And The Gods Laughed.....

Blessings, Darlings!

Long ago, in a city far, far away - okay, in the 1960's in Chicago's north suburbs - my father was trying to help me grow into a financially secure adult. So he tried his best to convince me to grow up to be a teacher. He reasoned that teachers had secure jobs. And, of course, I'm a chick and teaching is a 'woman's job'. Two of his sisters were teachers, after all. His other sister was .... a lawyer. The first woman to graduate in law from the college she went to. For that matter, HE was a lawyer. And one of his brothers a doctor. And the last brother a chemist, or a chemical engineer, I've forgotten which.

But I was sure I'd HATE to teach. I hated the kids I was in school with - this was back in elementary school. I hated the idea of going over the same basic crap year after year. I didn't think I'd like to GIVE tests any more than I liked TAKING tests.

Years passed. My father died not too many years later, while I was still in middle school/junior high school. I .... uh ..... took my time in getting thru' college, changed majors about 5 times, dropped out and worked as a secretary for a while, finally got my degree, and worked for years in shelters with homeless and abused women. My degree? Oh, Health Education. Not that I was ever in a school environment. I STILL didn't want to go near that!

Time passed. I had the Spawn. The first 6 weeks of parenting were the hardest 6 weeks of my life, in part because of the c-section (and I was working with the obgyn with the lowest intervention rate in the area! We went 45 hours from when my water burst 'till the c-section) and in part because in that time my father in law was diagnosed with terminal cancer and died all in that time period.

I went back to work when the Spawn was 6 weeks old. He came to work with me every day - he had an assortment of physical delays, he wasn't tearing up the shelter, he was pretty passive, so he was no problem. He loved sitting in his car seat on a desk top, surveying the staff and clients, being talked to. Husban lost his job. When Spawn was 9 months old we moved. I became a stay at home mom.

But he had all these delays, and I didn't have a diagnosis for him, or any clear idea on how to help him. And his speech delay was frustrating BOTH of us. At 2 1/2 Spawn started special ed preschool, where he became a special ed poster child. He was in regular school for kindergarten.

And I began to think about home schooling. Not because of any experience we'd had in the schools - our experience was great. The teachers were great. The school population was multicultural, which I loved. Schools were close and I volunteered regularly. In fact, our local school was a math/science magnet school, and my son was a year ahead in math and loved it all.

Okay, later he had a math teacher that was MISERABLE for a whole lot of reasons. But I was already interested in homeschooling by then.

But I was already picking up that the schools were socializing the students for old fashioned factory jobs, for blind obedience to bells, etc. I didn't like that the group had to move at the speed of the slowest student. I REALLY hated it when they stopped letting him be a year ahead in math, and he had a miserable bored year.

Husband was NOT thinking about home schooling. Sigh.

But then came middle school. And son had a MISERABLE experience there, due to some teachers who were overwhelmed (school was terribly overcrowded) and may have had other personal issues, and because of bullying. By the end of those two years, Spawn was depressed and felt like a failure. And clearly had ADD and the school hadn't helped us deal with that at all. By middle school, apparently the lost children are supposed disappear, not be helped. He was doing college level work in math and science, and 5th or 6th grade work in reading comprehension and writing.

High school, in the same system, in a school just as overcrowded, terrified us all.

We chose home schooling.

It wasn't a smooth transition. Oh, the first 6 weeks were great - the opposite of the first six weeks of his life! I packed him and camping equipment in the car and we drove the Oregon Trail. Along the way we also visited a ton of the pagans I had met in the chat rooms on Prodigy. We did lots of history, map reading, meeting folks of all different ages/backgrounds, geography, etc. For example, in Casper, we met my online friend Sharon, and her husband led us on a person and detailed tour of Fort Casper and the Fort Casper museum, where he volunteered. In California, Sarah and John, dispite having a VERY new baby, welcomed us and treated the Spawn as a valued equal, worthy of having opinions an being involved in games and conversations.

But I had a hard time finding great textbooks (other than the full set of freshman English text books I'd gotten from a friend who led a high school English department). The Spawn was so disspirited from problems he had in writing that I didn't have him do much writing that entire year. All that got easier over time.

What we really did that first year was work on getting him and me organized. He learned to be in control of his schooling, assignments, life. I learned how to help him learn.

One day I looked at my life and said "Oh, Crap - I'm a school teacher!"

And The Gods Laughed......

Frondly, Fern

Life Wellness Monday - How Ya Doing?

Blessings, Darlings!

Here’s an update on how I’m doing on my personal Wellness, since I’ve been blogging about it for the past few months.

Exercise: Been doing it more, not yet up to where I want to end up.
Weights: doing upper body routine twice a week, have gotten past the tendonitis in my left forearm.
Aerobics: Slowed by knee pain that kicked in when I increased the height of the aerobic step. But now it’s a bit less, and doesn’t seem to get worse by step aerobics as long as I just do the old up/down – it’s more a problem with lateral movements. So I’m back to step aerobics a few times a week. Asthma less of a problem since I started to exercise, even with the record amounts of pollen in the air!

Meditation: Was doing daily until the last couple of weeks.

Stress reduction: House we live in was auctioned at courthouse (landlord didn’t pay mortgage), so CAUSES of stress are still there. I’m way calmer, handling stress better.

Financial Wellness: I’ve been going thru’ personal financial papers and such. Posted about the health insurance findings a few days ago. Dropped Long Distance on the business line, we use cell phones for that, except for faxing. Now if we fax – and we haven’t faxed OUT in weeks – we’ll just switch the fax to the house line, which has inexpensive LD still. It was $25 a month to have Long Distance on business line (plus any calls) and it’s $15 a month for Long Distance on the house line (plus calls). HOWEVER – now Verizon has offered a plan for unlimited local plus LD for about what we pay for local only. So may make that change.
May change the husband and son’s cell phone plans, have to do a BIT more research.
Have paid down some bills, have organized paying them down by highest interest rates.

Eating healthy food: Didn’t make enough changes that actually stuck. Yeah, the only beef I’m eating is organic/pastured/etc, but that’s the only change that stayed. I’m hoping that summer fruits and veggies entice more changes! I AM eating all those beans/lentils/etc, of course…..


And how are all y'all doing? Time to check in!

Frondly, Fern

Winter to Summer

Blessings, Darlings!

It's that time of year when I switch my freezer from winter mode to summer mode. Which means that I'm converting all the bones into stock while the weather is cool that I don't run the air conditioning while I reduce the stock for hours.

It also means that any empty space in the freezers are being filled with bags of ice cubes. You see, we had our first Violent Spring Storms the other night - lightening, wind, vicious rain, everything except the tornados. Storms like this bring trees down. Trees down bring down power lines. Downed power lines mean freezers thaw. But they thaw slower if they are full, and ice cubes fill them and are useful in day to day life as well.

I also know where to get dry ice if the power goes, and have a generator, but I really like to cover my bases. And my husband REALLY like REALLY cold drinks. Like in mid summer he puts ice in his milk.

Scary.

Frondly, Fern

This Kid Can Kill a Diet

Blessings, Darlings!

My beloved Spawn is making dinner tonight. He has a craving for Fettuccine Alfredo. Full of cream and butter and white flour noodles. And saute'd shrimp and clams.

I love it. But it's not at all healthy! Or cheap, for that matter.

So he and his dad will have the pasta and a salad. I'm having vegetable soup, salad, the delightful pasta, steamed asparagus, and strawberries for dessert. My hope is that I won't have room for a second serving of the fettuccine. A similar plan worked yesterday, when I didn't have seconds on the main course of dinner by eating an extra orange.

LW MONDAY: Finances - Insurance

Blessings, Darlings!

Yeah, I know that most of you Americans who read this are preoccupied with taxes right now. But while I'm writing on Financial Wellness today, it's not taxes that I'm writing about. It's the equally-confusing area of INSURANCE.

Since almost all blogging is personal, this was brought on by the health insurance company we currently have our business policy with sending us our renewal. And 20% rate increase. And since I was rather depressed and non-fuctional last year when we renewed I didn't notice that they had cut what they cover - from a $10/20/40 plan for drugs to a '75% coinsurance' plan.

Ya know how coinsurance USED to mean that if you were married and your spouse ALSO had insurance on you, claims would be split between the companies? That's not what it means now. "Coinsurance" NOW is code for 'copay'.

Assholes.

But it does explain why I've been paying a fortune for the drugs I'm trying to improve my health in order to get off of.

So - I'm suggesting that if you haven't check over ALL your insurance policies lately, it's time you did. Health, life, long term disability, homeowners/renters, car, whatever you have.

And shop around. It's not as hard to do now that you can do it online. I remember helping a friend shop around for his first car insurance in high school. I had to do it by phone, calling a multitude of agents for different companies. It took forever. OTOH, even then I could do it from the comfort of my room.

So far, in the few hours I've spend today - Easter, by the way. Happy Easter to those who celebate it - I've identified a new plan with a different company that looks like it will be both less expensive and cover my meds more. Take THAT, current company! I have till June 1 to lock a new plan in place, so I can fully research everything.

Go forth and be wonderful!

Frondly, Fern

Location, Location, Location

Blessings, Darlings!

Last time I posted on altars I talked about simplifying what is on them. This time it's about where you have them .... but I'll start with a bit about how many some folks have.

Oddly enough, given my 'simplifying' post, I have a lot of altars. Three in the living room and one or two upstairs in various rooms. And, of course, the blessed forsythia in the yard were I make offerings as well.

As I might have mentioned in a previous post, the living room altars are pretty much in an Ar nDraiocht Fein Druid set up: one for nature spirits/land, one for Ancestors/water, one for Gods/sky. Having them in a heavily used (by me) part of the house makes keeping them dusted easy and using them a natural part of my everyday life.

And I do work with the Gods altar on a daily basis. On that altar is my 'healing cauldron'. In it I keep slips of paper with people/animals/things I want to keep in front of the Gods, so to speak, and send energy to as often as possible. Requests for healing/energy go in the cauldron (usually with the date on them, and they get removed after a moon cycle or so), the name of the various pagan groups I'm in live in there, as does a general 'family' slip of paper. Candles get lit for them at least once a week.

The other two altars in the living room I make offerings on weekly or so. It could well be argued that I should work with the nature spirits and ancestors daily, tho.

Upstairs I have altars that I do more 'involved' workings on. If I was doing something like one of Raymond Buckland's multiday candle rituals for changing luck, and moving candles closer to the center each day, then I'm going to work in a place where the rest of the family won't move things 'for' me, or the cats won't knock things over. Which means upstairs in my office, keeping the door closed while the multi day working goes on.

Those are my 'formal' altars. Then there are the other places I do workings ....

Ironing board.
Vegetable Garden.
Compost heap.
Herb Garden.
The stand of poison ivy.
etc.

In fact, since I'm in the Assembly of the Sacred Wheel Wiccan tradition, and the goal of the Assembly is to re-enchant the world, so perhaps in time the entire world will be my altar.... or not, given humans and our property rights.


Frondly, Fern

Monday LW - The Musical Fruit

Blessings, Darlings!

Sorry for disappearing for a month - was out of town, then business-busy, then I think I had a problem with gall stones. I'll be discussing that with my doctor later.

But now back to Monday's Wellness posts!

You can tell if I'm working on either my finances or my wellness by what I cook. Transforming dried beans into wonderful dishes is one trick that works on both.

Beans are full of fiber, both soluble and insoluble. These not only keep your bowels regular but the soluble fiber helps lower your cholesterol. Apparently bile and dietary cholesterol bind to insoluble fiber in the digestive track and you poop 'em out rather than absorb them. And the fiber makes them very filling.

Beans are low on the glycemic scale, and thus great for diabetics, prediabetics, and anyone who wants their blood sugar as steady as possible.

Beans are high in protein, so help fill that dietary notch, and they have an assortment of the B-complex vitamins in them (unless you cook them with baking soda, which breaks some of the b-vitamins down. Baking soda keeps the color strong in red and black beans).

And beans are cheap. I can buy a pound of dried pinto beans for a dollar, and split peas cost even less. One pound dry cooks up to about 3 pounds, quite a lot of food for one dollar!

So last week I was lazy and just grabbed a can of chickpeas/garbanzo beans off the shelf, tossed the beans into my blender, added garlic, tahini, lemon juice, hot sauce, and some olive oil then blended 'till smooth. Instant hummus. My husband even loved it! We had it with fresh broccoli florets and carrot slices as the main part of lunches.

Today I've got 2 gallons of chili on the stove. My chili is three parts tomatoes to two parts beans to one part meat and one part red peppers/onions. I also make it soupy rather than stew-like, because it's good and we can easily over eat it. This will be lunches this week.

I have a bit less than a cup of leftover pinto beans. I'm considering tossing them into the meat I'll be cooking for tacos for dinner tonight, altho' I know my husband will NOT be happy with that. Or maybe I'll make refritos out of them, which he and the spawn will more happily eat.


Frondly, Fern