New Challenge

In February, I found a seller on Etsy who makes the most awesome fairy houses I have ever seen. Ever. I have three of her items: two houses and a throne that I am currently making a doll to sit upon.

I meant to ask her for a while about something, and finally got around to it yesterday. Each house has a very distinct smell. I'm usually pretty good at identifying scents, but the combination of notes within the houses is very complex and hard to break down and identify. However, I think I can do it.

I spent much of yesterday collaborating with the artist about her materials, the scents she notices in the houses, the possible things that could be causing it since none of it is deliberate. She said I was not the first one to comment on the smell. It is a pleasant aroma and that's why I'd like to try to duplicate it.

I went through my current stock of essential oils yesterday evening. I made a practice formula with what I had on-hand (the base notes are all wrong, but that's ok for this phase). The top and middle notes in my practice vial are very close. I have a list of oils to look for at the store and some I know I will have to order online somewhere.

This is already a fun project! I've made many personal fragrances before, but I've not previously tried to copy a scent. I hope this day moves by quickly, because I really want to get what I need at the store and mix more oils. To get this scent just right, it's going to take a lot of trials, but I'm already having fun doing it.

In other craft news, I'm up to my eyeballs in commissions right now!

Full Mirror Moon and Wishing Moon

I hope everyone had a fabulous Esbat!

This was called the Mirror Moon, it is a good time to focus on yourself and things within you that need changing or nurturing. It was also another Wishing Moon.

I feel I am in a near-constant state of personal reflection and growth, so I did not focus on that aspect of this Esbat. Perhaps, in a way, I did.

I have worked with the faerie realm since I was a child, before I even knew exactly what it was. Children have an intuitive knowledge about the world that most are taught to forget as they grow up. For a time, I did forget what I knew. When I came back to it, it was there as it always had been. When I remembered what I had been taught to forget, it was a revelation of my spiritual life.

I own two fairy houses, made by an unbelievable talented artist who captures the very essence of their realm in her work. The faerie plain exists at the same place as ours, but most people cannot see it. Children and animals can, and people with knowledge and open hearts can. The houses that this artist makes pull a piece of their realm into ours, like pulling a loop of thread through fabric. Their plain exists within those walls, and looking into a house is truly looking into their world.

This Esbat was spent in commune with the fae who dwell in my home, in the homes I have placed for them. One of them has been my companion for as long as I have the ability to remember. The other, I have yet to meet. That being will make him or herself known when they are ready. There are more than these two as well. It is comforting to know they can bring parts of their world into ours, I think.

In Need of Focus

Because I don't have it!

I just have to get through this week, then I'm off for two. The middle of those two weeks is a kayaking trip with a small group that will include my dad. I'm really looking forward to this trip.

Before that, I'll go with Fox and Fae to the VA Renaissance Festival, visit a friend, and get my car looked over. After the trip, I'll have a little bit of time to rest before driving with my parents to visit my brother and sister-in-law for the weekend.

It certainly won't be a restful two weeks, but it will be fun! I just have to get through this week. It's already proving not easy. Of course, Friday will be much worse!

Land of the Lost

I went home for brunch this weekend. It's the first brunch I've been to in some time. Afterwards, mom and I decided to go to the movies.

We would either see Land of the Lost or Night at the Museum. I decided on the first because I'm likely to buy the second even if I don't see it in theaters because the first Night at the Museum was quite good. I wasn't super excited about this Land of the Lost film (I'm really not fond of the lead actor), but I thought it might have some funny parts and so would be worth a look at least once.

It had some funny parts. More than half of them were revealed in the trailers. The best bits were the little Easter eggs of the original TV series, particularly when this film's version of Rick Marshall started singing the original theme song (and the lyrics applied to events in the film. I thought that was clever).

It wasn't anything to write home about. It's barely enough to blog about, and I probably wouldn't recommend anyone go see it unless they really had nothing better to do. Still, if you are a fan of the '70's TV show, you might find this new portrayal of Grumpy amusing, and the Sleestacks were as scary, if slow, as ever.

I'm Syndicated!

I found myself on LiveJournal. I don't use LiveJournal for a reason that I won't go into. But, I'm there. See?

It took some digging to figure out how I got there. I'm pretty good with computers and the various systems used to keep in touch online, but I must say that I have no experience with feeds. I know they exist, and allow others to easily view content and updates, but that's about all I know. To the best of my understanding, someone who regularly uses LiveJournal decided it was easier to follow my Blogger updates by utilizing my feed.

I may not completely get it, but I will say: Neat! The only thing I don't quite like is that whoever is following from this feed is going to miss updates from my other blogs because the feed only syndicates posts, not all my links (which shows when blogs are updated, get it?). Of course, not everyone has an interest in all my blogs, but that's not the point!! Ah, well. It's still neat! It looks like it's been feeding since February, if I'm reading the info correct. It was chance that I found out about it at all.

Still, neat! I'm oddly giddy about this discovery. It makes me feel special! Thanks, LiveJournal readers who want to follow my updates even though I use a different venue!

I Am the Highness of Haiku

Monty said so!

A starship I ride

A tunic of scarlet worn

I perish quickly

I Am a Contradiction

I hate math. I'm not very good at calculations and equations. I've had a staggering amount of terrible math teachers through the years. I generalize that I hate math.

I do enjoy working through ciphers and probability statistics, which I studied in the one good math class I ever had. Much of my faith practice is based on Hermeticism, which is the beginnings of Sacred Geometry and Alchemy. Look at that, more math! I also enjoy metaphysics, which deals quite a bit in mathematics in the exploration of abstract objects, Platonism, and other similar, mathy things. And then there is quantum mechanics and the myriad of mathy things that go in that system.

I'm not a great philosopher, or physicist, or scientist. I just enjoy these things, mostly as casual reading but also, in terms of Hermetics, as spiritual growth. But, I hate math.

Mathematics, the philosophy of it and certain elements like geometry, are all underlying currents of things that I quite enjoy learning about.

Maybe I should pay more attention to math before I loose myself in another thought experiment.

Four Hours

I feel like I should have something wise and insightful to say today. I still don't remember what I wanted to say yesterday, though I did at some point later in the day. It's gone again!

Phoenix's mother and cousin were visiting us for the night last night. Today, the three of them are driving to Kentucky to watch her brother graduate from basic training. This means that, instead of getting myself ready for bed, I was up chatting with them. When Sunflyr said it was midnight, I knew today would be a difficult day. See, I'm the only one of the five of us who had to go to work today! That amounted to about four hours of sleep.

I'm on my third cup of coffee.

Whatever

Whatever I had thought to talk about today has gone right out of my mind.

Totally.

I just don't remember.

Guess it wasn't important!

Rolling By

As of yesterday, Phoenix and I have been in our condo for one year.

I've only been on my own, as in not living with my parents for one year. It somehow feels like much longer than that. I wonder if that means I've grown much in the past year.

A lot of things have happened, and not necessarily things that have never happened before. It was just the first time I had to deal with them without my parents' constant presence. There were times when I was glad I was on my own to deal with what was going on, and there were times when I wished my parents were closer to help me. Still, I'm glad to have experienced all of those times.

One year. A year ago, everything was unknown. Every day was a step into something new, until I started getting the hang of it.

How often can you say that you know exactly where you were a year ago? I know where I was literally, where I was emotionally.

One year. Life moves forward.