Wandering Around House Shopping

The hubby and I looked at 8 houses around Long Island today and both of our heads are spinning.  I'm hoping to be out of my parent's house by my birthday in November.  We saw some houses that have potential and then some that just needed a bulldozer.  Part of me feels like I'm going to be stuck with my parents forever and I'm growing more and more resentful of their meddling nature. 

Here's my main issue: I hate the town I grew up in.  I'm tolerating this place while I live with my parents and the hubby and I save for our own home.  I'm grateful that my parents are doing us this huge favor.  I know I have it real easy right now, especially since we do not have to pay any rent.  However, my parents don't understand my utter loathing of this town and my need to escape it as fast as possible.  It's caused quite a few fights in the past few days and now my father and I are not even speaking.  They've basically backed my husband and I into a corner and are pushing this, excuse my French, shithole house onto us.  It's a great deal but you need another $150K to fix it up and make it liveable.  Let's just say animals have dug through the roof and there is black mold in the upstairs.  It's awful.  But they keep repeating over and over, "It's a great deal.  It's going for $100-200K less than other houses in the town. Blah blah blah."  No matter how many times I tell them, "I hate it here and I never want to live here/raise a family here," they keep pushing.  I understand the great school district (my husband works for them).  I understand.  I get it.  It's not what I want.  It's everything I don't want. 

But in other news, I'm getting a lot of great feedback/comments about the giveaway!  However, I wanted everyone to know that The Fairy Apothecary is not my shop!  I wish it were but I cannot take credit for the wonderful work my friend Kristin does.  I do help her out from time to time at craft shows but all of the work is done in her Fairy Den in Upstate New York.  Also, if I could make your screens scratch and sniff I would!  All of her soaps smell amazing!  My personal favorite is Love Spell.  I've used all of her products, so feel free to ask me about any of them.  Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!

A Fur Baby and the Hubby

Look how cuddly they're being!   

My hubby doesn't look to pleased about me taking his photo . . .

My first giveaway, featuring The Fairy Apothecary

It's finally here!  I was originally going to wait until I had 100 followers but The Fairy Apothecary had too many great things for fall to pass this up.  Plus, this giveaway is in honor of Sally's Bath Product Shop for The Practical Magic Blog Party.

So, who/what is The Fairy Apothecary?  She is also known as the Bath Fairy and she creates amazing hand make soaps, lotions and other bath enchantments out of her basement studio in Upstate New York.  The Bath Fairy draws her inspiration from the colors, sights and smells of the natural world and, of course, that wonderful feeling people get during and after a wonderfully relaxing or invigorating bath or shower experience.  All of her soaps and lotions are made from all natural materials, including goat's milk and shea butter (which is organic and fair trade).

The Fairy Apothecary and I are giving away fall scented, leaf shaped soaps.  They are infused with the spicy scents of fall and just having them in my house makes me long for Samhain and Halloween.

So, how do I enter?

Giveaway Requirements

•  Have an blog accessible through your user name or leave an email address with each entry.
• Have a mailing address within the United States, United Kingdom or Canada
• Visit The Fairy Apothecary's Etsy store , come back here and leave a comment about your favorite item.
• All entries must be submitted by midnight on October 2nd

  

Extra Chances to Win! (You must leave a separate comment for each extra entry)

• 1 entry each
• Post about this giveaway on your own personal blog
• Become a follower of this blog
• Become a follower of Wandering in the Woods on Facebook 
• Become a follower of Wandering in the Woods on Twitter
• Become a follower of The Fairy Apothecary's Blog
• Become a follower of The Fairy Apothecary on Twitter 
• Tweet about this giveaway on your own Twitter account (one tweet per day - leave a comment for each tweet)

Special Notes:

• If your blogger profile is set to private, I will be unable to find your blog or email via your profile.  If there is no email address in your comments, and your blogger profile is private, your entries DO NOT count.
• Entries submitted in one comment posting will only count as one entry
• If you're reading these Special Notes, enter a comment with simply the word "soap" for an extra chance to win!
• Spam or comments with links unrelated to the giveaway will not be counted as an entry
• Please submit all entries in English

Woah.

It's been a long two weeks.  Last week was Open House and I'm running the clock and scoreboards for both the JV and Freshman boys soccer teams as well as going to Graduate school Tuesday nights.  Friday night was the hubby's cousin's wedding, Saturday was the family brunch and then we were off to Windham Mountain for the Warrior Dash on Sunday.  This week, was more timing on top of my wonderful sinus infection.  I finally broke down yesterday and went to the doctor.  I was also an insane person and I worked out for an hour after going to the doctor.  Part of me was hoping to sweat the illness out of me.  The Z-pack has kicked in a little bit but my ears are still popping like crazy and I feel the ickiness in my head swishing around.

I'm still a little upset that I was too sick to doing anything for Mabon or the Harvest moon on the blog or even personally.  Tomorow is the Practical Magic Blog Party and I'm going to infuse it with Mabon/Fall goodies, including . . .

My very first give-a-way!

Look for more information tomorrow afternoon.

Photo located here.

While I fight off this awful cold

If you've been following the Facebook page for my blog, you may have heard about the Green Witch's adventures at the Warrior Dash this past weekend.  I wanted to share the end of the race with you.

The Last Obstacle: The Mud Moat 

- photo by the hubby

Me (on left) and my muddy friends

- photo by the hubby

I'm feeling a little better this evening.  I will (hopefully) be posting some Mabon activities, prayers and rituals later tonight and/or tomorrow. 

I've been sick

It's that time again.  I always catch a cold during the first few weeks of school as it is a petri dish of germs.  I'll be back to posting within the next few days.  Thanks for your patience! 

Image found here

Monday Mutterings: Personal Poetry

I wrote this this past winter about the man I thought I was going to marry.  I ended up with a wonderful husband who is worth my worship and praise.

“Worshiping the Boy”

Holding onto
                       frivolous
promises made
                                               love
       underneath the
       gaze of the
                                         m o o n l i g h t
                drawn
                to her
                                        mind less banter
       for the child
       who is
                                       name less worry
                 for the girl
                 who lost her
                                                         self
worth less in the
              
eyes of the
                boy who
                              raped her
senses with
flippant oaths
                written
                      on
                          the
                              m o o n s t o n e.

Fellow New Yorkers . . .

Did you see the blue lights yesterday?

 Image from here

This is what I saw coming over the Tappan Zee Bridge last night.  This is my skyline.  I fell in love with its splendor and majesty when I looked at it from across the river visiting my future college home, St. John's University.  I watched it change from across that river from the roof of my dorm room.  I didn't watch it on television.  I watched it live and in person.  I cried and I dialed the cell phone numbers of friends who lived a block away at NYU and Pace University.  One week into my freshman year of college and my world was shattering around me.

I don't watch the memorial on television.  I avoid it on purpose.  It's not that I don't want to remember.  It's not that I want to forget either.  The problem is I do remember and the images wake me in the night sometimes.  I didn't watch it from the streets like my friend's did but I watched helplessly in the borough next door.  I couldn't help them.  My campus shut down and wouldn't allow anyone to leave.  I couldn't run to help them.

Two months later, while coming home from visiting my friend at Pace, I walked down the streets to the nearest ACE subway.  Maybe it's because it was 4AM.  Maybe it's because I wanted to believe it was a dream.  Maybe I had become numb to the smell of death and burnt out steel.  I came to a barricade.  At that moment, I didn't understand why it was there.  I looked beyond it and saw the rubble.  Another image I cannot erase.

I will not forget.  I will remember.  I will always be haunted.  I hope you feel the same.

Post-Script: I know that non-New Yorkers feel the void, too.  I just live in the shadow of that great big city and those lights carried me home last night.  They haunt me and I need to vent.

A Sun Worshiping Fur Child

Marty will worship that last little strip of sunlight!

I Feel it Coming

I woke up this morning and I could feel the change.  It's been lurking around me for the past week or so but now I felt the movement and the winds changing direction.  The humidity has left Long Island and the coolness of fall is finally here.  I went looking into my old notebooks after I woke up and found another Keats poem that I'd long forgotten about.  I thought it would be fitting to go with the seasonal changes I felt this morning. 

So, my readers, have you felt the changes yet?  Have you felt the slowing movements of our mother under your feet?  I feel her getting sleepy and ready for her winter's rest.  I feel the God growing inside of her.  I feel the final harvest coming.  I smell the beauty of fall surrounding me and I'm coming back to life.  I am a child of autumn.  I can't wait.

"Ode to Autumn" by John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cell.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,---
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir, the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Oh no!

The kiddies come back to school on Tuesday.  I had my Superintendent's Conference day this past Thursday.  I'm still in shock that summer is over, hence my absence on the blog.  Plus, I've been helping my brother move into his new apartment in Hoboken, NJ.  It's a nice place when you get past the six flight walk-up!  I don't think I need to go to the gym anymore.  I just need to take the hour drive to visit my brother and climb his stairs!

Since I'm a little lost for ideas (my brain is only seeing ninth graders and summer reading essays!) I'm asking you my blog readers.  What would you like to see me post about?  More Mabon?  Full moon ritual ideas?  Tell me because my brain isn't ready to work!