More awards!

Rue from Rue and Hyssop stopped by my blog and was delightful enough to share the awards she just received with me.  Now I’m a bit of a cheater, mostly because I don’t know who to pick for these awards, its such a hard decision, so anyone who wants them can pick them up. Let me know if you do, and I’ll link you in my post.

For this award, you’re supposed to answer each of these questions with a single word. I tend to be long winded so its gonna be hard!

1. Where is your cell phone? Desk

2. Your hair? Growing

3. Your Mother? Far

4. Your Father? Passed

5. Your Favorite Food? Sushi

6. Your Dream Last Night? Subnetting

7. Your Favorite Drink? DP

8. Your Dream/Goal? Happiness

9. What Room Are You In? Barracks

10. Your Hobby? Computers

11. Your fear? Tornadoes

12. Where Do You Want To Be In 6 Years? Happy

13. Where Were You Last Night? Bed

14. Something That You Aren’t: Unloved

15. Muffins? Banana Nut

16. Wish List Item? Passing

17. Where Did You Grow Up? Texas

18. Last Thing You Did? Laundry

19. What Are You Wearing? Jeans

20. Your TV? None

21. Your Pets? None

22. Friends? Amazing

23. Your Life? Busy

24. Your Mood? Excited

25. Missing Someone? Yes

26. Vehicle? Pontiac

27. Something You’re Not Wearing? Make-up

28. Your Favorite Store? Fry’s

29. Your Favorite Color? Blue

30. When Was The Last Time You Laughed? Today

31. Last Time You Cried? Seventh

32. Your Best Friend? Husband

33. One Place I Go To Over and Over? Movies

34. One Person Who Emails Me Regularly? Kir

35. Favorite Place To Eat? Home

Whew! I made it through! Now for the second:

Here are the rules:

1. Put the logo on your blog or post.
2. Nominate at least 10 blogs which show great Attitude and/or Gratitude
3. Be sure to link to your nominees within your post.
4. Let them know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
5. Share the love and link to this post and to the person from whom you received your award.

Another great day at Mrs. B’s! I kinda missed yesterday, so I’m hoping to make up for it on the rest lol.

Today her give away are:

• A subscription to Circle Magazine!
• A copy of Cottonmouth Kisses by Clint Catalyst, and
• A fabulous embroidered witch by Tea Towel Creek!

Don’t forget to make the next stop on the Haunted Blog tour! Today’s discusses tombstone, complete with pictures of some very unique ones!

And learn about the superstition of black cats from today’s guest blogger!

Kreativ Blogger award!

When I woke up this morning, I rolled over, texted my husband, and grabbed my laptop and started going through my routine websites (blogs, web comics, email…) Well, I checked my email and saw I had a comment here (and since it was my second one, it was exciting!), I came here and read it, turns out: Kaleanani from Alpine Sanctum has chosen me to receive the Kreativ Blogger award!

This totally made day, considering the most views I’ve had in one day since starting this blog was 10, and most days it’s between 0 and 2. I had simply written if off as no one was really interested in what I had to say. This has inspired me to continue writing here, and write more frequently when possible. Kaleanani’s words were the real inspiration, and truly touched me. As such, I’d like to share (you can also see it at her blog):

The person in question would be the author of A Sailor’s Heart. I have a special interest in Pagans involved in the services, so that was an automatic draw to her blog. She is also a newlywed who doesn’t get to see her new husband all too much because of their military commitments, so that’s another draw – I remember my own husband’s deployment separations so I feel for her. Finally, she just has a friendly style with interesting links. The other day she posted a link to a website which shows photos before and after they were Photoshopped; I totally got stuck on that site!

So now its my turn to pass the award along. I’d like to nominate Out of the Blue.  I love craft blogs because I love seeing people’s creativity. I also love blogs with pictures, I can’t help it!  Anyway, Out of the Blue has a beautiful layout, and the pics in her posts just draw me in!

I’d like to thank Kaleanani for giving this award to me, and like her and the one who awarded her, I only selected on blogger. It was hard enough to pic one!!

So here are the rules for this award (and yes, I broke them lol):

1. Thank the person who gave this to you
2. Copy the logo and place it in your blog
3. Link the person who nominated you
4. Name 7 things about yourself that no one would really know
5. Nominate seven ‘Kreativ Bloggers’
6. Post links to the seven blogs you nominate
7. Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know you nominated them

And the 7 things about me:

1. I’m a total nerd, every time I see something made our of electrical or computer components, I want to buy it.
2. I love D&D.
3. I’ve always had self esteem issues, even as a small child. When I was in second grade, I wrote a story about the ugliest girl in the world and everybody hated her, even her mother… 3 guesses who that was about lol
4. I love being crafty and creative, but I’m horrible at actually creating things.
5. I’ve started writing 3 or 4 books (so far). Key word: Started.
6. I’ve always wanted to be a published writer. I’ve never cared about what I wrote though.
7. I’m addicted to the internet, even when I have nothing to do, I still feel the need to be online.

Today is the 2nd day of Halloween at Mrs. B’s!  Once again, its awesome! There are three give aways today:

• A creepy cool print from Custom Zombie

• A beautiful divination kit from Cauan at Encanto da Lua (a blog, in Portuguese, by a Brazilian young man)

• Three adorable treat cups from WildWoods Art Studio

While you’re at Mrs. B’s blog don’t forget to check out the guest blogger, who wrote a story based on True Blood, and the Haunted Blog Tour, which features a great blogger who has posted an amazing story specially for those guests coming from Mrs. B’s! There’s also a Blast from the Past, which features a blog post from last year’s 31 Days of Halloween!

Go check it out! It’s tons of fun!

Mrs. B’s 31 Days of Halloween started today with several great giveaways, a guest blogger, and an awesome start for the Haunted walking tour!

She’s giving away a cool witch rattle from Indigo Squirrel, handmade Witch’s Flying Oil from Magical Muse, and adorable Halloween bunny wall hanging from The Rabbit Room, and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters by Jane Austen and Ben H. Winters from Quirk books!!

I’m excited about all of these! I’d love to have any(and all) of them!

While you’re over there, don’t forget to check out the guest blogger and the Haunted Blog tour!

I can’t wait to see what Mrs. B has planned for us the rest of the month!

Been Busy: Graduation, Work, and Photoshop

Whew! It’s been a long couple weeks! I finally finished my first C school, so technically I’m a ISM tech.  That makes me extremely happy! I have one more class, and then I’m off to my command.  It starts on the 5th, and I graduate November 24th.  I report to my command the next day, which just happens to be the day before Thanksgiving.

Also, my husband will be coming back in about 2 weeks!  I can’t wait for that!  Even though he won’t be here long before he gets flown out to his ship, it’ll be nice to see him after so long. Speaking of my husband, I’ve b een married 9 months today!

Since I graduated my ISM class on the 18th, I’ve been TAD (Temporary Assigned Duty) to Facilities here at TSC.  It’s basically a lot of busy work. Cleaning bathrooms, vacuuming, walking the parking lots, basically making sure everything looks good.  It’s easy though, the hardest work I’ve done since I started was painting a small office yesterday.  That probably took about 2 hours total. I managed to get paint and dust from sanding all over my coveralls though.

Other than work, I’ve been doing a bunch of… nothing. When I get home from work I don’t feel like doing much, and on the weekends I just want to be lazy.  Basically I’ve been getting on the internet and reading random stuff, and talking to my husband on Skype when possible.

Yesterday while looking at stuff about Photoshop and bad ‘shops, I found a website that actually made me feel a lot better about myself, and kinda boosted my self confidence a bit.  It’s a professional photo retouching company called iWANX STUDIO.  If you look at the portfolio it shows the before image and the image after retouching. If you click on the thumbnail you will see the retouched photo, and mousing over it reveals the original image.   Go check it out, you’ll see what I mean!

Amazing Halloween Goodies!

I just heard about an awesome give-away at Laughing Vixen Lounge, it’s a goodie bag with Halloween goodies from 19 different shops.  Everything in it looks amazing, and I’d love to get it.  I just spent about 2 1/2 hours putting in entries for it!  I can’t help it, I love Halloween that much, and if I win, that will be my Halloween, so I have my fingers crossed!

I never thought I’d blog about a give-away, but this is worth it.  Go check it out! (Although I hate to have even more competition! 😛 )

Starting with the Basics

I’m beginning to delve further into Asatru, and so far, I’m loving every minute of it.  I’ve started going through the Asatru-U beginner’s course, and it has some really interesting reads. Many of the links are broken, but I’ve found a way around this by googling the titles it gives, or if that fails, just googling the subject its covering.  It makes for a great study outline so far.

I’ve also downloaded a free copy of the Poetic Eddas and Prose Eddas, as well as several older, but highly recommended reads.  I haven’t begun to read those just yet, I’m trying to gain a basic knowledge of Asatru before I do so.  I’m going to read the Prose Eddas first because its supposed to be easier to understand, then I’ll move on the the Poetic Eddas.  I’m looking at reading the various sagas too, including Beowulf.

I’ve read a pretty good amount, for as short of time I’ve been learning and researching Asatru, Norse mythology, and such.  I’m developing an interest and a fondness for Odin, Thor, Loki, and Frigg.  Freyr and Freya, as well as Hel, although to a lesser degree. The three Norns also have caught my attention in a big way. I look forward to research all of them more, as well as getting to know them on a one on one level.

There are a few concepts that I still can’t really grasp despite what I’ve read, and will continue to study.  Hopefully with time it will become more clear to me.  Wyrd and Orlog fall into that category as well as Wights, Alfs, and things of that sort.

I plan to start a book containing information that I can use as a reference soon.  I may just start another blog to do so, or possibly use this one to do that as well.

I’m really excited about all I’m learning, and I can’t wait to learn even more!

Text Fiasco

Today I learned an important lesson: never assume.  Of course, I’ve ‘learned’ this lesson many times in the past, but this refresher was a lovely kick in the ass.

First thing I do every morning is check my phone.  My husband is two hours behind me, and I’m on a night schedule whereas he is on a day schedule, so often I have messages from early in the morning.  This morning’s read: “Baby i gotta tell you something or its gonna kill me… Promise you wont get mad”.

Everything possible went through my mind, from Captain’s Mast (which is non-judicial punishment, basically, you go to the captain if you do something that can’t be resolved by the lower part of your chain of command) to him no longer loving me and/or cheating on me.  I even thought he was going to tell me the guy he hangs out with is a girl.  Come to think of it, I’m not actually sure ‘he’ is a guy.

I frantically began texting my husband everything I could think of to get his attention.  Honestly, I was totally freaked out.  I got in the shower and cried, over a text that told me absolutely nothing!

I kept trying to convince myself that it was nothing major, but I’m one of those who never listens to advice, especially my own.  I shot down everything it could possibly, and still worried about every one of them.  I even worried he was going to tell me he was dead… dumb, right?

Shortly before I left for PT, I finally got another text back, this one read: “Oh sorry. In class… Didnt have phone on… Was just gonna tell you sonic is better than whataburger”.  Basically, I cried over fast food. Fast food that wasn’t even mine.

At first I was furious at him, then myself.  The embarrassment came shortly after that.  I freaked over fast food… *facepalm*

I did learn a valuable lesson about communication and not assuming the worst though.  Of course, next time around, I’ll probably have forgotten all about it.  I hope not though.

The best part though, and something I love about my marriage.  After all my freaking out, and my husband getting upset at the idea that I even thought he would cheat on me, we ended up having an amazing conversation, and telling each other (in icky sweet words lol) how much we love each other.

Even after an argument, those conversations always put a dopey grin on my face.

The beginning… again

I’ve been pagan for 10 years, yet I’m still searching for my path.  I started out, like most, with Wicca.  Over the years, I read about many different paths, yet none of them specifically called to me.  The only things I could really nail down that truly called to me were the Celtic and Norse pantheons.  I looked into druidry, and although aspects of it called to me, it as a whole did not.  I recently decided instead of searching aimlessly, I should learn more about what did call to me, so I began searching for information and books about gods and goddesses of both pantheons.

In my search, I ran across Asatru, which has grabbed my attention in a big way. I’ve done a lot of reading about it in the past few days. I’m not sure if this is the path for me, but I do know that I’m enjoying learning about it, and that even if the path itself isn’t for me, the information I gather in my research will be well worth the time.