every day cleaning. It will be a very busy day, but all worth it in the end. The party will be a lot of fun tonight & I'm really looking forward to seeing who all shows up. There had better be absolutely no drama, or people will be made to leave, I won't have people hurting other people's feelings tonight. I'm trying to decide whether I should save pumpkin seeds or just throw them away to save time. I always want to throw them away, but saving & roasting usually wins out. I'm not really sure I have time for that this time, though.

I'm just slightly frustrated at the moment. I arranged for our daughter to get her flu shot for free this morning & now she's backing out of it. She's so afraid of needles that she doesn't even realize it's a tiny poke & it's done & then she isn't worrying about being sick all winter. She just remembers the trauma of her last immunizations at 5 & thinks they're all that way. Oh well, I tried. This is her choice. I'm done trying to keep her healthy.

The Samhain Crunch

It seriously feels like I'm just as busy in the week prior to Samhain as I am right before Yule. It makes sense, with this being my favorite Sabbat, but I don't remember being this busy before we started our own Circle. Yes, we always have had parties for Halloween, or at least for the past 11 years we have, but when you add that to ritual preparation and all of that? Crazy.

Troy & I have our costumes all figured out, and neither of them required any special purchases, like  boots or prosthetic teeth or anything. I'm actually using mostly things I already own & we bought Troy a costume. I figured out something for Dawn to wear to the party & am making her a super-cute Halloween apron to wear with her witchy stuff (like a black skirt & hat) on Halloween, when we're together handing out treats. My friend from Michigan, Mary, made me one & sent it to me. I'm almost down to just decorative stuff on Dawn's, but I can already see how cute it's going to be, I really hope she's loves it.

Anyway, I still have candy corn fudge, chocolate lollipops & monster cookies to make & a haunted gingerbread house to decorate. Before that, I think I'll finish the apron & the top for my own costume.

A Nice Weekend

Troy & I have had a pretty nice weekend together so far. Friday, we pretty much just relaxed. Later in the day, we went to the store & bought some yard decorations for Halloween & put them up along with what we already had in storage, then we had dinner & watched "Merlin" on Netflix streaming for the rest of the evening.

Saturday, we slept in and then got up, and headed for New Harmony for their annual Apple Harvest Festival. Our friends live across the street, so we pretty much always have good parking & a place to sit & people watch. We wandered over to the festival with Jason to buy our cider, then we all walked around looking at the booths. I bought a jar of pomegranate jalapeno jelly, which was just spicy enough without hurting. We later tried some habanero pineapple that was way, way too hot.

After that we just sat around visiting. Troy kind of directed traffic, so people weren't blocking the driveway & then he & our friend's sister went & picked apples. We brought a nice box of Jonagold home & put them in the bedroom. It smells like we sprayed a really expensive air freshener in there, now.

I looked up the directions for making hard cider & we went & bought the extra sugar I needed, came home & I got that started & jugged. It's sitting under the sink with the latest mead, bubbling away. It'll be a nice treat this winter & should hopefully be ready by my birthday.

Today, we're just relaxing at the moment, but in awhile, we'll go to the store & buy the papers so I can clip the coupons & start to get ready for grocery shopping on Friday. I need to find a source for cheap ink cartridges, because I have a bunch that need printing & I'm out of ink. Tonight, Dawn & Justin are coming over for dinner & TV, and that'll be it for the weekend, but at least it was a bit longer than last week!

No Talent

How do you tell someone who has a huge dream to do something they have no talent at, that they should rethink their dreams? I don't want to dash anyone's dreams, but sometimes, no matter how hard you work at something, you just don't have the necessary talent to excel at something.

Take myself, for instance. I spent over 2 years trying to learn to play guitar. I never managed anything beyond plucking out a song on the strings & learning one chord in all of that time. I switched to the flute & by the time I started my Senior year of high school, I was sitting in the first chair. With just a tiny change, I found something I was good at & found endless hours of joy with.

No one told me, though. I realized that I was never going to learn to play the guitar, no matter how long I tried & that honestly, I didn't really enjoy doing it. This person? Too stubborn to probably even listen to anyone if they told her, so I guess I'll just wait it out & see if she realizes it on her own somewhere down the line.

People are Amazing

One of my friends is one of the toughest, most amazing women I know. She overcame decades of addiction, a score of arrests & convictions and has a bunch of amazing kids. She rediscovered & married her junior high sweetheart & has been through a lot with him, as he has poor health & keeps getting hurt on top of that. She stands up for her rights & the rights of the people she loves, no matter what. I found out something the other day that just astounded me. She can't handle bodily fluids. At all. Not even farts. She gets physically ill when faced with most of them. She has 5 kids & a husband, I'm not sure how she gets through every day without spending it throwing up. She had planned to become a nurse or a CNA, until the other day, when she found out exactly what those careers entail. I think she plans to study for an office job, now. I'm still just amazed that something so little, that most of us, as moms, just accept & deal with has completely changed the career path of such an amazingly strong woman.