welcoming november days...

hello, my lovelies and hello, november.

i so love Edith Holden's The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady.  i was thrilled to find an older copy.  i think this came from someone i followed on instagram so long ago.  i have it out, on display, and read through each day that is noted in her diary.

october really did pass too quickly for my liking, but i'm ready to settle into november and slow things down.

i keep feeling as though time is flying past me, but i've come to the realization that it is the pressure to "do all the things" that i put on myself that is the true source of the feeling.

i've been stuck in this mode of "do this a certain way and at a certain time of day" and "make sure you have all of this done by this date" and on and on it goes. 

no more... well, i'll TRY REAL HARD, to NOT put that pressure on myself anymore.  i'm hoping to loosen up my fist and let my life and the things in it flow more naturally.  we'll see how it goes.

late last night, as one month crossed into the next, i did my year ahead reading.  it was quite interesting and i cannot remember a better/more hopeful year ahead reading for myself since i started doing them 15+ years ago or more.

this morning, after arising for the day, i pulled our collective card for the month before doing my own daily card.

seven of swords - don't let anyone steal your light from you, most especially, yourself.  we tend to minimize and lessen our gifts and presence in the world, while others are critical and judgmental about and to us.  let us remember all month that we are the most important person in our life; and our light, our gifts, are unique to us.  no one else has our perspective and abilities like we do.  

shine, my lovelies, shine...

that is all for today, i suppose.  miss priss has a vet appointment in the am. she's finally well enough to receive her vaccinations.  and i'm taking a pair of nail trimmers with me and having a vet tech teach me how to trim her nails.  these claws of hers will be the death of me if i don't keep them trimmed down.

but seriously...that FACE!!  

are you slowing things down in november? or are you gogogo through the holiday season?

thanks for reading...

love & kisses & magickal wishes...

~*~

Happy Halloween...

greetings and salutations to you on this Halloween night...

the party has started and you are most welcome to come in for tea, punch, and all sorts of treats.

there are lots of yummies

while you nibble, take a gander at the special tools some brought.  we have a lot to choose from for our spellwork tonight.

what type of spell do you need?  are you thinking breakup, reversal?  maybe a banishing?  or are you looking to open the way for new things?

i'm sure we have just what you need...

 perhaps you would like to consult the cards before you decide?  i'd be honored to do a reading for you...

don't worry, dearie. the universe will guide you for your highest good...

now that we've had a treat, let's dive into a reading for you and enjoy the rest of the night...

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i hope you are having a fantastically magickal Halloween night and i wish you many blessings for Samhain and the new year.  any special plans?

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in honor of this magical time of the year, i'm offering year ahead readings to anyone who would like one.  if you are interested, send me an email (you can find it in my profile) with "blog offer" in the subject line.  the year ahead readings i do are 13 cards - a general overview of each month with a final card of the overall theme of the year.  the spread is november through next october, not the traditional modern calendar timeline.  i'll email you your reading with a picture of the cards that came up.

thanks for reading and being here...

love & kisses & magickal wishes...

~*~

memes...

hi lovelies, 

it seems to be one of those days, the ones where it evaporates before i've done much at all.

so, for tonight's post, i'll share some memes i've collected recently...

hope you enjoy!

love & kisses & magical wishes...

~*~

August Grace...

hi there, my lovelies.  

i come today with a little story of how the universe will sometimes take care of you in ways you never could have guessed.

if you are a long-time reader, you may already know about my dislike and almost fear of the month of august.  If you are new here or need a refresher, here are some links to help:

2010

2017

2018

2021

those links are to posts that mention or describe why august and i are not friends.

rather than explain it all again, you can read the posts at those links, and it will help to make sense of what comes next.

here's the story:

early evening on sunday, 23rd august, my doorbell rang.  i was very surprised as i rarely have people show up at my house.  i went to the door and opened it to find my brother squatting at the end of the entry.  i noticed he was wearing a pink nitrile glove and under that glove was the tiniest kitten i have ever seen.

my brother and silah had been going to get ice cream, driving down the very busy main road near our home when he spotted the kitten in the road.  he stopped, saw that the kitten was bleeding and collected it from the road.  

as they have two dogs and two cats, and it was too hot to keep it overnight in the garage, they brought it to me to keep for the night before taking to the shelter the next morning.

i had them take it to the emergency vet, who said it was probably about 8-9 weeks old and just had a scrape on her mouth from hitting the asphalt.

they brought it back to my house, we set it up in the bathroom with some old towels, a disposable litter box and kitten food and water.  next morning, when i checked on it, there was a lot more blood.  

i had an appointment first thing that morning and while i was getting ready, i had a flashback to a memory from my childhood.  it was a few months before my grandmommy died when i was 14.  she took me for a walk through the neighborhood, and we ended up at a neighbor who had a cat that had just had kittens.  she let me pick one out to keep as my own, but it would live at her house.

i had completely blocked that from my memory of when she died, and i have no idea what happened to that kitten.  the thing that tripped me out, was that it looked like the little kitten my brother found.

well...despite my germaphobia and dislike and downright loathing of litterboxes, i couldn't bring myself to take her to a shelter.  i took her to the local vet who examined her.  it turns out that she was only 5 or 6 weeks old and ended up in that road because we think she escaped from a hawk.

she had deep punctures in her hip area and a laceration at the underside of her tail.  they operated on her that day, and i brought her home with me the next day.  

that was 7 weeks ago...

during that time she has had 4 surgeries, been spayed, had part of her tail fall off (it had become infected from a bite probably by the hawk and it was missed during the initial exam), has had most of her tail removed and has lived in a cone of shame the entire time.

is she not the cutest thing in the world?!?

i truly believe that my grandmommy sent her to me, to tell me to open my heart again, and also to make peace with the month of august.

so...

meet August Grace, aka auggie.  she is pretty much my whole heart.

i'm sure you'll see much more of her in the coming days, weeks, months, years... 

for our last photo tonight, this is where she is currently...

the cone should come off next week. and then she'll be full steam.  she is definitely a bit of a wild child.  😁

love & kisses & magical wishes...

~*~

flying & swirling...

the 8th?  already?  time really is just flying, isn't it?

i realized a few days ago that i forgot to include the card for the collective for this month on my day 1 post.  i've been trying to get here to post it for several days.

finally...

october's card for the collective:

9 of swords: sleepless nights, frustrations, disappointments.  possible illness or night terrors.

it doesn't look to be an easy month, little frustrations may crop up that while small and seemingly insignificant, could add up to a larger problem or disagreement.  try to keep your cool and your focus. and remember that things always turn at some point.

my favorite month...

hello, october...

i'm so happy to see you.  

hello lovelies...

my favorite month has arrived and with the first couple of days in the high 80's, the temps are supposed to drop saturday and bring true autumn feels.  yay!

i'm using a photo from 2014, i think.  i took it on a road trip, outside the butterfly garden center at Natural Bridge, VA.

yes, it's been hard to get here, to find time to sit and edit photos and write the things i want to share.  but...i'm not giving up.  maybe this will be the month i get to tell you all the things i've been wanting to for months.

are you an autumn person?  or do you prefer the warmer months?

i'll (try to) be back soon with all the tales i have to tell...

thanks for hanging in with me, 

love & kisses & magical wishes

~*~  

thanks for being here.

 

saturday in the garden...

hello dears, 

today i thought i'd take you on a little tour of my garden.  i've spent a lot of time working on it.

this is the first summer that i can remember clearly being able to work in the garden consistently.  i've spent a lot of time cleaning it out from last year's overgrowth, amending the soil, planting as many things as i love as i could find, mulching, putting in pavers, trimming trees, weeding, etc.

the garden is a never-ending work in progress, just like me.  i love being out there (when the humidity isn't turning the air into chunky soup), checking on my plant babies, adding more plants, weeding, pruning, picking flowers to bring inside, just all the things gardens need.

they say the best weed repellent is a gardener's shadow.  mine has been working hard, let me tell you.

well...here you go, some of these are from yesterday and a few are from last week (i think).

yesterday's sky...

last year, she was mother of tomatoes.  this year she is goddess of the gardens...  i try to pick flowers to offer her every day.  

my hoya plant hanging in the crepe myrtle.  i've never seen a hoya bloom, before.  i'm quite excited by this.

this plant is quite a surprise.  it started as an experiment and i didn't really expect anything.  i had a large piece of ginger root and saw somewhere on the interwebs that you can plant it and it would grow.  well... we'll see how it does, but so far so good.

a lot of growing things.  unfortunately, my cucumbers (that started out fantastically) came under attack of cucumber beetles and no matter what i did i couldn't get rid of them.  so, i had to pull out what was left of the plants.  i'm not sure what i can plant in that pot now, so it's just empty.

did i tell you about the butterfly garden i started?  there is a section in the "common property" behind my house that was just a mess of dirt.  the new landscapers only mow with the giant riding things and so they are rarely back there and never tend to that section.  i had 4 milkweed plants and i know they are spreaders, so i kind of blocked off the mud/dirt area, added a ton of planting mix and topsoil and mulch and then planted my rue and the 4 milkweeds.  i also had a bunch of packets of flowers for polinators, so i sprinkled those out there and added parsley and fennel (for the swallowtails).  well, those plants are doing great, and most of the seeds came up, with some even blooming.

borage is one of the plants and sunflowers (but only one sunflower has come up and will bloom soon).  i plan to add a bit more, since it is a hill area, i'm building a natural fence at the base - which backs up to the wooded area - using found limbs and the yellow-belle (forsythia) that is growing there. i layered in a bunch of downed tree limbs and am weaving the long pieces of forsythia through.  we'll see how it goes.

over in the flower bed, the pink zinnias are just so gorgeous.  the echinacea bloomed well as did the black-eyed susans and the salvia.  

well...that's a brief tour of the garden.  i haven't had as much veg to pick as i'd hoped, but i did get a late start planting this year due to all the cleanup.  it's still fun!

how are things growing in your neck of the woods?

thanks for stopping in for a read...

love & kisses & magical wishes...

~*~