Visualization for winter driving

Since winter weather is closing in and making driving dangerous I thought I'd share a simple visualization I created the other morning during my paper route. Before I say anything else I want to make clear that this is to supplement safe, cautious winter driving, not replace it.

While in your vehicle, visualize your tires. Now add spikes coming out of your tires and gripping the road surface. You can use something sticky as well, if you wish. Spikes were just the first thing that came to my mind when I wanted more grip on the road. Reinforce the visualization strongly when you turn corners, need to stop, or feel your vehicle slipping to help your vehicles traction.

I hope this will help everyone on their winter outings. I also adapted it for my boots when walking on a slippery surface. I just envision the spikes coming out of the bottom of my boots and digging into the slick surface.

What I'm listening to Mondays

Since I missed last week due to staying home with a feverish kitty with a swollen lymph node, I'll be posting two songs this week.

The first is Feel So Numb by Rob Zombie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VK16w_Esrno&feature=channel

I've liked Rob Zombie's music since high school and continue to really enjoy his music. His song Scorpion Sleeps is my current ringtone and my favorite song of his has to be Living Dead Girl.

The next song is Mother Earth by Within Temptation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reGlno9aUpw

Within Temptation is a band from the Netherlands that I find very soothing. Sharon's vocals are always impressive and I absolutely love their style.

What I'm Listening to Mondays

I hope to make this a weekly feature here, just to share the music I'm into at the moment.

This week it's the Finnish metal band Apocalyptica!

Their song Not Strong Enough feat. Brent Smith from Shinedown:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5O90uzvUA4

I love the fact that three classicaly trained cellists play metal. It's definitely a unique sound.

I've listened to their music a little bit in the past, but it hadn't really grabbed me. Recently I was poking around youtube and found their new videos. I'm totally hooked now.

You should all go check them out. They're absolutely amazing!

loss of a dear friend

This past Saturday when I arrived at my parent's home for the day my mom came out to greet me as usual. What she said first wasn't usual, though. "We think Pumpkin's died," she told me. She then went on to explain that a few days before when my brother was feeding our horses he had seen her go under the tack shed where she had been living for the last few years, that she hadn't sounded good, and that they hadn't seen her or heard her since.

Pumpkin was thirteen years old and overweight, despite carefully rationing her food for years, so this wasn't necessarily a surprise. However, we'd had her since she was a tiny kitten and I was a little girl. My mom found her and her sister in a hollow in a brush pile on our property where their mother had abandoned them. They were so young I don't think their eyes were even open yet. After trying to get their mother to take them back we decided we would raise them as pets and my mom called our vet to find out what to feed them at such a young age. We had to hand feed them with little syringes for a while, even taking them on a trip to my Aunt's house five hours away because we needed to feed them every little while. Sadly Pumpkin's sister died when she was only a couple months old, as did all the other completly tailless kittens from their litter (their mother was a manx). After that Pumpkin was a dearly loved part of our family, with her meows that always sounded like her tail had been stepped on, her turbo engine purr that could be heard all the way across the house, and her complete lack of mouse radar.

When my mom told me that Pumpkin might be gone I was shocked and it didn't seem quite real. She couldn't be gone after being there everyday for thirteen years. That night when my brother and I went to feed the horses I got a flashlight and was determined to look for her, which probably wasn't the smartest decision on my part. My brother helped me look for her, taking the flashlight and showing me where he'd seen her last. I spotted her shortly after, confirming everyone's beliefs about what had happened to her.

She is definitely going to be missed around my parent's place. It won't be the same without her in the tack shed to meow at me and flop on the floor with a thud and a rumbling purr wanting attention.

Meridian's Mischief : Tasty Pumpkins

Since the Pagan Society pumpking carving meeting was at my apartment, of course Meridian was in the middle of everything once she was brave enough to venture into the kitchen with all the strange people. She proceeded to wander around eating bits of pumpkin guts, attacking the newspaper we'd laid out, playing with the tools we weren't using, and climbing on people. Eating bits of pumpkin was probably what she did most, though. Meridian definitely enjoyed the meeting and made it more interesting for us humans.

Halloween Countdown (almost there!)

Finally getting into the swing of things this week. I got the final pieces for my costume before my Pagan Society meeting Monday, since we were having our pumpkin carving meeting. Unfortunately I was the only one that dressed up, but I got alot of compliments.

The rest of this week is going to bre s whirlwind of activity. Tomorrow some friends and I are doing a "costume showcase." Which is basically us running around campus in our costumes taking pictures of each other. It should be alot of fun! Also that evening I'm going to a costumed ballroom dance, also alot of fun. Then Saturday I'm off to some friends' house for a bonfire. I'm nor sure what I'm doing on

Sunday, although I'm thinking about just staying home and handing out candy to trick-or-treaters. Either that or hang out with friends.

Halloween Countdown

I haven't been doing much Halloweeny or autumny lately, unfortunately. I have however been planning my halloween costume. The credit for the idea goes to the lovely Adam Lambert. When I saw his video for "If I had You" I instantly fell in love with his silver top hat outfit. Ever since I've been planning my own version of it to wear. I'm super excited to pull this outfit together! I'll post pictures hopefully.

another giveaway at Confessions of a Pagan Soccer Mom

Mrs. B is having another lovely giveaway on her blog. These eye rings are absolutely gorgeous and I may have to splurge and buy one if I don't win it.



http://www.confessionsofapagansoccermom.com/2008/10/giveaway-from-gypsy-moon-art-studio.html

Giveaway at Mrs. B's!

There's a fantastic giveaway from Darkling Dreams over on Confessions of a Pagan Soccer Mom. You should all go check it out!
http://www.confessionsofapagansoccermom.com/2008/10/giveaway-from-darkling-dreams.html

Meridian's Mischief

Last night when I was running a bath my new kitten kept putting her paws on the edge of the tub and looking in it. Also during my bath she would get up on the tub like this and pat my arm with her paw. I don't think she's too sure about the human concept of a bath.

I'm hoping to make this a somewhat regular thing, like Mrs. B's "Where the Hell is Tanner?"

More Halloween Countdown

This time around it's mostly autumny things that I'd rather not have to deal with, but alas they're here and I do. On Tuesday I came down with a cold so I've been dealing with that ever since. Since it's been mostly a racking cough I made up some natural cough relief (pictured). It contains a half pint of boiling water poured over a sliced lemon and a Tbsp of organic honey. Added to that is a spoonful of a cold busting herb (thyme, sage, and/or ginger in this case). Then you take half a tsp three times a day. I've been sleeping alot, too.

Also on Tuesday I adopted a 6 month old kitten to keep me company. Well, she came down with a cold a couple days later and now I have to give her antibiotics twice a day. Other than that she's been an absolute joy to have and has helped me feel less lonely.

Something autumny that is easy for me to do is take note of the shortening of the days and lengthening of the nights. I work a paper route so I'm up and running around well before the sun comes up. When I first started the job it was late summer and I'd get done after the sun had come over the horizon fully. Now sometimes the eastern sky has barely lightened by the time I get home and crawl back into bed. It's also made me more aware of the phases of the moon.

Hopefully everyone is faring better than my cat and I. Next post I will hopefully be healthier and have more exciting things to post about.

Haloween Countdown

It's that time of year! The temperatures are starting to cool down, the leaves are changing colors, and Halloween is just around the corner. I'll be participating in The Whimsical Cottage's Countdown to Halloween this year, which should be fun. All you have to do is do something autumny or Halloweeny every day and talk about it on your blog!

Over the past week I've been doing my best to keep up with doing something every day. One of the first things I did was go out in my back yard to pick up some leaves and sit for a while. It was peaceful listening to all the evening sounds. Evenings like that make me glad that I chose to live in the older part of town instead of near campus where most of the other college students live. Much more peaceful by far. The leaves made a beautiful decoration for my apartment, too.

I also made another batch of bread. These loaves turned out much better than the first time I attempted to make bread. I've finally figured out my oven, so they came out perfectly golden brown with no burnt bits. It's heavenly to have fresh baked bread. In my opinion it's better than store bought and I get to be proud that I made it with my own two hands.

Then Monday my pagan group and I watched Practical Magic (one of my personal favorites). And today while walking to campus I played in the leaves along the sidewalk. I didn't care that it was next to a busy street and I'm supposed to be a mature college student, it was fun.

I'm hoping to get my hands on some craft supplies soon and get busy making some Halloween decorations. It's a little disappointing that I won't be able to make my grand decorating plans come to fruition, but I'll make do with what I can do.

School has eaten my free time

In case you hadn't realized, classes started a few weeks ago for me so I haven't been very active on here. My internet activity is also limited by the fact that I don't have internet at home. Although, hopefully the no internet thing will be remedied in a short while.

Not What I Had Planned

Monday afternoon I pedaled my bike on to campus to pick something up and was planning on returning the Dresden book I had recently finished to the library on my way home. The ride onto campus was fairly uneventful and the ride back seemed like it was going to be uneventful as well. I was crossing the last street with a light and dreading the push up the hill to my house when I decided to stand up and pedal to get across the street faster. Bad decision.

As I pushed down hard on the left pedal it decided that that was a good time to come off. Luckily, I had enough momentum to carry me the rest of the way across the street before I crashed to the concrete. There wasn't much pain at first, more just a harsh impact, confusedly wondering how that just happened, and feeble attempts to untangle myself from my bike. A nice pedestrian came over while I was floundering about to help extricate me from the bike and see if I needed help. Of course, by this time my injuries were making themselves known, scrapes, bruises and all. Also, my body was letting me know via ringing ears and dizziness that if I didn't sit back down I was going to pass out and fall down. Annoyingly, that happens to me sometimes when heat and injury are combined. A woman from a nearby realty office then hurried across the street with gauze pads, saying she'd seen me crash from her desk, and helped me over to where she worked. I sat in the back of the office for a while, sipping water, holding a paper towel to my bleeding elbow, and taking stock of all the pains. I then called a friend to come pick me up and take me to the doctor to get cleaned up and looked at.

At the doctor's office I went through having my elbow cleaned and having my aching ankle prodded at. Upon examining my ankle and finding that it was making a funny popping sound when moved around, the doctor ordered x-rays taken of it. I got to then ride around in a wheelchair to the x-ray room since they didn't want me walking on my ankle. Fortunately, my ankle wasn't broken, just mildly sprained. All told, none of my injuries were very serious. The worst ones were my scraped and bloodied elbow, a sprained ankle, blood blisters on my hands, and a bruise about the size of my palm on my side. And of course some really sore muscles the next morning.

As of now, I'm out of the ankle brace, the blood blisters are healing nicely, and the bruise is turning some horrendous shades of green, yellow, and blue. I'm also having to change the dressing on my elbow a couple times a day, which is an exercise in aggravation. As for the bike, it's sitting outside my apartment with only one pedal, waiting for me to fix it and get a bike helmet.

Lughnasadh and cooking adventures!

I hope everyone had a good Lughnasadh on Sunday. I certainly did. Since baking bread is part of celebrating Lughnasadh, I decided to try my hand at it for the first time. Happily, the bread turned out pretty good, except both loaves were slightly burned on the bottom because my oven apparently cooks way too high. I also made a batch of Crockpot Apple Venison to go with it, since it is an easy recipe and doesn't require much attention after you put in the ingredients. So, I spent the entire day happily puttering around cooking.

Everything was quite tasty and I still have leftovers!