Pagan Blog Prompts: A is for Altar

Perfect timing, I just finished the Altars class at the Magical Circle School. As part of this class I had to make several altars.
The first assignment for this class was a "permanent altar". As part of my research for this class, I found some good arguments for not leaving the altar up all the time. Not only do ritual tools left out start to acquire all the psychic garbage that builds up from ordinary life, but setting up the altar is part of preparing your mind for ritual. So, I do not have an altar sitting in a corner waiting for me to decide to cast a spell. I do have, I guess you could call it a focal point. On this I have a zen garden, a soapstone jewelry box that contains the spiritual jewelry I wear each day, a red candle, and an incense burner. I also have all of the components to a 7 day spell I am currently in the middle of.

Another assignment we did was a purposeful altar. I haven't decided if this idea does anything for me or not yet. Perhaps I'll do some experimentation, and update this later. I remember dutifully doing the assignment mostly thinking "this is really silly" so, probably, this won't be implemented into my spiritual path.

In the window I have a shrine to the goddess Brigid. On the shrine I have a jar candle with a picture of Brigid on it. A lot of tea lights, and a small pot that will hopefully grow into some flowers. The kitty is a plant murderer, so we shall see. Imbolc is one of my favorite Sabbats, because its a reminder that winter does not last forever. I have some pretty serious seasonal affective disorder, and about this time of year I want to go very dramatically mad.

There were a couple of other things in the class, but these I guess were the most interesting. 

The infuriating cycle

It seems most people, once they get diagnosed with EDS, are already on a permanent decline. Me.. I seem to be on a cycle. I feel good for a couple of days, so I do something ill advised, get injured, rest to get over the injury, then get hurt several times as soon as I am better. Eventually it levels out for a while, and then it repeats. Part of this is my fault, and why, even though its not a task, or work, or anything that falls in the category of service dog, I need a dog. Steadily getting just the right amount of easy exercise tends to keep me from feeling like a doll some kid pulled apart at the joints.

Now, I am worse than I have been before in my life, because I was on a bus that got rear ended. I screwed my back and neck up good. Plus, for even more fun I have a pretty severe case of the random faints. Not. Fun. At. All.

ADBC: (im)Perfect

Assistance Dog Blog Carnival

Past Perfect
My first assistance dog retired before his third birthday. I learned so much during the almost four years of our training and working life together. The first lesson I learned was never name a dog after a famous pot head. Marley had way more "wait.... what?" moments than I can count. He just regularly forgot he had a brain. Not everything I learned was positive. For example, Marley was a classic "bad" breed. And I got constantly harassed on the internet for it. Repeatedly told my dog was a ticking time bomb waiting to eat children. When he lost his vision, and I had to retire him, I was given no support. I gave up on connecting with other assistance dog partners.

This kitten demonstrates a stoner moment.

This Time Imperfect

Every time the assistance dog carnival rolled around, I wished I could participate. Yet, I did not want to bring the drama I experienced on assistance dog forums into my blog. Finally, this topic came up. I couldn't resist. Its okay to strive for perfection and not reach it. Its okay to not be the perfect handler, to not know every little thing. Sure, its not okay to work an untrained dog, or a dog who poses a direct threat.. I think most of us know the real big nono's. Most people who are trying to take this road *are* trying to do this right. Being told that you have to look and be perfect 100% of the time is not okay.  Nobody is perfect, and that's what makes us human. That's what makes our dogs, dogs. Its okay to be imperfect. 

Future Perfect.

About a year ago I began planning for Marley's successor. I started with nothing, but my requirements for the breeder I wanted my puppy to come from. You know, the usual things us owner trainers sometimes obsess over. Health tested parents, early neuro stimulation, early socialization, etc. Finally, the "perfect" breeder was found. Future, as I've taken to calling him in my head, will be a standard Poodle. In a lot of people's eyes, that's wrong, I guess. But I've decided, I'm not going to obsess over someone else's idea of Perfect. Its enough stress to obsess over mine.

FlyLady (Days 3-5)

Day three: Doing what we have already done

• Getting Dressed to Lace up Shoes: Okay, I'm kind of failing on this one. I got dressed, but I haven't showered or done my hair. I'm kind of resistant to actually getting dressed, because I really, really, really need to go buy clothes. I don't know what happened to my clothes, but I can find about one pair of pants and 3 shirts, excluding my work uniform. I hate spending money on clothes, but I am gonna suck it up and buy some on sunday I guess. (its entirely possible that the creepy old man who I SAW steal my underwear out of the dryer has escalated to stealing my clothing, I guess. Sometimes apartment living is weird.)
• Shining the sink.
  Well, I made Troy (my partner if I haven't clarified that yet on this blog) do the dishes last night. Does that count? :P And did them this morning. Troy and I do not live alone, so after we go to bed dishes pile up.

Day Four
Basically, sign up for the newsletter. Theres enough crap in my inbox to make me reluctant about doing this, haha.

Day Five
Your supposed to like, write down some negative thoughts and make them happy. Ugh, See, this is where I resist the FlyLady. Doing this sort of thing reminds me of this class I was forced to take in 9th grade because the school decided I was at risk of dropping out. Essentially some really annoying guy screamed at us for an hour telling us to unlock our potential or some shit.

Day six is Hot Spots, so, at least it will be interesting again.

FlyLady (two days in)

I don't know why I always try to do this thing, but here goes again. I know a messy house is bad for magic, but now that I'm with Troy, we aren't really messy, just very disorganized. Now that I have a job,  am going to school, and doing Magical Circle School.. I really need to stop chasing myself around every time I try to do something. So, maybe the whole flylady thing will help with that, at least the house keeping aspect.

Day one is Shine your Sink.
I don't really see the point in actually shining the sink.. clean it out, yeah, but make it all pretty? When five minutes after I am done somebody will pour coffee in it, or put some dirty crap in it? Nah. Oh, I have a sink peeve. Seems to be a thing old people do, mostly, but anyway, when people put the dishrag over the faucet of the sink. Gives me the germ willies just seeing that!

Day two is Get Dressed to Lace Up Shoes.
 Okay, I'll do this today. (Yes, I am posting this blog in my PJ's.) Tomorrow, I work, so I don't know. I am not wearing my work clothes all day, because they smell like wet dog and other unsavory things. But, I don't really want to take the time to change before I leave. Yeah, lazy lazy.

Doing the Melomeals?

(Yes, by the way, this is the food post I was talking about in the last blog.)

I'm thinking about it.
Today, I am throwing together some crock pot chili.
I'll probably freeze half of that, unless its disgusting. (Never freeze food that you aren't sure you like. it will sit in your freezer like a space hogging brick... forever.)

Tomorrow, I have off, so IDK what I will cook. I cannot cannot cannot do crockpot cooking while I am home, I keep poking at it, lol.

Friday, I will probably make a stew recipe I found. It is also Shopping Day, so I will try to plan out what to make before next week before then.

The easy way to post a blog.

Amanda has a video on this same phenomenon.. only with boiling water. I've had days where I've done this with every single task I try to complete. Usually, not at work, or I'd lose my job, but sometimes, yeah.
At home though, its like, 50% of the time.

Posting a blog goes like this.
Decide to post a blog about... anything, but lets say food.
Pick up knitting.
Put down knitting.
Remember you were going to post a blog.
Knit a few rows.
Try to count how fast the fan goes.
Remember you were going to post a blog about food.
Decide to cook food instead.
Walk to the kitchen.
Walk out of the kitchen.
Feed the fish.
Remember you were going to cook.
Open cupboards.
See hot chocolate mix. 
Decide to make hot chocolate.
Set hot chocolate mix on the counter.
Walk to the living room.
Sit on the couch.
Remember you were going to post a blog about food.
Walk towards the bedroom.
Go into the bathroom instead.
See the toothpaste.
Decide to brush your teeth.
Open bathroom cabinets.
Get your tooth brush.
Close bathroom cabinets.
Decide the mirror needs to be washed.
Carry your toothbrush to the closet.
Get the window cleaner.
Spray window cleaner on the mirror.
Remember you were going to post a blog.
Turn on the computer.
Check email.
Finally, post a blog about posting a blog.