Bowl of Hours

Today, in my wanderings, I saw a very old woman wearing a very white hat with a very red flower on it. And black stockings with a white dress and white shoes. I don’t know why I found this so delightful, but it kept me grinning for the better part of the afternoon.

I found two books in the series I started reading last year by Jacqueline Carey. I already have Kushiel’s Dart, Kushiel’s Chosen and Kushiel’s Scion. I was missing Kushiel’s Avatar, so I got that, and I got the next in the series after Scion, which is Kushiel’s Justice. Yay for summer reading.

I picked up nose studs (cheap, from Ardene’s) only to discover that the piercing had grown over. Oh well. We have piercing antiseptic so I can just reef one in there and clean it well later.

I had falafel for lunch.

Ramble ramble. :)

The truth is, I blog so much at so may different places that bowlofhours gets neglected. I mean, I have my lj (IvyLuna), my Xanga (IvyMoon - which is just as neglected as this place) my podcast blog (darklyfey.com) and newly, my spirituality and eroticism blog - pansthistle.com. The last one is getting the brain dump rather than musings on spirituality and eroticism. The LJ gets the spirituality stuff. DarklyFey has lain fallow awaiting a new topic (I think we’re going to tackle healing next). Xanga gets brief notes to those who might care.

And lately, this place has gotten a lick and a promise and not much else.

I’ll try and a) consolidate somehow or b) do better about remember I actually erected this blog in the first place.

Is there such a thing as Domains Anonymous? Because I keep buying them. Oy. :)

I return to the halls of secondary education in September.  First term, I’m doing 11 U English and 10 A Math. U = university requirement and A= applied. I’m probably going to have to switch into academic math at some point but not right off the bat. I’ll also be doing the PLAR which will get me a significant number of credits from life & work experience.

I think I’m working towards something big, but I’m going to do my best to just focus on each small step rather than stressing out about the bigger picture. While I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do once I have my high school credits, I don’t want to psych myself out, so I’m just going to focus on September 8th, and on getting through the five terms I’ll need to get my high school credits.

***

This has been a very, very long time in coming. I feel like I’m redeeming lost years.

I don’t know what came over me. I was sitting here in front of the fan, feeling kind of lost, kind of miserable. I just completed my first of many rites of passages in my spiritual life (I’m now Blue Star Dedicant - hurrah!). I’m eager and excited about continuing on in that course of study (jumping right in to do my Neophyte), but something was off. I wasn’t feeling quite right.

My new QC birth certificate is on it’s way, so I can get my driver’s license and my passport soon, so that’s not it. I’m on track with those kinds of goals. I kind of nodded to myself, to the feeling - ‘yes, I hear ya. Something’s wrong. What’s wrong?’

And then it hit me. I just really want to get my high school. I want that more than I want to skip all that and start a BA at Athabasca (distance learning - I don’t think I want distance learning…). So I made a phone call, and I have an appointment with the counselor at the adult learning center here.

I could be going back to high school very, very soon.

Squee!

We both wept, yeah? It was such a beautiful, moving show. The man’s talent, when combined with his humility and humour, was humbling and inspiring. He is a beautiful human being. Watching him from the 4th row, center gave us a sense of intimacy that we could not have achieved had we been up in the balcony somewhere. His smile blazed. His intensity was clearly apparent on his face.

I came away after the three hour show loving him more than ever.  And loving Darklin more than ever.

Best anniversary present EVER.

~Finish listening to The Wigglian Way (all time favourite podcast, yo!)
~Shower
~Go for walk with dog
~Gardening (get the rest of the herbs in)
~Cast on a hat for the knit-kit project
~Meditation (the nature one today, I think…)
~Look over short story and see if you’re inspired enough to work on it a little

In between all that, prepare supper, tidy, etc.

UPDATED TO ADD:

Found all necessary documentation to apply for birth certificate. Found all T4s so taxes can be done. Actually printed off, scanned, filled out, etc. everything I needed for bc. The application just needs to be mailed.
Hurrah. :)

When I’m out of my head long enough, I can hear my body talking. It’s gotten pretty used to being ignored, so it talks in that whiny, wistful sort of way that bodies do when they know that chances are, they’re wasting their breath. But today, I listened. I cooked a gorgeous vegetarian dinner, limited my coffee, and drank a lot of water. I went for a walk by the Grand with the darlin’ Darklin and the dog. Later, when I’d had my fill of sitting on my ass, I took the dog for another walk around the block, and then around the other block.  Headphones in. Marillion with “Sugar Mice” and something by Mary Gauthier.  The Waterboys. Lovely…

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I found a wonderful resource for meditation called “Meditation Oasis”. There’s a podcast (I love podcasts) and each one is a guided meditation, though occasionally the podcast is ‘about’ meditation rather than an actual meditation. I began my day today with a 17 minute meditation on nature, and I feel the benefits already.

Let me get the link…

Here it is.

I’ll be recommending this in my next episode of The Dark Side of Fey, I think. Lovely stuff. Really. (Can you sense that I’m kind of floaty right now?)

…soon. I’ve been busy. Getting the garden in, getting yard work done, writing, reading, podcasting…

Living.

But haven’t forgotten my little slice of cyberland, and I’ll be back. Probably tomorrow. I have a couple of poems to share, and some musings on disappointment.

So, today was fantastic.  What else is new. :) I keep feeling like maybe I should knock on wood. Like lightening is going to strike.

Darklin went out to price roofing shingles, and found out the whole project is going to cost us a lot less than we thought. Huzzah. Mid-May, we’ll have a new roof.  Thank Gods. It’s really been wearing on me, all the worry over the roof.

Once he got back, Darklin and I headed out to the Belgium Garden Center and blew a hundred bucks on plants and mulch. Cedar mulch. Mmmmm. We stopped at the grocery store to pick up burger fixings, then to get beer, ice, and a top off on the propane tank. We had our first BBQ of the season, and I spent a good two hours digging the herb bed of my dreams. The bed was sort of there, but it had languished for a few years so it was a right royal mess.  I got it dug, aerated, dug in some peat moss, delineated it from the rest of the yard with some bricks, and stood back beaming to admire my handy work.

A shower and a quick nap later, and I’m ready for an evening of reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelaxing.

And iced coffee.

Nom nom.

I still have another small flower bed to prepare out back, the beds under the trees to clean out and prepare for a sprinkling of shade wildflowers of some kind, an altar to build by the triple tree*, and the bed out front to fill with gladioli, violas, and pansies.

Lots to do, but I’m starting earlier than I ever have before, so I feel confident that I’ll get more done this year than last, and even more than the year before last.

Happiness is gardening.

I found an old hat to wear so I don’t die of sun stroke. It’s an ugly thing - kind of looks like something an eighty year old fisherman might wear - and it has the words “HYDRO ONE” emblazoned across the side in red. It’s perfect. Fits perfectly. Keeps the sun off my head and the sweat out of my eyes.

More gardening tomorrow. Leah’s helping. She did a bit of work digging all the clover out of the vegetable patch. I once lent the space to a friend so she could have some gardening space, and she spread clover seed. Something about it being good ground cover, yadda yadda. I don’t like it at all, which is why we didn’t garden in the back last year. I have to dig out about a thousand clumps of clover before I can plant my veggies. But…once it’s done, I’ll have snap peas and carrots, zucchini and yellow squash, and other things.

Once day I’ll learn to can so I can make preserves. For now, though, we’re thinking ‘deep freezer’. With a family of six, we can definitely use one.

I smell like homemade cold press oatmeal soap and extra strength moisturizer.

This makes me insanely happy.

OMG so funny. And I have a crush on the lovely gray haired guy, too. :)