Bathtubs Provoke Deep Though.

    I type this as I sit here with dripping wet hair and a partially clothed body. I just got out of the bath and I have no clean clothes to put on. My husband barely has his work clothes. I was rank smelling. I have needed to take a bath for awhile. I have no desire; scratch that... I have no energy to go dig the hair dryer out from under the bathroom cabinet and stand there for 15 minutes while I dry my hair. I do have the desire and therein lies the problem. I want / desire to do many things.  I want to wake up, shower and do  my make-up and feel pretty. I want to go out and get my grocery shopping done. I want to clean this house to the standards not only I enjoy but also that my husband and family enjoys. I want to take the kids to get the things done that they want to do. I just do not have the energy.  I have been under the impression that I am getting sick, catching some kind of bug.

    As I was sitting in the bath thinking on things and what I want to get done and I started crying because I just don't have the energy. I came to the realization that I am not sick. The shocking reality is that I am overwhelmingly depressed. All the signs are there. I was taught many years ago to recognize the signs of my own depression, but things have been so good for us; how could I be depressed?

  So I sat in that hot bath as it became increasingly colder and thought about things. I came to several conclusions that I will lay out for you my readers, most of which are family and friends.
I was so ecstatically happy when I learned we were going to be moving to San Marcos. "I Love San Marcos, I have friends there and close to there. I will feel like the old me again." Yeah right.

    I fucking hate San Marcos. It is not the nice small town I remember. It is an overpopulated tiny piece of land and I fear for my life every time I leave this complex in a vehicle. I fear for my children's life every time they decide to walk to the store for a soda or chips. This town is simply to small to accommodate the overwhelming human population growth it has seen in the past ten years. Sure the town had grown physically some, but not near enough to handle the population. Don't even get me started on the way these absent minded, texting, reading, sleeping college kids drive.

    I have tried going to the grocery store at various times of the day, minus the middle of the night and the ass crack of dawn. It is always busy, people are always rude and completely unaware that there are other people besides them in the store or out on the streets.  Twits, the lot of them.

Yep San Marcos, oh how I hate you.

    I was also excited because of friends. OMG I have friends here and I will get to see them and go do things and not sit at home all day. Again... yeah right. My "friends" apparently could not give a rat's ass that I am back.  No calls and no visits. Before you ask, yes I did contact them and say, "Hey I am back, we should get together sometime when you are free." Apparently they are never free.

    Jess and Bethany, I have been a horrible friend. You guys have been great, tried and true. I sit here on my ass and get sad over the "friends" I never see and all the while two of the greatest friends I ever had sit over there neglected by me. You have my permission to slap the crap out of me the next time you see me.

Yep San Marcos, oh how I hate you.

    I really do want to go back to work. I am sure my husband says, "Uh huh sure you do." Honestly this is a twofold problem. I am scared that I wont be able to cut it. With all the issues I have with my back and hip (and now my shoulder, wtf is up with that anyway) I am concerned that I will be a failure as an employee. Secondly, the my past interviews (and one almost interview - ugh that bitch!!) have really hurt my self esteem. I do not think I am ugly, but with my teeth, I do not feel that employers want to put me customer facing. Let's face it, my smile is a bit off-putting to many people. First impressions are always things like unsanitary, unclean, drug user, etc. I will agree with all of you who say, I have a great smile. I think I do to, I just do not have great teeth. I love to smile. I love to laugh.. just not in front of people I do not know.  So there it is. I am scared to fail and my fear of failing is failure in and of itself.

    I won't even get into the menopause. I have already talked about that.
So there you have it in a big ol' tub of whoa is me self pity pot. I am depressed. I need to get out of this funk. I do not want to take pills for it. I want to overcome it.

    I want to use this last line to thank everyone who sticks with me through this. I know I am not a lot of fun to be around a lot of the time right now. I hope soon I will be back to my usual self.. or new and improved self.

    Chris, I  love you with every fiber of my being, even though I am sure I have not shown it much lately. Please know that you mean the world to me.

    Sarah, Zaine, Dib, and Dalton, I know I am cranky a lot and am not helping you with some things I said I would help you with. I PROMISE to do better. You know I do not make promises lightly.

    Jess and Bethany. I love you guys. You are the best friends anyone could ask for. Y'all have been great. I have been a reclusive twit. I am sorry.  We will hang out soon okay?

The Witch Bottle

I don't know about all you folks but there seems to be a lot of nasty negativity and vindictive people out there lately. It might be time to make your witch bottles

Witch bottles are oddly neglected in today's society, but for centuries they were very popular across rural Europe, especially two or three centuries ago.

Regardless of how pure your intentions are, there will always be someone who resents who you are or what you do, plus let's be honest; magic attracts some pretty odd characters. Due to this, and just how society seems to be in whole these days. you would be smart to lay some strong protection against ill wishers.

The idea of a witch bottle is that it will attract and trap hostile intent by essentially tricking it into believing it has found the intended target-you! This method is almost the same as a voodoo doll, except in reverse. The bottle is a representation of self, therefor must include a physical part of you. In the days of old, this was urine. with which the bottle is half filled. Hair, nail clippings and (even ones own blood was used if the threat was serious). Then you would add items meant to snare and hold the bad intent such as bent nails, straight pins, thorn vine, barbed wire, broken glass, all manner of sticky pokey nasty things. Some modern witches like to add protective herbs such as rosemary and sage.

To make you own Protective Witch Bottle:

You will need-

• A small glass jar with lid
• Sharp, items such as nails, razor blades, bent pins, glass, thorns etc.
• Your own hair, and nail clippings
• Sea salt
• Black sand or dirt from a graveyard because this is consecrated dirt.
• Red string or ribbon
• A black candle

Light the black candle, you will need the wax later on.

Fill the jar approximately halfway with the sharp, items hair and nail clippings.
Add the salt, and sand or dirt which is used for purification, and then, the red string or ribbon.

Next part is very dependent on what you are comfortable with.

You will want to fill the remainder of the jar with your own urine, however if you are not comfortable with this you can add your own hair, and nail clippings (you can also use the hair and nail clippings even if you do choose to use your urine.) If you choose not to use your own urine you can use red wine instead and then spit in it.

Cap the jar very tightly after all items have been placed within and cover the seal with the wax from the black candle.

Next you will need to decide where to hide your Witch's Bottle. If you live in an apartment this can be a challenge. You might choose behind a cabinet, behind the refrigerator, up on top of a cabinet way back in a corner. If you live in house this can be much easier to figure out. You might choose under a doorstep, up in a chimney, behind a cabinet, in a corner in the attic etc. MY preferred hiding place when living in a house is burying it at the furthest corner of the property away from the house but still on my property, that way the negative energy it attracts will never enter my home when seeking me.

Remember, make your bottle 100% you.

Love and Light to you all,
~Tess~

The Formidable Years

     If you are like I used to be, when hearing that phrase, you think of either the terrible twos or those years when our children are coming into their own, molding their own personalities, morals and sense of self. Well guess what! I am not talking about children, quite the opposite. I am talking about us, the grown ups!!!

    The time in our life when our children are making plans of moving out and moving on. The years we are left facing that we are now our own person. We are no longer a needed fixture in our children's lives. We may be menopausal women. We may be men going through that mid life crisis. We may just be parents facing empty nest syndrome. Either way it is a new chapter in our lives and a new road to travel and discover, "Who am I now?"
 
    This is not an easy transition for me.  I'm going through menopause, so I am already a roller coaster of emotions and new quips and quirks that could send me into a frenzy of uncontrollable laughter or a fit of homicidal rage, or even still a river of tears brought on by the Gods only know what, because I sure as hell don't.  Facing the inevitable, I am a parent of adult children who are now off living their own lives. I have done my job. I like to think I have done it well.

    I have the mixed emotions of being ready to have quiet and solitude or feeling needed by children and having them in my life daily. I think about being able to get up and walk to the kitchen in my birthday suit unfettered by the fact that there may be one of my children also heading to the kitchen. Heck even to make crazy spontaneous love to my husband in the middle of the living room floor without worry of recourse from expected interruptions of a child walking into the room.  Then I think about waking up to an empty house, husband at work and children off leading their own lives. What do I do now? Who am I? What am I supposed to do now?

    Yes, these are my formidable years. I am at the trail-head of this new life path and I have no clue where it is going to lead me. I feel like all I can do is hold on tight and enjoy this crazy ride.

Mannequins of the Internet

    Like most of my readers, I use other venues to connect with people; sites such as Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and a few others. I am most active on Facebook. Many of my friends and family live far away and a social network like this is the best way to keep in touch, share thoughts and ideas, or just be silly. I have also made connections with people I have never met face to face. I have met these people through mutual friends or through conversations on mutually 'liked' interest pages. I do not add people willy nilly just to have a large number under my 'friends' heading. I actually add very few people.

    Most online connections that I have who are not face to face friends or family are from people who sent me a request for friendship. I do not even accept those requests lightly. I will go to their page to see what types of things if any that we have in common. I will see when they created their page. I will look to see what kinds of groups they are in, music they like, movies they watch and if we have any mutual friends. I want to see if there is some common ground.  I then either accept of decline the request. If I accept I take the time to try and get to know the person.

     In the past month or two I have had an unusual amount of people unfriending me. I am not sure why and I am only left to guess or assume the cause. The things I come up with are pretty shallow. One very resounding reason seems to be, mutual friends.  Jane is having a fight with Sylvia so Sylvia unfriends Jane. I was still talking to Jane, I would comment on her posts, or like her pictures. I would also still talk to Sylvia and like her pictures and comment on her posts. Since I am friends with Sylvia, Jane unfriends me even though I had nothing to do with their fight. I said nothing about their fight. I did not even talk to them about their fight. I even chose to stay out of it when I saw them passively aggressively attacking each other all over the internet. Heck that is between them, I have no business sticking my nose where it does not belong.  Perhaps I should have taken sides?

    Of course I am using fake names in the above scenario, but it seems that several times this has been the case. It bothers me, because as I said, I try and take the time to get to know people. To me Facebook is not a business, it is a place where I make friends and communicate with friends and family. I am a real person, with real opinions, real ideas, dreams, and aspirations, but most of all very real feelings.

    I share my feelings about things. This can range anywhere from how I feel about the treatment of our veterans to religion. Or from my opinion on a certain restaurant to my opinion on a story I read on a news website.

    When I share my views/feelings/opinions, I am not trying to convert you to my way of thinking. I am merely sharing my viewpoint, my feelings and my take on any given scenario. I share most of these things very publicly and I love feedback. I love it when people share their own ideas, or feelings, I love discussing varying viewpoints.  Heck I can even be swayed to see things in a whole new light. I am not closed minded. I am not shut off to the idea that I might be missing another angle.

    When someone decides to remove me without so much as a word about it or why, then I left to assume that our connection never meant anything to them. They were simply a number under my "friends" heading and I was simply a number under theirs. They are the walking talking mannequin that I never wanted to have as a connection in the first place. I suppose I should be grateful that they are gone now, but I'm not. I took a vested interest in this person. I took time out of my day to say hello. I took time out of my day to show interest in what they had to say.  I made room for them in my life. So yes it does bother me. Yes I do feel like I really did not matter. You can say, "who cares, they weren't a real friend anyway. You don't need that in your life. You are better off without them." I think you know as well as I do, those words are just a cover-up for what we really feel. Sure we don't need that in our lives but that does not negate the fact we suddenly feel a little or a lot hurt. We feel used to a certain extent, and we are left to wonder. " Seriously, what the heck did I ever do to you?"

    The best way I can try and protect myself is too see these people not as genuine human beings, having a genuine heart, but only as being emotionless, uncaring mannequins of the internet.

Parenting: I did it right and wrong.

    I am sitting here this morning reflecting on so many things, but mostly my life as a mother. In so many ways I feel I have done a great job raising my children but in so many other ways I feel I have failed them miserably. I have four children, but in this article I am referring to my two youngest who are 17 and almost 19.

    I taught them about love, compassion, trust and family bonds. I taught them that no matter what happens in this life, family is important. Your family will always be there for you and you should always be there for them. We may fight and argue at time but when it comes right down to it we are always there for each other. In the process of teaching them this, I would fight their battles at the school with school officials, I would talk to other parents about how their children were treating my children. I did so much for my kids, that in the process, I forgot to teach them to self advocate and how to stick up for themselves and fight their own battles. This is a very important lesson for them to learn. I will not always be around to do this for them. All of my children are now adults or nearing adulthood and I am seeing so many skills they will need as adults and I failed to teach them.

    My children are fearful of doing the things they need such as something as simple as calling and making their own appointments at the dentist or eye doctor.  School was hard for my kids. They were bullied and treated poorly. I really hated the public school system and so did my children.  I caved and let them drop out. Very bad decision on my part. Now I am sitting here watching another woman do the things I should have taught one of my daughters to do or helped her do on her own.  I am feeling like the bad parent. This other woman is going on about how she is going to help my daughter get her GED or high school diploma. This should not bother me as much as it does. I should feel grateful and not seething with jealousy or anger. Part of me is grateful, but the bigger part of me is angry. Perhaps mostly at myself but also at this other woman for doing my job, or more precisely my daughter's job. I have spent the better part of the past two years trying to teach my daughter the things I failed to teach her when she was growing up and that is how to do these things on her own and to self advocate in order to do the things that need to be done. I do understand getting help with some information, but I do not want anyone, not myself, not her father, not her step-father or her step-mother doing it all for her.

    I really do have good children. They have never been trouble makers. They have never sneaked out at night, skipped school to go partying with friends or been in any trouble with the officials. They always check in and let me know where they are or where they are going if they are going somewhere other than where they said they were going. They are kind, compassionate and genuinely care for people and the world around them.  This is another area I excelled in teaching them and at the same time failed. I taught them love and compassion and kindness but in the process forgot to teach them how to be tough and realize that sometimes the world is an ugly place and not everyone is kind and compassionate and that sometimes we have to just turn the other cheek and deal with it. My children are very sensitive, they are easily hurt and very anxious about getting out in the world and living life to it's fullest.

    It's the little things we don't think about that can have the biggest impact. While love and compassion and trust are essential. We need to remember and teach our children some of the harsher lessons in life. It is natural for us to want to protect our children, but we must be careful that while in protecting them, we do not also harm them by inadvertently preventing them from gaining essential skills they will need as adults. We won't always be here for them. Chances are when they absolutely need us the most is when we are gone. Teach them now how to deal with that so they do not 'break' when the time comes.

Escaping the Prison of Fear.

In just under two weeks, I will be making a major move in my life. I am both excited and nervous about this. I left Texas over eleven years ago and thought I would never return even though I would always consider it my home. Texas is a part of me, it is in my blood. I love Texas and leaving it broke my heart. I had to leave though.

I won't get into why I had to leave in this entry but if you would like to read more about that, then follow this link to the blog about that chapter in my life. A Year's Time. It was time to move on to the next chapter. I had no idea what it held but I had to move on. Now the time has come to face my past and my fears and explore the next chapter.

The town, San Marcos, Texas is where it all began for me and it all ended...or so I thought. I am moving back with my new, wonderful and supportive husband and three of my children, (the other one lives in California). I have the courage to do this for several reasons.

First, I have grown and have learned forgiveness. Yes, I forgive the people that caused my family so much pain and anguish. I will never forget, and part of me will always have a hard time trusting anyone new in my life. However, I will continue to give people the benefit of the doubt even though I am secretly cringing in fear on the inside. I can no longer be guided by that fear.

Another reason is because I have a wonderfully supportive network of family and friends that are going to be there as well. My husband will not let me turn into the shell of a woman I became shortly after all hell broke lose. He understands my fear, but he will help me to not live by it's standards. He will help to remind me, I am a strong woman. I am not weak, hateful or evil like some people from my past would like me and others to believe.  I AM a good person and this will shine through as long as I keep my head held high.

The third reason my wonderful friends that are like my brother and sister are moving there as well. They are actually the reason I am moving. They are some of the most supportive people I have ever had the privilege of having in my life. With their support also comes, sometimes harsh honesty that I do not always like to  hear at the time, but is truth none-the-less. Sometimes I need that. I need to hear that I am being selfish, or a coward, or be made aware that I am starting to shut myself in and down. The relationship with these friends have had hard times in the past but due to the hard times I believe we have a much stronger bond. I love them dearly.

You might ask, "Why would you move back there after all that happened. Aren't you scared it will happen again?"  That answer is easy. One, I  am following my friends and my heart. Secondly, a single word: Closure.  Am I afraid, it will happen again? Sure I am, hence the nervousness, but as I said earlier, I refuse to be a prisoner of my own fears ever again.

With all of that said,  I suppose I should get off my butt, and do some more work in preparation for this mighty move to the town where it all started, ended, and is starting again as a new chapter in my life.

~Tess~

Modern Medicine vs Holistic Healing

    A thread on the facebook page that I co-administrate, called Pagan Respect prompted a reply from me that I felt would make a good entry here so that anyone who follows me can see my views on the subject


    I believe that Holistic medicine should be used in conjunction with modern medicine. There are just some things we need modern medicine for. I do believe that there are many ailments that can be treated without big pharma, headaches, body aches, hormonal imbalances, and some forms of depression, to name just a few. When the holistic approach fails, then it is time to go see a medical doctor. Those headaches might be caused by something more sinister.

    Today more and more doctors are recognizing the the benefits of natural treatment such as herbal, yoga, tai-chi and meditation. Find a doctor that is "with the times" and will work with you and your holistic preferences.

    On the non human front. I am a huge fan of animal massage. I have seen it lessen anxiety, joint pain, and aggression in many animals. It also works in conjunction with veterinary medicine for arthritis, and varying forms of dysplasia. Pets that have had to receive surgery for severe hip dysplasia recover much faster when pet massage is incorporated into the healing process.

    I have done pet massage on my pets as well as friends pets before and would love to see more people use pet massage therapy for their pets. ~Tess~