Midwinter Festivals

Midwinter is coming! Do you know what that means? End of Winter is coming!!!!! Praise be to Maude!

Tomorrow is Vasant Panchami, which is the Hindu celebration of Saraswati. Saraswati is the goddess of Knowledge and Art. The day is celebrated with offerings of yellow sweets and honey to statues of the goddess that are draped in yellow fabric. Many Hindus also mark this day as the start of formal education of young children. This is the day they will begin to teach reading and writing to preschool-aged children. This festival also marks the coming of spring and the Hindu festival of colors, Holi. According to this site, the traditional prayer to Saraswati ends with "Oh Mother Sarasvati remove the darkness (ignorance) of my mind and bless me with the eternal knowledge." That sounds like a prayer for Spring and the return of the sun to me.

Here's a lovely chant for Sarasvati:

It's interesting how the holidays and holy days of so many cultures and religions follow the earth. The pagan festival of Imbolc is coming up. Our family marks that with a pretty traditional ritual of drinking cold milk and sweeping out the house (back corner to the front door---symbolizing Spring cleaning in its many forms). Imbolc is, I think, the same day as the Catholic holiday of Candelmas, or the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple. And then there's Groundhog Day, where we put a lot of social pressure on a poor little rodent to save us all from seasonal depression. So, lots of way to welcome the last half of winter and start looking forward to spring.

I'm so ready.

Read more "Midwinter Festivals..."

Decluttering!

So I finally took down and packed up the Yule tree yesterday. I had been toying with the idea of decorating it for Imbolc & Valentine's Day and leaving it up until Ostara but after taking the Christmas decorations off it just seemed out of place. So, off it went. Hopefuly, that's the last time that tree will stand in this house!

Packing away the tree means furniture rearranging, of course. We had moved our dining table out of the living room and into the kitchen to accommodate the tree. We have been enjoying the table in the kitchen so now we have all this space in the living room to fill up. I've got the furniture set up pretty well in there now and I'm enjoying the openness.

We also took the opportunity of the open space to focus on decluttering in the living room. Char was finally ready to let go of some of the younger picture books and early reader books! I have a whole rubbermaid tub of books to give away. I will let my homeschool friends look through it first and then offer them to a charity. I recycled the ones that were torn or shredded or just love don a wee bit too hard.

Reorganizing the living room meant, of course, borrowing furniture from the kitchen so I ended up cleaning and orging that room as well. Nt a huge change, but definitely pared down. I am donating some of the baking things I don't use and I tossed a few old teflon pans that were flaking and had been put to the side. Why I didn't toss them when I saw they were unusable, I don't know. I do need more cookware but I am going to wait until we move.

Anyway, I'll try and get some pics up of the changes pretty soon. Gotta make breakfast now!

Read more "Decluttering!..."

Menu Planning Sunday

Sunday

Crudite

Burritos & Tacos

Chips & Salsa

Monday

Tossed Salad

Soup & Sammies

Tuesday

Tofu Stir Fry

Eggrolls

Wednesday

Breaded chicken tenders

Mashed Potatoes

Green Beans

Thursday

Salad

Pasta & Tomato Sauce

Friday

Pizza

Saturday

Leftovers/Free for All

Read more "Menu Planning Sunday..."

Breasts, Cancer, Feminism and Internet Memes

I have a strong dislike for this particular FB meme where women are supposed to name the color of their bra as a way to raise awareness about breast cancer. As this wonderful blog post reminds us, the meme is actually a slap in the face to many survivors who no longer wear bras because they have had mastectomies.

My maternal great-grandmother was a breast cancer survivor, as is my MIL. My nana had a single mastectomy in the 30s or 40s when cosmetic reconstruction was unheard of and her scars were just awful. She wore a prosthetic breast that was inserted in to specially made, very expensive bras (that only came in one color).

The cutesy awareness things really push my buttons. It is maddening that to get any kind of attention or research it seems like we have to make women's health issues cute and/or sexy. We should save the boobs because men like to play with them! Not that we should save women's lives because women's lives are inherently valuable!

There's a similar thing on twitter with the hashtag boobiewed where women (and men, peripherally) are encouraged to changed their av to show off their cleavage in some variation of "save the tatas." Maybe I'm just some humorless feminist, but I resent that the way to raise awareness about a disease that kills and injures women at such an alarming rate is to be cutesy and sexy and remind everyone what lovely playthings our breasts are. And, don't get me wrong, I LOVE my breasts. I own maybe 2 shirts that would not be considered low-cut, I love my big push up bras and I love my cleavage and I show it off all the time. But I won't do it to pander for "awareness" and money and attention to go to research. That shit should happen because we value lives, not because someone flashes us some boobs.

Read more "Breasts, Cancer, Feminism and Internet Memes..."

Friday Funnies

Just your basic link dump and youtube roundup of funnies and aweomseness:

Have a complaint to register? This generator is for you! Just put in the name of the person, persons or company/institution about whom/which you wish to complain, and this site spits out a few paragraphs of verbose anger. Por ejemplo, I put in The Tea Bagger Party and got three paragraphs. Some highlights:

If we don't do something soon, The Tea Bagger Party's unctuous inclinations will rise like a golem with a million hands on a million throats to choke the honor out of decent, hardworking people...

The problem is, The Tea Bagger Party plans to ridicule the accomplishments of generations of great men and women. What can you do about that? Start by reading about how The Tea Bagger Party's skills are generally used to exploit, abuse, and exert power. Become informed about the deceit, lies, and propaganda surrounding its promotion of interdenominationalism. ...

Stand with me, be honest with me, and help me transcend traditional thinking, and together we'll encourage individuals to come out of their cocoons and flourish. We'll build a sane and healthy society free of The Tea Bagger Party's destructive influences. I'm counting on you. Thanks for reading this.

Don't you love that? Awesome.

Roy Zimmerman is pretty dang hilarious. What if the Beatles were Irish?

The Comics Curmudgeon will make you not only lol, but quite possibly lyao.

I have no words. Watch the video below.

And the flow chart:

So, what did you find funny on the interwebz this week?

Read more "Friday Funnies..."

Beautification: Spice Shelf

I'm working on making someone beautiful every day, as well as decluttering. Today I worked on the shelf above the kitchen sink, where we keep our most oft-used spices and our daily vitamins. The end product may not be all that beautiful but it is clean, organized and useful. This project spurred a full clean of our medicine cabinet too. All told, I tossed over 20 things of expired meds, old liquid medicine cups, empty spice bottles and just trash that was taking up space.

The shelf before:

and after:

Read more "Beautification: Spice Shelf..."

Tackle It Tuesday

Some things that really need tackling today!

• clean out email inbox
• write up list of LIGHT phone calls to be made
  
• make at least 3 phone calls for LIGHT
• if needed, email for help making phone calls
• tweek blog
• manicure!
• email about Friday's zoo trip
  
• make bathroom chore list

That's enough. I want the list to be possible to complete. I have a shit ton more stuff that needs doing, but I'm going to try and do these for now. :)

What about you, what are you tackling today? Just push forward, do one thing you've been putting off! You can do it!

Read more "Tackle It Tuesday..."

Happy New Year!

Yay! 2009 is all gone! Buh-bye, shitastic year!

I've got a lot of things brewing/percolating/marinating for 2010. Some really great energy from that Blue Moon and I think, perhaps, it's just my time to get back onto my Path. I'm feeling there is a way, here, so close, to melding my spirituality, my community organizing & political interests and my arts-craftsy stuff all together. Into something that both feeds my soul and can be a source of income for me.

I'm starting by creating, because this is the best way I know to get a hold of my thoughts and focus. I bought this Goddess Workbook Planner from Goddess Leonie and I lurve it. I have printed it out and I'm completing it bit by bit and it's really helping me visualize what I want my life and space and self to be. Good stuff. If you are in need of some focus and prompting, I highly recommend it. Her whole site is gorgeous and inspirational.

I'm also updating my Pagan Home Management Binder, which I have sort of let go of in recent months. I'm rereading that thread, which my friend Jess and I ran over at mdc, and it's bringing back a lot of great memories----of making the binder and of working with Jess, who is amazing. I'm hoping to collaborate more with her in the future.

Anyway, I'm hoping I'll have more tangible to show/write about in the next couple of days. :) Read more "Happy New Year!..."