It’s my most favorite time of the year…

Ahhh, October. My very favorite and my best time of year. It’s cool in the mornings (yaaay!), and it’s chilly at  night (sweaters!), and I can turn the oven on, and Tasha can play outside again:

Okay, so it’s more likely she can sit outside again. ahem. Kitty’s do as kitty’s will. Anyway, It’s finally Autumn in these here parts, with the long suffering days and nights of stifling heat long behind us. We should only have a few spots of dry heat here and there this month, so here’s hoping and fingers crossed and all that!

September was full of new starts, doing, life, and dreaming of better days to come. I started taking a class, which is going well. I have officially left the community garden that I joined at the start of this summer. After dreaming and planning for vegetable gardens my entire adult life, it seems that the practice is not as satisfying as the dream. But, you know what they say- try everything in life once, the fun things twice! So, I’ve let it go and am refocusing on my herbs and flowers here at the house (which is much more satisfying, truth be told! Snip snip right outside the door and voila! instant yummyness in the kitchen.) It’s also allowed me to get back to my morning walks. With scenes like this to wake up to, I’m definitely not regretting my decision:

I also worked up the courage to start running a table at the weekly Dungeons and Dragons night at our local gaming store. Such a lot of fun! But it’s really just a disguise for a lot of hard work, planning, rules lawyering, and meeting new people once a week. Oh, and playing with toys a bit, too. Painting figurines, sourcing rule books, gaming mats, rules cheatsheets, tokens, and figuring out how to transport all of the above once a week is a bit of a chore, but I’ve learned a lot over the last few months. And it’s a great cure for my crippling case of shyness, at any rate!

Trying new things is important aspect of life- it keeps you engaged, happy, and active. Keeps the mind agile and your outlook positive, which I believe are very important to a happy, productive life. But there is such a thing as trying to do too much, and it seems it’s time to take a few things off my plate. I want to do so much, but there is only so many hours in the day. Studying for school has taken precedence over my hobbies. Cooking dinner is more important than chores. It’s a give and take. I absolutely love Fall, and start to shift over into Making mode this time of year, but I’ve had to be a lot more selective of what I put on my crafting list. Knitting mittens instead of blankets, sewing napkins instead of another quilt, tote bags instead of purses, that sort of thing. Now that California has passed a Bill to ban plastic grocery bags, I want to make a few of my grocery totes in plain brown linen, something that won’t shout “I’m a homemade bag”, but will be nicer and cheaper than the ready made, over priced things out in the shops. I’ve already made a quick Fall couch throw, and have a new round of cloth napkins in creamy off-white linen planned that will work for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Easy peasy, and fun to do to boot!

So, the start of another new school year, a lovely new brisk Fall, and a new personal schedule. Now, if I can just get my new textbook away from the Faeries- they’re using it as a ping pong table!

 

A Vision of Spring

The fifth day of March- and we find ourselves on the doorstep of Spring. The Vernal Equinox is a few weeks away, that moment when day and night are equal in length. Then, the Earth will tilt over onto our side of the hemisphere, and the days will get longer, brighter, and warmer. Nature will wake up from her long winter’s nap, and eggs, milk and fresh vegetables will appear in the farmers markets once more, we’ll hear baby birds up in the trees, and the local zoo’s and gardens will tempt us with visions of baby animals, butterfly exhibits, orchid and tulip shows.

It’s easy to forget the “processes” of nature when you live in a year round climate. Pictures of snow and ice don’t bring home the reality of weather so much as actually experiencing it does, which is why so many of us travel up into the hills at this time for a day in the snow. It’s also a great way to delight the senses and go up for a day of spring- the fresh, cold nippy air, warmed by springs first rays of sunlight, so that it’s still cold in the shade if one gets a little too much exercise hiking up those brilliant green hills. A day of listening to natures chorus of birdsong, frogs ribbeting, hawks and ravens talking over the daily gossip goes a long way to banish the noise of traffic, schoolyards, and emergency sirens of the daily grind the rest of the time.

A few other events happening this month:

Daylight Saving Time happens on Sunday the ninth- don’t forget to set your clocks forward! After doing a little research on the topic, I’m still not convinced it is a good thing as it upsets everyone’s internal clocks so terribly, and it plays havoc with school and business schedules, but apparently it has been done several times throughout our history of civilization- even the Romans had a form of it at one time!

St. Patrick’s Day on the seventeenth- ostensibly to mark the introduction of Christianity to Ireland, but it’s really just an excuse to celebrate the Irish, their food, heritage and culture! Taking a slightly different view on the idea, my focus is more on the old stories of myth and legend, with a menu of old country favorites like Champ, Brown Bread, Vegetable Stew, Oatcakes, Cheddar Cheese and Shortbread.

And lastly, it’s the beginning of Convention season again – ConDor hits this month, on the 21^st , and runs the whole weekend long. A Science Fiction and Fantasy themed convention, it’s being held at the Towne and Country resort and convention center again this year. The costume theme this year is the American Revolution, and there is a Friday night English Country dance scheduled!

Hmm…the Faeries seem to be planning something elaborate for this month’s festivities- something involving Wigs, Clover, Clocks and- hey, that’s my copy of Soulless, give that back!

Seasonal Musings: Imbolc 2014

Seasonal:

Imbolc is an old holiday- today it’s known more as Groundhogs Day. Will the sun come out, or will we be forced to endure more of winter’s gloom?

Actually, the sun is coming out more and more these days. As the earth revolves around her axis, the Goddess of Spring begins to awaken from her long winter’s nap. Mornings are not quite as dark, and the night doesn’t last quite as long as it did last week. This is a good time to start seeds for spring planting, try some new recipes to shake up the stodginess of a winter’s diet, and rustle about in our closets to make room for the coming year’s acquisitions.

A Strange Change in the Wind…

Well- hopefully not that strange! I thought we could all use a bit of a change of pace around here, and updated the old blog a bit. Shined her up, tossed some things out, rearranged what was left, and voila! I quite like it, and hope that you all will too!

I’ve also decided to change the content as well- it’s been so long since we’ve had any sort of structure in this space, I thought it was high time for a bit of a change, don’t you think? We’ll set up a kind of an on-line Journal, perhaps even the feel of an old fashioned Magazine, shall we? How does that sound? And to break it down for you, I’ve created a new List!

Our new categories are:

Letter from the Editor (perhaps I’ll change that title, but the intent shall remain the same; once a month, a few words to set the tone, hmm?)

Cleaning (Recipes for cleaning supplies, tips, hints, admonitions, bewailments, you know-the vagaries of life in a dirty house!)

Cooking (ooo- this one will be scrumptious! Recipes, receipts, formulas, techniques, etc.)

Crafting (How about an easy-to-do project, for everyone to join in on once a month? With Instructions and step-by-step pictures to boot!)

Gardening (Well, it wouldn’t be a Magickwyrds production without pictures of the lovely Hedge out the Backdoor, now would it?)

Myth & Lore (Faeries, Trolls, Mice and Men- basically anything that catches my fancy we’ll use as a monthly theme- sort of a backdrop for the whole issue? That ought to keep everything in line…)

Seasonal (We could throw a Party for Mother Nature, with the theme inspired by the current Season!)

Sightseeing (A place to put all those lovely pictures of our Outings.)

Writing (I’ve had ever-so-many-ideas popping into my head for more chapters in the Market Faire book- stay tuned for Plot, Conflicts and maybe even some Themes in the coming months.)

Well, that sounds just marvelous, doesn’t it? I love a good Spring  Cleaning, and this dusty shelf certainly could benefit from it I dare say! I look forward to seeing how this “new” space progresses this year, and all your thoughts on our New Look as well!