November 1, 2011 The start of something wonderful

Last night at midnight I did my ritual to start my year and a day. I was going to blog about it but was so drained after it that I went to bed. In fact all day I have had time to blog but I was so tired that I slept most of the day.

I woke up this morning around 10 and felt like I was coming down with a cold. So I drank some tea and used a lot of Eucalyptus oil throughout the day. At the moment even though I still feel very drained I am feeling better.

Back to last night, I want to write down how I felt about everything around me so I can remember years to come. You should always be aware of what is going on around you during a ritual anyhow but my sense's were heightened at this time. I noticed that even at midnight and the moon had already set in the west it was very bright outside. The stars were so clear and bright and felt very close to me. I had the fire going and even though the fire was large at times I couldn't feel the heat from it. The wind was also blowing from the south west and I know I should have been cold since it was in the 40s, I wasn't. There were no sounds except from the traffic. Everything was very still and beautiful.

There were a few times that I asked the Goddess and God if I was doing this right and if this was right for me and that was when the fire was more intense, i took that as a sign it was right and good. I also noticed that the log I placed in the fire wasn't burning as I had hoped. It was a dried piece of log that had been cut several years ago from a tree in my yard. I watch the log slowly burn and then it hit me as to why it was burning slowly. I need to cherish this time, this next year. At times things will go by very quickly and then others will seem slow, just like the log burning. The log still produced the same amount of heat as it would if the flames were high, so why rush it. This time will be over before I know it.

So here begins my journey.

October 31, 2011

Tonight is not only Samhain but at midnight, in one hour from when I am writing this in fact I will do my ritual to start my year and a day. I am nervous but excited at the same time. Things didnt go as planned today but that wont stop me from enjoying my ritual tonight.

I do have a couple things planned but for the most part I am just going to wing it. Reason is that once I get outside and start the ritual everything that I have planned with go out the window I'm sure.

I have taken my ritual shower already with a wonderful bar of soap in the shape of the Goddess. It was amazing!

I am going to do my Samhain ritual before I do my year and a day ritual since I will be doing these outside. I thought about doing my Samhain ritual earlier in the night but thought why not have both outside. Its 46 degrees as I write this, much warmer then most years. Normally we have either snow, ice or a cold wind. Tonight we have neither. The wind is blowing some but its not as cold as most years, that is why I will be doing my ritual outside. This is the first time ever I am doing a ritual outside!!!

Plans are right now to blog about my ritual once I come inside. I have fully decided on it but I will be taking some video and maybe even a few pictures of the fire and such. I have made some incense and also offering stones for both rituals tonight.

My thoughts are scattered right now so I am going to post this and be off. I need to finish getting ready.

Many blessings to you all on this wonderful night!!!!

October 18, 2011

Today it only got up to about 50!! Wow what happened the 70s we had last week!! They say we are going to have a low of about 29 tonight, below freezing! With the temps being so cold I went out into the garden tonight and picked all veggies that were ready or almost ready so they wouldnt freeze. There wasnt much but my Swiss Chard is still going strong and so were some of my peppers and squash. The tomatoes were mostly green but I picked some to stick in the window to see if they would ripen any. I figure if they do it at the store then why not me too right?

I have noticed something with tomatoes that I will keep in mind for next year. Dont plant them to late in the year! I planted some in middle to late July and even though it sounded like a good idea they just didnt have the heat to ripen any of the tomatoes. I have lots of little cherry tomatoes that would have been great but the temps this fall just wasnt hot enough. So note to self, late June is the latest to plant tomatoes.

On another note, today was my weigh in at Weight Watchers. I lost 1.2 lbs which was good but I keep losing and gaining the same 5lbs. Its frustrating!! I know what I need to do but when I get a craving for bread I eat it, and I eat to much of it! Also I really need to cut out the soda of any kind. Bread and soda, bad bad things for me.

I ordered a couple herb books tonight from Amazon, I cant wait to get them. Also got a book on making lotions and bath salts and such. Oh and a good friend and sister of mine told me to get Hem Dragon's Blood incense so I checked it out and bought some. Can't wait to get that too! She got a witches brew candle from Yankee Candle, I have a couple bids on ebay for the 12.5oz candles. I hope I get them but I have a day to find out!

That's all for today. Going to bed early tonight and also hoping that it doesnt freeze like they say but if it does I will be taking pictures for sure!!

A beautiful witchie day!

October 17, 2011

I have decided that my journal entries will start with the date at the top of the page. Yes I know the date will be posted when I am finally done with the blog but since this is my journal I want to write it the way I would any other journal.

Today, I have the day off from work. I have been needing a 3 day weekend and it came at just the right time! It is a beautiful witchie fall day! Now what I mean is that as I am writing this it is almost 11am, and it looks more like 7am and it feels like it should be 5am, a very chily 45 degreesF right now. Its cloudy and gloomy, there is no wind, a perfect day for me. The ground is covered with the browns and golds of the fallen leaves. The leaves that slowly fall to the earth reminds me of snow falling, something that will be here before we know it! I wish I bottle this type of day up and save it for those cold winter nights ahead!!

My day will be spent inside mostly. I do plan to let the cats roams some later so I will be sitting outside enjoying the weather. The cats love to explore and they have been really good lately when I let them outside. I wonder what they will think once the snow has arrived. They normally run out the door and down the steps when I let them outside, so cute. Once that snow comes and we have a few inches on the ground I wonder if they will look up at me and say, WTF?

But since I do have the day off, besides the normal Monday cleaning jobs around the house, I want to be a little crafty today. I cant be to crafty without the supplies that I need but there are a few things around here that I can do. Painting is one of them. I have been working on the 4 elements for the past 2 months now. I have air, water and fire done, earth is the last one and I have been stuggling with this one. I like how its coming out so far but it needs something more still. Maybe I will get that finished today. I am also starting the 4 seasons paintings. At the moment I am working on Autumn. So far so good, maybe once everything is finished I will post a photo of them.

The rest of my crafty projects have to wait. I ordered a few items on Friday and some yesterday. Now I just have to wait for the mail to arrive. One project I cant share with you because its for a friend and even though this blog wont go public until I start my year and a day I dont want to take the chance of it not being done or her not getting it until a few weeks later. But I can say that I am excited for it!!

Also I am doing research on some items for my family and friends for Christmas. I have already made one batch of bath salts but I am trying out a couple different recipes so I have to wait for those supplies too. I have a couple friends that will be testing them for me. I have been thinking about asking a couple others that I know around here too. I will be also making sugar scrubs, soaps, lotions and much more. I am also researching making my own incense and candles. Yes I know that is a lot of crafty items to make but I have been wanting to do this for a very long time now. I have also thought about opening a Etsy shop. Now this wouldnt be open for many months if I do open one but if anyone that reads this and has any thoughts on it I am open to hear them.

Well enough blogging for now. I need to be productive. All I have done today is read emails and play my favorite games on facebook, Sims and Bubble Witch Saga. I am stuck on level 41 on the Bubble Witch game. I am sure I will keep going back to that until I beat it!

On to other things now!!!

A New Soup, at least to me

Yesterday I woke up feeling stuffy and achy, the early signs of a cold. Now I get this way whenever the temperature changes. Lately it has been in the 70s during the day and the 50s and sometimes even 40s during the night. Windows open during the day and space heater on at night. With those changes anyone can get sick. I got out my eucalyptus oil and rubbed some on my chest and breathed that in deeply. I love that smell!

So when I was thinking about what I wanted for lunch I figured I would make some kind of soup or stew. Perfect for when you are a little under the weather and when its a little chilly out like it was yesterday. This week I really need to watch my spending so even though I wanted a chicken soup, I had to use what I had in the fridge and pantry.

So into the fridge I went and I found some great items to make a soup with. I had some fresh mushrooms that I needed to use up and a leftover beef roast from a few days before. Perfect for making a soup!

In a large pan I put the rest of my olive oil (remember to buy more) and some coconut oil. To that I added some minced garlic, diced onion and the mushrooms. I also added a little bit of sea salt to draw out the moisture of the mushrooms. Even though I cooked all the mushrooms I didnt want to use them all in the soup so I took out half of them. I then diced up 3 medium size red potatoes and added them to the mixture. The container that had the beef in it had some of the dripping in there so I added some water to it and swished it around, that was my broth. I added that to the pot so the potatoes could cook up and become tender.

Once the potatoes were tender I then added chunks of the beef. I also added some flour to thicken the soup. I personally perfer thick soups then thin but you wouldnt have to add the flour. The beef already had greek seasoning on it from cooking it the first time so I didnt want to add much to it. Once everything was cooked and thick I tasted it, added some pepper and sea salt to it. It still was missing something so I added some garlic powder with parsley to it. It was awesome! Just what it needed.

I have never combined these ingredients together before like this. I am sure there is a recipe somewhere like this but I just made it up as I went. Something we all need to remember is we need to use what we have. So many times we will waste leftovers because we dont want the same thing twice. But if we use our leftovers in a different way we dont waste anything and we also get a great meal out of it. The mushrooms and onions I didnt use will be added to some eggs for my supper tonight, nothing will go to waste.

If anyone tries this recipe let me know what you think. If you think adding another spice to it would help let me know please. Even though it was a great soup it was still missing something, just not sure what it was.

Many Blessings to you!

A month has gone by already????

I can't believe that a month has gone by already since I last updated this blog. I know that it isnt public but this is my blog for my year and a day, I need to update so much more! Very soon it will be public and I will be on my way on my spiritual path!

I guess I should do some updating on what has happened this past month. First I have made a video about this blog and also my year and a day. I was going to start my Y/D on Mabon but then I decided that I needed more time to get ready for my journey ahead. I dont know why I really needed a certain date, in some ways I feel that I have already started my journey.

I have been doing some reseach, almost every night, on other people's Y/Ds but I have decided that its great to look at others but really when it comes down to it I need to do this on my own. I had also thought that I should turn to others and ask questions and learn from them and I still might but I really think I need to do this on my own. After all this is my path not anyone else's and no one will have the same path as mine.

I also decided that I will be doing a series on YT on my Y/D. I am no expert on any subject but there have been some interest from others both left by comments and PMs that they want to see more from me. I think this is great, scarey but awesome! At first I didnt think I could really share anything new with anyone but then I remembered that some people are just starting out and they dont know as much as I do. I would love it if I could help people in any way I could!

In this past month I have let go of things that have been building up in me for some time. These things might not have come out the right way for some but they came out and it is the best thing for me. Its been a hard few weeks for me but I know now that I needed to do this. I cant start something new if I am still holding on to the past and if I still have things bottled up in me just waiting to come out. I have asked myself many times what I could have done differently so it wasnt such a painful road for me and others and the answer is I couldnt have. It was meant to come out like this. I do feel regret for hurting others but in the end I would have just hurt myself and them more.

I have always been the kind of person that held everything in and didnt want anyone to be hurt. I have always been there for others at a moments notice but I have never felt like I could go to anyone myself. This is something in the next year that I need to work on.

I am going down a path that I have never been on. I can't turn to anyone when I come to a fork in the road and ask which way to go and I cant turn around either. I can't ask if I am going the right way because no one knows that for sure but me. This will be the greatest adventure of my life.

Samhain is almost a month away and that is when I will be starting this journey, well really November 1st will start it. I will be taking you along for the ride. I would like to say that this trip will be an easy one but as we all know there is always road construction and objects in our way.

The start of something witchy - an introduction

Even though most of the people that will be reading this blog know me I thought I should do a small introduction vlog.

My name is Becca, I just turned 35 years old this past month and I am pagan. The pagan part of me is what I really want to talk about in this blog. I have a real hard time giving myself a true name in what I believe in because I take from so many beliefs. I am part kitchen witch/green witch/hedge witch. I think the past several years I have been able to narrow it down in what I really believe in.

It all started for me when I was in high school and I had to do a term paper on reincarnation. It was for my 10th grade history class and it was the best paper I had ever done for any class ever!! I was never a "A" student, in fact I was only about average really. This paper I got an "A" on and I was so proud of it!

In doing my research I had to look to books, not the Internet. The main reason, we didn't have the Internet, this was in 1992. So I went to the school and public library after school for weeks. We had about a month to write this term paper and I needed a good grade on it. In part of my research I had to look up different religions, each religion views reincarnation in a different way so I read up on a lot of them.

After that term paper was done I still wanted to learn more about different religions. I never thought that I would have a different belief in what I had at the time. I was a member of the Platte Center Presbyterian Church and I loved everything about it. The church was a country church, very small and quiet. The minister was a wonderful man, in fact he had a daughter that was just a few years younger then me which was great! But as the years went by and I learned more and more about different religions I started to change my views.

I have always been a person that is drawn to nature. Being outside and feeling the ground below me and the wind on my face, well that is what I love the most! I listen to what the animals and plants have to say and they do tell me things.

When I was about 26 or so I stopped going to church with my family. I have said I stopped going because I couldn't get up in the mornings and was just to tired, I said it was because Pete, the minister that I really liked was no longer there, but none of that is true. I stopped going because I stopped believing in just one God. I believe in the God and Goddess, the sun and the moon. I believe in much more now then I ever had in the past. Now I will never turn 100% away from the church. I do believe in some of what the Bible has to offer and what the church believes in, I just believe a little different now.

I have never done my year in a day, but I am thinking about doing that soon. In fact that is one reason I want to have this blog. I researched online, bought books and tried to join as many groups as I could in the beginning. All of that was good but I wished I would have done things a little different. So I am now taking the time to start my year and a day and relearn about myself and the path that I am on. I am committing myself to this blog for my path and also my year and a day.

Since Mabon is about a month away and its also one of my favorite times of year I will commit myself then to "restart" my journey. I have always felt that Autumn is a magical time of year so what a better time but then to start. Any advice that anyone has I would love to hear.

So that is just a small introduction into my life. There is so much more that I could write but I will save that for other blogs. I wish you all much love and many Blessings.