The wind up mommy is winding down...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

As this summer is coming to a close and I look outside my air conditioned comfort at the sweltering big blue room, I can't help but think of all the other things in my life that are coming to a close, or closed.

I miss my parents. Having them gone feels like navigating through life without a net and no sense of balance. But did I ever appreciate them when they were around? Not really. And that makes me sad.

It has the benefit of making me want to stay in contact with the rest of my family; no matter how far away. But it's hard most times to know what to say. How do you get beyond the, "How you doin', " when every day is unrelenting pain. I don't have anything to say. I wanted YOU to distract me.

That's probably what I'm missing. My major distractions. They're visiting friends for 4 or 5 days and I've kept myself busy the entire time they've been gone. Until today. I don't know why I miss their little presences so much. Crap, half the time I can't pull them off their computers to join in a real world conversation. But it's probably that other half I miss. When they're giving mom sh*t and won't take my grumpy attitude without trying to kid or tickle me out of it. Kinda remind me of their dad that way.


They'll be back at school in a few days and I'll have my days to myself again. Just me and the houseful of animals that want constant rotating attention....but they don't tickle me, or giggle in their sleep, or come cuddle with me and talk about all kinds of serious stuff...just because they can. :)

Some of this introspection probably comes from the activity of the last few days, which have been trips down memory lane to college. I saw joanalita and we reminisced and I've been thinking a lot about other college buds that I don't see too often.

One who's in that hot country over across the ocean sharing his expertise; his wife who I'll get to see tomorrow with all the attendant craziness of their annual August gathering (that's the month, not anything snooty).

I'll get to see M and her husband J and their little one who's growing up on my computer screen through pictures his mommy sends. My husband and Baldric will spend the evening one-upping each other and majorly enjoying it and my husband will probably protest and say that HE's Baldric now!

All this introspection I blame on R and K, cuz if I hadn't been going through old pictures for the last 3 days to make a slideshow I wouldn't feel so weepy. But the pictures were cool.

I got to remember the Moody Blues, and Alan Parsons and walking around a silent town in the middle of the night. Dancing and feeling like we owned the floor and a gun behind my husband's back as he married me.

Watching all the kids grow up and change from those cuddly babies to individuals with feelings and thoughts and opinions (definitely opinions, they're our kids!)

So in my missing people mood today I'm going to try and remember that my kids' babyhood, toddler, and pre-teen years are done and it's time to bring out some different parenting skills and ramp it all up since HIGH SCHOOL IS COMING!

(Their mascot is the pirate....obviously!)

Blessings and many happy hours winding down from a puzzled goddess.

Visitation by a goddess...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

Is it just me, or does everyone else also wait until the DAY AFTER they have company to clean house? Thought not. Just me. Oh, well.

I received a visitation yesterday by a friendly goddess. Not THE goddess, just A goddess. The goddess of Everything! LOL It's unbelievable how long it's been. If it had been up to me, we would probably have lost touch long ago as I have with most of my high school/college friends. But joanalita stays in intermittent touch and always seemed to track me down. And she sent out the cutest emails about what was going on with her life and family! Made me start remembering to connect with mine now that I don't always see them 5 or 6 times a year!

But I was very thankful that she graciously ignored the effects of a teenaged male (who lives in front of the mirror) has on my bathroom and sailed right along! Tho' it's always fun explaining to people that I have one of those toilets that has a handle you pull UP on the top of a tank. LOL Takes everybody a minute the first time they use it...and that's not to include the backwardly plumbed water in the sink! It's all fun.

She was nice enough not to peek at the awful garage from some dark circle of DIS as I had to take the dog in and out multiple times. (He's not very smart about the puppy dog thing and I'm not into cleaning up messes on the floor.) I'm just glad he didn't mortify me by greating her by humping her leg, but he seems to reserve that for my baby brother-in-law and for one of the boys friends. :)

And we only reminisced for about 45 minutes total during the whole 5 hour visit. We had all those lo many 15 years to catch up on! We had so many kid stories to swap and all those little family things that we hadn't shared :)

But she did remind me that we'd actually been on a college bowl team our freshman year (we were the TWO lone girls! most of the contestants didn't even realize that you could HAVE girls on the team *grin*) I think the guys we played with were Mikey and Bruce, but I barely remember back to being on the team! (lost in that alcoholic and mononucleosis haze) She says we made it to the semi finals! Woot! I don't even remember. Except that we were on the team to answer all the literature, geography, history type questions. LOL If my kids knew that they'd get a definite hoot out of that! They've HAD my help with social studies!

I still don't remember the strip poker story and there's NO way I believe it!

And I also remember her ragging on me to quit smoking...then 10 days into it offering to go buy me a pack of smokes! LOL YES, I AM the bitch! ROFL This one's for you!

from a puzzled goddess

Some really good eats...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

Nah, this one doesn't puzzle me at all. I LOVE french toast. Especially the way my family makes it...with a heavy breading and lots of flour. But I created a recipe that I like even better.

I've done the french toast thing with bagels before and it's actually really good. I had these megaberry Winco bagels in the freezer waiting for someone to eat them. And waiting, and waiting. So when I defrosted one and noticed that it was more chewy than it really is supposed to be on one side I decided to do the french toast thing....then I got to thinking....people put nutmeg and cinnamon in their french toast...what happens if I put vanilla in mine? GOOD EATS! Num, Num.

To do my family's french toast you use about 8 or 9 eggs, 1 cup of flour and about 1/8 cup of milk. Then I added 1/2 tsp of vanilla and battered the megaberry bagels after they had been sliced. Talk about decadent food! I went ahead and used butter and syrup on mine, but the kids will eat them plain.

from a cookin' puzzled goddess

[ps. you know those nasty bread ends that no one likes to eat on sandwiches? Freeze them, and when you have enough take them out and dunk them in this batter still frozen and they cook up just fine!]

[pps you can also freeze the french toast, once it's cooked. And then the kids can just pop it in the microwave for 60 seconds and have a warm breakfast.]

Reality, schmality and who took my religion...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

I really couldn't believe anyone would be that tacky when I read it in a Pagan blog I follow. I mean, how can something so personal be spread out on reality tv...oh, right, I forgot Flavor Faves (or whatever) and the Bachelor...hmmm

This is just more out to lunch then I believed any show would get. Why do I even wonder? I never watch TV for a reason. Movies, Discovery and History channel with the occassional CSI. The way I'm feeling about this was expressed really well by one of the columnists, Charlie Brooker, at The Guardian in the UK. This is just insane.

But, for reality TV, the more insane the better, right? The guy heading this show up sounds like the most insane of all....anything for a headline.

I have no clue why the people that are on this would volunteer for this kind of insanity. I just don't get it. People fling religion in your face often enough whether you want it or not. Why go out looking for the hassle?

I had some hope for a balanced world someday....why do I keep reading or watching the Christian media and losing it?

from a head shaking puzzled goddess wishing I had the excuse of drugs making me see it ...

From one extreme to the other...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

The premise of this book sounds silly in the extreme: an 11,000 year old Atlantean god, born of mortals, and abused his entire mortal life, the lover of a virgin goddess, killed at the hands of her jealous brother on top of the body of his murdered sister and nephew. Who then goes on to save the world from a spoiled god's curse for the next 11,000 years and be abused by his goddess lover who he now hates, but is tied to. :) Seeing the point?

But nevertheless, I have been following Sherrilyn Kenyon's, "Dark Hunter," and her, "Dream Hunter," series since they've both come out. Some of what makes them special is that they are firmly in the world of what if. What if the gods are real? What if they really are the b*tches and d*cks that we read about in the mythologies? What if, even very damaged people can trust, just one more time and get a happy ending?

Maybe that's what I like so much about these books. Being a victim of abuse, like the author who warns us in her foreword to this book, this book had me on a roller coaster. What Acheron dealt with was an extreme, but the feelings were so valid to what an abuse victim feels. If the abuse goes on long enough your abuser does convince you that you're not worth more. And however long your life lasts, you're always looking over your shoulder or flinching inside waiting for it to happen again. Not that you don't come to trust and love people...it's just that IMHO, when you have had a childhood trust broken, you have a small part of your psych that isn't innocent anymore and is wincing away ready to be abused again.

Kenyon does a good job relating this, and far from being upset that Acheron, "didn't get over it," like other reviews I've read, I liked to see him work through a bit of it, after 11,000 years, he'd earned some time to heal.

I liked the heroine's spunk and compassion; her qualities were badly needed by the hero, who is so compassionate it is hardly believable himself. But again, I understand that quality, if enough pain is inflicted on you...you don't want to inflict it on others and will go to extremes to see that you don't.

So all in all, it was an enjoyable 13 hours spent lost in Sherrilyn Kenyon's world. I laughed, I cried and I felt at peace when he finally got a HEA. It was a long time coming.

Which was such a change from the techo-punk highschool computer savvy of the day before :)

but puzzled goddesses like to go from one extreme to another, it keeps them puzzled.

Little brother and scary thoughts...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

This Young adult novel is one of the best reads I have had in a long time. It is obviously titled to remind people of 1984. The premise of the book is about the abuse of american privacy in the name of national security and an idealistic young man's response to it.

After seeing that Will Wheaton highly recommended this book my dh searched all over for it. He tracked it down, read it and then passed it to me.

It is a rare book that can keep you emotionally invested from page one, this one did that for me. It was just too close to what could actually happen.

His website offers free downloads of many of his books. I'll be checking it out.

Blessings from a puzzled goddess

There be dragons in the teapot...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

Thank you to the "goddess of everything" for the wonderful card! It made my day! It also made me remember that I hadn't updated people on my grand discovery about green tea!

I give up, the tea drinking mafia has come to call and let me know that tea is much better tasting when you actuall FOLLOW instructions and make it RIGHT!

Wow, who would have thought there would be so much taste change between dipping a bag and soaking a bag and having a little pot...even when you're using those nasty bags on strings.

Joany knew my pain and sent me this card to make the goddess feel better about her tea. Maybe dragons don't jump into your tea unless you have an open cup. Maybe that's what I've been doing wrong? Keeping the cup open so they have their place to bathe...that would explain the dirt and mould taste in the water....

Okay, I know that I've b*tched and moaned and k'vetched and just about everything else about my new habit of drinking green tea. I and "dragon water" just didn't seem to agree.

One more installment on this, at least for now. :)

I need to apologize to all those tea books I've read and all those tea websites who all said that you need to steep "in a teapot."

I really couldn't see that it would make a difference. I use filtered water, sometimes I poured the hot water over the bag of green tea, other times I dunked it, but it always tasted the same...gross.

And I remembered all the tea I drank at the Beanery and they always used a sieve that sat in the top of the cup...so a teapot shouldn't make a big difference, right? Especially if I don't care if the tea stays warm (lukewarm or cool spinach water tastes just as bad as hot...so does that moldy dragon water!)

BUT just to be on the safe side I picked up a second hand teapot. And surprise, surprise...it actually makes a difference. Now my favorite green tea is actually the Royal King that I hated when I steeped it by the cup. And my second favorite is the Stash premium green tea...the green teas they make that have other herbs in them now fall far down my list of which teas I want to drink. I still use the ginger peach green tea to help get me going and the wild rasberry green tea when I want to calm my stomach.

[just an aside, did you know that the straight wild rasberry herb tea tastes GREAT with Hershey bars...I just ah, happen to have found this out....]

So that's the update and I just had to share the roses my mom in law just sent over for me :)

blessings and good dragon water to you all from a puzzled goddess