I came across a Kitchen Witch blog yesterday and just wanted to do a mini 'shout out' and get you guys to go and have a look.
Crimsonrose started her new blog this month and I'm loving her posts so far, as a kitchen-ish witch myself I'm certainly enjoying them and I expect a lot of you guys will to.
So, here's the link http://crimsonrose1014-witchkitchen.blogspot.co.uk/ go on over and have a gander :D She has another blog too - Witchy Woman which I'm going to have a read of while I drink my coffee and wait for my my CBT lady to call back (finished the first session today, was really good!).
I was listening to BBC Radio Five Live yesterday morning when Victoria
Derbyshire was in an abortion clinic. The show was really good and I have
to admit I was in tears when one of the women was talking about an abortion
that she had.
Then a ProLife woman came on. Now, don't get me wrong, I do not think that
abortions are good things, I think it's terribly sad when a woman has to make
that decision but I really believe that every woman should have that choice. In
other words, I'm pro choice.
I don't want to go into the wrongs and rights of abortion though, it's just
that the show got me thinking about the aims of the Pro Life people. They want
abortion to be illegal, campaigning for the repeal of the Abortion Act 1967. To
me, this seems like a total unrealistic aim to have - it will never happen.
It's just too extreme and there are too many women out there who believe that
they should have the right to choose. They just won't get the supporter base
that they need to have such a massive impact that the Abortion Act gets
repealed. Maybe I'm just being pessimistic (or optimistic I suppose). Maybe they
should have more realistic aims - reduce the number of weeks (currently it's 24
I believe). Reduce the number of legal 'reasons'. Change the views of woman so
that there are less likely to choose abortion. You won't ever be able to
convince the majority of the female population that abortion is always wrong
(in the sense that they will never choose it) but you could make women less
likely to choose it. Be realistic and you will have more of an impact.
Another topic that there seems to be people with completely unrealistic aims
- vegetarianism. I'm not a vegetarian as I believe that it's unnatural and that
by not eating meat we are further removing ourselves from nature. But anyway, I
hate it when seem to have made it their personal mission to make every single
person they know a vegetarian. It's not going to happen - simple as that. There
are too many people who (sadly) simply don't care, those with similar views to
myself and those who need meat to stay healthy. Why not be realistic and work
towards the reduction of meat people eat and improve the conditions of animals
that are bred for meat? You will have a much bigger impact by improving the practices
of the meat industry instead of having a totally unrealistic aim of destroying
the meat industry.
I'm a member of a large hamster forum and a lot of people on there,
including myself, are against the sale of pets in pet stores. I've said it time
and time again - hamsters (or any animal) aren't packets of crisps and
shouldn't be sold like packets of crisps. But I think a more realistic way to
have a impact would be to improve things - improve the conditions of the
animals in the stores, improve the way that they are bred, provide more
information to potential owners and regulate the sale of animals more strictly.
For me the big thing is education - a lot of people pop into a pet store to get
some dog food, see the cute little hamsters and buy one without knowing
anything about their care. Most pet stores don't have a clue when they talk
about the care of the animals they sell which makes things even worse. If they
provided the correct care information with the sale they would improve the
lives of so many of these pets. I hope that one day animals won't be sold in a
supermarket fashion but I think we need to make the smaller steps before we get
to that point.
By no means am I saying that every prolifer or vegetarian has these
aims, these 'missions', I'm purely talking about the ones who do. I'm saying
that if people had more realistic aims they would make a bigger impact, would
make a bigger difference, by making small steps at a time which could then lead to the, currently, unrealistic aim.
Phew. Well, that was a bit of a rant. Apologies if I don't make too much
sense in places, just wanted to get that off my chest lol.
Spring is in full swing, summer isn't too far off and I feel like I've woken up, almost like I've been hibernating.
The last year or so I've been contained within my own flat, held by my own fears. I know that it's not something I should be ashamed of as it is an illness, one I've yet to recover from. But I will, one day I will. I made some progress just the other week, going out for the third time since I became really poorly. Spent a couple of hours in Tesco (it's a big store...) with my mum. It was great and made me feel really good - it added to my hope, to my determination to get better. In a post the other day I mentioned that I will be starting cCBT and I'm now just waiting for some ink for my printer to come so that I can print off all the booklets I need for it. Once I've got the ink I'm going to get stuck in and I really do believe it will help me. My other half thinks it will too.
The year hasn't been wasted though - I've learnt a lot, taught myself a lot, probably things I wouldn't have bothered trying to learn if I was working full time. My cooking skills have improved loads - I've gone from hardly being able to fry bacon to doing full roast dinners with all the trimmings. I have my other half to thank for my cooking skills though as he has taught me a lot, certainly where meat is concerned (my mums a veggie so didn't eat much meat at home and didn't cook it). I can now, er, sort of, bake too. Ignore the suspiciously sunken effect the cupcakes have...
I can now sew, or at least sew well. I've picked up so many techniques from books, my mum, YouTube and trail and error I'm now confident enough to sell the stuff I make. I've even made my mum jealous - I can do french knots and she can't hehehe! Took me a hell of a long time to learn how to do them mind, it included lots of swearing and a bit of blood here and there too.
And of course, I've learnt a lot about Wicca, Witchcraft and Paganism in general. I'm now at the point where I feel I need to start getting my beliefs down on paper to provide myself with a proper foundation so that I can further explore aspects that I've been hesitant about so far. Which brings me to why I made the 'you'll be seeing a lot more of me' comment in my 'Blog Redesign' post. I've picked up so many bits and pieces, so many ideas and want to start sharing those, a long with my own thoughts, via this blog. Not only as a tool for me (ie getting things 'written' down) but so that I can share with people in the hopes that I might inspire some, help maybe a few and bore the pants off a couple more :P I have loads of ideas for posts, ranging from working with crystals to 'magically' cooking and a few mundane, maybe with magical twists, posts on things I love and enjoy.
So, you'll be seeing a lot more of me from now on, that's a promise (maybe a hint of a threat...?)! I'll keep you updated where the cCBT is concerned and my progress with it. Fingers crossed this time next year I'll be running my fingers over freshly cut grass instead of a keyboard!
PS - Hope you like the new design of my blog, if you noticed anything that looks totally screwed up or something doesn't work, please let me know. It wasn't till 6 hours of coding that I realised the header only appeared on the homepage :/ I'm not the most observant of people.
I'm at it again but in a few days you will know why and expect to see much, much more of me very soon! Just don't think, "What on Earth has she done..." if you take a peak and see that my blog is totally messed up, I'm probably doing something at the time lol.
After spending a few hours (oops) on Pinterest and finding some amazing peony photographs I couldn't resist basing the colour scheme on the beautiful flowers.
The one below is the one I chose to use, plus the colour pallet at the top to give you an idea of what colours I will be using.
I haven't posted about my Syrian hamster Luna for a long while, thought I'd give you an update. She's going to be 17 months old tomorrow and oh my has time flown past! Seems like only yesterday she was just a baby. She's definately grown though, I found a couple of photoraphs of her in her toilet, one from when she was a baby, one from not too long ago and I was absolutely amazed at the size difference.
I wanted to share some photographs and videos of her, she's a massive part of my life and it's only fair that she gets some 'blog time'!
That's actually an old photograph of her but it's one of my favourites. I'll post some recent pics of her at the end of my post.
For those who didn't know about Luna, she is a tortoiseshell and white Syrian hamster, born at Hammysworld in Stockport on the 9th of December 2010. She's a little attention seeking madam! Maybe not so much of the 'little' though, she was tiny when we first got her but now? She's a big, big lass!
We used to use a plastic storage box as a playpen for her, here's a couple of videos of her in it -
She now has a massive playpen made out of Correx (or at least the UK version, can't remember the name). At first she was a bit hesitant in it but quickly gained her confidence in there and now zooms around like a mad thing.
The last two nights she's been exceptionally active, I reckon it's because last week we called her old lol. She did give my OH a few scratches on his face though, apparently faces don't make good ladders to climb. Lots of claw gripping is needed which just ends up with yelps.
I was a total idiot the other night... Left her cage door open >.< Thankfully she just went back to bed rather than escape but ever since I've been paranoid that I've left it open and keep going to check it lol. It's the second time I've left her cage open, the first time I didn't reattach a couple of tubes. That time she just went back to sleep instead as well lol. Touch wood I won't do it again!
These are her most recent photographs, sadly I don't have a working camera anymore so can only photograph her when my mum stays. I can still video her though, if you want to see any more vids of her click on the YouTube icon at the top of the sidebar on the right :)
Luna has lost some fur on her hips, we think it's a combination of molting - her bum goes from black in the winter to brown in the summer - and her age. Although she's not on per say, she's not a spring chicken anymore. She's now having Debittered Brewers Yeast and Cod Liver Oil to help, fingers crossed she grows some of it back, or at least doesn't loose any more. Any healing vibes you could share for her would be appreciated x
I was a bit sad recently as I found a Robovoski hamster called Poppy on Preloved that needed a new home, convinced my other half, found the perfect place in our flat to put her cage and as she came with everything she needed I didn't need to buy any more. Turned out she was allergic to the substrate I use and we don't have the space to buy another massive bag of substrate... But, I posted about her on a hamster forum and someone on there has re homed her :D I know that she's in a really good home now, just wish I could have met her!
An update re the agoraphobia/anxiety problems I've been having... I start cCBT soon, possibly this week! A friend sent me some info about these self help people, I referred myself to them (saved going through my GP) and I've got an assessment on Friday. I have to admit I'm not in any way looking forward to it, I'm a complete bag of nerves but I know that it will help me so I'm gritting my teeth and getting on with it. It's all done over the phone and on line which makes it much, much more suited to me as I'm not able to get out and I'm not so good with person to person things. At least not when it comes to problems I'm having.
I hope that you're all well and enjoyed the Super Moon! I'll post an update about the cCBT soon, fingers crossed it goes well!
I came across a Kitchen Witch blog yesterday and just wanted to do a mini 'shout out' and get you guys to go and have a look. 
