Ostara is coming, are you ready? ;-)

This year it's March 20th - like usually :-D - and it's a Tuesday, so adjust the time table to that fact.
I suggest you have the cleaning already on Saturday 10th and card making day Sunday 11th, so that they are all ready to be posted latest on Wednesday 14th.

Monica Dunkley's children's artwork :-) I love these :-)

It might also be a good idea to celebrate Ostara a couple of days beforehand, so that you can have a peaceful celebration.
But - you need to start thinking about this. Four weeks to Ostara. 30 days. You wouldn't be as calm and collected if it was last week of November ;-)

BTW, you need to prepare the countdown calendar...

Well... Martin Luther was a racist, but with this idea I agree. I wonder if Käthe was so sad to see him leave... perhaps, because she knew he would come home with a bunch of people who would be fed with the food of her children... Well, well... Don't do what he did, try to follow his words. These words.

Yep. How can you polish it? How can you water the garden of your relationship with your husband?

Day 4: Find out what is your husband's dream job and help him take the steps necessary to get there. Start by asking what is his idea of a nightmarish work, the hours, the colleagues, the work, the boss, purpose and meaning... Then turn it all around and ask him what he'd like if his work was like the opposite of the nightmare...
If he's already doing what he likes, then that's wonderful! How can you help him to enjoy working even more? By leaving loving notes in his lunchbox? By telling him how much you appreciate the fact that he's working and doing his part in supporting the family?

12 days of gifts

Of course you need to adjust the gifts to your husband :-) Mine would be rather confused to get 12 golf balls :-D

Day 3 of spouse encouragement challenge:

Still - don't say anything negative to your husband. May your words be only kind and loving and appreciative and encouraging. Count your blessings, in him, and let him know you are aware of it, think about it, appreciate it.

Make a list of how your life is better because he's in it, and share it with him.

101 ways to say "I love you"

http://blessedmommy.hubpages.com/hub/101ways2sayiloveyou-husband

"Today, find some way that your husband is serving you or your family. Does he help around the house? Take care of the car? Fix things that are broken? If your budget allows, give him a new, small tool with a big bow attached. But make sure he doesn't think it's part of a "Honey Do" list!
Maybe your husband's not a handyman, but does he run errands for you? Let you go first? Take care of you when you are sick? Help you make decisions? Praise him for his willingness to serve others. Let him know that you see his unique service as a great strength."

Women tend to keep score... and it's score keeping women always "win". The problem with this is that in the end you will feel used and unfairly treated, that he does "nothing" and you do "everything"... and that's not true.

Ok, so my husband is not good at cleaning, and keeping things in order. But he does most of the shopping. I hate shopping. So it's worth a lot for me.

He cooks, usually.

He takes care of me when I can't do that myself, sees that I take my medication, and other such things, and that is a big job, considering that I have fibromyalgia and I hate it, so I "forget" it.

He loves me and tells me all the time how beautiful and sexy and lovely and good and kind and wonderful I am, and that means the world to me.

I think one of the things that is seldom appreciated is that he's faithful to me. He is there for me, when I need him. Because of him I'm not alone facing the world. We are two in this. We are facing the world together, side by side, hand in hand... and because of that he deserves all the praise and gratefulness and love in the world. Frankly... I mean, just think of all the women you see in the tv, with cheating husbands, abusive husbands, no-good husbands... you're not one of them. Thanks to him. That's worth a lot. To me, at least :-)

30 days husband/wife encouragement challenge

I met my husband 1995. Four years later we got married. Now, after having been married for almost 13 years [the date is 6th of February... 18 days from today :-)] we still love each other, are in love with each other, and like each other and appreciate each other and are proud of each other... We have seen friends move in and out of relationships, but I don't see the end of ours.

So - what makes our relationship strong?

One secret of happy marriage is to understand that what we have is what we'll have in 10, 20 and 50 years. The fairytale of The Beauty and The Beast should be forbidden! You won't change the other, at least not consciously, manipulating, with intention. If you love each other, you will adjust your being to his/hers, and grow together, but the basic nature of each of you will be the one you were created with. This is why you should marry your best friend, and not the love of your life.

Another secret of happy marriage is to understand that people are pretty much the same. No-one is "The Right One", no-one will provide for all your needs and desires, no-one is perfect and flawless, and if you can't live with the faults and vices of "this one", the faults and vices of "that one" will become too much for you to live with too, one day.

Third secret of happy marriage is to get into it with the decision of that divorce is not an option. I'm not saying that you shouldn't divorce your spouse if he/she is abusive or destructive, but that you shouldn't divorce your husband because... well... he snores. He never takes garbage out. He plays videogames all the time. He watches porn. He has the most irritating manner of eating breakfast. He's working all the time. Such little details can be dealt with. Balthasar Gracian said something like "try to get rid of your vices, but if you can't, turn them into virtues".

Then you have to be ready to communicate. Don't have secrets from each other. Dare to talk about dumb things. Dare to be a human.
Laugh with each other. Often. At least once a day. Even when bad things happen, even when you're in pain, even whatever. Especially when bad things happen.

Also, there was a British tv show about how to train your husband (bring your husband to heel) which was canceled very quickly, because husbands are not dogs. But - the point with it is that positive enforcement works on humans too. We are animals just like all the other animals, and you train all animals best with rewarding them for right actions and NOT PUNISHING them for "wrong" choices. When it comes to human beings, we are intelligent animals and are capable of making right choices if we have the option. So - train your spouse by giving him/her options. Give him/her a chance to succeed in pleasing you. He/she is probably more than happy to do so, if you are willing to do your bit, and work on pleasing him/her.

Also, another thing, my husband has both ADHD and Aspergers, which results in that he's a bit obsessive when it comes to playing video games. He got a new game for Yule, and he's been playing it for the last month. I was complaining a little about being a "Skyrim Widow", and one of my co-workers said that he used to play a lot, but stopped because his girlfriend didn't like it. She thought he spent too much time with the game and not enough with her... so - today he told me that they were supposed to watch a movie together, but ended up with each reading their own magazine... because she read her magazine, and he didn't feel like watching the movie alone. So - she may ignore him, but he may not ignore her? WTF? One secret of a happy marriage is fairness.
I feel often that I'm always doing everything and my husband does nothing, but if we look at what he actually does... I have fibromyalgia, so there are days when I can't do anything but lie in my bed and cry. He brings me tea, painkillers, massages my feet and hand, makes me bath, hot or cold depending on what I want, and does everything he possibly can to make me feel better. I can't imagine my life without him. I can't imagine anyone else who would do that for me.
My husband also cooks most often, he shops, he takes care of the telephone and he does the laundry. He also takes care of all "fixings", like changes light bulbs and such things. So, in my mind he does his share of the household chores. In most families the husband also brings home most of the money.

So - 30 days spouse encouragement challenge.

Day 1

Don't say anything negative about your husband to him nor anyone else. Don't criticise, don't nag.
Say something positive about your husband to him and someone else. Praise him, tell him why you love him.

Two months later...

It's THAT time of the year again... you know, "war on X-mas".
I really don't know which part of it all amuses/amazes me most:

- Jews didn't celebrate birthdays or Midwinter, so Jesus and his disciples didn't celebrate birthdays or Midwinter. Both are 100% Pagan ideas. So - celebrating ANYONE's birthday, and especially on Midwinter day, cannot possibly have anything to do with Christianity and Jesus, what ever you name it.
It reminds me of that old mission tale: A missionary had Christened the Pagan and taught him he may not eat meat on Fridays. When he comes to visit his disciple on a Friday he sees him eating a steak of game... "What are you doing? Did you not understand that you may not eat meat on Fridays!?" "Of course I did. But I did like you did. I took some water, poured it over the animal and said "you are now a fish"."

- How upset all Christians are about associating Jesus and the cross... "Crossing out Christ"... :-D

- The ignorance of the meaning of X in Christmas

- How they keep writing Christmas with CHRIST while ignoring the MASS part... as most of these people vehemently claim Catholics are not Christians, and Catholics are the only Christians celebrating mass in the first place... :-D

So what would this coming Midwinter feast be without Christ? Exactly the same it is now, my dear. Just without the créches and angels and other Christianized  stuff. The warmth, the sharing, the kindness, the consideration, the loving and caring, being together, peace, love, hope, birth of light, charity, generosity... all that existed long time before the current reckoning began. 

What ever.

Yule is on 22.12 this year, at 5.30 in the morning. Sun will be rising at 8.44 here in Stockholm, and after just some 6 hours it will be setting.

It's about that time of the year...

It's about that time of the year... you know, when the "TRUE ORIGINS OF HALLOWEEN" hysteria breaks lose and every person defining themselves as TRUE Christian... I was thinking of writing to some of the worst and most influential ones and suggesting that instead of getting all hysterical and spreading the panic and bearing false witness against their neighbors, that they might actually BE true Christians and think about pretty things, like Paul told them to do.
Now... one of them actually went on and invented "Jesus-ween". Ween? Halloween is not "hallo-ween" but "hallow-e'en" - All Hallows' Evening. If the Usonian Christians came to the other side of the ocean to see how the European Christian - and they are not all Catholic, BTW - celebrate All Hallow's, in stead of inventing own stupid pseudoholidays, they wouldn't have anything to worry about, but nooo.... Now, all this is nice and so on, but of course they just HAD to say "Every year, the world and its system have a day set aside to celebrate ungodly images and evil characters". *sigh* Arrogant, ignorant, egocentric idiots.


"In 2002, Pastor Paul requested 300 copies of New Testament pocket size Bibles to use for personal evangelism. A few days before Halloween, a word came to him to give out bibles to everyone knocking at his door expecting candy. On that day over 40 bibles were given out without him stepping out of his house. All it took was putting a bible into every bag as they opened each bag with a smile."I bet he became really popular and next year he gave even more pocket size Bibles to kids crowding his door ROTFLMAO! Good luck with "weening" the kids from candy. I'd suggest they prepare a lot of buckets, ecofriendly soap, brushes with long shaft and other such equipment for November 1st, the "Jesus-clean" day, when all these people need to wash off the eggs and toiletpaper from their homes and gardens.

Im surprised... this is probably one of the few strips that are true... The Sabeans worshiped the Moon God who married the Sun Goddess who gave birth to three Goddesses, who LATER BECAME IDOLS... The Daughters of Allah.
Do you know what an Arameic speaking person 2000 years ago would have called God? ʼĔlāhā
Do you know what Arabic speaking Christians call God? Allah
Argh, I need to get out of here!



I'm lazily thinking of writing my own tracks, but those Chick-fans would take that as a compliment, as they are all bigoted, xenophobic idiots.
Nevertheless, suffer through this: Big Daddy to enjoy more of this: Who's your daddy?

Here's Top 13 Pagan Comics
I like Oh My Gods! It seems you can't read them online anymore. I wish Shivian Balaris all the best in life and God speed with his further adventures in life. It was good seven years :-)

Portrait of evil
I get the same feeling in my guts as when dealing with demons and certain people calling themselves ex-witches...

"Christian cross can be considered a secular symbol of death"? No, it can't. Of course, the non-Christians can say anything, but it takes a Christian to be offended by HIS symbol being used as SECULAR to change things. Figures. >:->

“Every true, born again follower of Christ ought to embrace a Christian over a non-Christian.”
Yeah... The religious opinion of a political candidate trumps everything else. Beat your spouse and kids, kick the puppies, steal lollipops from kids, burn Qurans and flags, pee in an elevator, grope every member of the opposite sex you can reach, murder, steal, lie and curse, you're a good guy as long as you are a Christian... of the right denomination, that is. :->
What ever happened to "...without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status"? I mean... don't people UNDERSTAND the concept of xenophobic bigotry anymore? When did it became a GOOD thing to discriminate people who were different from you, something you're PROUD OF, a quality you actually acknowledge and embrace and that just might turn the public opinion on your side?
Now, political opinions I accept as grounds for deciding whom you vote, but religion? You know, if everyone would vote only the candidate that shares the race, colour, sex, language, religion, political opinion, national and social origin, property, birth etc, the next US president would be a Caucasian, Roman Catholic, Middle Class woman of about 38 years old, and she would be a Democrat...Let's skip the voting all together, and just choose a representant of the demographic majority.


If you have a good pumpkin recipe, go to "Becoming a witch" and post it in the comments.

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