a collector of collections...

good evening of day 3,781 of 2025. 

 i know...but it sure does feel like that here in the US.  during my re-organizing and deep clean of my house, i have been looking at a lot of my collections.  i was going to say i realized i was a collector...but i've always known that about myself.  i collect so much that i need a larger home. :-)

i thought i'd share a few of my collections with you.

sorry for the dusty pics, i guess i collect spider webs too. :-)

above is a mixture of treasures found in new mexico, maryland and in the woods where i walk near home. the dish is one i was gifted from Cancun.

rocks and stones from Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu, New Mexico. the dish is a piece of pottery by Stephen Kilborn. we stumbled across his shop on our drive from Abiquiu to Taos. i'd read about him in one of my favorite book series so of course i had to stop and see what it was like. he is a really kind man.

more gifts from nature, including a crow feather i was gifted by the Morrigan awhile back. and a strawflower included with a package from Sirena. she always adds such lovely little things to her packages.

more of my collections, this time books and knickknacks. and the cremains of my fur babies.

and last for today's collection browse...one of my bookshelves, that has since been moved and cleaned up. and yes, there are two layers in those shelves. books on books on books... :-)

i hope to be back in the next day or two with more tales from my not so wild life. 

there are a couple of projects i've going this month that i hope to share.

before i go, 2 things.

1st - in answer to Debra's comment on my last post and a bit more explanation. yes, we insulate our pipes here. unfortunately, when they built this unit 30? years ago, the insulation was placed in the wrong spot at my kitchen wall. i've looked into it and it is ridiculously expensive to have corrected. the sad part is that it took too many years of living here and having to deal with it, before i realized how much water i was wasting and losing. i've had a nice break for the last week or so, as it was warm enough i didn't have to drip and that let me work my way through 10 gallons or so. that changes tonight though as the cold returns.

2nd - for the vast majority of my life, i have kept my mouth closed about politics. it comes from being told from birth that my opinions have no meaning or merit. well, i can't keep quiet any longer. the state of the country i live in is a nightmare of epic proportions. i am disgusted by the betrayal of the democracy we've held so dear. now, i'm not saying this was a great country.  in fact, i disagree with most of our history in the country and how things were done and people were treated. hence...

yep, i took a usa garden flag my neighbor gave me and am hanging it on my front door.  it is my understanding that a flag upside down is a sign of distress. well, this country and it's future are in distress. i intend to leave this here until the evil one and his puppet are gone. (which one is which? haha) so, you may be seeing some political writing here from time to time, but i'm going to try not to turn into a rage monster about it. :-)

well...that's it for today. here's to hoping the storm on it's way doesn't leave too much ice out there and the power stays on.

thanks for sticking around...

love & kisses & magical wishes

~*~

winter mornings...

there is one thing that happens in my home every winter.  when the temps drop to freezing or below, the kitchen faucet has to drip.  yep...any and every time.  a week or so ago, it had to drip for 4 days straight.  after the first year or two, it made me wonder how much water i was wasting.

last year, i collected as much as i could and would use it to water plants, cook and clean stuff.  since i have to sleep with a cpap, i use a lot of distilled water and had collected a lot of the gallon jugs.  so, when the freezing began, i started my collection.

i use this funnel and container to collect and then pour into the gallon jugs.  so far, i've collected about 30-40 gallons total (maybe a little more).  the photo below is just part of the collection.  when i realized how much i was accumulating, i started numbering them so that i use them in the order collected.  i even went so far as to pull out my old britta pitcher and filters so i can drink it, too. it's absolutely crazy how expensive our water is and i just couldn't stand to see all this just go down the drain.  

just a little way i try to do my part for our environment...

 how i start my mornings... my journal, an oracle deck and on this particular day a lovely cup of peppermint hot chocolate (it's usually a glass of water, but it was reallyyyyyyy cold that morning).

anywho...how are you all fairing during the apocalypse?  i'm keeping my head in my heart as much as i can and doing whatever i can to keep myself from going insane.  

well, that's all for today.  i'm hoping to share some photos of my living area soon (i found a place for the tree! it's going to stay up year-round and be a seasonal tree).  i've rearranged and managed to get my art area set up more to my liking and also in a more useful manner.

thanks for sticking around...

love & kisses & magical wishes...

~*~

dang it's cold...

the way the light of sunset was hitting these trees when i walked outside a little bit ago was magical.  i wish the beauty came through this picture.

oh well...

i was going to post pictures from last week's snow, but when i went looking i found i hadn't taken any!  what?! i know!!  that is soooo not like me.

the artic cold is on it's way back south and while we won't get any snow we will get temperatures in the 20's during the day and teens at night for most of the week.

anyhoo... i have lots of projects i can work on inside during the cold. 

hope you have had a good week and weekend.  i've been distracted by migraine life and new doctors' visits which require traveling the roads quite a bit. :-(

well...hope you have a good week. 

thanks for stopping in for a read.

love & kisses & magical wishes

~*~

 

snow days...

 i'm so cold today.  the system that is moving across the south has made it here and it is snowing! plus the temp hasn't moved above freezing all day.

the forecasters are saying we could get between 3-5 inches of snow.  i hope so.  i love a good snowstorm.

in honor of today's cold weather i stocked up on a few things yesterday and this morning started some pinto beans in the crockpot and later in the am made the one-pot chicken, mushroom, spinach, red pepper pasta.  i'm pretty sure i've shared it here before.

last weekend i was able to acquire a beautiful old piece of furniture from a neighbor's daughter.  the neighbor passed a few weeks ago and they have been cleaning out her house.

i can't wait to get her cleaned up and put in place.  i'll have to do quite a bit of re-arranging to get it where i want it. so, yeah, i found myself another project to work on.  hee hee

anywho...well the snow is falling and i'd say we've probably received about an inch so far.  

hope you are having a good week.

love & kisses & magical wishes

~*~

the tree dilemma...

but not...

i wasn't going to put up a tree this holiday season.  since last october i've been working on a project of getting things organized and purged out a little bit.  it's super hard for me to do because everything i see is "hmmm...could i use this in my art?" or "how can i repurpose this for something else?"   hahahaha

but i've been cleaning out old (20 year) files and shredding like a fiend.  re-organizing art and crafting supplies that includes paper, fabric, beads, etc...

i wasn't going to decorate for the holidays at all, but then i decided to host the family holiday meals. the old tree is just too big to put up, so i decided to see if i could find something small to use.

2018's tree...

2024's Yule Tree...

i really love this tree. i'm thinking of using it all year and decorating it for each season/holiday.  i haven't decided yet, though.

anyhoo...guess what we had today? 

the first snow...

it was brief, and just dusted things, but...it snowed!

i guess that's all i have to share for now.  hopefully, i'll have something fun to share soon.

thanks for reading...

love & kisses & magical wishes...

~*~

keeping up 2024...

one of the things i did, sort of, keep up with was my yearly journal/planner...  i could never figure out what to call it.  it is a journal, it is a planner (calendar pages, etc), i put art in it, it's part bullet journal too.

i started working with these a few years back, inspired by a favorite art teacher.  it starts with just a plain composition notebook and grows from there.  when i first started i would switch to a new notebook whenever the current one was full.  then in 2023, i took the covers off a second notebook and taped the books together so it is all one book per year.

as you can see in the photo below, it becomes quite large and unwieldy.

2024's planner/journal

near the end of october i started thinking about how to make this a bit smaller, not necessarily in bloom but in just general size.

so this is what i came up with for this year.

last year (on left) and this year (on right)

so far, i'm really liking the smaller size.  the new one is a Moleskine Cahiers lined journal. they only have 80 pages so i have no idea how many i'll end up needing to get through the year.  but i decided i would glue covers together and just keep building the depth.

only three days into the new year and new journal/planner and it is already blooming wonderfully.

after spending a year calling it my planner/journal, a journner, and my life; i've decided to call it my collective.  it's not a grimoire or a book of shadows, so collective sounds nice.

anyhoo...that's it for today.

though i did want to let Debra know that i agree with her comment, chocolate is definitely the way to go. :-)

love & kisses & magical wishes...

~*~

 

guess who's back? back again...

yep...it's me...

i'm still alive and making my way back into the world of blogging and well, the world.  let's just say that 2024 was not my best look.  i was pretty agoraphobic there for a while, but i was able to get some help and am feeling much, much better.

anyhoo... here are a couple of pictures from the end of 2024 (ie: yesterday) and the first day of 2025. 

Death by Chocolate Cheesecake my sister-in-law and i made yesterday. 

Ours isn't very pretty, but it's only our second ever attempt at a cheesecake, so.  Click the link above if you want to see what it is really supposed to look like and get the recipe.

ps...it is soooooooo good!!  

 

new year's day sunset...

I laughed when i got to my blog and saw that the last post was also a sunset, but new year's eve.

that's all for now...i've really missed being here and missed reading all the blogs that i follow/followed.  i wonder who's still here in bloglandia.

happy new year to you and i hope that this year will bring peace, love and hope into our lives.

love & kisses & magical wishes...

~*~

ps...anyone else have "Houdini" in their head after reading the title of this post?  :-)