Wow. I just realized it's been a whole month since my last post. I've been so busy lately that time has gotten away from me. So this is to update you all on the happenings in my life and to let you know I'm still alive. We are currently constructing a guest house on our property for my daughter to live in and we are doing much of the work ourselves. Getting the site prepped (when we have had weeks of rain) and removing the structure that stands where the guest house is going, renting a dumpster to dispose of all the accumulated junk in our pole barn, finding an electrician who doesn't think it's OK to try to rake us over the coals ($1300.00 to run a sub-panel and 4 outlets...get real), picking out flooring and wall board and paint, it has kept me really busy and will do so through October as she is due to move in by the 31st. I'm so excited to have her closer to me. And I love doing the kind of handy man stuff involved in this project. I'm not what you would call a girly-girl. The kids have memories of lots of boring trips to Home Depot and Scottys for me to peruse the power tools and such. It sure is coming in handy now. My daughter is paying for all this and if we had to hire contracters for all of it she would go broke real fast. I have lots of experience with the basic wood working kind of stuff. Laying flooring, installing the wallboard, painting, etc... and my husband can do the plumbing and the smaller electrical stuff.

On top of that we have several party invitations this month. My best friend is planning a really cool party and I'm trying to help her arrange things and get the house ready. I have costumes to sew and then , of course, there is Samhain to get ready for.

So, to make a long story short... no, I have not died...I'm just really busy so please forgive me for not posting regularly. Hopefully after this month is through I will have more time to post. Till then, please bear with me.

Missing you all, Ivy

Just a quick update as it has been awhile since my last post. I went camping over
Labor Day weekend with a small group of friends to Juniper Springs. The springs
there are beautilful and a very chilly 72 degress year round (quite refreshing on
a hot Florida day). The trails are wonderful and wildlife abounds (a camp mate
encountered a black bear on the way to the bathroom in the early hours) but mostly
it was raccoons. The raccoon population there must outnumber the humans by about
3 to 1. They literally circled the camp looking for treats that might have been
inadvertantly left about. We managed to keep our foodstuffs safe until the last
day when they quite cleverly managed to get our latching cooler open. They had
quite a feast on turkey and cheese and left their cute little paw prints
everywhere. We had a great time and are already planning our next outing.
We are going canoeing at Swannee River Park when it reopens in November.
I can't wait. I hope all of you are well and I will post again soon. Perhaps
a new poem...Hmmm... what rhymes with Raccoon?

Just a quick note to let everyone know I'm still here. I know I don't post often but I do try to keep up with my friends blogs.

This weekend I am celebrating a very blessed event in my life. My daughters birthday. She was actually born on the 9th but with work schedules and such we decided to party this weekend. Hubby and I will be going over to her place today and I will cook her faorite meal. My famous beer-battered fried chicken, rice and homemade country gravy, green beans and buscuits. Instead of cake (because she's not too crazy about cake) we will have key lime pie. We will go swimming, hang out and enjoy each others company. There will be much drinking and merriment (we are staying the night so no worries there). We don't drink often, but oh my, when we do, it's a blast and many hillarious memories are made! My daughter and I are soooo close. We don't even have to finish our sentences with each other. We start to say something and know when the other "gets it" and so we just stop in the middle of the sentence. It drives my husband crazy! She's my very best friend and the day of her birth is as much a celebration for me as it is for her .She is the kindest soul I have ever known, strong and self-sufficient, extremely intelligent, and wise beyond her 27 years. I am very proud of her. I feel the same way about my incredible son, but todays blog is about her. I will extole his virtuse on his birthday! I have been so blessed in my life to be given the opportunity to raise these incredible beings and to have found a life-mate that is equally special. As you can see, I'm feeling very sappy today. Oh well, I have every reason to. I hope all of your weekends are filled with laughter and joy. I anticipate mine will be.

Some very dear friends of mine, Jen and Rip, are trying to get a mortgage. They want this very badly and it is the perfect home for them. It is, in fact, the home that Jen grew up in. So I worked a spell for them today. Being Lughnasad, the time of harvest and reaping the rewards of hard labor, I thought was a very appropriate time. Pooh, the beautiful kitty pictured in my gallery, is my Familiar. I have had other Familiars in my life that are now passed over, but never one quite like her. She could not be more my baby if I had birthed her myself. I did, in fact, raise her from the time she was only a few hours old and her mother rejected her. So, as you can imagine, we are VERY CONNECTED. She has always been drawn to my Magickal Tools and wants to be near when Rituals are in progress but in the past would get skittish whenever power was raised and would run away when strong Magick was being worked. Her hair would stand on end and she would just act very nervous. She was having a hard time learning how to cycle the energy with me. Well, today, she graduated! As I was gathering the herbs for the incense, the appropriate candles and such, She was doing her usual winding in and out amongst the jars and candles, rubbing and purring on everything. As I was writing the spell she was nibbling on the end of my quill(she now has a red smudge of dragon's blood ink on her nose) and draping herself over my grimoire. This is normal behavior for her but when I began to cast the spell, tapping the ley line and gathering that energy for the spell, instead of freaking out like she usually does, she began to circle me, rubbing and meowing, cycling the enrgy with me, around and around she went, hair on end, blue eyes shining, working the spell with me. It was incredible. It was intense. And when we released that energy together, she sat very still, enraptured by the candles, and TOTALLY FOCUSED on the Altar. She sat there like that for about 10 minutes. Even when I opened the circle she was reluctant to leave the Altar. Finally she came to me and sat with me in my chair, draped across my shoulders, nuzzling my neck, grounding herself, totally content. I never thought the connection between us could get any deeper but I was wrong. I am so incredibly happy. She resides within my soul and I am so thankful the universe brought us together.

I updated my site. I'm not very computer savvy so figuring this stuff out was kind of a challenge. I think I may have gone a bit overboard with the graphics but once I figured it out I just couldn't seem to stop! Well, anyway, it's a work in progress. Tell me what you think.