~*~ August Pagan Familes Circle~*~

[CariOfOz]

Happy August Mamas!

I hope you all have a lovely Lughnasadh! I guess that technically makes it Imbolc here... but I'm focusing more on just observing the seasons flow by and trying to be a part of it, not so much on names and such

It WAS a lovely day here, Mother Nature is treating us to some spectacular springlike weather.. it was 27C here yesterday! We've spent our time in the garden and I'm loving it. I even started a gardeners journal today so I can keep track of what's going on out there, and to ramble in about my connection to it all.

[DaughterOfKali]

Hello friends! Hello August!

[femme_rouge]

Starting fresh with a new month

Happy Lammas! I quickly skimmed the last 5-7 pages of July, but I just need to let it go...

I started a honey sourdough bread last night. This morning, the kids and I lit candles and each prepared a strip of dough representing ourselves and then we braided them together and connected the ends into a circle to represent our family love. It's rising and will be ready to cook in 1 hour.

Hoping this month brings good, fresh energy to all and that the waning moon dissipates stresses and struggles.I could really use some of this.
)O(

[Maiasaura]

Subbing! Happy Lammas! (Imbolc for you, Cari )

[Aubergine68]

Happy Lammas (easier to type than Lughnasadh ) I wish everyone reading this a lovely day and all good things in the coming month.

I always think of Juliet's birthday when I see the word Lammas "On Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen" - that's the first place I ever saw the word. My dd is approaching a Julietish age.

Dh and I were talking about our marriage last night, in a good way. Now I'm trying to think of something romantic to do today.

I love reading about things like your bread ritual, Femme Rouge. What a beautiful idea, making something like that together as a family. I think I will adapt something like that for the fall equinox, which is closer to harvest time here.

I wonder, though, does anyone else have a hard time getting excited about baking bread in August? We have no a/c and this is the hottest time of the year, so we usually don't run the oven. And in this climate, there is only one grain harvest and it won't come for a few weeks yet. Pancakes for breakfast, though - that has to count. And I'm trying to eat low-carb....

You know, I am feeling a little rebellious about "food" holidays, esp anything that might involve me in the kitchen all day while the rest of my family has fun. Maybe something on the grill? I also resist any pre-planning for holidays these days....I think this is still a backlash from how Christmas went last year for me.

Definitely going to be out in the garden and putting together a meal with some first fruits of the harvest though -raspberries, chard, peas, beans, potatoes -- no tomatoes yet, this year, boo! Maybe served with a chicken soup from the fresh organic bird we had a couple days ago. Must get on that.

[tallulahma]

happy august!!!



we are still in a hotel, but we are going to attempt to have a very special Lughnasadh anyway... this is a big baking day for me, and this is my first year gluten free... and without an oven....
maybe go to a farmers market and marvel t how different the harvest season in our new region looks?

i dont know.

we shall see how it goes!

[tallulahma]

Originally Posted by Aubergine68

Dh and I were talking about our marriage last night, in a good way. Now I'm trying to think of something romantic to do today.

aww...

love is in the air. last night was our 6th wedding anniversary.... it was spent with us running errands and dh doing work on his masters. at the end of the night we opened a bottle of wine and spent some time talking. its so awesome to reconnect in little ways like that around times where the seasons and ebbs are changing. i always feel like we have to make sure to root into each other around transitions or we spend the next few months reeling.

[Aeress]

Pics of the house all pertty coming soon to facebook. Gotta grab my camera. I think we are ready, in fact, they just stopped by to see the one child they hadn't. They told us the house met standards and they need to call our "collateral person".
Your love and support has mean't more to me than I can express.
I will be back in touch soon.

[mamaofthree]

happy august!

h

[Maiasaura]

Originally Posted by Aubergine68

You know, I am feeling a little rebellious about "food" holidays, esp anything that might involve me in the kitchen all day while the rest of my family has fun. Maybe something on the grill? I also resist any pre-planning for holidays these days....I think this is still a backlash from how Christmas went last year for me.

Definitely going to be out in the garden and putting together a meal with some first fruits of the harvest though

Me, sort of. I LOVE being in the kitchen all day, but it jerks my chain that ds hates food. I'm glad I had my best gf here yesterday to appreciate it
BUT.
Today I had thoughts of wondering what it would be like to not go all-out (or even partially-out) for the holidays.
My ds couldn't care less, and M, well, we haven't yet had any holidays together, but he hates them. Has oodles of bad memories of them. I said "create new ones" and he thinks that's a marvelous idea, but I think that'll be easier said than done.
I might scale back in a huge way. Most of my holidaying is in my spiritual head anyway I do them very privately. I have always been a big holiday person, but as my ds has gotten older, he couldn't care less, about the Pagan ones, anyway. He's all about Christmas (and the resulting gimme-fest) and Easter (with the plastic-filled-crap-from-China egg fest).
Anyway. With ds feeling like that, and M slowly re-entering the world with someone-who-cares-about-holidays, we'll have to see.

In my decluttering, I cut down from like 8 huge Rubbermaid bins of holiday stuff, to two. One entirely for Yule tree decorations, and one for all the other holidays.

Originally Posted by tallulahma

aww...
love is in the air.

It is! M has been all over gushing with love for me lately It's wonderful to hear. I'm so mad at his masculine arse for losing 20-odd pounds in a month, with no effort I said something to him this morning on the phone that with his weight loss, I will look even fatter by comparison, and he was so offended. He said "I don't ever want to hear you say that again." He loves me exactly like I am. I don't-- but I'm working on re-writing the old tapes in my head with the beautiful things he says to me

Originally Posted by Aeress

Pics of the house all pertty coming soon to facebook. Gotta grab my camera. I think we are ready, in fact, they just stopped by to see the one child they hadn't. They told us the house met standards and they need to call our "collateral person".
Your love and support has mean't more to me than I can express.
I will be back in touch soon.

Aww
Why do you have to post pics on FB? What is a collateral person? Grrr. I'm so pissed off on your account. It sux. What state do you live in, again?

[Aeress]

Maia- Oh, the pics were just to show off my pretty house. It wasn't really related to the visit, but since I got interrupted while typing, the sentence didn't make sense. The collateral person is someone who can verify that I'm a good Mom- not good parents, but good Mom.

[mamaofthree]

i love the holidays, especially ones that only involve food. love cooking, hate gift giving/buying. i have taken to donating to charities during the holidays now. all the people i know IRL have everything, i can't stand shopping and why give them more shit to store someplace! lol

ok, so i said in the july thread my dinner was AWESOME! it turned out great. pork on the grill, corn on the grill, au gratin potatoes (from scratch), rosemary and garlic bread, and the best damn salad! (rocket, spinach, goat cheese, dried blueberries, walnuts and a blueberry dressing).

so on facebook apparently you can do some sort of 21 question thing on people. well i have had 4 people do this on me and none know me IRL really and all say i think boxed wine is classy and i can't cook! i don't drink at all. haven't even had a mixed drink in 12 years. i don't like it. i can, however pick out a fab bottle of good wine even though i don't drink the stuff (just like i can make a great cup of coffee even though i don't drink it at all). and i love to cook and i think i am pretty darn good at it. especially the last 6 or so years. i have really broken out of my up bringing and experiement alot. lol not sure why it pisses me off, but it does. lol

h

[Maiasaura]

Thread Hijack, LOL

Originally Posted by mamaofthree

i love the holidays, especially ones that only involve food. love cooking, hate gift giving/buying. i have taken to donating to charities during the holidays now. all the people i know IRL have everything, i can't stand shopping and why give them more shit to store someplace! lol

So...srsly. Me, too. Everybody I know that I give gifts to, even including DS, already have anything they need.
DS isn't really a hoarder, but he refuses to weed stuff. He's gotten ever so slightly better this past year, but not really much. I still have to take advantage of his ADHD forgetfulness and go in there when he's not home and weed things
At least he's a kid and can always use something new.
My mom lacks for absolutely nothing. She's said she doesn't want anything anymore.
I don't want anything anymore, except maybe gift cards, cause I can always use things-- but things I need, kwim? Nothing anyone would want to give me for a gift, like...oh...replacement mascara

So...what are y'all (everybody) doing for holidays this year? That involve giving?
I don't make things, and even if I did, nobody'd want anything homemade. I don't want anything. I'm decluttering like a madwoman, finally.

What does one do when one doesn't want to (and can't really afford to) give gifts? What about when people expect them?
And the worst part-- what about when people expect them, because it's the current standard/status quo, and their standards are way higher than yours (e.g. my nieces were raised very money-conscious and have very expensive tastes, and don't appreciate much of anything if it's not name-brand or expensive, or lots of quantity, or just plain lots of cash)?

I didn't give my nieces anything this year for their birthdays. I didn't even send a card. I've stopped sending cards, except for the Yule exchange But I just sent them notices on Facebook like all their friends did.
Was that lousy?
Should I have told them why I didn't send anything? I didn't because I couldn't afford anything, but that's embarrassing for certain reasons. But do you (collective you) actually tell people that?
But also because I can't possibly give them anything they'd care about. I don't have that kind of money. And I don't want to just give things because I'm "supposed" to. Especially when I'd know it was a waste of money I don't have, for something they'd probably end up tossing out anyway.

Thoughts?

[Valerie.Qc]

Happy Lammas!

Had a wonderful meal: pork on the BBQ, fresh veggies from the garden, corn on the cob from a nearby farm... bread was from the grocery... didn't have enough flour to bake one myself.

I just started a crock of sauerkraut! The cabbage was fresh so I didn't have to add brine... It will be yummy!

[Valerie.Qc]

Gifts... We mainly give inside our family only. (and a few selected friends who appreciate homemade and/or thoughtful gifts) We have a gifts exchange with the IL's for Christmas with a fixed amount of $ and I make something for my parents. That's about it.

[princesstutu]

Happy Lamas, mamas! (Just jumpin' in here. lol)

I surprised myself today because I was out enjoying the day and the fact that today is Lughnasadh popped into my head and I smiled. I actively tried to remember the Sabbat holidays for many years and could never remember more than a couple, but now that I'm branching out what I claim for my spiritual un-labeling, I remember. Isn't that just the way it is?

Blessings abound. Life is spectacular!

Bless!

[unschoolinmom]

Happy Lammas.

I just spent a good four hours in the maternity triage because of blood in my urine (sorry tmi)...

No pain, no chills. Nothing. They were perplexed, but my culture and lab tests show a severe UTI. I'm still bleeding and have a prescription for antibiotics. The baby's fine. Kicked me a few times for being disturbed by my nonsense.

Hope all you mamas are doing well.

[TulsiLeaf]

Hi everyone! I haven't been keeping up lately ( well for the past month).

I am slowly sifting through all the dust in my brain, and I totally forgot lammas! I should remember because my daughter was born this week 5 years ago!

Happy Lammas, everyone!

[mamaofthree]

unschoolin' : have you tried blueberry juice? the unsweetened kind. it is easier to drink then unsweetened cranberry juice, but has the same tannins as cranberry. so it is good for UTI prevention.

maia: what we have been doing is donating to heifer and then printing out cards that said we donated in their honor. you can donate as little as $10.00. although we try to do $150.00 at least a year. i would rather give to an organization that i believe in or to people who truly need it then give gifts to people who need and want for nothing. i am sure some people have been upset, but honestly who will come out and say "hey you should have spent "X" amount on me and not given money to a homeless shelter." i guess some one knows someone who would do that, but i think most people just sort of suck it up. PLUS it has had the added benefit of no one giving us shit. lol
it is weird, maia, what you said about people not liking homemade gifts. i love getting them and giving them, BUT every year that i have put in time baking cookies, making hats, making baking mixes etc no one is happy to get them, they look all disappointed. i would love to get a gift of a baking mix, or a chili recipe or something like that, but i know no one in my family that is even remotely happy to get that stuff. blaaah!
as for our kids, i am trying to talk dh into a trampoline and a tire swing. then each kid could get books, and/or journals.

h

[CariOfOz]

Originally Posted by Aeress

Maia- Oh, the pics were just to show off my pretty house. It wasn't really related to the visit, but since I got interrupted while typing, the sentence didn't make sense. The collateral person is someone who can verify that I'm a good Mom- not good parents, but good Mom.

Crazyness... so they already 'visited'? Hope things went really well and that they'll close things up quickly.

Originally Posted by Valérie.Qc

Happy Lammas!

Had a wonderful meal: pork on the BBQ, fresh veggies from the garden, corn on the cob from a nearby farm... bread was from the grocery... didn't have enough flour to bake one myself.

I just started a crock of sauerkraut! The cabbage was fresh so I didn't have to add brine... It will be yummy!

Wait.. where's my invite!!??!?

Originally Posted by unschoolinmom

Happy Lammas.

I just spent a good four hours in the maternity triage because of blood in my urine (sorry tmi)...

I always got stealth UTI's when I was pregnant... never knew a thing until I either showed blood in urine... or out of nowhere got just deathly ill. Hope it responds quickly, take care of you

I had a spectacular day out today.. it was gorgeous, the kids had all their usual Monday classes and loved it. They made 'crazy candles' .. where they were given a wick, and then had to hand dip their own candles, using layers of various colours of wax. Then the organizer let them choose a style and carved them for the kids. We have to very fancy race car carved candles now hehehe. They are totally awesome.

I'm off in a sec to visit a Curves and check it out. I REALLY need some exercise other than my little bit of treadmill walking! Tightening things up a bit would go a long way towards boosting my self esteem that's for sure! And i know this isn't the weight loss thread but we have the most dinner in the crock pot.. baby potatos with a rump steak with an onion gravy sauce, and I'm going to do a mountain of chard sauteed with sesame oil and a little salt (thanks Maia! for that suggestion )