Yesterday, Mike and I drove out to the Estrella Wars to meet up with our friends from San Diego.  I still wasn't feeling up to par, but I had to see Lesli & Greg as it had been a year since we last saw them.  I was a bit sad not getting to see Tobias too, but he's not into the camping thing and he also had classes to attend this past week.

It was a very good visit, and one of discoveries for us.  It is a truly small world, believe me!!!

First of all, there was a young girl there named Martina who was there.  At first, I didn't pay too much attention..but when she brought it to my attention, I was astounded.  She and Mike looked like brother and sister.  After some discussion between the two of them, it was realized that they are actually distant cousins, 4th generation I believe.  Both of them have ancestors from County Cork of Ireland who came over during The Great Potato Famine.  I'm sure if Martina could have talked better as the poor dear had laryngitis so bad that she could hardly talk.  Mike told her what he could of his side of the family.  Lesli took pictures of the two of them together, so that Martina could send it to her mother.  Apparently Mike looks like the spitting image of Martina's uncle, her mother's brother.

While we were sitting there talking and catching up on news, we found out that Kathy of the group used to also work for the San Diego Waxie office.  She's also Wicca, which made anything Mike and I say okay in front of everyone also if we mentioned the Craft. 

It was a nice visit, but once the sun went down...it got COLD!!!!!!!!!  Since I currently don't have health insurance and I've been fighting a cold, we thought it best to get home as soon as possible.

Tuesday before Estrella War...we also got some news of Rick and Sue of our former SCA clan 'Chained Thunder'.  Our G.H.O.S.T Matriarch, Selene, and the Patriarch of Vengence Thunder were crowned King & Queen of Avalon that night.  (Avalon is a similar group to the Society of Creative Anachronism, just not as big here in the Western States as it is on the East Coast.)  While we were all getting our Indian names administered to us by the group of actual Avalon members, we were getting to know each other in bits and pieces.  When it came to time for Mike and I to get our Indian names, Sylene was the one that introduced us to the group as she was the only one other than Falcon that really knew us.  Selene expressed great love of the two of us and announced to everyone that we'd left Chained Thunder and she brought us into her household.  Falcon was absolutely floored, which I thought was surprising as I'd thought him and Rick were best of friends.  Come to find out, Rick & Sue haven't been in touch with anyone much since that war.  Selene told Falcon when he expressed disbelief that's we'd left after all that 'discussion' at that war that it was the better move for Mike and I.  He agreed.  Come to find out, Rick and Sue apparently got divorced within months of getting married and Rick apparently married someone else.  Falcon said that he is personally glad that we left Chained Thunder because we were definitely not right together as a clan.  Mike and I being more mellow, while Rick and the rest of them are into drugs and stuff.  Like Selene stated, she hears from Mike and I more than she hears from Rick...who's her Silver and should be reporting in monthly like Mike and I do...and we're not Silvers.

Oh, our Indian names are weird!  But then, everyone has a weird one.  Mike's is Whips with Carp (short for carpenter and because he plays with whips, I believe) and mine is Plays with Wood.  Still not understanding that one.

Well, I'm a bit down today, but I have faith in the Lord and Lady that they will help me get through these trials.

I finally got my COBRA paperwork from my last job and almost had a heart attack.  COBRA will cost me over $600 a month if I take it.  I think not and will take my chances.  I know it's chancy for me with my COPD, but what else can I do?  Oh well!

Got an email from one of my former coworkers today.  Seems my supervisor is telling everyone that I was on probation and failed to change while on probation and was fired for it.  She also told them that Mrs. Abram had nothing to do with it.  Like I told my former coworker,  my probation had ended a month before I was let go.  And now I'm wondering why she's saying that my refusing Mrs. Abram's Christmas gift didn't have anything to do with it when she told me it played a big part in why I was fired.  I'm in total shock.  I just checked for my copy of the right up I received several months ago, but can't find it.  So, thinking I may have left it in a drawer in the desk when I left.

Yesterday, I got an email from a 'friend' in Portland that her mother died on Christmas Day.  I called to give her my condolences and to see if she was okay.  We talked for a little bit and she asked me what happened with my job.  I told her what happened and I guess she turned around and called Diane (my former supervisor) and told her what I said. She told my friend that I was lying.  I don't know what to think right now, but it's obvious to me that my former supervisor is trying to keep her job by qwelling anything I say.

I was looking at some of the blogs from others on here and someone posted a spell for finding employment.  I copied it off to Word and going to try it.  It says to do it on Sundays or Thursdays, so I'm going to have to do it tomorrow I guess.

 

 

 

Well, things are going well here. My son, Mike, is back from Iraq with all 10 fingers at least. I couldn't check his toes, but he was walking well; so, thinking he has all his toes and other necessary body parts still in tact. J He and his fiancée left for Ft. Hood, TX this past weekend and so far, I haven't heard from them if there were problems getting back there. They are going to have to drive back here around the 10th of March for their wedding and then head back again.

Cammie and the kids are doing pretty good. Cammie finally dumped the jerk she's been engaged to for three years now. He disrespected Cammie by asking her to bring drugs in to him, and then got a thing going with some 300# woman up in Canada who sent Cammie threatening emails. One of them said that when she got here, she was going to help Louis get custody of ‘his son', Dominick. Cammie and I find that very interesting as she was living in California when she got pregnant with Dominick and Louis was already in prison. Cammie decided when she found out about the Canadian wench, and was still upset about the drug thing, that she needed to break away from Louis. Sad thing is she's had to demand the Warden of the prison to take her phone of the accepted list as Louis was hounding her with 15-20 a day with threats and stuff when he could find an empty phone (which the Warden has put Louis under watch now because of it). Cammie's had to have her cell phone number changed also so that his sister can't call and harass her for breaking up with her brother. Funny thing that, as she's the one that put the Canadian in touch with Louis and helped break up Cammie and Louis. Oh well, she's possibly in jail now as she was up on grand theft charges and going to court last week.

About the time that Cammie found out about the Canadian, she met this really nice guy at her job. From the way the kids and her talk, he's a lot like my fiancé, Mike. Chris treats her like a queen and has been helping her financially some with the kids. He's in the process of starting a divorce from his wife, who SUPPOSEDLY told him that she hated him and that she made a mistake choosing a loser like him to take care of her and her son. She has actually beaten him up a few times, leaving black & blue marks on him where Cammie and their co-workers can see them. He has most of the paperwork ready to file, but was going to get his wife's son a car and then file the divorce. I just had to call Cammie and tell her to tell him to put the car in his wife's name so she can get the insurance on it, and if her son wrecks the car and it's his fault, they can go after her since he's under aged. If things go well, the divorce will be filed, and maybe even finalized within the next couple weeks. In the state of Arizona now, if both parties are in agreement...they just go in front of a commissioner with their paperwork and are usually divorced that same day. Not like my divorce from Cammie & Mike's dad which cost me over $2000 in 1990, and 14 months of hell.

Nigel, the oldest grandson/grandchild, has the chance of going to Washington, DC with some of the other students in his class...if it's still a go. All these parents were so excited about their kids going there when it was first brought up, but only Nigel and one other signed up for it by the registration date. So, it's a possibility he may not get to go unless he comes up with full fare now. That's not possible, so I don't know what's going to happen yet.

Angelica is growing up way too fast. I had to buy her some bras for her 8th birthday in November as she's developing already. Cammie and I have already figured out that she's having the monthly mood swings, which is indicating she's possibly going to be a young-lady very soon. Makes me feel so sad for these young girls now, starting puberty soooooooo young! L

Dominick, the baby of the four grandkids, is still being a daredevil. Poor kid actually got evicted from kindergarten and can't return until next year. Cammie was going to press charges against the teacher for reverse discrimination, but because it's a charter school...they aren't bound by some of the same laws as the government run schools. Cammie did tell the two deans that if that teacher is still there next year when Dominick is due to go back, she'll take all three kids out of the school and put them elsewhere. (One short story...Dominick disappeared from the classroom one day and went to Nigel's classroom. The dean was notified and they decided to wait to see how long it would take this teacher to notice that Dominick was missing. He never notified the school. The dean went into Dominick's classroom 3½ hours later and asked the teacher how things were going. The teacher told him all was fine. The dean said that was funny as one of the teacher's students was missing. The teacher looked around and said "no" and the dean told him that Dominick had been missing from the classroom for 3½ hours!) Why the SOB still has his job is beyond me as he should have been fired just on this alone.

Well, karma is paying back my little half sister for all the hell she's done to me, my mom, and to my stepfather. Little Ms. Cindy divorced her husband Tim, claiming he was spending too much time on the internet looking at porn and being an alcoholic. She even jumped ME for telling our Grandmother that she and Tim were alcoholics once. I asked her how I could tell Grandmother something I didn't even know about as I hadn't had contact with them in about 15 years. Anyway, it seems that Tim was online a lot while they were married, but he wasn't looking at porn like she claimed. He was taking online courses and he got himself a couple degrees in computers. Tim is now a big shot for some computer company working with the Federal Government making big $$$$! My brother David was telling us all about it during the holidays up at mom & dad's and I laughed my head off! I made the comment that Cindy must be kicking herself in the tush now and he cracked up saying "BIG TIME!" & he and his wife also started laughing. Plus, Tim had quit drinking years ago, before the divorce.

I also found out that day that Cindy's precious little boy, Jason...is a Flamer! In case you don't know what that means, he's VERY GAY and makes it known to all with his "Mememe" attitude. I always wondered about him when he was younger, before they moved to Colorado. Even the last time I saw him, something like 5 years ago, I wondered about him even more. His "Mememe" attitude was even more pronounced then, and even my kids' dad was ready to knock the tar out of the little jerk. I guess Jason made a total fool of himself at his sister's wedding last year because nobody was paying attention to "little old me" to the point that even his own father told him to leave. I was totally loving what my brother was saying.

The day after Christmas, I got a nice surprise! I got fired!!!! I'd been dealing with a coworker for two years, listening to her tell me and everyone else that her work was more important that the teamwork. When management was nowhere close to hear her, she's bad mouth all of us and even screamed us my team mates and I. She made it very point that she didn't have to listen to me, even though I let her know that it was our Supervisor who told me to tell her. When I was trying to retrain her in the early part of last year on Accounts Payable, she flat out told me to quit putting "J" on the couple batches that she actually had no errors on. As she put it very rudely to me, "I am a professional and I demand you treat me in a professional manner!" I just looked at her, said "Yes, Mrs. Abram" and walked away. I called her Mrs. Abram up to the day that I got fired. What got me fired was that I refused to accept a Christmas gift from her!!!!! I wrote a nice thank you for the thought, but also stated that I found that I couldn't accept it from her as it would be hypocritical of ME to accept it from her. I then told her she could give it to one of her friends. I got fired over it! When I was getting ready to leave, I finally asked my Supervisor, who hadn't even told me why I was being fired, if it had to do with my refusing the gift from Mrs. Abram, and she said it played a big part of it. I just shook my head and said "OK" and left. . Mike and I celebrated my leaving that night. Everyone that I've talked to say that they couldn't fire me over it, but that's what my Supervisor said when I asked her if that's why I was being fired. Like I had told my boss just before I left, in truth...Mrs. Abram was being hypocritical by giving us all Christmas gifts with the way she'd been treating all of us over the past two years.. When my boss asked me why I'd accepted the previous years' gifts, I looked at her funny and asked "What gifts?". She hadn't been aware that I'd not gotten anything from her the other two Christmas'. I'm not sad about it; in fact, I'm glad I'm away from the tension she was creating in our office and that I'm not having to be careful what I say to her, or anyone else anymore. I'm sleeping a whole lot better, not fighting my acid reflux near as much, except for a sinus headache the day it was raining...not having headaches anymore. And, Mike says that I'm in a better mood and glad that I'm not crying anymore about having to go to work. J I think even my doctor will be glad I've left there as he even suggested I look for a different job away from Mrs. Abram, and the Flamer controller I was working for.

Don't get me wrong. I don't have anything against gay/lesbians. As of May 3rd, I'll have a gay stepson, who's married to a very nice man. Neither of them are Flamers though, and when I was talking to Brian, he said that he can't stand Flamers. We also have a few gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transsexual and transvestite friends. We usually steer clear of the Flamers as they are the ones that tend to cause problems for people in general. I've not met one that didn't cause problems.

I had to laugh when I was talking to one of the head hunters this week. She's known for some time that I was having problems at Carollo, as I'd been in touch with her about helping me find a job off/on the past year. I didn't tell her what the problem was, but that I was tired of the stress and stuff. Well, when I saw her this past Monday, she flat out asked me if it was because of Doris (Mrs. Abram). I looked at her funny and asked her how did she know. She said that she'd been told all about Mrs. Abram from someone else. I then smiled and said, "Kim" and she said yes. My supervisor has been trying to get Kim to sign up with Carollo as an employee and Kim has been refusing. Kim told the head hunter that, as long as Doris was employed there at Carollo, she doesn't want to become a Carollo Employee. That explains why, when I made a comment a couple days before I was fired that she'd be an employee soon, Kim just said flat out "Hell no, no thank you!"

Well, I need to go and start the 27 mile drive to Tempe to pickup Mike. So long everyone!

Sorry I'm late, but I went right back to work when I got home and didn't take time to get online to check my emails or my journals.

I think I blew everyone's minds here at work because I didn't dress up as usual for the Halloween festivities.  I woke up late, and with the way my eyes are runnning, I thought I'd forgo the makeup.  Without makeup, what's the use of dressing up, right?  Quite a few expressed sadness that I didn't dress up, but once they saw my red eyes...they understood.  Of course, John said I could have dressed as a vampyre as a lot fo movies show Uncle Drak with red eyes.

Our receptionist sent out several queries for which people could get prizes throught the day.  I only answered the first set of questions and thought it wouldn't be fair to continue with the remainer of the queries.  When I took my answers downstairs on it, I blew our mailroom clerk's mind because he was going to count me wrong when I wrote that male witches are called witches.  He said it was wrong and I told him that if someone told him the answer was "Warlock", they were wrong.  He said that was the answer and I told him that was a Hollywood word for warlock as there's no such thing as a warlock.  He asked me how I would know and I told him I was married to a male witch, not a warlock.  I also told him that John Putnam was tried as a witch in the witchcraft trials and not as a warlock.  He looked at me so funny and our receptionist was laughing.  He asked me what about me and I replied that I'm a practicing witch also.  (Practicing because I'm still learning?)  It totally blew him away.

 Mike overheard some remarks at his job yesterday and had people wondering what was going on in his head.  A couple of them said "Happy Halloween" to him and he replied "Happy New Year!" to them.  He also overheard a conversation between a few of his coworkers about how "tonight is the night of Satan" and burst out laughing.  So, they're wondering about him.

My grandson is looking forward to his first Pagan holiday festivities this weekend.  I've got to find his 'toga' that I made him for our handfasting so that he can wear it during Samhain ritual tomorrow night.  I'm so tempted to take the drum we got him for Christmas for drumming circle, but that would ruin the surprise.  So, we're taking an empty oatmeal container that I'm going to have him decorate tonight to use for a drum.  It will also be the first time that he's been camping since he was about 3 years old and I took him fishing/camping before I moved to California.  He's so excited about going with Mike and I.

Well, gotta get my nose back to the grindstone. 

 

A couple weeks ago, we were told in a class learning about Hecate to be very specific in what you ask of her.  It didn't hit me until last night that I think I know what they were talking about.

All last week, I thought I was fighting my bloody asthma as the air quality hasn't been the best here in the valley.  We had a big fire in South Phoenix, and some of the smoke from the California fires is starting to come into the valley.  Well, I spent a lot of last week coughing my fool head off, both inside buildings and, especially, outside buildings.  So, I wasn't real up to par when I attended ritual Friday night at the High Priestess' home.

Before I go into what has caused me to be aware of how to ask things of Hecate, let me tell you that the ritual was absolutely awesome.  Everyone grounded before going into the circles, and I even think Rosemary's dogs did some grounding.  Usually those little wee folks are running around and making a fuss.  But, not that night.  One especially seemed to be drawing on the energy that was felt by all of us in the circle. The moon was especially beautiful and seemed to have been pulled into the circle with us.  It was awesome to see Rosemary's dog looking up at the moon and then laying down next to the altar looking up.  So wishing I had had a camera to take a picture of that scene.

Anyway, before circle...we'd all signed petitions to the Goddess asking for something to be brought to us that we needed or wanted very much.  Well, I was very tired from not getting much sleep because I've been doing so much coughing.  The only thing I wrote on my parchment was "Better Health" as I couldn't think of anything else that I needed.  I have my family, all seems well with all of them, my son will be back from Iraq soon, I couldn't think of anything else but getting healthy.  Well, yes...I was thinkng of the cough, but was also thinking of my leg and back pain when I wrote it.  Anyway, I put it in the cauldron with a prayer that it be answered soon.

Leaving the circle when ritual was done, I felt a little weird, but didn't think anything much about it.  I was listening in on some conversationa from the Inner and Outer circles and got hit with some cigarette smoke.  I started coughing because of my allergy to it and took my inhalor.  It was really rough trying to say goodbye to some of my 'family' as they were leaving while choking for air.  I told Mike I didn't feel up to going out with everyone as I was really tired and it was a 57 mile drive home.  I kissed Rosemary goodnight and we left.

A few miles down the road, my chest was feeling a bit tighter than usual.  Eventually, it turned into pain which started to worry me.  A bit farther down the interstate, I decided to take one of my Nitros to see if it would ease the pain.  I did a wee bit, but not quite enough for me to quit worrying.  Finally, we got within about 10 miles of home when I told Mike we were going to have to stop at Banner Estrella.  They took me immediately in when they saw me holding my chest and did an EKG.  It apparently showed nothing as they slowed down a bit after that.  I did admit to them my asthma had been acting up all week, and since I was coughing pretty bad while sitting there...they gave me a breathing treatment.  Oh man!  Did I shake!  I could have make a good milk shake if someone had just put it in my hands.    Anyway, after the vampires drew blood and I had a chest x-ray...we found out at 4am that I had pneumonia and they gave me some prescriptions for it.

Well, I'm a bit slow in thinking sometimes.  Last night while brushing my teeth and hair, I burst out laughing.  I got to thinking about how I'd written "Better Health" on my petition, and I was on the mend from pneumonia.  Well, was my ending up in emergency Hecate's way of helping me with my petition?  Except for the coughing, I had no idea I had pneumonia.  Me, I'd like to think it was her helping me realize I was in more danger with the pneumonia than just my "Asthma".