Opposite Ends of the Spectrum

I will start on the happy end where my heart is full. I stopped to drop off essential oils for my sister in law to my brother on Wednesday. While we were talking he mentioned that I should put some air in my front tire because it looked low.  I always think it looks low and usually it’s fine but with the temperature change I figured it couldn’t hurt. I dropped the girl off for her night class and I headed to the Honda store. Why the Honda store? I have no idea? It is not a place I have ever picked before…ever. I honestly have no idea why I took my car there but I am so glad I did. I walked in and talked to a younger man and he said sure no problem I just have to finish up with this customer and I will check your tires for you. While I waited I noticed that everyone was starting to leave. I asked the older gentleman “you close at 6, right?” He responded “No ma’am, we close at five. The sales team is here until 6.”  That’s when I said “I didn’t know that, I can come back tomorrow.” He assured me it was fine. The younger man brought in my car around 5:15 and started checking pressures. It seemed that all of the tires were low but that one back one was exceptionally low. He tested it….took it off the car…plugged it….and patched it. There was a roofing staple in there and that was causing a slow leak. I am fairly certain that if I would have taken my car anywhere else they would have put some air in and sent me on my merry way, especially if they were closed. I had no idea that the back tire was even low! I didn’t think that there were people like that left in this world. Whenever I do happen to stumble across it I get overwhelmed with gratitude. I almost cried more than once. The girl who takes the money was long gone and when I asked if they wanted my information to bill me (I have been there before for an oil change) they looked at me and said “don’t worry about it….Merry Christmas. Who does that?

You better believe that I went home and baked some dark chocolate brownies with fresh cranberries and dark chocolate chips to take to them with some of my handiwork the next day. When I delivered on Thursday during lunch the older gentleman said “yep, this girl is definitely a maker.” I wanted to make sure they knew how much I appreciated them and their hard work.

I never had a chance to fill you in on last weekends activities. There were so many different events happening at the same time so I had to pick and choose. My friend NF was participating in a newer craft show in a fancy old building. She has always been super supportive and has shown up to almost every essential oil class/party/craft show I have ever had so she was a priority. I purchased some gifts from her and this other lady who made beautiful bird food wreaths. I will study the bird feeder wreath before I gift the one and put out the other. This idea is too perfect to not copy. When I say copy I mean for me…not for resale….I can figure out how to make most things.

Speaking of birds….after this stop we headed down to the gardens for a backyard birding seminar. It was very informative and many of the people I met at the naturalist informational event were there as well.  That was how I ended my vacation…no more fun…back to work.

Remember how I mentioned my allergic reaction to the frozen pasta we had at out Christmas party? Well, this was the worst reaction ever! Sunday and Monday I ended up with hives in addition to the bags under my eyes. Here is what the bags looked like on Thursday….

So horrible! It’s been a week and it still looks like this…so embarrassing. All of this from the crap they put in our food! I didn’t have any reaction from the homemade pasta. What in the world am I going to do if I have to make everything from scratch? Who has time for that???

Now it’s time to tell you about the “icky” side of the spectrum. Do you remember that lady from book club that ambushed the owners at my last pop up?  The one who we have discussed ghosting numerous times over the years? It came to a head last night….

We decided to have a Christmas party book club this year. We haven’t had one the last three years because “icky” has a problem with Christmas. As a group we had decided to skip December instead of making her feel uncomfortable. After her behavior at my pop up we discussed it again and decided to have a Christmas party anyway. She chose to show up which made our gathering uncomfortable to say the least. We tried to do our gift exchange while she was in line getting her food so she didn’t feel uncomfortable.

We discussed the book and then moved on to other topics. Somebody brought up the topic of Baby it’s Cold Outside. We all agreed that the world had gone mad except for “icky”.  I have said before that I wear my heart on my sleeve and maybe you don’t really know how true that statement is….every emotion I experience shows on my face…. When she said “I think that song is icky” I looked at her….I looked at her hard. Have you ever been drinking and you were just at that point where you were starting to get a buzz and you had to concentrate really hard on what someone is saying? That is exactly how my brain felt….only I was drinking water and a tiramusu latte….there was no alcohol involved….only pent up anger. I looked at her incredulously and said “icky?” I must have repeated myself three times before I bit my tongue and turned to the person on my left. She jumped up from the table and grabbed her purse. The girl said “you forgot your pen.” Icky snarled in a hateful tone “it’s out!”  The girl looked at her kind of funny and said “yeah, that’s why I am telling you.” The girl thought she meant it’s “out” of her purse. SB had to explain to the girl after “ickys” abrupt departure that she meant it was out of ink. The girl learned a lot last night.

Icky proceeded to post a passive aggressive quote on Facebook that we all knew was directed at us. As a group we all agreed on what to say. Thankfully SB is calmer and more eloquent than I am. “After you left, we discussed your abrupt departure and decided that maybe our book club is not the best fit. Best wishes….”

She responded with something about being hurt and stunned about being openly insulted that she had to remove herself as a form of self preservation. I….openly insulted her with my stunned face when I repeated her “icky” back to her. Apparently there is some part of me that can hold back because the inner me was screaming “You don’t get to have an opinion about a Christmas song!!!!!” We have given up three years of Christmas cheer to coddle your crazy!! Four years ago we gave small trinkets at our December book club and she acted like we had given her the Ebola virus. I think the next time a stranger wants to join our book club we need to have a psych eval paper for them to fill out. We are a drama free zone and as the founder and leader it is my job to make sure it stays that way.

There is part of me that feels bad. I didn’t dislike her…she was quirky, funny and kind of odd, but that added to her charm. Last night I tried to count the conversations the group has had about how to get rid of her nicely and I couldn’t, there were too many. She was toxic to our group and this was a long time coming. We have never kicked anyone out of our book club before….I don’t like the way it feels….Zia

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A Grateful Heart

It’s been a long day with some unexpected issues, I will be back tomorrow with details. What did I learn today? There still are good kind people in this world. It’s not something I see everyday and whenever I do it makes me weepy… Zia

Focus….Focus….Focus

I think I have less focus on vacation than normal? I have found myself easily sucked into the couch by the Girl this past week…..more than once.  Last night I was up until almost 1 am because I couldn’t stop watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Three episodes in and I am hooked.  Maybe I needed the extra downtime this week?

Last night we had our Christmas type party/ baby sprinkle for one of the doctors. We were going to have it at a restaurant that nobody liked except crude girl so some people got together and made a compromise behind the scenes. We ended up having it in the breakroom at work and I picked up the food on my way. At least ten people backed out of it and it became more about the sprinkle than the Christmas party. Which is fine…but we never should have combined the two. The food was horrible so that didn’t help. If there was any question about me having a food reaction to frozen cavatelli….it’s gone now. I suspected it last year which is one of the reasons I wanted to learn how to make it from scratch. I woke up this morning with red puffy bags under my eyes, the upper lid was only slightly puffy and a weird dry line above my lips. All of these symptoms I had previously experienced last year.  I am definitely reacting to something they are putting in the pasta. The sad thing is….it wasn’t even worth it. It’s extra sad to have a reaction to less than stellar food.

This is part of the reason that I have been trying to pay attention to how foods make me feel. The logical next step is exploring Ayurveda. I am not giving up meatballs or bacon and a couple other carnivore foods but I don’t eat those every day. I am just exploring with a recipe or two and see how it makes me feel after a couple of days. Sometime this week I will give it a go. I was planning on getting supplies today but I couldn’t bring myself to go back out in the cold windy rain.

There were quite a few craft shows today but the only one I stopped at was the one down the street on my way home. I did buy a present and one for myself…they were only $4.00!

I talked to the girl who made them and she is going to make me Sassanach glasses for my Hogmanay party this year. I am so glad I stopped!!! The price was right for my budget and the girls will love it! I guess it’s a good thing I had an appointment to get my hair cut this morning or I might never have left the house today.

The other day after scoring some killer deals at Ace True Value on bird food, I ran into Lowes to price their suet feeders. I wandered around the plant section and picked up this little guy for $3.00. He was drowning in his soaked soil, no wonder he was turning brown. I trimmed him up and have him in the Boy’s room to dry out where he will be safe from the cat who likes to nibble. I was talking to the plant when I was trimming it and the boy just thought that was the most hysterical thing….I always talk to my plants, don’t you? I hope the little guy makes it.

When I came home from my brief outing today there was a package in the mail. I couldn’t for the life of me remember ordering something from Amazon? I thought I was losing it for sure until I opened it….

Yep…no way did I order this. Turns out my out of town brother decided that I needed it. The Girl had lots of fun with it today. I played a little but I still feel like a giant goober saying “Alexa…” The fact that she will read my books on Kindle is my favorite part! I have another pop up next week and there is a book that I keep meaning to read so this will work perfectly. I can make and listen…my favorite multi task. I am almost done with Crazy Rich Asians for book club next week. I figure by the time I clean up the kitchen tonight I will finish it. Speaking of that book…..

Is incredulous the new overused word in contemporary fiction? This author uses it quite a bit and so did Cassandra Clare in Lady Midnight. It’s just something I noticed. Every time I hear the word in my head I say “there it is again.”

Have you ever heard of  Lauren Singer? She is quite the inspiration! I don’t know if I can ever be as efficient as she is but she does inspire me to do better.

Less waste…use it or lose it….minimalist ideas….these are all things that I have been working on this year.  She has a blog and I will be reading it.

I am hoping to pace myself tomorrow so I don’t get overwhelmed. I have a new yoga class in the am so that’s two hours gone right there….An hour class and thirty minutes drive time each way. There a a couple of craft shows that I want to check out and a backyard birding seminar I want to attend. The birding seminar is high on the list since I am trying to get into a naturalist program with these same people. That was my big adventure Wednesday night. I went from curious to excited in that little time. There are some pretty passionate people in that program and I found it quite contagious…..Zia

Kitchen Witching

I woke up yesterday a little irritated at myself. I almost made a post about it but decided it would be best to leave it alone. I feel like I spent my last post explaining/defending myself for my choice in tattoos and my beliefs. Why do I do that? I need to stop apologizing for being me! I will leave it at that…..

I would say that vacation day two was a success although I did start to have a little anxiety over the fact that it feels like it is going by way too fast. I met my friend and Reiki master VS for lunch, it was nice to catch up. I can’t believe we live three minutes apart and haven’t seen each other.  She has so much family stuff going on right now. We talked about setting up a Reiki share after her father’s estate is settled. Just hanging out with her for a bit inspired me to practice Reiki on some herbs and crystals last night.

I did a little bit of shopping and ended up meeting the boy at Sam’s Club. I had to pick the girl up from school so there was no sense in going back home. Then there was that lake effect band of snow which made for a tricky commute in some spots. Needless to say…once we got home, I stayed there.

I made my first batch of elderberry syrup…..

I will use it all season long. The immune boosting blend of elderberries, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and honey works like magic. The kids must be getting used to the tart smell of the berries cooking because they didn’t complain about the smell while it was cooking like they usually do. I finished this and started on the Kahlua. While I was waiting for it to finish simmering for an hour, I broke out the herbs and started on my dream pillows.

I still have to go to the store and buy the fabric but the most time consuming part is done. I mixed up some lavender, catnip, chamomile, whole cloves, hops, lemon verbena, mugwort, spearmint, rosemary, and rose petals. I topped it off with some quartz crystals and charged the lot with Reiki.

I decided to leave the crystals in the herbs for an extra kick until I make the pillows. I also left the bowl on the floor next to my bed last night. I had this dream last night….

I was in a parking lot with the boy when I noticed the eagle soaring above. I called to the boy but her didn’t hear me. At one point she flew over me and completely blocked the sun. She landed in front of me….like two feet in front of me. I looked at her and said “you are beautiful and I can’t believe I am standing this close to you.” Then she transformed into a woman and I exclaimed “sister!” Suddenly we were surrounded by people. I was able to put my hands on hers and I said “you are beautiful, thank you.” That’s when I woke up. I have no idea what it means but I am going to say that the dream pillows are a success.

I don’t have too much planned today. I have one thing I am checking out later tonight and the rest is errands. I do have to stop at the post office to mail my Christmas cards. This too is a tradition that is waning. I have asked myself repeatedly over the last couple of days why do I still do it? The stamps cost more than the cards these days! It’s a nice way to let people you don’t often see know that you are thinking of them. Which is the best answer I could come up with….Zia

Believe in the Magic

I have taken a lot of crap over the years for my beliefs and I suspect I always will. It certainly doesn’t change my beliefs. Heck if twelve years of Catholic school didn’t squash it out of me….nothing will.  How old are you when you are in second grade? That’s when I knew that belief system wasn’t for me and I survived ten more years of it.

I remember someone saying to me once when I was in my late twenties or maybe it was my early thirties “don’t stray too far from the norm” Too late… I was never the norm and I never will be. Why would I want to be normal? I never understood that one either.

Where am I going with this? Well today I did a thing……

I made the appointment for today way back in September because I knew I would be on vacation this week.  I brought the love in later…. I found a card from my mom and she always signed her cards Love, Mom. I took it in a couple of weeks later and asked him to add Love in her handwriting. It’s very strange to have a tattoo that I can actually see but I love it! It’s not very big and in a place that can be easily covered with makeup if necessary. I can’t imagine when it would be necessary but it’s an option.

My friends know and accept this part of me. PT is a fellow believer and while I don’t think SB believes she will at least throw in “on this plane of existence” after a statement. I do love my friends!

Speaking of SB we met Saturday after my pop up shop at a local winery for lunch. I have never been to a place that has been more hit or miss than this one is.  The wine with the California grapes was still excellent but the food was horrible. I was there three times this summer and it was fine and now it’s not again. At least it didn’t make me sick like the first time. Anyhoo…we were there for my birthday and since one of my presents is relevant to the topic I will share it will you. It’s made of some kind of bamboo? It’s perfect for me….

As for my vacation…day 1: The boy stayed up after he came home from work to take pictures for the Christmas card. It was a good thing because the Sam’s Club special expired today. It didn’t take too long to capture a few good shots but it was a lot before my coffee. I let the boy sleep and took the girl to school. They were putting the Christmas tree up downtown, it was interesting to watch, even if briefly.

It was laying down when I went up the hill to drop her off and it looked like this after I dropped her off and came back down the hill. Very fast work I thought.  I ran a few errands and then picked her back up. It doesn’t seem like a lot but the Christmas card pictures were a big thing as well as the tattoo. This is a staycation with no big craft show at the end so I am going to do as much relaxing as possible.

Before I forget…I had another one of those dreams…the ones that you know  have a deep meaning but you have no idea what it means?  I was in the center of water somewhere and I wanted to see the view in front. There was a small barrier but where I wanted to go was only four or five feet away. A voice said “you can’t go that way it’s too dangerous.” You need to go that way.” I turned to look behind me and there was a smaller body of water and it was violently rushing up the stairs. In my head I thought “how is that safer?” The voice said “take _____ with you, he’ll help you get there.” Then I woke up. I knew the name but I never met him. When I woke up the name was gone but the rest of the dream remained…..Zia

Keeping it Low Key

Today was a really nice day. There was no stress or rushing around, it was a nice change. This is the first Thanksgiving in a couple of years that I haven’t worked and while I miss the tip money, it was a nice to relax.

I spent the day with PT and her daughter. We had an incredibly delicious dinner and watched all of the Friends Thanksgiving episodes. It’s not really Thanksgiving until Joey gets a turkey stuck on his head.  Buffy isn’t on Netflix anymore and I didn’t think to grab my DVD so we didn’t watch Pangs this year. The girl put it on last night but it was late and I was tired and kept nodding off.  I was awake for the important parts I guess.

We made a super fast craft project before I left. I bought a big container of clear plastic ornaments last year after Christmas to put bath salts in for my craft shows. Since I am only doing two more pop ups at my favorite coffee shop, I am not making them to sell. I split them with PT and we made some Christmas presents. I made some with a red plaid for the girls in my Outlander group and the others I will give to the girls at work.

Yesterday was another nice quiet day….after work. Work was still crazy. I met my brother for lunch after work. He was off and not in a hurry and since it was my birthday I picked the vault restaurant. For about half a second my sister in law and nephews were going to come and I was to meet them at a local winery and I use that term loosely…..they don’t have a single wine I like. It turns out they don’t open until 4 on Wednesday so it was just my brother and I which is exactly what I wanted.

I had vented to the girls at work about it…it was my birthday….shouldn’t I get to spend it with my people? Does that sound mean? So I was happy when it ended up just being the two of us. When I was telling my other brother about it he said “doesn’t that offend you a little? She was using your birthday to go to a place she wanted and assumed you liked because it was a winery?”  I was not offended, I was relieved. I signed up for lunch with my brother not the whole family. Maybe it should bother me? I got what I wanted… a quiet birthday lunch with my brother. I even took my birthday off of Facebook. If you never tried it….I highly recommend it.

I saved one bag of the homemade cavatelli from Sunday for my birthday. I came home from lunch and started on the sauce and meatballs. I hung out with the kids a bit, even took a nap before we ate and I opened my present. I knew what I was getting because I picked it out and even gave the boy a $10.00 coupon for it. I don’t usually shop at Bed Bath and Beyond but if they are going to keep sending me $10.00 coupons…I am going to use them.  I have wanted a Selenite lamp for a while so I was super excited to come across it on sale.

It was a great birthday present! ML from work and my Outlander group found this for me….

I told her it would hang on my stove until the day I die. It was so perfect!  I am meeting SB for lunch Saturday after my pop up at a local winery that has enough sense to use a California grape to make it’s tasty Cabernet. That will be the end of my birthday festivities.

Next stop…vacation mode. I am on vacation next week and I am looking forward to not hearing an alarm clock for a whole week.  I have some things planned but it’s a staycation and I am going to enjoy every second of it! I stumbled across a thing on Wednesday that looked interesting but it was happening at the same time that I would be down at the university with the girl. I saved the event on a whim. The girl came home from her grandmother’s today and it turns out her dad will be picking her up from school that day. Now I can go check it out….funny how that keeps happening? Things just keep working out….

I only participated a tiny bit in the Black Friday Frenzy. It’s still Thursday so how did I manage that?  I used the Petsmart pick up in store feature to get the dog biscuit special as well as the cat litter special. Kohl’s practically gave me things and will ship them to me for free…except for the girl’s pajamas, I have to pick those up in the store. There is only one place I might go, unless they aren’t having any specials. We have a nice restaurant supply store that I want to check out but if they aren’t having any specials than I will just go next week. I am not interested in any crowds or heavy traffic….Zia

Pasta Power

Today I learned how to make Cavatelli from scratch. I also learned that the tool I picked up from a garage sale was the correct tool and it looked like it was only used once. It was well worth the $7.00 it cost me.

I showed up at Maria’s house about 10:10 am and her house was already filled with the wonderful smell of sauce. She was making gnocchi for her son to take because the family was doing some kind of Christmas adventure today. She topped of the gnocchi with a cured provolone cheese that she cured herself and holy wow was it the best cheese I ever tasted!

While she finished that, I set up the ingredients I brought.

I don’t use bleached flour but when a little old Italian woman tells you to bring something…you bring it. If you want to alter the recipe, do it on your own time. I certainly wasn’t going to insult this wonderful woman who gave me hours of her time to teach me.

First step is to sift the flour. She doesn’t have the kind that you squeeze the handle, she has one that you turn the handle. I must invest in one of these.

After sifting the five pound bag of flour you make a well and add four eggs.

Carefully start mixing with a spoon

Add three cups of water and start boxing the dough. That’s what I thought when I watched her sturdy fists go at it.

Once you get a good dough formed cover with plastic and let it rest. After a while go back and work the dough some more.  Once she thought I had this technique down she went and grabbed her food processor and showed me an easier way.We covered it up to rest again.

It was at this point she decided to add a quick gnocchi lesson. It is much quicker to make gnocchi. The technique of rolling it down the fork was tricky but I finally got it. I took a picture of her daughter showing me how…

We worked the cavatelli dough into little logs and let it rest again. We cleaned up everything at this point and then she started rolling out the dough.Cut, stretch, and put on cookie sheet. Then the fun began…

This is what my hand crank puts out. It works well but is time consuming. Someone put a motor on Maria’s crank and it was super fast compared to mine.

Then we stopped to eat lunch.  Mmmmm it was so good!  Oh and here’s a cleaning tip I learned today. Have you ever cleaned out a bowl that had dough in and everything gets sticky? It you toss some flour in the bowl and work it in to the little bit of dough that’s left…it crumbles right into the garbage can. What a great tip!

Next comes the precooking. With the gnocchi we just froze the pasta on a cookie sheet and then transferred to a freezer bag. The cavatelli needs an extra step. Place in boiling water just until it boils again and they start floating.

Place in a bowl with cold water and ice if necessary.

Then it’s ready to be bagged. This recipe made 9lbs of cavatelli. I am giving my brother 8lbs for Christmas Eve.

Now I know how to make my favorite comfort food I can live anywhere. I’m sure that sounds silly to most but I know you can’t find this west of Ohio in very many places. It’s an Ohio, PA,  New Jersey, and New York thing.

I also want to try this recipe with a gluten free cup for cup flour, just to see if it will work. She gave me her pizzelle recipe while I was there and an invitation to return anytime she said I was a good student because I know things already…. She is adorable and reminded me of my great grandmother the whole time I was there…Zia

Still in Awe

Today I had a Christmas crafting date with PT. I got to her house around 11:30 and we started setting up the table. I looked at the supplies and realized that I had forgotten one of the Jacquard painting kits at home. So I ran home to get it and I am so glad that I did. I have never been so happy to have forgotten something…ever!

I ran in and grabbed the paint and my Yeti full of ice water that I also forgot and then headed back out. I was driving down my road and just had passed the church where the boy goes to to catch Pokemon in the parking lot. I came around the little bend and I saw two birds in the distance. In my head I thought “turkey vultures” because of the wing span and then…. they flapped their wings….in unison. I have never seen turkey vultures do this but that is still where my mind was. I got to the stop sign at the end of the street where I was turning left and I got a closer look. It was a pair of eagles!!!!!  I turned onto the road because I thought it was a bit safer than that stop sign and was able to stop since there was no car behind me. She swooped my car so low I felt like I could have touched her if I could have reached through the windshield. She flew up to a pine tree where I thought she would land but passed on that idea. That was when I looked for her mate and noticed people in the side yard of the house on my left. They were out in the yard with a real camera. I hope they got some great pictures. I was in too much awe to even think about grabbing my phone to take a picture.

If I wouldn’t have forgotten that paint I would not have been there in that moment. Did I mention they were a pair? I am going to live off of this moment for days!! This was so close to my house…I can’t even. They were so low too…if I would have been on land and not in a car I could have taken a decent picture. The feelings that I felt when I saw them today were worth more than a picture…or maybe that’s what I am telling myself because  I didn’t grab my phone, I chose to live in that moment. I will savor this memory for as long as I have one.

I got back to PT’s, told her about the sighting and got busy with our project.  I have stenciled a lot of things in my lifetime. I have stenciled wood, walls, bags, and shirts and never had an issue. This is the first time either of us have worked with adhesive screen stencils. They are NOT your friend!  I did better using an ink pad than using the paints. I only used the paint on the bags, the dishtowels and pillows I used the ink. I did not expect this project to take three hours but it did. Thankfully it was spent in the company of a friend….our struggle was real!!

My friends will just have to accept the ink smudges around the stencils and the miscellaneous places that were smudged from random parts of my hand and arm. We made pillows and dishcloths and I made three tote bags while PT made some fabric baskets.  I’m not as worried about the tote bags because I can embellish them a bit further….giving them an Outlander feel. The pillows show the smudges more than anything. We are both still giving these as gifts. Hopefully our peeps will appreciate our work? My advice….is never to use the adhesive screen stencils…ever!

The kids and I put up the Christmas tree last night. Mostly because I need time to get good pictures for the Christmas cards. The star we used last year died. I tried replacing each light but it was done. I had purged the Christmas angel because I can’t keep everything so now we need a tree topper. The girl and I were at Target and I bought a glittered $5.00 star for now. I will wait for a much better price before I buy a permanent one. The tree just looked so ridiculous without anything! I also noticed that I have too many insignificant ornaments on the tree. It’s time for a purge there as well.

I told the girl today that I might have to limit my shopping hours to half day Wednesdays. The weekends are too busy! Between the traffic and the lines in the store, I don’t think I can do it. It’s a good thing that I don’t buy a whole lot from the stores…..Zia

Crazy Nights……

My dream world has been crazy busy as of late! I woke up this morning feeling like I had been wrestling a bear all night….I’m tired and my good shoulder hurts? I won’t bore you with my last round of dreams but I will mention some of the highlights.

Monday night I dreamed of a fairy/angel? She was talking to me but I wasn’t listening…I couldn’t find her wings. I knew she had wings and I couldn’t find them and when I mentioned it I was surrounded by a warm pink light. This was a new one for me! Someone suggested I look up Archangel Chamuel….I have never heard of him? It was a suggestion….I glanced at some info but it didn’t seem relevant to me?  Warm pink light..what could that mean?

Last night’s dreams were all over the place. There were dreams about friends, work, and outdoor picnics but there was one common denominator. In every cluster dream there was a foreign man dressed in all white who kept handing me a piece of paper with 11:11 on it. The same thing happened last week in one of my Jon dreams. I keep reading all of these different articles but in truth…I have no idea what it means for me.

I was excited to finally get a package in today’s mail! It was one of my Ebay mistakes.  I saw these earring on Instagram….

I thought “how pretty, I must make these for my Outlander group.” I ordered what I thought was a group of two….times eight. Turns out…that if I would have looked a little closer it said lot of ten. Yeppers…..I have 80 charms…yikes!

I guess I will be making more than earrings for my Hogmanay party. They came from China so they were extremely economical but still. Not my smartest move…

Today I went to the BMV to renew my license. It is absolutely crazy the amount of documentation that you need now. This is in my opinion another example of the basic law abiding citizen having to pay the price for criminal behavior. I went for the extra compliant license so I brought everything. Later in the day the girl took the paper with the photocopy of my new license picture out of the glove box and said “this was today? Those bangs don’t even look like your bangs.” I looked at it and she was right. The wind must have been blowing…oh well, what’s done is done. Next stop…passport.

We are supposed to get some dicey weather tomorrow. I heard something about it but didn’t pay too much attention. I stopped at the grocery store in the middle of the afternoon and couldn’t even believe all of the people! While  I was in line there were these two guys in line behind me. The more they talked the more I was picturing Statler and Waldorf…..only with Italian accents. They were cracking me up.

I stopped to get gas on the way home from the girl’s night class and it was the same thing at the gas station. It’s Ohio….our weather is always shitty…why is everyone freaking out? Maybe it’s because of how bad our road crews suck? It’s kind of early in the season…I’m hoping it melts on the roads.  I have my Italian class tomorrow night and downtown is always the worst when it snows. I hope it doesn’t become an issue.

I started making plans with the friends that I never get to see today. I have a coffee date and a lunch date on my vacation the last week of the month. I have one more person to reach out to and I hope she won’t be out of town visiting her son’s family. We never seem to find the time to connect. I will text her tomorrow or Friday and then my vacation week will be full.  My goal is no alarm and full on mosey…..Zia

 

Sneaky Crud

I thought I was above the crud? I might get the beginning of something but I am usually able to fight it off. Not this time. The nurses in the back including a few that only come once a week had this last week…ugh.  I started feeling it Wednesday night and it went down hill fast from there. I did the necessary running around yesterday and haven’t left the house since.

I have still managed to get some things accomplished…creatively speaking. I am just now making myself get to the laundry. First and foremost I booked a flight to see my brother next month. I kept waiting for a better price from a different airport and it never happened. It looks like I am driving to the airport I fear because of how badly it’s set up. Unless they have made improvements from 1994…I guess I will be finding out soon. I couldn’t beat the price…less than $160.00 for a round trip flight to the sun and that includes luggage. Luggage? I will need to borrow a suitcase for this trip….I purged my outdated luggage a long time ago.

I can’t even believe I booked a flight! I haven’t left the house all day and still haven’t even watched the next Outlander yet but I booked a flight. That is a sure sign that I don’t feel good because I could have watched the next episode this morning.

I did finish up this project…

It’s not the best picture I know but I have these things everywhere. I was going to leave the house to go get gift bags for the ones I knew were presents but I couldn’t make myself do it because of the crud.  I will wait to post this to my business Facebook page until my brother gets his later this week. I used my mom’s old Christmas tree to make these and attached this quote….

My mom loved the Little House books and read them with me when I was little. I imagine that the stories are somewhat similar to stories she was told growing up. Originally I was going to put tiny clear ornaments with curled strips of book pages in them on the trees….I nixed that Idea when I got this far. Simple is best…they are fine the way they are. A memory of my mom and her old tree…my brother definitely needs to get his first.

I also finished the family history project including the wrapping. I will post the project after Christmas…

Some things have shifted this week. I woke up Wednesday a different person than I was the day before. I honestly don’t know how to describe it? Things that normally bother me are not bothering me now. People I have been on the fence about are showing their true colors…..

Very strange things/energies are at play right now. I haven’t been taking cold medicine specifically because of my dreams and 11:11. My dreams were intense last night so I’m glad I didn’t. Unfortunately I did not document them and I only remember the eagle flying over the window at work. I have had a few eagle dreams as of late…only time will tell what that means. Oh and there was the part about the guy who was having a meltdown because bad guys were going after his people to get at him. I really have no idea what that is about?? That’s not my stuff? Maybe someone else’s stuff dribbled into my dream? It doesn’t make sense to me.  All I know is that I woke up different on Wednesday.

There was so much more that I had wanted to say but the couch and blanket are calling….Zia