DoK- does the center where you're going offer any sort of child care? They must be familiar with this sort of thing since they provide services for parents of children! Our local hospital offers a sort of "sick day care" program for children who have things like chicken pox or the flu... I have no idea how you apply, who is eligible, or what it costs, but I know it was set up to provide short term care for children who can't be in school/at regular care. So maybe this center has something similar? Or the contact info for a drop-in program? I hope someone appears!
aweyn- Yay packing. Are you still in the idealistic "every box an itemized lable" or have your fallen into the "shove it in the box and tape it shut I'll deal with it later" phase?
TM moving- so, the local group I tried to get up and running years ago (2006) is up and running again! I managed the group for a year or so but them it sort of collapsed under "too much stuff"/"not enough interest". But a friend of mine brought it up the other day, and got the ball running, and dang it all... I have so much on my map this year about community and socializing and being a part of the group! So I'm not going to let this drop again.
Animals- so, as we work to get baba yaga's chicken hut up and running... we were offered a bunch of sheep. I guess a friend of my mom's knows someone who is downsizing their farm, they have sheep, they'd like to send the sheep to other home farms. NO idea if we could manage two sheep, NO idea what we'd do with them either.... but a neat thing to think about. And there are sheep in the kiddos' TMs.
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My book pic of the moment... Forests of the Heart by Charles deLint. It's a bit dark, and sort of explores the idea of cultural appropriation from a fey folk/sidhe angle. The tensions and alliances between the spirits of place that already called the "new world" home and the beings that "came over" to the new world from elsewhere (mostly Ireland, since deLint is big on the Celtic diaspora). The book also explores the concept of a "heart's home"... the place in this world or some other where an individual's spirit is at peace/in balance. The idea being that while everyone has one, many people have forgotten how to get back to this home, or have forgotten they every had this home, and are suffering in some way because their home is lost. Like I said, kinda dark and complicated. And more of a winter book... it's odd to read of ice/snow when it's a good 90 degrees outside!
More in line with the temp I'm also reading the Wood Wife by Terri Windling (part of the Brian Froud series). Set in the desert so nice and hot
it's also a bit complicated. It's an interesting mystery of a sorts, pulls on a lot of spiral imagery and animal people concepts.
And to round out the "fun fiction" I'm also reading (and working through) Ogam Weaving Word Wisdom by Erynn Rowan Laurie. She is one of the "elders" (in experience, not years
) of the Celtic Recon faith and the book is great. It's very gritty (not all luvy duvy white light, but a more in depth look at the original society and the role of religion/ogam within it) and scholarly, but also lots of hands on work... how to make and use the divination tools, and how to approach the different entities. Much fun!
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you need a friendly helper! isnt there anyone who could do something like that?
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