~December Pagan Mama's Circle~ - Page 27

[Emmama]

Catching up on the thread!

OTJ~That truly sucks and I hope a good outcome will present itself soon!

KH, zavierchick, and womabtclay (and anyone else with stressed holidays)~I am sorry your holidays were stressful. This is the first year in 7 that mine have not been that way. Family was pissed at us, but they can get over it, these are my kids' few childhood years, they had their chance with their's, yk?

As for ours, it was so nice (except for my own presents from dh's whole family) and relaxing and we are doing this every year. I loved how nice it was to just be. We are going down to NYC for a few days to visit dh's aunt, whom we both adore, and then be back here for Twelfth Night, aka New Year's Eve, and have a nice evening with friend's. Dh does not go back to work until Jan 4th. Happy Holidays, mamas!

[wombatclay]

Huge hugs to all of us with families challenging or not! I think whoever said it is right...the season is about being happy and finding joy in family/friends but somehow the image became oh-so-very perfect and since no family is perfect everyone feels the stress of trying to "play the perfect family" scenario. And it just doesn't work.

Ah well! Now I know for next year. (and no, they didn't ask to bring the dog, in fact I asked them not to because of the cats and a few people with allergies, but it's apparently cruel to leave your dog in their crate in the hotel for a few hours, though not cruel to leave your child with a sitter for a few days. And yes, I was very polite and kept the peace. But ohhhhh...the inner dialog! )

Good luck with the leap of faith Brenda! I hope everything works out peacefully with the family business and successfully with your OWN family business!

And happy Stephen's Day to all who celebrate it...I'm hoping we have snow for La Befana and 12th Night. I can hope, right?

[HelloKitty]

Your holiday stories are making me feel a little better about mine I'm too tired of ranting about the annoying parts for now so I'll get back to that at a later point.

I was glad to have our celebration here at our house instead of going elsewhere - it gave us a little more control to serve the type of food we wanted and to say a dinner blessing that included Pagan sentiment (the in laws looked at me a little funny but I threw them a bone and mentioned Jesus Christ too so it's all good ).

[**guest**]

Originally Posted by HelloKitty

I threw them a bone and mentioned Jesus Christ too so it's all good

Too funny.

I'm glad that I spent xmas at home too. I didn't have any special company and didn't eat a special meal. As a matter of fact, we didn't eat an actual 'sit down at the table meal' at all. It was like any other day...only with presents for ds. heh heh.
Glad it's over.
Now I can start looking forward to/dreading my birthday in January. I'm going to be 40. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek! :

[paganmum]

This year christmas was nuts! I can't go into details (let's just say I've been found before and gotten into trouble with extended family for posting stuff even though names and locations were left out completly even my own!) but it was nice to have christmas day to ourselves and relax. Our Yule fest was postponed to christmas day due to finances, but, dh has decided that our new family tradition should be corned beef and the fixings for iur yule/christmas with the kids to set apart our time and feast from what the grandparents do. This is the guy who moaned about corned beef and the usual stuff that I'm used to and love to make for St Pat's day (I use it as more of a 'hey this is where we're from!' angle and not the 'yo kick the snakes out!'). So I get to have corned beef twice a year now! :

Now to finish up nailing down just where we are moving to and get through it. I don't really want to extend the lease here. This place is sucking big time and I'm *really* wanting to be close to friends and closer to family so I can get some social time in for my sanity (pagan or otherwise) and have mass transit again! :

[GoldBerry]

Wombatclay~ Ugh, that whole interaction sounds nasty. Sorry to everyone that had difficult holidays.

Brenda~ best of luck to you and your dh!

O.k. let's have some fun!

2006 favorites! Answer my questions and then add your own question.

What was your favorite book of 2006 (limit 2)?

What were your favorite websites of 2006(limit 2)?

What was your favorite daydream of 2006? (keep it clean, please)

[GoldBerry]

What was your favorite book of 2006 (limit 2)?

His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Both of these books are a few years old, but I found them this year and fell totally in love. I still miss the characters and the world created in them.

What were your favorite websites of 2006(limit 2)-after MDC?

http://www.miniature-earth.com/ Interesting and effective

http://www.cuteoverload.com/ The kids love it!

What was your favorite daydream of 2006? (keep it clean, please)

My favorite daydream involved Venice and time. In this daydream, I have lots of time- to wonder around the city, look at art, write, sit at little tables sipping coffee or wine. Mini vacation of the mind.

[wombatclay]

It's SNOWING!!!!!!!!!!! Yay yay yay HUZZAH! I so hope it sticks...dd has a wonderful little wooden sled she got for the holidays last year and with the wacky weather she's only used it once in two years! I want to go sledding and drink hot cocoa and play in the snow!

What was you favorite book of 2006 (limit 2)?

What were your favorite websites of 2006(limit 2)?

What was your favorite daydream of 2006? (keep it clean, please)

Yoicks! Only two? Ummmmm.....

Favorite Books (limited to books I read for the first time in 2006):
1- Going Postal by Terry Pratchett (your standard diskworld wackiness)
2- Widdershins by Charles de Lint (not the best stand alone book, but it answers a lot of questions about a recurring character and "resolves" a seriously unhappy ending from a previous book)

honorably mention (yes, I'm cheating here!)
-Memory by Linda Nagata (god and goddess create a new world as a virtual playground and populate it with "players"...then fight and abandon their "now broken" playground. Story is set thousands of years later as the descendants of the original players must find a solution to the environmental collapse now facing the world. Mostly a young woman's coming of age story.)

Favorite Websites:
1- mdc (of course)
2- mine!

Favorite Daydream:
- That I would get pregnant...and hey golly gee, that one has worked out pretty well so far.

[wombatclay]

Ooops...and to add to the list of questions:

What was your happiest moment in 2006?

[GoldBerry]

Originally Posted by wombatclay

Favorite Websites:
1- mdc (of course)
2- mine!

What is your website????

[cravenab00]

What was you favorite book of 2006 (limit 2)?

The Vegetable Garderner's Bible (yeah, im a green witch )

The Earth Path by Starhawk

What were your favorite websites of 2006(limit 2)?

http://www.herbnet.com/Herb%20Uses_AB.htm
this is the most comprehensive website on medicinal herbs i have found.

www.next-mill.com
speaks for itself, and this is only 2 hours from me!

What was your favorite daydream of 2006? (keep it clean, please)

dreaming of havng a large acreage, and growing all of my own food, having another child, birthing during a thunderstorm

[GoldBerry]

Originally Posted by wombatclay

What was your happiest moment in 2006?

Oh, good question but hard as there were many. Watching my 6 year old dd read to my 2 year old dd was pretty fantastic, but... I'd have to say it was the afternoon and early evening I spent on a secluded beach with Jason and celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary/ 15 years together. It was filled with my favorite things: good conversation, laughing, champagne, good food, and . Also, I felt an incredible connection to the spirit of the Pacific Ocean which is not something I usually do (I love the ocean but my fear of it tends to get in the way). I was honored with a glimpse of the beautiful strength of the Goddess!

[GoldBerry]

Originally Posted by cravenab00

)

dreaming of havng a large acreage, and growing all of my own food, having another child, birthing during a thunderstorm

Great herb link- thanks!

[wombatclay]

http://notfarfromthetree.com/babyblob.html

Though I haven't updated in about 3 months (as you'll be able to tell from the pics). DD broke our computer and we only recently regained the ability to get the pics off the camera and onto the web...so I've got a 3-4 month update looking me in the eye.

I can't answer my own question about the happiest moment...I'm gonna have to think on that for a while.

edited to say- okay, the chance of public update humiliation has gotten me moving (well, that and dd's nap went long). So I've added the "missing months" to the site. Still need to move and edit the holiday pics but that's a job for another day. And my borders have gone all wonky but lunch seems like a better idea than figuring out what setting has gotten messy.

[eilonwy]

2006 has been a very long year for me. Very, very long. It totally weirds me out to think about it. Mike's aunt passed away on the day that Bella was born, for example. There was my car accident earlier in the year, the feeling that I was cursed, the discovery that I'm a Chaos Mage... I feel as though the past three months have actually been a very, very long time.

Favorite books: I spent most of this year without a library card, and that seriously put a crimp in my reading. I'm pretty sure that I read Anansi Boys this year, but while I enjoyed it and would buy it if I had the cash, I was disappointed overall. It's a really tough call.

Favorite websites: After MDC? Only two? Well, probably Spiral Nature and Hoagie's Gifted. It's hard, though, because I spend a lot of time looking for new things. I'm obsessed with Gemstone IV, for example, and there's the Agora Cyber Charter School website. And we can't forget the ever useful Google. Oh, and of course I don't know what I'd do without Starfall. The kids can't get enough. Okay, I'll stop now.

Favorite daydream: Well, there's the standard one: we win the powerball, buy a nice little farm in the middle of nowhere and "live happily to the end of our days." There are loads of little twists and turns in that one, I can stay in it for hours. Gemstone is pretty much an interactive daydream, as far as I'm concerned; every now and then a shred of reality will rear it's ugly head, and I will quickly and unobtrusively stomp on it.

Happiest moment: There have been many happy moments, and many sad ones. I'm going to pick an old favorite, though, and go with the first time I saw my brand new Bella. She was so teensy and soft and sweet. She didn't really look like a baby at first (she was a wee bit early) but she was still my precious little muffin.

[Aeress]

What was you favorite book of 2006 (limit 2)?
Organic Gardening
Last Child in the Woods


What were your favorite websites of 2006(limit 2)?
mdc
ooeygooey.com

What was your favorite daydream of 2006? (keep it clean, please)
having a new baby and growing all my own veggies and fruit

Moment- my first day as a stahm. aug 27, I believe.

have you learned a new skill?
baking bread by hand. very yummy skill!

[Birth Junky]

Argh. After being too sick to celebrate solstice, the mainstream holidays were fine--big family get-together on the 23rd with my family, brunch the next day with DH's parents, and then we had the evening of the 24th and ALL DAY on the 25th to ourselves. A friend of ours came up and spent the day with us, and we watched movies and ate delicious food and goofed off. It was lovely and quiet (and just what I needed, after being sick all week).

Then yesterday DH decided to take the day off so that he could join us up at the mountain with some friends--they were going to ski, we were going to sip cocoa at the lodge, and watch the kids play. And as we were leaving our driveway he noticed that his car door was ajar, and went and checked . . . and someone had ripped the stereo out of the dash, taken the key to his winch, his roadside kit with flares and jumper cables, the works.

What a lovely way to ring out the old year . . .

[CariOfOz]

What was you favorite book of 2006 (limit 2)?

Havent read anything NEW this year (my brain goes to mush when PG and I can't get into new books, no comprehension ) But I reread a couple of favorites
Conversations with God (believe it or not very similar to the secret

Mists of Avalon (mzb)

What were your favorite websites of 2006(limit 2)-after MDC?
well... MDC hehe
http://www.theweewuns.au.com/store/index.asp my nappy pusher

What was your favorite daydream of 2006? (keep it clean, please)
That dh & I would find a perfect bit of land, order & build a yurt on it, have a big ole veggie garden and mostly escape the rat race *longing sigh*

[COLOR=black]

What was your happiest moment in 2006?[/QUOTE] June 8 @ 6:26am... Quinn Alexander was born :

*hoping enough other ppl post new questions that my ommission of one won't be missed, as I haven't even finished a cup of coffee and have mush brain*

[mamaofthree]

We just got back from Phoenix. I am never doing that again. I am still not sure why we have to lug our kids up there to see everyone and no one had to come down and see us. It was too much and to many rude people. I wanna hide out for a few months now! LOL

Favorite books: "Little House on a small planet"
" The Milk of Hathor"

Favorite websites: Hathor the cow goddess
Pooka's child

Favorite day dream: That I just get my sh*t together most days

Favorite memory: When dd decided she didn't want to stay in school (she went to school for a month this year), and the day I stopped feeling so god awful... and I started being happy I was pregnant!

H

[wombatclay]

I totally forgot!

While browsing a second hand book store for a holiday gift for dd I found a really great book...

"Mythical Mazes: a collection of amazing mythical mazes" by Dugal Steer. It's really more appropriate for a 10-12yo but I loved it and it was under 3 dollars so how could I resist?

Each chapter starts with a gorgeous maze that reflects the culture of the "myth" about to be told, then the short chapter tells a specific mythic story. Th illustrations are pretty nice as well. The chapters are:

Thor and the Frost Giants
The Wandering of Isis
Sedna and the Bird Spirit
Jason and the Golden Fleece
Taliesin
Sigurd and the Dragon
Poia's Journey to the Sun
Sea-Girl and the Dragon King's Daughter
Theseus and the Minotaur
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight