The Chicken Mask

Well, I said I would do it, and it is my project for today. I am finally making the infamous chicken mask and hiding in Mr. Sci-fi's closet to scare the crap out of Mr. Cup! I spent the weekend at my mom's house so I didn't get to post anything all weekend but I came up with the idea of making three chicken masks, one for me, one for Mr. Sci-fi, and one for Mr. Cup. This is going to be so much fun! I cannot wait to scare Mr. Cup, I just hope he doesn't punch me straight in my chicken nose. I'll share pictures of the masks later and I'll share the story of everything but I just had to tell you that I will be in the process of making my chicken masks today, I couldn't keep it to myself! Also, there's still time for you guys to enter the fiftieth post giveaway.

Happy St. Patrick's Day 2010

Hello everyone! I hope everyone is having a wonderful day so far. Today for me has been pretty good. All of my friends are dressed in green and we'll be going out to the local cowboy bar tonight for some dancing, pool, music, and fun. Silly Miss K is running around in a green Bud Light Lime tank top and green Mardi Gras beads lol. I was wearing a lime green shirt but I didn't like it so I found a green t-shirt that has the name of my school on it and am wearing it now. You all should be proud of me ... I actually fixed my hair today instead of just throwing it in a ponytail.

There's a guy here at school, we'll call him Mr. Cup, that spent all of my Spring Break at my parents' house with me. He's wearing a red western shirt with a little green ribbon tied on his arm. I'm not sure who dressed him because he's color blind but he looked like a cowboy advertisement for The Perfect Western Christmas lol. He's been threatening to hide in my closet with nothing but a chicken mask on and jump out and get me. Well, today he hid in the bushes and pretended to get people who weren't wearing green. It was absolutely hilarious. When he got in the bushes he took a flying leap and landed on them on his back and the bush kind of just sucked him into it. Miss K asked him to do it again but he said it hurt too much because the bush apparently stabbed him in the chest for jumping on it lol.

I wish I could talk to you guys about mine and Mr. Cup's relationship because I would love to get your advice on the weird situation but there's so much to it that it's complicated to explain. So I guess I'll just tell you guys that I never thought I would like him as more than a friend but then Spring Break happened and I got to see the true him and I really liked what I saw. My mom and dad really love him, he spent both weekends of Spring Break at my house, and my little brother has bonded with him big time. I've dated guys seriously in the past, I've been engaged 3 times, and little bro didn't get attached to any of them the way he has to Mr. Cup.

Mr. Cup is really bad about saying one day that he considers me to be his big sister (because I'm 2 years older than him), and then the next day doing things like grabbing my butt then kissing me on the cheek and telling me he loves me. He's taken to calling me sweetheart and telling me to have sweet dreams every night. He thanked me for introducing him to my parents, and he'll be going with me to my grandparents' house for the Fourth of July for the local rodeo we have. And when he's at my parents' house he never wants to leave. I know all of that sounds like nothing once it's written down but there is much more that I just don't have room to write.

During the weekdays of Spring Break he stayed with his parents and he called me one night and couldn't talk for very long because he'd been out til five that morning and needed sleep. I asked him why in the world he would be out that late and he had had a final fling with his first love. I wasn't jealous of that because believe me, I completely understand. If I had a chance for a final fling with my first love I would definitely take it so there was no jealousy there. Then we got back to school and he started talking to this girl, we'll call her Miss Fox (some people seem to think she looks like Megan Fox and she doesn't look like her at all).

Miss Fox is really mean to him. The other night he watched a movie with her and she took his cell phone away from him and made him sleep on the couch. He is a very sweet and respectful guy, wonderful manners, so I don't really understand why she thinks she can treat him like that. I get really jealous when I think about him spending time with her. I don't even know why I'm getting jealous. I mean I'm 22 years old, not entirely prone to flights of fancy, we're not together right now, so what reason do I have to be jealous? I don't understand where this emotion is coming from. Even Miss K doesn't really understand, Mr. Cup's roommate doesn't even understand it (meaning the entire situation, not the jealousy part), because Mr. Cup has different ways of going about getting a girl, and he's not using any of those tactics with me but Mr. Cup's roommate, we'll call him Mr. Sci-Fi, can see that there's something there. I wish I could figure it out. I really wish I could read minds lol. But I guess I'm going to end this now. I hope everyone has a wonderful St. Patty's Day, and I'll see you call later!

My Book Of Shadows

I finally decided on how I want to do my BOS, and I've decided on doing it scrapbook style. I've made three pages already and would like to share them with you.

This was the second page I did. I like it but I feel like I'm getting better as I go along.

This was the very first page I did. It's the page I made for Aphrodite. The background is vintage Valentine's day images and I put a butterfly sticker, a romance sticker, a sticker that says Amore, and four stickers that spell out love. There's also a heart sticker at the top right hand corner but it just blends in lol. I will probably end up redoing this page because Miss K was in a hurry to go do something and I didn't get to do as much with it as I wanted. Mom says we'll go to Hobby Lobby this weekend and get more stickers and paper so I can work on all this some more.

This is the last page I did. It is my book blessing page. It will go before the cover page and the page for Aphrodite. I texted this picture to Mom and she liked it a lot. I like it too. I definitely feel like I'm getting better with each page that I do lol.

Miss K has been a tremendous help with this. She offers her opinion on adding stickers, etc. Although I know in the end this is a personal book I don't mind sharing it with my friends and seeing what opinions they have. I'll ask for an opinion and if I don't agree with it I'll do something else. I'm glad I have friends that understand that instead of getting upset when I don't use all of their ideas.

The Roommate

Well, it's official, I now have a new roommate. She's moving in as I type this. When I first met her, she seemed like a nice girl, but I've heard from some of my friends that she's not a very nice girl. Yesterday while texting, it seemed like we would get along but now I'm a little worried about it. Earlier, I went down to a friends room to pick up some movies they had borrowed and Miss K was in my room watching The Good Witch. My roommate was carrying a large white tub into the room and having some trouble so Miss K asked if she needed help. According to Miss K, my roommate looked at her, rolled her eyes, and told her no.

That to me is not very nice at all. When I was told she would be moving into my room I texted her and told her if she needed help just to let us know and Miss K and I would help her move but she never texted and she just started moving in about an hour and a half ago. I just hope that she and I can get along and not have any problems. I also need to work on the energies in the room ... Things are getting a little um, wrong. That's on the list for tomorrow. I'll keep everyone updated on things. Oh also, I'm going to my mom's this weekend! Getting a hair cut and maybe dying my hair! I'm a little excited! Also, I'll get to go to Hastings or Barnes & Noble with Mom and we'll be getting new tarot cards, so exciting!

Such A Long Day

This day has been filled with all sorts of running around. First I had class at eleven. Then I met Miss K at the fountain for lunch, during which time we received new movies from Netflix! Then Miss K and I rode with our friend Squirrel who needed to go pay for a ticket at the courthouse, then we all went to a guitar shop here in town which I was pretty excited about. I've owned two acoustics in the past and don't have either of them now. I was so happy to be surrounded by so many guitars! I want a new one so bad I can taste it!

After that, Miss K and I came back and hung out for a little bit, then Mr. J came by with a headache so I fixed him a cup of chamomile tea. After that Miss K announced that she was bored out of her mind and wanted to find some sort of craft to do. We jump in the truck and drive all over town, Miss K trying to find some sort of kit to buy that would keep her busy for a while, and me trying to find scrapbooking supplies. We drove all over town! Miss K didn't find anything that satisfied her, and the only thing I found even remotely interesting was a package of over 300 pages of card stock with different designs on them. The store wanted 30 dollars for it and I'm not even sure if I'll even use any of the paper in the package so I would much rather not get it.

We found out we'll have to drive an hour away to the nearest Walmart if we want any kind of craft supplies. We also have the option of ordering online but I'm not a big fan of ordering scrapbooking supplies online because you might get it and not like it and it's just a hassle. I would rather be able to look at it in person and touch it with my own hands to decide if I really want it or not. It is now 4:42 p.m., and we have about 15 minutes until the UC opens for supper, so I just wanted to share my day with you! Later there will be a couple more posts, I just wanted to share this one with you first.

Oh and Miss K is very excited because she purchased her first ever thing of sea monkeys! I'm not going to lie, I'm a little excited about it too! Even though I'm 22 years old, I've never had my own sea monkeys so I'm very excited to see what the little critters do. And, I've seen some local women planting flowers already so next week I plan on going over to the plant nursery in town and seeing if I can find some lavender and chamomile seeds. I want to grow lots more than that but I'm not sure what I want to grow at the moment, or what will survive in my dorm room. I have two windows in my bedroom but none in the living room area. I may be able to purchase artificial uv lights to put in my living room area but I'm sort of new to gardening and growing things so I'm not sure what all needs to be done or what all plants will need extra special care to survive here, so if you guys have any suggestions I am 100% open to them!

A New Roommate

For the first part of this semester I didn't have a roommate. I was actually hoping not to have one at all. But just a couple minutes ago, my RA (residential assistant) knocked on my door and handed me a list of names. They are consolidating rooms and all the people without roommates are having to choose one. So I've been apprehensive and probably a little closed minded about it. Miss K is constantly reminding me not to jump to conclusions. These conclusions come from last semester when I had a terrible roommate.

Last semester I had a young woman who was 17 years old, first time away from home. Now I'm 22 years old, I do not have to live on campus but I choose to because it is paid for by my grandfather. Now I don't want to say that our differences were brought on by our ages because Miss K is younger than I am and we are best friends. I really cannot tell you what made us so different. However, she was not a very clean person, she made messes and just left them there, shoved the coffee table into the entertainment center and arranged the living room so no one could walk around. On top of that, she was one of those people that would be really nice to you to your face but talk bad about you to your friends.

I grew tired of having to tell her to clean up after herself and all of that. I am not here to be someone's mom. Because of her false niceties the room was infested with negativity and I grew to be a fairly negative person. I gave up on trying to keep the negativity at bay because it was just always there and there was nothing I could do about it unless I just sat around my room and constantly expended energy to keep the room negativity free.

So because of the experience I had last semester I was really hoping if I just minded my own business and didn't remind my RA that I don't have a roommate no one would be assigned to me. But after almost a month of being back at school they have decided not to ignore all of us without roommates. I called the residential living office and spoke to them about the situation. They kind of made me feel a little better about the situation but I am still a little nervous. They assured me I probably won't have to move out of my room since I've been here since last semester. However, they are going to assign someone to me and since I don't know anyone on the list I won't get to know them until they move in. This makes me nervous because I don't know what kind of person this girl will be. I don't know if we'll even be compatible at all. But I trust in the God and Goddess and I know they will put someone in here that I can live with. So fingers crossed ... I hope she's nice and accepting ...

Sacred Space

When I first started studying the craft I read a lot about sacred space. At first it seemed so confusing. I though sacred space was a place where you went through complicated rituals to create it. Now that I've matured and I'm finding my own path I understand it a little better. The best way for me to understand sacred space is to think of the wonderful peace, love, and trust I feel in my grandparents home (which is basically where I consider my home to be). That to me is sacred space, a place where you feel perfect peace, love, and trust.

Now that I'm in school and living in the dorms far away from home, I strive to make my dorm room feel that way. That includes keeping it clean, decorating it in such a way as to make it look and feel like my home, and while cleaning, kicking negativity out. A lot of the stuff I read about sacred space mentioned keeping altars in the living room, etc., but I've never really like having an altar. So, I keep my place clean and free of negativity and it feels like sacred space to me.

Along with my physical sacred space, I do have astral sacred space. Actually, I have a couple of them. One is a sort of meditation type room that has floor pillows, candles, and lavender incense. This is where I go when I just need to calm my mind and push the negativity that accumulates in my life away from me. Another one is kind of hard to explain. Picture a white cottage with a wide front porch with white wicker rocking chairs and a natural wood door (meaning you can see the knots in the wood and everything), in the middle of a meadow surrounded by a forest. Roses climb the porch railings, and there are window boxes filled with gorgeous flowers. This is my favorite place. I go to my cottage all the time. There is always a good cup of tea waiting for me by my rocking chair, and I've spent a lot of personal time with the God and Goddess here.

The little ritual I do while maintaining my sacred space here at the dorms is very easy. Miss K and I clean, and while cleaning I mentally picture removing all of the negativity. Mentally I might ask Aphrodite to come into my living room and my bedroom and bless it with her love and passion. And just like that my sacred space is complete. Even people who don't know how to feel magickal energies can feel the difference.

Mental space is mainly a mental exercise. I picture my places and mentally cleanse them of any negativity that might be lurking there, and move right on in. Each time I visit an astral sacred space I get rid of all negativity first and then speak with Aphrodite or just spend time sitting there getting back into a positive frame of mind. And that's all there is to it! What about your sacred spaces? Do you have a combination of physical and astral sacred spaces? Do you only maintain an astral sacred space or just a physical sacred space, and what kinds of rituals/spells do you do to create and maintain them?

Pagan Blog Prompts: Book Of Shadows

First let me say, I sat here at my computer for hours trying to figure out what to write about. I've been having problems with insomnia so my mind is a little sluggish and I'm having a hard time keeping things straight. So, since I couldn't come up with my own idea for writing, and since I promised myself I would write at the very least one post per day, I headed over to Pagan Blog Prompts and picked out a prompt that seems easy enough for my sleep deprived brain to handle.

This prompt asks what everyone's book of shadows is. I don't really have a singular book of shadows. I have a spiral notebook that is green and has brown leaves on it that I use when I'm looking through a book about Witchcraft that I write down my feelings and ideas in but I don't really keep spells or recipes or rituals or anything like that in it, just my ideas. I used to keep a book of shadows when I started studying Wicca that was in a black fake leather journal that I bought at Walmart but I got rid of it because I found a different path that felt more natural to me.

Soon I'm planning on starting another one that will be in a binder with loose leaf pages. I plan on putting herbal information, meditations, and spells in it. I don't do a whole lot of rituals but I might start doing tiny Esbats in my room and recording my thoughts about them in the new book of shadows.

Living in the dorms at college can really test your creative abilities. Many questions pop up that you never really worry about when you live in your own place. I'm blessed because the dorms here at my school are definitely not like traditional dorm rooms. I have my own separate bedroom. Here, each dorm unit consists of two bedrooms, a bathroom, a living room + fridge and microwave area. Each bedroom can be locked and the bathroom is only shared by you and your roommate. However, when it comes to reading your tarot cards, doing Esbats, keeping up with a book of shadows, and all the other things that go along with worshiping the God and Goddess or working magick, things can get a little complicated.

I like to be able to leave my book of shadows out on my bedside table and I like leaving my cards out in the open where I can get to them when I feel like using them but having a roommate often prevents that. So far this semester I have been blessed because no one has been assigned to my personal dorm unit yet. I live alone for now. Miss K is constantly here but she doesn't mind seeing my tarot cards or my books about Paganism or my book of shadows just lying around. Last semester I had a roommate that wanted me to do a tarot reading for her once a week.

Other than leaving cards and books lying around, there are certain rules that we have to abide by while living in the dorms that limit what we can and can't have in the rooms. I love candles, and I'm not allowed to have them, not even without with wick, incense is another thing I dearly love and I can't have that either. Of course those are the only things we aren't allowed to have. If I wanted to cover my room in pentacles they wouldn't say anything about it as long as they aren't nailed to the walls. So for Esbats, since I don't do rituals very often, I have to get creative in my ways of representing fire and air.

But that is another topic altogether. As my new book of shadows comes along, I will keep you updated. I'm not sure how I want to set it up just yet. I haven't decided if I just want to type the pages up on my computer, print them out, and put them in my binder, or if I want to do something like a scrapbook, or a kind of combination of the two. We'll see what happens...

Intro Blog

Well, I decided to start this blog because I had been running a website called The Witches' Community. I got frustrated because I wanted it to help other Wiccans/Pagans and be a place where they could get together, chat, hang out, and so on. After several months of moving the old site to a newer place that I liked much better and thought others would agree, I only have around 10-12 members and the last login that wasn't me was a week ago. So I'm leaving the site up to be fair to the other members that may or may not show up to it but I think from now on I'm just going to focus on my blog. At least then I'll be doing something helpful for me and not stressing out about whether or not someone is reading this.



So since this is supposed to be an introduction blog I guess I need to tell you guys a little bit about myself. I'm a 21 year old eclectic solitary Pagan. I've been studying Wicca for about 6 years now and I really enjoy and am most comfortable with my new religion. And in ways it is still very new to me... I have a hard time remembering certain things and you would think after 6 years I would be able to remember certain things but alas I still have to check my books every now and then. It doesn't bother me that much though, I usually just follow the Rede and just do whatever feels right to me. Even if I do a ritual and later realize I did some things backwards as compared to some people's formats, I still get things accomplished and usually just as well as any of my other friends that follow a more strict format. I'm a college student about to transfer to a University here in Texas and am currently majoring in Agriculture but when I get to my new University I'll be studying Animal Production and Pre-Vet. I guess you could say I'm a big time country girl. I love wearing my boots (which I need to replace because they are falling apart), driving around in my '95 Dodge pickup, listening to Texas Country, Nashville Country, Rock, Alternative, Classic Rock, and a couple other genres.



One thing I guess I need to tell y'all is that I have a brain and I use it. I'm opinionated and I don't mind sharing my opinions. On here I'll be more open about it than I would in public because when you're in public you need to show a little tact and be polite but here online I'm going to tell you exactly what I think, just like I would if you were one of my close friends, and believe me some of my close friends have sat through rants where they weren't even sure if I was mad at them or just the situation in general... So here's the Surgeon General's Warning on this blog, if you want something candy-coated and "sweet" go somewhere else. If however, you like a straightforward person who will listen to your opinions and share theirs then by all means stick around. Don't however, email me and try to start a fight or something to that extent, you will only be ignored. I'm not saying I'm not open minded or that I'm not open to other people's opinions; on the contrary, I've been known to allow other's opinions to sway my own at times, and I'm always more than willing to listen to someone else's take on things. But I won't pointlessly fight with you over something I feel strongly about. I respect you're view on it, and if we happen to have opposing ideas on it well so be it.



So that's my introduction. In this blog I will share what I've learned, my experiences thus far, and my experiences as a college witch living in the dorms (at least in August and later). At times what I have to say will be funny, at times sad, and other times scary or somewhere in between, but that's life right? Seeing as how I look at this blog as sort of a personal type of journal I will be sharing great parts of my life with you. So I hope you come along for the ride and I hope you enjoy what you read here. If on the other hand I happen to get no readers, oh well, I can still use this blog as a journal. So come along for a wild ride with me as a Witch in college!