Tie me Up, Tie me Down, Tie me all Around...

Wikimedia CSD 2

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...I was starting to read an erotica novel last night, or was it the night before? Anyway...(Oh come on you didn't think the interwebs invented porn do you? Libraries were there long before that! And still have great collections! And streaming that shit is SO much easier now. LOL) So anyway, to explain, erotica is kinda like romance novels but kinkier. In a romance, two people get together and work out the kinks in their relationship and deal with some of their baggage. In romantica, two, but maybe more or less or other deal with the kinkier in their relationship(s) and create baggage for unsuspecting readers who may need mind bleach before finishing a paragraph or two. All kidding aside there are as many types of sex and gratification as there are people. Most of the time I can flip merrily on my way and not really be bothered too much by stuff that just doesn't particularly play for me. I'm old enough that I figure what consenting adults agree to consent to do is their own business. I don't like abuse, bullies, or hypocrites and that's where quite a few of my objections come into play in the real world.


But reading about stuff? I generally have pretty strong stomach.


which is why I couldn't understand my reaction to reading about a Master/slave commitment ceremony in the BDSM world. But I'm figuring based on some other work I'm trying to do lately with facing my fears that the gut clenching knots of terror are directly tied to my childhood trauma of being abused and the PTSD I've had since. I found it strange that I wouldn't even have noticed the fear response if I hadn't been reading, a book by Ana T. Forrest called, "Fierce Medicine." Forrest was the originator of Forrest yoga and strongly believes in facing fears and confronting them in order to control our reactions to them and tome down the stress they leave our bodies under.
I can totally understand the value in this. She suggests keeping a few journal with steps you've taken to combat the few and to isolate the causes. Since this is a first realization for me. I've got to figure out if the root of my terror is really what I suspect and how I'll go about desensitizing myself to it. Maybe I'll read the book instead of throwing the thing and my phone into wall at least.
from a puzzled goddess...terrified of nothing but words on a page...

Things my Father taught me...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...going introspective as I and my daughter visited my parents' graves last month. I try to make it a habit to visit their graves at Willamete National Cemetery on my Dad's birthday so it's a happy memory, not a sad anniversary, like a death anniversary. I want to think of them as they were while alive.

I got thinking about the eulogy I gave for my dad at his funeral. Up until the last minute I wasn't sure I was going to but it just felt right. Dad's world had narrowed so much in his last years as his health failed and he wasn't working. He seemed to retreat more toward the past and family became ever more important to him, and I've come to understand that. The family I love and the things I had left undone for them became much more important to me after I had a heart attack scare a few years ago. I now know that my dad was told that he had a limited time to live because he had congestive heart failure and was trying to set things up so that my mom would be in good shape to be covered and okay. He always cared for her in his quiet way.

But back to the eulogy...the one huge lesson I remember from my dad is that you can learn just about anything you want to do from a book. And he put that into practice most of his life. He never let the fact that he didn't know something stop him from trying to do it. It was just one more challenge he hadn't learned about. I think some of that attitude came from his life's career (and one of mine) which was as a computer systems analyst. Which, if you are a good one, means that you intimately understand all the processes around the computerized systems you are bringing into being so that you can streamline them, design the correct supporting data structures and implement the training necessary for all people who are impacted by the system. To do this you have to have a deep understanding of the business process you are automating. Books can definitely come into play in this process. My father in fact possessed a business degree, as do I. His was in Management I believe, and he had certificates as a Data Wiring Operator (early computer programmer), and Systems Analyst well before colleges or universities offered the degrees as well as classes in COBOL, FORTRAN and a few other languages like me. My degree is in Project Management (probably following in Dad's footsteps...we were both Aries! And I wrote code in even more computer languages than he did. LOL and ended up a Systems Analyst and Computer Network Project Manager.) My Dad had also worked as a Draftsman and worked on a graduate degree in Engineering which he had never had the time to finish with his growing family.

But my Dad also was in the Air Force during the Korean War as part of the DEW line as a control tower officer and pilot. And when he got out he built a mobile home for he and my mother, and my older brother and sister, from scratch. Then a site built home...by reading about the codes and looking at blueprints and doing the wiring and the plumbing and the metal work and the rest of it pretty much by himself, or with his wife and kids help. As one of his kids I can attest to it. He had an almost endless belief in his power to learn anything, and he could. He passed that on. Before I entered high school I sweated pipes and soldered them and wired the electrical in our house and helped put up the sheetrock and do the taping, did the rebar and helped pour the cement, placed pier blocks and did rough and finish framing. The only thing I never did was lay carpet. (Thank you, God!)

 I really hope I've passed on this same type of belief to my children. I think I have. Because when something new comes up as a question that needs to be solved or done they don't necessarily turn to a book, or Mom or Dad, but the computer comes out, the internet is fired up...google is queried and youtube's brain is sucked dry. And low and behold the answer is found and the project is accomplished! So Thank You Daddy, we love you still and we appreciate your legacy!

from the puzzled  goddess of knowledge....

90% Used Books... something's got to go

...maybe some people?
Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

It's been a long time...It isn't as if I don't have things to say. The world is still turning. I still have teenage children, I'm still married and I'm still facing health issues that have made my life one of challenges from the time I can open my eyes in the morning until I may close my eyes at night.

My daughter has started me on some new loves however.She has taken my old loves of jewelry making, working with metal and wire and beads and glass and pearls and reminded me of just how much I have always LOVED to make jewelry. So that has become something I can maybe concentrate on when the pain gets particularly excruciating so that I can try to block it out for a bit.

I'm also trying to slowly set up her site for her jewelry at: http://fireinspired.blogspot.com/p/kumihimo.html She and her dad are the main forces behind "Fire Inspired Creations."

I'm going to try something a little strange with the extra stuff I have hanging around here. At least 90% seems to be books, but there is the odd knick knack, video, or strange piece of vintage whatever that I may want to get rid of, ....so since quite a few of my books are 2nd hand and library or goodwill or other thrift store finds, that I normally searched long and hard for to fill the gaps in the series. I will be posting small blogs about the books and other stuff  I'm selling and selling it on a blog called, appropriately enough: "Mostly Used Books for Sale" http://puzzledbooks4sale.blogspot.com/ and I'll probably be putting references and info in our librarything listing at: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/sprowett/yourlibrary . My books aren't first editions or anything. And some aren't in great shape. I'll be honest about that when I list them. But some of them were darn hard to find, and still seem to be, and if others are like me, and just want to read the darned story, they won't care as much if the spine is cracked, or if it has some water damage or a bent cover, as long as it's readable. If they care about that, they can look for it at Amazon or elsewhere. Some of these books have traveled hard roads to libraries, goodwills, garage sales and then into my voracious hands. : ) They stood no chance.

After checking into Amazon, Alibris, and Ebay, I just didn't feel like spending that much to get rid of things that are old friends...I may have to do it eventually. But I'll try this stubborn way first. And I didn't want to do Craig's list because I didn't want people coming by, I'm disabled and getting more agoraphobic by the day. And these aren't Free so no FreeCycle. I'd like to trade them for books I haven't read, or need to complete my current authors, or even maybe some older movie or song cd/ or dvd's I'm interested in. I'll see how this goes.

I'm here, just trying to dig out from the 20 years of sedentary life and realize that I've most likely got at least 10, if not 20 more. :D The puzzled goddess wants to be occupied!

Cool library in Wales...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...
or not puzzled...loving it....Welsh libraries...manuscripts...illuminations....oh I would so love to see these for real!
The National Library of Wales - Alexander the Great MS 15c

from the goddess of learning

Just fine.....

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

That which doesn't kill us?

I picked up a new book a few weeks ago. I normally refuse to read books about illnesses, etc. and the latest, 'new cure.' Been there, done that, and have way too many versions of that t-shirt.

I keep up with research in the diseases that I know are eating away at my immune system and other parts of my body and follow various newsletters over the internet. I gave up on books awhile ago, as the information lag behind the treatments I was already receiving was just too great.

But this one is a bit different. And I've been approaching things a bit differently lately. It always seems like I have to once more let myself cycle down through the very depths of feeling like absolute crap and being in an amount of pain that is uncontrollable at an intolerable level before either: a.) I get up the gumption to tell the doctors that they better do something about it and we need to try something new, or b.) they notice that I'm particularly suicidal and decide we better do something different and try something new.

Why I'm in a different head space this time I think? is that the number of weird conditions that Western medicine doesn't really like to explain that are effecting my health are now being added to with all those sucky conditions of old age that Western medicine recognizes and seems willing to treat. The doctors keep shaking their heads and adding a new weird diagnoses for every 'normal' condition they add though. I'm up to 10 or 12 now that I'm fighting and trying to balance.

I pretty much try and only worry about the immune system ones that are actively trying to attack my organs and eyes and glands. And the ones that will actively kill me or really make my life go through major suckage by making things be amputated or worse if I don't keep them under control. You've got to have some priorities, right?

We have three or four names for the immune system crap. Chronic Immune Dysfunction Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, Myofacial Pain Syndrome, Hashimoto's thyroiditis....any others? Something else will probably jump on the band wagon. It's not like they have any great tests for these. They go on symptoms. So they theorize that my immune system decided sometime in my late teens or early 20's that it didn't like my body. Western medicine still lacks tests for most of these to find them before they start harming the body, and even after they do, they can only treat the symptoms.

Huh, makes me sound like I fit in with every other person in this book. The subtitle? "Unmasking concealed chronic illness and pain." Not that the pain is all that concealed...not from ME anyway! and based on how bitchy the family says I can get when I'm not making the effort to be nice...

Well, golly gee, Mr. Wizard! Organs being attacked and stopping working gets painful sometimes and when you don't have much of a metabolism because your thyroid barely works...and what does work seems to be under attack it's kinda hard for your body to function with what the diabetes leaves you....hmmmmm....I guess I just got no excuse. One of my new doctors didn't even look up what Hashimoto's was and what it had been doing to my endocrine system/digestive system before she decided that I make poor nutrition choices and have an improper diet.

Actually, I eat keep track of my diet better than most skinny people or dieting people I know. I eat 1000 calories less a day than I should to maintain my weight most days (to a diabetic a carb is a carb is a carb nowadays and I eat WAY more veggies than I EVER did before!) Yes, even on those awful days at Izzy's when I punk down the HUGE amounts of carbs because they don't have much on their menu but deserts that isn't loaded with preservatives and chemicals (and even those are borderline....yeah, yeah, you all know the rant...) I STILL manage on those days to come in under 12-14 carb units which is at the upper end of the scale of the diabetic diet I've been following, pretty religiously for, oh, about, 6 years. It's not like it's hard. At my size, I'm allowed quite a bit of variety to maintain my body weight and the big change lately has been the huge increase in fiber and veggies for me to balance all the weird things the meds are doing to my system.

But my Hashimoto's thinks I'm starving anyway.(this thyroid crap started back in about 1990 for my body, yippy yay!), but my diabetes thinks I'm not." And anyone who knows me, or has seen me eat knows I'm not starving ;D You'd be surprised that the meal I'm eating may be the only real meal of the day, but I do eat right.

....and the judgements? from other people? keep going on, and on. This woman was a doctor. What chance to I have against the judgmentalism of other people? I've gotten so tired of the lectures from the people who have all the answers because their brother's cousin's wife's aunt, or their family, or they... compassion is lacking in these people in that they even think to judge or lecture. This book is for people like them. And for me, to help me remember to take a deep breath and walk away. They aren't worth it anymore. My energy is too scarce. People who are going to judge me on whatever criteria they've made up in their head, for whatever reason, whoever they are, I can skip knowing.

Maybe if more families or friends or doctors read it, they would remember compassion when they were dealing with other people and stop judging. Maybe more relationships could be saved.

Recently I finally put my foot down and told the doctors I need better pain management. Yes, I look "just fine." I look like some healthy, middle-aged matron who has over-indulged all her life and is now paying for it.

Goddess, don't I wish. I see that judgement in the eyes of even my friends and I want to tell them to walk even a few hours in my shoes, let alone a few years in unrelenting pain that is blinding and doesn't allow thought. To add in my thyroid system that has been shutting down for years and struggling to have to place one foot in front of the other or bend over to pick up a paper dropped on the floor. I still do those things. It just takes a lot more time and a lot more effort and many more days.

I am digesting this book slowly, because it is written about people like me. People who don't want pity. People who are just tired of being judged. If I had a nickel for every offer of help I'd gotten from those same friends and family that then had some excuse for not being able to be there for me when I really needed it, I would have been able to pay for the specialist my neurologist wanted me to see in San Fransisco! lol

I can remember so well always running here and there to do this or that for this person or that and never having time to catch up on anything for myself...I still don't, but now I don't have any energy for anything for myself either, so it balances, sorta. ;|

There's a quote here on page 31 that resounded with me:
[ 'It is very frustrating when you are raised to be active, and you have talent, but you are no longer able to do the things that you enjoy.'
People with chronic illness or pain are survivors, and accepting limitations is in conflict with the code that survivors live by. No one wants to be sick. No one chooses to give up those things in life that bring joy. Yet at some point, people with chronic disorders need to learn to say no to many things that have always been part of their lives. Being told to look on the bright side by well-meaning friends and family members simply adds insult to injury. Positive platitudes and quick fix suggestions trivialize pain and symptoms and cheapen the impact of these difficult and relentless challenges.
Chronic pain is real yet it becomes difficult to talk to friends and family about it. Not only do people want to be free of chronic pain, they do not want to feel like a burden. "It's a large part of who I am. I just don't want to be pitied by my friends or to be known as 'the suffering one' to those I love or the people I work with,"...." Everyone becomes tired of hearing about how much I hurt, incuding myself! Some people think I am making it up or exaggerating my symptoms. But chronic pain is very real. Even the medical community doesn't always take my pain seriously." ]

I could so relate to this. I just don't want to talk about my health all the time. That's why this blog is about other subjects: my kids, tea, fashion, the sca, films, weird stuff, things that strike me as funny. Quotes from books I'm reading.

This book just happened to hit a particularly strong cord, and it probably doesn't help that they are changing my meds, and I'm feeling mental and whiny. It's father's day and these days, when I miss my parents I always realize how young they were when they died. I look at I and my siblings, my cousins and realize how young we all are for the kind of things we're already facing. I never expected to be under 50 and sharing the "old lady" symptom and medicine comparing conversations over the phone, you know?

Today I have to realize that my dad and my husband are probably the two people who have come the closest to understanding what I live with on a daily basis. I thought my dad was overprotective.....I think my husband is most of the time as well.

So, what does that say for my sense of judgement?

Probably means I picked the best possible father in the world, who I miss a whole lot today, and that I couldn't have married a better man, huh?

from a puzzled goddess who looks just fine thank you

I promised a look at how it went...

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

For those not interested in Medieval Illumination, ignore this post.

I started this scroll months ago, when I knew we'd have to make some kind of quasi-official request of Three Mountains of their patronage. I asked on Known Worlde Scribal lists about wording, and got no good answer so I proceeded to deal with it myself.

"Unto the Most Noble Alfric and Jill, Baron and Baroness Three Mountains do the peoples on your eastern borders send you greetings on this 13th day of December, Anno Societatus XLIII, being 2008 in the common era.

We seek the boon of your kind patronage as we attempt to strengthen our great kingdom, An Tir, by building a canton on your eastern border in the counties of Hood River and Wasco.

In support of this we do make our marks as the people of the incipient Canton of Haukesgaard, do the heralds deem it meet.


(Marks:)
HL Kerryk Wolfram, Rebecca C. Graham, HL Sannan Cairgnorn, Ashayet, Meredith Elizabeth Walter, Juliet duBlunt, Elfwyn, Hayley Graham, Steven Graham, Matt palmer, Cedryk Farskyes, Meg Lethel, Connor Cameron Hawk, Epona of Vanir-Law, Casandra O'Dell, James Douglas O'Dell, Elfwyn"

I took inspiration from 3M's website where they were using the Grand Heures of the Duc de Burgundy (if I remember correctly. It's either the grand or the Belle. He commissioned MANY books of hours.) So I knew I wanted to place it somewhere in the Gothic time period. (Well beyond my own personna's time!) So...I looked through my scribal books and came across a discontinued library copy of a facsimilie production of the Hours of Catherine of Cleves (c. 1440) I won't bore you with the background of how they dated the manuscript, etc. You can read the book or ask me, if I remember beyond yesterday. *grin*I knew that I wanted the elements of a hawk (heraldically an eagle with jesses it seems like), 3 mountains (for the representative barony), a deep valley or gorge and a keep. All of these elements are part of our heraldry for our group, and I wanted to represent the group.

I had the drawing of the winner of the 'best representation of a hawk,' from May Revel last year (yes, we've been working on getting this together for almost 2 years!) and I wanted to use that so that Meredith(Missa) would still feel included in spirit though she's travelled afar from us in body! This also pushed the era beyond mine, into one of more realistic looking miniatures.

So, materials choice. I can't currently afford true vellum, so hot press art paper of 90-120 lbs is considered an appropriate substitute. I think mine was Arches 110lb press. I used a quarter of a sheet to get the scroll to be a good size for matting and framing without special orders.

Gold choice. Gold is a large part of this piece, but I can't afford patent or leaf gold currently to do gilding or shell gold for painting so I had to be satisfied with the use of Sumi Gold Watercolor Ink.
I used Winsor-Newton designer goache paints and one or two colors of M.Graham designer goache.

I first created a cartoon on an 11"X17" piece of graph paper, cut down to 11"X15". I drafted out the margins, the calligraphy and letter blocks, the vine margin area and the central picture area. The margins on the left in the original are larger, since it was meant to be bound into a manuscript, I tried to keep that look. Also, the upper margin was smaller than the bottom, again I tried to keep the look.

I didn't want human figures in the border of this so I replaced the seated monk with some additional acanthus leaves and a bird in the border. My scroll isn't an exact match on purpose, just, "done in the style of."

The picture was sketched in on the cartoon and the text spaced. I did forget to draw in a frame around that actual picture, which I would correct if attempting this style again. I would also allow more spacing in the calligraphy. But this was the first time I'd tried this hand, so the results were acceptable, if not great. ;)

Since we had people showing up at many different times to sign this thing, I had the signatures placed on the scroll before the wording was calligraphied. They were shown the cartoon with the final wording and design so they knew what they were signing.

I also proceded backwards from most in that I did the calligraphy before the illumination, since I was much more comfortable with my illumination skills than with my calligraphy skills on a brand new hand. :)

I had a delay in the middle of this process when I lost the majority of the sight in my left eye due to the liquid separating from the cornea, supposed to get better sometime soon, but I got to the point where I couldn't wait for that. So, this was finished by a one-eyed scribe. :)

I transfered the design from the cartoon to the actual scroll via lightbox. Then I worked the calligraphy. I didn't feel up to the challenge of breaking down the form of gothic used in these hours and coming up with my own ductus, so I went to Marc Grogin's book and used the Gothic Textura from the period involved. My paleography is not quite up to doing it myself yet. :)

I kept my color pallet small and bright and close to the colors in the original. Spectrum Red and Grenadine red highlighting, Pale cadmium yellow, Ultramarine Blue, Sap Green, Burnt Umber, zinc white and titanium white.

This is how the final scroll turned out. I won't point out any more of my mistakes, but gee it was a learning experience!

from a puzzled goddess who went medieval all over a scroll :)

Byzantine thoughts...

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

I've recently been helping a friend do some 6th century Byzantine costume research...to the best of my non-existent research abilities....but that's what the internet is for, right? [No, honey, it's for MORE than porn!]

I actually had more books with Byzantine examples in them than I thought, but I love having libraries and museums at my fingertips! And I can spend whole days happily searching looking at manuscripts and weird historical facts and all kinds of things.

But Byzantium, that was a place I only knew a very small bit about [still don't know much more *grin*]

I mean we've all heard about, "byzantine plots," and most SCA people have heard about crusaders traveling through Byzantium on their way to the Holy Land, but history books from my early time didn't much cover this area. I don't even remember learning about it in my AP History class...hmmm, maybe a COLLEGE history class would have gone over it, huh? Of course, there is always history in the form of Monty Python and his mention of Holy Hand grenades of Antioch and such...I blush to say I didn't know where Antioch WAS until recently.

So this has been fun! There is a standard mosaic of the Empress Theodora that has become pretty synonymous with Byzantium. You can see it here, as well as enjoy a commentary about Justinian and Theodora and their reign. It's has the beautiful mosaics that are in the cathedral at Ravenna.

Then, I stumbled across this diptych on the web with a search for "6th century" Constantinople Theodora.

There was a bit on Byzantine dress here.

One of the coolest things though, is there's a free online self-study costuming course that covers this area of interest!

And there was a whole page of Byzantine links here put together by the same people...hmmm somebody's already done that research huh? :)

But there was an absolute hit of serrendipity today when one of the blogs I follow on and off mentioned that the Royal Academy in London will be hosting an exhibit that will cover about 1000 years of Byzantium history starting next month. And their exhibit catalog is available on the museum site for those of us who can't fly to London on the spur of the moment. :( Since this isn't a particular family interest we won't be ordering the catalog (it's a bit pricey), but it was neat that it is available. [Don't miss her links to the other stories in the article it was interesting.]

I actually own 2 or 3 museum catalogs of various things that I've purchased in used book stores and have found them quite helpful for information and pictures you may not be able to get elsewhere.

that's all from a puzzled goddess for today

Chunks out of time and scotch tape...

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

I remember hearing about the Dead Sea Scrolls when I was a kid, but I never had much of a clear idea of what they were. Yeah, they were written by dead prophets, a long time ago, and were translated on and off by scholars...so?

[my dear husband, philistine that he is, just loves the quote about the scripture written by a bunch of old guys in a cave smokin' rope, but we leave him his illusions...it's better that way. *grin*]

NOW that I'm MUCH older [don't agree with that too loudly!] , I understand the extreme sense of history and wonder in having 15,000 fragments that make up some 900 scrolls that are over 2,000 years old!

2,000....hmmm I doubt any of our ramblings on the internet will be around that long. :)

The neat part about this now is that the Israel Antiquities Authority is currently working to digitize these irreplaceable pieces of the past and place them on-line for everyone to see. There is an article on The New York Times website about it.

The part that made me grit my teeth was finding out that the original "experts" in the 1950's who were trying to piece these scrolls together used scotch tape to do it. Ouch! Anybody who has old records with crumbling pieces of scotch tape on them knows what that glue does to the paper. I have some pictures from the 50's and 60's that were pretty much ruined by the discoloration.

Seeing these eventually on-line is definitely something to look forward to.

from a puzzled goddess geeking out on the past

This is not the knife you are looking for...but it IS the spoon

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

I got into an interesting conversation with the daughter. I was joking around in the kitchen and spouted off with, "This is not the knife you are looking for..." No hand gestures, no funny voice, just kinda talking to myself, and, thought-provoking child that she is, she piped up with, "It is amazing how much of a cultural reference, "Star Wars," really IS.

I had to stop and think. So many movies have become cultural references for our generation. I'm not sure if it's admirable, or sad. What happened to books as a cultural reference? I still think in terms of he's very like Heathcliff, or "My dear Watson," or talking about, "The road less travelled," and "marching to your own drummer." And there are always the biblical favorites and stories of the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, and the Good Shepherd.

I think that our parents and the current older generation though are the ones who pass the movie references on. I remember the WWII movies from when I was a kid. The, "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead." There is always the "go ahead, make my day."

My friends, strangely enough, are more into, "bring out your dead," "Solyent Green is really people!" and "beam me up Scottie." Somehow, I don't think these will stick for long with our children. Even though adults remember, "Rosebud," I think my children will be remembering, "there is no spoon," and "Red pill... or blue pill."

With the proliferation of books, movies, songs, and video games I have to wonder what our culture will latch on to next. Maybe, "Boom, headshot," as my son would say, or "Go for the eyes, Boo, go for the eyes!"

wishing you many cultural conundrums from a puzzled goddess

Warm trends and clear skies...

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

Now that the warm spell has broken and it's been drizzling on and off outside, I get curious about climate change and warming trends in global weather....it's kind of like me cleaning up the bathroom AFTER I have company here. :)

On one of the blogs I keep track of there was a recent article about a book that explored the global warming trend from the 10th-15th century and the effects on different civilizations. It was sobering.

As we dealt with record temperatures this last week and see the climate changes all over the world take effect, it concerns me that entire civilizations during the middle ages were lost to drought from these types of climate changes. It is theorized that this helped destroy the Maya civilization among others.

Not that I'm a particular fan of the Maya and the warming trend in the middle ages did help the Northern civilizations to advance...

but gee... I'm a member of the instant gratification generation. I really would like to see all civilizations thrive....gods, who EVER would think I'd grow up to be such an optimist?

There's a great site put together by the US EPA that discusses climate change and the effects.

pictures of my beautiful mountains in the rain
from a puzzled goddess

No time and party lines...

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

Not much time to write the last day or so. It seems like I've been running since the kids went to visit friends on Tuesday. This last Saturday afternoon my dh and I got to spend the day with good friends sharing stories, laughing and catching up. We had a phone call from our missing friend overseas and actually gave him much hilarity amid some serious moments of conversation. It was nice to hear his voice and know he was okay.

This group gets together every August and celebrates all the birthdays in that month. Normally with gag gifts, but sometimes fairly cool ones. It's a way to catch up once a year and find out how everyone's doing. The egg sushi won the race and we have much video evidence of the fun. For those who have never raced wind-up sushi....you're not missing much :)

The moon maiden did tell me that she found a cool new pagan alphabet book for her young son. (I'm going to have to get the name. But this might be it.) Here is a website though with one that's a bit different. I think this is such a clever idea, and I wish that I had thought to get something similar for my kids when they were that age! Here is a list of books for pagan kids from the Erudite Pagan. It makes me thankful to live in the age of the Internet where resources like this are becoming available to help us educate ourselves and our children.

Most of the books we tried to share with our children had the same kinds of themes though: respecting themselves, respecting others, respecting the earth, and the big one that we emphasize over and over, taking responsibility for your own actions.

May you all have strength and whatever guidance you require to follow the path of your spirit.

Blessings to you all from a puzzled goddess

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

Teenbooks, vampires and conversations you never want to have...

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

I made my kids a promise when they were about 3 & 4, that ANY question they had the guts to ask, I'd have the guts to answer (my dh chickened out and keeps telling them that MOM made the promise!) We've discussed where babies come from, what 'jerk offs' are (wasn't THAT fun!), what kinds of things will REALLY make you go blind, racism, elitism, words they want defined...if they asked it, I did my best to explain.

Lately I've had kind of a dilemma. There are some REALLY popular bestsellers that are young adult fiction that a friend of my daughter's loaned to her originally. She told me a bit about them when she was first reading them, and how the heroine got kind of depressing, whiny and teenaged angsty in the second book. I was glad that she noticed it and didn't think much more about it. Now I've read all the books because she insisted they were so good.

Now that I've read them I have MANY topics to discuss with my dd. My dilemma comes down to realizing that I, as an adult, read these books and noticed some weaknesses and the way some relationships were portrayed and I didn't care for it too well. But I enjoyed the books nonetheless. However, as a mommy goddess I had a difficult time with the way the relationships in these books are presented to a teenage girl. Yes, I know it's an alternative reality world, but it's based upon our real world.

With the first book I didn't much like that her parents were portrayed as immature and incompetent to look after themselves. The teen is portrayed as having an extremely low self image, thinks herself mature.

The books I'm talking about are the Twilight Series by Stephanie Meyer.
Here is my librarything review of Twilight.

In the second book "New Moon." The heroine is on top of the world because this gorgeous god is now her boyfriend, not an unreasonable response for a girl of that age, but she sneaks around and lies to her parents and friends. And while it's all justified in the teen's mind (isn't it always?) I still found it a sad statement on loving and caring relationships. Then when her boyfriend disappears to protect her she spend the last 4/5 of the book depressed and on the edge of suicidal. The obsessive relationship with the hero was scary to me, as it seems like such an unhealthy blueprint for love.

Here's my librarything review of New Moon.

The third book, "Eclipse" was more of the same, low self esteem, obsessive love, vacillating between two relationships. The plot was tighter and the characters more three dimensional, but it was an average read.

Here's my librarything review of Eclipse.

The conclusion of the series, "Breaking Dawn," was satisfying as a reader, but gosh it left the mother with a great many concerns.

Here's my librarything review of Breaking Dawn.

There were aspects of the book that were done well. The final confrontation for one, the building and layering of the characters interactions.

But I had so many problems with this book that I don't know where to begin. It could have been 200 pages shorter and been a tighter, more closely plotted book with less wandering. The father's reactions were unbelievable. The portrayal of pregnancy was horrifying and scarifying (and if you expected anything even approaching that you wouldn't want to continue the next generation!)

Again, the love relationship seemed over the top, but the virginity until after marriage and the groom who must have been the oldest virgin in the Western World was kinda cute.

The "imprinting" relationships in the last books between almost adult males and girls who were toddlers just hit my 'ick' meter BIGTIME!

The author used the old standby of the men looking out for the girls and wanting what is best for them, etc. But by setting the story in the real world this just swung too close to the edge of pedophilia for me to want my daughter to think it might a good type of relationship. If the world was less real, I don't think it would have bothered me as much.

And maybe, in the back of my mind, I'm making the prejudiced connection between the scandals with young girls and the old men in the Mormon church; since it has been widely advertised that the author is Mormon, and this may be some of my creepy, ick feeling. I know that reading the articles about girls that ARE girls, forced to (or brainwashed into) marry men old enough to be their fathers just hits all my feminist hot buttons.

I hope it's not prejudice because I really respect a great deal of values the Mormon Church espouses; I just don't want my daughter raised with them. :)

And yet, I can't see banning books either...

I raised her to think for herself; now I guess I have to trust her to know how to do it. (Especially if I've read it and can talk to her about it as well *grin*)

From a puzzled goddess who really wanted to like the books more

Creeping Vampirism and more Neat Sh*t...

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

I know I'm becoming a vampire; it just keeps creeping up on me, ever so slowly. I mean the pale skin, dark hair (I'm sure the blood red lips and slinky body will catch up with me eventually!).

But I've had 2, count them, 2! Massive runs of Vitamin D medicine in the last 6 months to get my levels up somewhere midway of normal. Mine are down below 20% or so...much lower than the doctor likes to see. So he gave me the first set of pills and my Vitamin D climbed wAAAAY high! Higher than the test's limits for checking...he checked again a bit later after telling me to stop taking my calcium and vitamin D supplement.

Uh oh, I guess my levels now are back down and 1/10 of a point less than they were when he first handed me the supplements...so I get to take them again. I haven't noticed any appreciable change from the increase & decrease, but maybe it's my vampire habbits of staying in the dark behind drawn curtains all the time? Nah...





But we got out to town last night!
We had to do the monthly grocery run from HELL and so I talked my Baldric into a visit to the local (kinda) goodwill.





We saw much neat sh*t!
We found a present for my
mother-in-law who loves the
fishing/coast/lighthouse theme...maybe it's all those years
living at the coast?














We then found a VERY cool carved rock (looks like soapstone) indian/persian style pieces with a wood
and mother-of-pearl inlayed board.

















The last and best gift of the day for me,
was a run through their book aisles!





My ds got a player's guide for Assasin's Creed (with my dh)
my dh got 4 or 5 books he likes.
My daughter got about 6 or so....
but the goddess herself picked up over 20
to keep herself in books for a week or two.

Blessings on you from the myopic puzzled goddess..

PS. the one in front, Second Opinion...just finished it,
great premise some good interaction with secondary
geriatric characters, but the main secondary
characterizations were flat, the heroine was pretty
idiotic as well. Darn, can't have everything.
At least the sex scenes were good.

Neat sh*t and geloscopy....

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

sshhh! The goddess shops at Goodwill. The goddess likes shopping at Goodwill, and Salvation Army and any other thrift store I can find. (That's why the goddess' house is buried to the eyeballs in neat sh*t! as her dh says!)

I like seeing what other people once thought was neat sh*t. We like cruising for SCA stuff.

My dd likes to occasionally find the uniquely cool piece of clothing that fits her personal style better than the current Britney Spears/Paris Hilton slut look that's in all the stores.This jacket she wore to a semi-formal awards ceremony at school was one of her finds. (After we'd struck out in all the normal clothing stores looking for something special that wouldn't make her look inappropriate.) It had cool material and loop buttons that go halfway down the front. It looks really cute on her. Sorry my pictures don't do her justice. :(

My ds is usually bored by it all (there are no decent electronics or video games!

But me, the goddess, I LOVE to look at what books people have discarded and see what treasures I can find in their midst. And so I found this one....
The Word Museum by Jeffrey Kacirk. This is such a cool book!

Where else can you find out you're a crastine because you put stuff off from day to day? And that to baffound someone is to stun and perplex them? Maybe I should have been the baffounding goddess? Nah. People are puzzled enough by me as it is!

And to answer the $64K question....geloscopy is to do divination by means of laughter. So hopefully you've gotten a chuckle or two out of this.

I've been known to get my jawing-tacks on board and to kiss the cap, but I've never had a key of the street. :)

blessings from a monsterful and puzzled goddess...

Mission organization, mission too many books, mission ......impossible!

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

My DH and I have a bet.
I think I'm going to win.
I'm not sure I want to.

For the last few months I've been trying to organize our books, as a first step to organizing our videos, dvds, cds, tapes, and photos. Oh sh*t! I'm going to be buried alive before I'm done!

But anyway, the bet. I bet him that we had WELL over 2,000 books...he thinks we have about 2,000. I'm thinking more like 6,000. Even when you consider the 70-100 periodicals that are in our library, or the maybe 100 books I've added that I borrowed from libraries and input my reviews for into our library. (listed here) I think we have waaaay too many books. I know, all my bibliophile friends are cringing even as they read this. *grin* But I still have crates and boxes of unpacked books from our move over 2 YEARS ago! The local friends of the library and Goodwill will probably get a windfall once we decide what we can bear to part with.

We bought more bookshelves...my whole living room wall has been taken over by them. They've been there long enough that the creeping crud of detritus that accumulates on all horizontal surfaces is starting to infect them. We are now over 600 books in my online listing, and I don't have the whole bookcase full, and I'm far from having entered even a small portion of our library....eeek! I knew books had taken over my house. 1300 sqft of piles and boxes of books. OMG! it's silverfish heaven right here in the Gorge!

Notice from the photo that the only shelf that has been loaded 'correctly' is my dh's gaming books, but this isn't even the half of them! The middle bookcase is the start of my illumination and calligraphy library. The books are so many different sizes that I'm confuseld (like confused but worse) over how to fit them in and keep them organized.

The bet...well the prize is a book of the winner's choice of course!

Blessings to all from a puzzled goddess buried in books.