Envelope Decorator

 I recieved my #Write_On starter kit in the mail last week. I'm terrible I completely forgot about April being National Letter Writing Month, and that I was going to participate in the 30 letters in 30 days campaign. D:
Until I got this in the mail, halfway through the month. Hahaha.
The cards are super cute, as always. though that pink....who picked that? Why? it's so bright, and ugh.
But then again, I am extremely biased against pink colors. So there's that.






I spent a good part of a day writing letters and decorating envelopes last week. It was fun. I normally only have one or two people I write letters to a month, so it was a nice change of pace to have so many.
I limited myself to small cards, and short messages. Some people feel obligated to write back when you write them, and I don't want that. I also don't want to overwhelm people with my entire life story in an envelope. Though one of my friends and I write pages to each other about our lives and thoughts. It's really nice.

Unfortunately I only have 11 letters written. I only have 12 people's addresses total. And some of them it was almost strange to write to because they're people I haven't spoken to in a long time, or feel as if I don't know well. But I think they would still appreciate a small letter saying Hi.
I hope.
One of the letters was to an old coworker, before she was a coworker she was almost a mentor. My friends and I would go to the library one night a week for a teen reading program. She ran the program, and was amazing. We didn't always read a book a month like we were supposed to, but we always came to the program regardless. And we had other books we loved.
I think that was her purpose of the program, to encourage teens to read, to discuss, to have a safe hangout place for them.
So I wrote her a letter telling her she is a beautiful person, because she really is.
But now I need to figure out what I'm going to do about the rest of the letters. :/

Valentine's Chocolate Lover

First v-day being in the same state as the Hubs, 

I made chocolates for him (based off of a Nama chocolate recipe I found) and we've spent all weekend marathon playing video games (Starbound, check it out, because it's amazing), and watched the Batman trilogy. 

Talk about a great weekend, I voted we do this more often. 

Hope everyone else had a great weekend whether it be with someone or romancing yourself away through the winter storm!

Inconsistant blogger for life!

Well, looks like I will never be one of those people who blog on a regular basis and show up every other Pinterest post.
I am okay with this. I made this blog for me, and it has suited me quite well in my self-discovery journey through life, and my never ending quest to try and understand other people.
Tis Friday the 13th *makes ghostly whoo noises* I didn't even notice till my elder brother sent a happy 13th message. Tomorrow is Valentine's day, my first time actually spending it with the Hubs.
We're going to marathon video games on our laptops for the weekend. As soon as he gets home from work we are heading to the grocery store and buying tons of snacks, and pizzas, and we're going to be teenagers with no jobs for a weekend. Monday is a Federal Holiday, so that is going to be our recovery day. I'm looking forward to this weekend, my adult symptoms will be that I will get extremely tired and want to go to sleep after 10pm, so I'll have to drink lots of green tea to stay up. But I can do it! :D
Not how most spend their V-day, but we are nothing like other couples I've learned over the years.
Though I did make homemade chocolates for him. They are amazing. I'll post pictures after I give them to him. Even will include the recipe. Promise.

I'm on my second semester of school now, since leaving the military. The first semester was busy busy busy. I took a class on Terrorism, Sociology in the Workplace, and Women and Social Action. It was a super educational semester. I learned so much about so many different things, I think I changed slightly as a person due to it.
This semester I am taking Cultural Diversity in the United States, Juvenile Delinquency, and History of the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. It will be another educational semester. And after this I only have two classes left to take and I will be an undergraduate. Super exciting to think about.
Then I have to talk myself into continuing my original plan to pursue a Master's. (I day dreamed about a doctorate the other day, just so I can be called "Doctor") I'm lame like that. There is no reason for me to become a doctor.

Also on my list of things to do this year: I am doing the 2015-in-2015 Challenge. The goal is to run/walk 2015 miles in 2015. Cheesy, yes?
I am doing it, but I am not crazy, so I am not doing it alone. I conned talked two of my friends into doing it with me. So our team, altogether, will walk/run 2015 miles this year.
Epic.
I started late in January, and I strained my calf muscles so I had a week off. I only did 30.5 miles. We're two weeks into January and I am at 28.5 already. I would have more but this darn weather! Twice a week a blizzard passes by. It's getting ridiculous. I was gonna do another 4 miles today, but its 14 degrees Fahrenheit outside, with a windchill of -2. So no. I'm not running in that. You can get frostbite in 30 minutes technically in that kind of weather. No thanks.

Well, I think that is all I have for now. Just a quick update, to remind myself this blog is still here (And shows up in google now). Nothing interesting. Maybe next time.

Battle for Net Neutrality.

Imagine all your favorite websites taking forever to load, while you get annoying notifications from your ISP suggesting you switch to one of their approved “Fast Lane” sites.
Think about what we would lose: all the weird, alternative, interesting, and enlightening stuff that makes the Internet so much cooler than mainstream Cable TV. What if the only news sites you could reliably connect to were the ones that had deals with companies like Comcast and Verizon?

This is important people! Please share and please sign the petition. Net neutrality is a very important issues of our time and its easy to fight back and do just a little to help.

Back to schooler.

Well, it has definitely been a busy week for me. School started this week, and I'm way to motivated about it. I've already done almost two weeks worth of school work, just this week alone. My goal is to get half a month to a month ahead in school work and stay there. That way there is no stress if I get distracted or something happens and I can't do work for a few days.
All my classes are online, so that's how I'm achieving this. I honestly don't think I could go back to standard classes, with long lectures and tons of homework. I'd rather be assigned the readings, that way you know the text books you're buying are worth it, and write papers. I'm at the point where I try to avoid classes that have mid-terms and final examinations. I'd rather there be a long paper at the end of the semester over everything I learned. I think that shows more of my breadth of knowledge then some multiple choice test, and memorizing dates and begging for study guides.
The classes I'm taking are Terrorism, Women and Social Action and the Sociology of Work. Very interesting semester indeed. 

I've also done a bit of reading recently too. I read the entire Traitor Spy Trilogy by Trudi Canavan. If you haven't read it and you like a good fantasy series I highly recommend it. It was captivating, and told a great story. I'm now going to read more of her books, because I really like the world she set up for her stories. It's impressive.










I also read The Goodly Spellbook by Dixie Deerman and Steven Rasmussen. I read it pretty much in one day. I liked the writing style, it was very informal, but not all attempting to be sparkly and ooh the audience. The book cover's a wide range of history, as well as their personal experiences and growth in the world of magic. I like how the book also covered sigils and went into detail about the moon phases and planets. Though I think they went more indepth on the planets than moon. Which was nice, because I hadn't ever studied much on that. The spell section didn't have as much in it as I thought it would, given the title of the book. And some of the spells require a lot of ingredients. Then, like all spell books, some of the spells I pondered if they were even real (and worked). I sometimes wonder if pagan authors throw in fake spells just to keep people on their toes. But I overall am pleased with my purchase due to that it wasn't a basic 101 book, I'm a bit tired of those. I've read quite a bit of them over the years. But yet I'm not quite ready to just do my own thing yet. I feel like something is missing...

The book I'm going to start next is Mythology by Edith Hamilton. It was a bit difficult to pick a mythology book to read, there were a few I wanted. But I think this is a good start for now. I didn't read any reviews on this before buying it, but the cover says, "Classic best seller". So it can't be too bad. :P


I'm a bit tempted to actually start writing decent reviews of all the books I read. I might not publish them all, but it would be something fun to do. And maybe in the writing of the review I'll come to a few revelations that I didn't get from just going through the book. I remember in high school we used to do literary analysis of books we read. Most students hated it, but if it was a book I was interested in, I loved it. Mainly because a lot of things that occur in stories I just take literally. I don't expound upon the symbolism or hidden meanings of a lot of things. Or how it reflects things that happened in history or societies views. So in doing a literary analysis I felt like I was understanding the story better, and the intent the author had in the book.
And I might just be too stupid to understand things on my own. I don't know.

Arm-Chair Pagan.

Well, here is my next. Looks like it's going to be another discussion post.
Ewwww, I'm sorry.
I did do a few projects in the past week, I'll share those in a post eventually. I wanted to talk about something that's been on my mind recently.
My religion?
I am, by no means, a 'religious' person. I am not extremely devout, I am not strongly opinionated overall and I've always had a list of reasons why.
5-10 years ago my reasoning was that my parents didn't approve, I didn't have the money to buy the things all the beginner books say you need, and I rarely had any free time.
After high school, I briefly spent time in college before joining the Marine Corps. And then it was a matter of me not having anywhere to practice, or being too exhausted from all my training.
Over the years I've slowly collected objects that I use on my altar.
And except for two years in the past ten years, I've always had some sort of altar set up. Most of the time it was merely meditational. When I was in Japan I started making it seasonal, or for the different holidays.
But I never devoted the time I felt I should to be able to call myself Pagan.
Like celebrating the moon cycles, the sun cycles, spending time connecting with deities, or even doing simple spells. I've done some circles here and there, a few ceremonies. I've wrote my own rituals, joined some pagan forums, but I don't avidly practice.

And for some reason this makes me feel guilty, like a christian skipping church.

One of the facebook groups I'm a part of and read regularly, once used a term called "Arm-chair Pagan" to essentially describe people who read lots of books, but don't actually do anything.
It was a knife through the ribs, almost.
I do my share of internet research, I own a few books, I have an altar I take care of and use, but am I an 'Arm-Chair Pagan'?

One of the big things that I always find myself stopping at is the connecting with the Gods. I thought about it for a while, meditated on it intensely, and I believe I am a hard polytheist.
 I read Scott Cunninham's Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner. And in the book he says something similar to that Gods and Goddesses are complimentary, equal to one another. They can be named or nameless.
I understand that a God and a Goddess are equal, and that there are people who worship a 'God' and a 'Goddess', and then there are those who have specific deities they worship. But one of the things I thought about after reading that was are all Gods and Goddesses separate beings who who reigned originally over their part of the world, spreading out as ideas and concepts where shared culture to culture? I've always believed in multiple Gods, but just narrowing it down to two seems like cheating, being lazy. Unless it is more of a simple way of honoring all the Gods at once? You're not saying literally there is only two (Unless it's as if it is the aspects of them you're worshiping).
You are honoring "The Gods" male and female who watch over you. Until maybe one day they name themselves to you...
Though the phrase still makes me pause. Two perfect lovers, in harmony and spiritual parents to us all. It's a nice thought, but it feels more of an idea, a wish. But ideas hold real power. So perhaps we shall see. Maybe the "Gods" and "Goddesses" are the power from which all Gods come. The Ultimate ones. All other deities come from them. So they are part of, but separate?
The possibilities are endless.
Some discuss that the different deities are aspects of the single  God and Goddess. Different views of them, like personalities. Pantheons or deities, all separate, but make up the ultimate. 

See my problem? I get caught up in the strangest details. Here I am writing an essay on the origin of Gods and if they are truly the same or different. Because when you look at the pantheons you see the same ideas over and over again. Are they the same deities with different names based on culture? Or are they individual beings?

And then most eventually have their patron deity. I don't even know where to start with that. I can't even pick a pantheon I was to initially focus on. So I just go with a generic God and Goddess approach. It works (I think?).

But to do magic you don't have to use the specifics of Gods. There are witches who practice magic, but don't consider themselves to fall into a catagory of pagan (Such as wiccan, druid or so on). They are practitioners. The whole saying about how not every Wiccan is a Witch and not every Witch is a Wiccan, you can be one or both. That's where that comes into play.

But then the things I do throughout my day could be considered part of my beliefs. I say affirmations, I meditate (think hard and focus) on ideas and problems, I have good luck charms, I believe in cleansing areas, I do a bit of energy work here and there, grounding myself when I feel jittery...
But I don't think about it as "Oh! I'm doing pagan things!" To me that's just part of my life and how I do things.

So am I not an arm-chair pagan after all?

Do I over think things? (yes!)

To be honest, I've considered just giving up on the whole "Having a religion" thing. Just call myself agnostic and go about my life, being a good person. But I can't. I had my entire Marine Corps contract as an opportunity to do that, and I can't. I always get drawn right back in, or feel like something is missing from my life.
I guess you can't help some things about yourself.
But I don't think the negative things picky people say should make me feel guilty because I don't come out of the woodworks to celebrate the Sabbats (they have a name for people who just do that too), and I don't do divination every week, and have a fancy collection of Wiccan things.

I do things in my own way, however small, or grand I choose. I do have a life of chaos to live. And I hope others who struggle as I did to overcome those thoughts and feelings don't get deterred (Or attacked on a forum).

What things have other's struggled with throughout their time, I wonder?
I mean, I've been a student for ten years, but I feel as if I'm just a child at this, which I suppose is normal. We are talking about something literally beyond my scope of existence.

Litha

Anti-Substance abuse

So since I was vacationing all last week I didn't have anything planned for this post. Considered writing about my vacation, but changed my mind. It was great, Maine is gorgeous, and when you go to a small town in Canada for just one night the guys at the border checking passports will be very suspicious of you. XD
I decided I wanted to discuss my view on drugs and alcohol. Which sometimes I wonder if they're really even MY views. I've known a lot of people who, as teens, pretty much had their life drastically changed by the choices they made. Which seems like a "Duh" statement to make. But I almost said, "Ruined" instead. I don't think they see it that way though. But the people they hung out with, the drugs they did, the drinking they did, and the decisions that results from their actions isn't something they always look back proud on. Seeing the difference between how their lives are and mine, when the difference between us is that I chose not to do drugs, I stayed in school, I felt too uncomfortable being in close proximity to the other gender, that I never really "dated" until the end of high school, and as dissatisfied with my life as I am and I look at theirs....I feel very satisfied with my life.
I still talk to those people, just not very often anymore. But they admitted all the drugs and drinking they did ruined their brains. I can tell just from our conversations they're different. They repeat things often, easily forget conversations or things I've already told them, get confused easily and don't understand a lot. But as adults, I'm pretty sure they just pretend. Or make things up to fill in the gaps.
I think being close to these people who went through drastic changes in their youth made my stance on drugs as extreme as it is.
I loathe drug abuse.
And most drug use. I'm talking even something as simple as weed. Stoners irritate me, and the fact its becoming acceptable in most states frustrates  me.
But once upon a time alcohol was an illegal substance, and I enjoy that today. So I can't be totally judgmental about it. 
So honestly I wonder if its because I grew up with "Alcohol is okay, weed and all other drugs aren't." so instilled in me that shaped my beliefs to this day.
So the generation that grows up in a society with legal marijuana will treat it the same as how I view alcohol?
Granted I don't enjoy drinking till I pass out, I don't drink more than maybe once a month, and I don't like being around people who drink because nothing is fun unless their drunk.
So...that covers a lot of people my age's weekends, that I wouldn't want to be a part of.
Another interesting tidbit: I abhor cigarettes, but I'm okay with cigars....
Maybe because all the hype with cigarettes and you never hear about cigars?
Perhaps because I've spent so much time being forced to be with groups that smoke cigarettes all the time, but cigar smoking is more of a special thing, on occasion?
I don't know.
But I guess all things in moderation are probably okay. Except for hard drugs. Those will ruin your life. Being an addict to anything is a life ruiner if you can't control yourself or the addiction. Even worse if you don't recognize you have a problem.
I do believe though that people addicted to drugs shouldn't be treated as criminals (unless they are), but they should be treated as a medical problem and given help, forcibly.

So that's my pointless post for the week. I'll try to do better next time, have something interesting, maybe a project? :D

But I'm curious what other people's views are on drugs and alcohol, substance abuse, criminalizing it, or not, and why?
Granted no one reads this, but if you do, ever, anytime in the future, feel free to chime in. I'm always up for having my views enlightened or changed.