Pampering is not self care.

Blessings Darlings!

Still working on getting the car repaired.  It has to go back in tomorrow, AGAIN.  That will be a full week.  And since June 4 - one week ago - the number of coronavirus deaths IN MY AREA have gone up 300%.  You bet your sweet ass that MY pasty white ass is still in deep social isolation.

Given how much I LOVE my carbs, it's really hard for me to work on my self care with English Muffins and hash browns around the house.  Which brings up a discussion we have had before, but from what I've seen in FB pagan groups (um, specifically in one that I've now been booted and banned from) it needs to be stated again.

Self care and pampering yourself are two different things.  Self care is always a good thing.  Pampering isn't always a good thing, depending on what you are doing, and how.

Self care is ... work.  It's eating right, and the right amounts.  It's making sure you get the sleep you need, the exercise you need, the shadow work you need to do (and that shit can be hard AND terrifying and you will need to push yourself HARD), the counseling you need, the learning to say no - and to say yes - that you need to learn, exercising, etc.  Breaking old patterns, that served you in the past but don't serve you now.

Pampering yourself is a pedicure, the English muffin or dessert or whatever once a week or so, a fancy restaurant, a fancy vacation.

Good knives are self care.  They will hold an edge and make your kitchen work faster and easier.  They will hold a sharp edge, and you are WAY less likely to cut yourself due to that fact.  A knife set that is very pretty but doesn't hold an edge and the pretty shit peels off is NOT self care.  It is pampering.  I'm not trying to sell it to you, but I want to show you this set that a friend bought, and it SUCKS DONKEY DONGS.  https://chefsvisionknives.com/products/cosmos?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5Kbs-8T66QIVlIrICh3SSgz-EAQYBiABEgICPPD_BwE  

Showering and doing a spiritual/emotional cleanse - you doing the work - is 2 minutes deep self care. Four minutes if you're also washing and conditioning your hair. Bath bombs are pampering.  I admit to some attitude towards this one, because I also find that cleaning the damn bathtub after doing on is a pain in the ass and not worth having done the bath bomb. 

Cleaning the house is self care.  Even if  you only have the spoons to do 10 minutes of it.  Learning to ground and center is self care, because then you can do it anywhere, any time, at a moment's notice and IN a moment.  Having to have the right crystal around to be able to ground ... at best that's training wheels.  Having to be outside barefoot on an organic plot of forest to be able to ground is pampering. 

[pardon me while I go do some research - we are suddenly having a discussion about whether crystals of quartz are igneous.  They are, but are a precipitate.  It's very strange to me.]

Things that make your life easier (in the short or long term) are self care.  Buying that 1 pound container of Organic Spring Salad Mix is self care, if that means you'll actually eat salad, while if you buy a head of lettuce that you need to wash and chop means you won't eat salad.  Frozen corn instead of corn on the cob, since you don't have to clean the silk and husks off the cob?  Self care.  Boneless chicken breasts or thighs instead of cheaper chicken leg quarters?  Yup.

It's not that milk shakes, and lots of chocolate, and big bowls of pasta slathered with butter pedicures or fancy vacations or going to Ruth's Chris Steak House are evil.  You just shouldn't mistake them for self care.  Pampering yourself isn't evil (unless you are enslaving someone else to do it, but prison labor, slave labor, etc are issues for another day). 

I'm just saying to not confuse the two.

Frondly, Fern

Plagiarposting.

Blessings Darlings!

Allow me, if you will, to introduce you to introduce to a term I created earlier this week.  The term is "Plagiarposting".  It is when someone posts something in a group that someone else wrote, but doesn't link back or give any credit to the actual author.  IN-FUCKING-EVITABLY, the person doing this does so others will think that they are the author (because it DOES make it seem that they are) but 'I never SAID I wrote it (I just implied it)".  And they will do this over and over and over, with posts that are plagiarized from lots of different sources.  So they look oh, so very informed. 

But because they deliberately omit the source, they are also keeping the folks in the dark about the sources of information out there.  They are, in fact, bogarting information to make themselves look like some fucking guru, some actual source of information and ... ahem ... better writing than they can actually do themselves. 

Mutter, mutter, something about self care.  Yeah, I want a fried egg and bacon sandwich, but I'm making myself a dish of eggs served on top of two servings of cooked vegetables.  Both are delicious, but the high veggie one isn't as much a 'comfort food.'  And, yeah, I drank [some] of my morning water. 

But I'm making a fresh strawberry pie and eating some of it later on.  Just because.

Chubby Hubby and I discussed the 'meat shortage' in the stores today.  The Spawn and I have mostly  bought the cheap regular priced bags of chicken leg quarters and ground beef for YEARS, but added getting meat that was 'reduced for quick sale' meat, that hadn't sold and was reduced for the last day it could be sold.  Well, THAT meat has pretty much disappeared from the stores, as well as the prices for all meats rising.

Let me digress (as if you have a choice in me digressing?) to the history of food costs in the US.  We have had astonishingly inexpensive food here compared with the rest of the world.  It takes up less than half of the percentage of household income that it takes in all other countries.  This, in part, explains why the level of income here considered 'poverty level' is artificially low - that income is based on a multiple of what it takes to feed an individual/family, ignoring the fact that other US prices, like housing, take a relatively higher percent of household income.  Our food costs now are edging towards a slightly more 'normal' percent of household income. 

Anyway...

CH is with me on splitting a pig with the amazing Suz, and that I'mworking on getting a group together to maybe split a steer. We'll see if that works out, but at least we're working on it.  He DID ask "Will we have to go vegan?".  I pointed out that cutting down on meat doesn't = vegan.  But he'd best get used to more low-meat stews and soups for dinner, along with our usual stir fries.  And that I hadn't brought up dairy products at all.  Silly CH.

I'm posting this now, EVERY early in the day, because I might want to demonstrate my creation of the neologism "Plagiarposting" sometime.  It's now noon on 5/15/20.  I also used it in a saved Messenger chat a few days ago.  It's still a GoogleNope.  It's MINE. 

Frondly, Fern

Spring Freeze continues

Blessings Darlings!

Didn't do much today at all.  No doubt I'm having trouble with motivation/action due to depression.  So focusing on eating 'right', whatever the fuck that means.  In this case, salad for breakfast, fruit and peanut butter sandwich and chips for lunch, and pulled pork with baked sweet potato fries for dinner.   Throw in a couple more pieces of fruit, and I'll be at 5 servings of fruit and veggies.  Drinking water.  Taking my meds.  Not drinking lots of caffeine.  That kind of thing. 

I'd better put more sweet potatoes on my Walmart pick up list while I'm at it.  As well as a basic new fry pan, until they have the one we want in stock. 

The Chubby Hubby was crabby yesterday.  He always has a problem if you continue to do stuff while he talks to you - like, if I'm preparing food I have to stop and give him all my attention, rather than listen while I prep - and yesterday he was really bitchy about it.  Don't know what set him off

I didn't look at any Coronavirus news today.  So I don't know how many thousand folks died in the US yesterday or anything - just that it was too damn many.

Frondly, Fern

You asked for it, you got it!

Blessings Darlings!

I'm assuming that most of the folks reading this are not 'essential workers' and working full time (or more) during the pandemic.  Which means y'all are at home, and have more free time on your hands.  But along with that free time, you don't have money since you're not working.  And most of  y'all aren't trying to adjust to homeschooling (I suppose I should blog about transitioning to that sometime, too.)

Have you ever said that you wished you had free time to work on your magic/spirituality/etc?  Well my dear - you asked for it, you got it!  All the free time in the world.

So what are you doing with this time?  What books are you reading and working?  What courses are you taking?  How much more time are you putting into your daily practice?  Doing more offerings?  More meditation?  Are you doing your basic self care, and drinking water, getting some exercise, eating your 5 - 9 servings of fruits and non-starchy veggies a day?

I'm trying a little desperately to catch up on the Strategic Sorcery course, reading several pagan/magic/esoteric books, failing on drinking enough water, and ... now that the restaurant I worked in is closed, failing on my fruit and veggie intake most days.  It was so much easier when I had a full salad case to make my salads out of!  Already chopped red onions, tomatoes, lettuces, spinach, cucs, carrots, etc.  Ah well.  I'll continue to work on improving that tomorrow. 

Most of you have that time you longed for.  So are you using it?

More on this tomorrow ...

Frondly, Fern

Mercury Retrograde is Coming, and I Feel Fine.

Blessings Darlings!

People in the Pagan/Witch groups I'm in have started their regular freaking out over the upcoming Mercury Retrograde. They have started praying that it's smooth. Have I mentioned that 'hopes and prayers' put my teeth on edge? 

 

So here's a reminder that the Merc Retro is a needed and useful thing, where you unwind stuff that no longer serves you. And that there are things you can do to prepare for it, so it goes more smoothly. Do what you can to make sure (and double check that) all your bills are paid, especially insurance. If you look at things and note that you won't be able to make a payment - contact that creditor in advance and see what you can work out. Back up your computer in advance. Maybe get your car checked out/change your oil, etc in advance if you can. Make sure you have a patch kit for the tires on your bicycle. 

 

Get your self-care in place. Taking care of yourself will make things smoother, and help make sure you have more energy and are more centered to face anything that comes up. 

 

Finally - start facing things you don't want to face NOW. Make it a habit. This will help build your ability/ease of handling crap as it comes up. 

 

Frondly, Fern