My Blog

Hmmm... not sure what to say

LunarRabbit — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 13:29:01 GMT

Last post was over a year ago. Been very good busy this past year. Business is booming as much as I will allow it (i.e. I have more work than I can handle right now). Moved into a new office, hired a couple freelancers. Kids are both in school full time with extracurricular activities to be shuffled around to -- soccer, baseball, art, music, and more. House and hubby are good. With all that whirlwind of activity, guess what has not gotten much of my attention? Me. My health and weight and spiritual practices. Feeling somewhat guilty (not really the right word..... maybe hyper-aware?) that I am thriving in a terrible economy. I offer an affordable solution that is a high-need for small businesses. I communicate well and make them feel at ease. I do good work. It's not a surprise that I'm doing well, but I just wish we heard more about people doing well despite the odds.

Yay! The Sun

LunarRabbit — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 17:44:32 GMT

Last night I did a kitchen-witchy type ritual to get rid of the junk in my life (see previous post). I love the analogy that negative energy is like kitchen scraps. Old banana peels and rotten lettuce may be trash to us, but feed it back into the earth and it turns into compost 'black gold' which helps nurture new life. I learned this long ago when I first began studying my spiritual path. But it really became part of me when I studied with a Peruvian Shaman who calls mother earth 'Pachamama'. ( See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachamama ). I always see her sunny smiling face when I think of composting negativity. lol This morning, I received the Sun card as my tarot of the day. Stated simply: "I will be happy today." Being a Leo, the sun has always felt especially significant card to me. ( More on the Sun card at Aecletic.net, one my favorite sites: http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/basics/sun.shtml ) Tonight I have to give a business presentation. As you see, I'm on Tribe instead of preparing. lol. Wish me luck.

How do you start fresh?

LunarRabbit — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 03:40:07 GMT

I have been feeling like crap lately. Basically the last 6 months. I don't know if it's depression, being overwhelmed with stuff, lack of sleep, poor habits .. a combination... But I have gained weight, gotten into terrible eating habits, am constantly headachy, stomachachy, cranky, sad, can't concentrate. I made an appointment for a physical last week, but then ended up catching a flu/cold bug that got me down for almost 10 days. It's very difficult to be sick when you are a sole proprietor and sole employee of your own business, plus a full-time mommy, plus having guests, major house problems (stupid midwest weather keeps shifting from 0 to 50 degrees and wreaks havoc on old homes). So somewhat amusingly, I was too sick to go to my appointment. Ugh. Now I'm going to have to wait weeks and weeks longer to get another one. I need a fresh start... healthy food, fresh air, clean house, organized systems for client work. But it's all so overwhelming. And I end up getting distracted and don't know where to start and get nothing done. Wander into the kitchen for no good reason and find something junky to eat and flip on the TV and find something junky to watch. And it's not even *good* junk that I can secretly relish... I'm just flipping from one show to another. I flip to something else on a commercial and forget what I was watching 3 minutes before.) The weird thing is that there is nothing wrong otherwise. Business is thriving. The kids are good. Hubby and I are fine -- except that the last thing I want is any physicality since I feel so blah. And he is annoyed/disappointed/frustrated with that. But I just feel down. Something I've noticed lately too is that I'm literally *craving* music. I got out of the habit of listening to music (other than kid stuff), because inevitably someone was sleeping or I need to be on call for mommy-duty.Last month, I bought a new mp3 players and have been listening to all new artists, old favorites, am watching American Idol (for the first time), any video channels I can catch.... I think about music when it's not on and can't seem to get enough. Making up for lost time? Or filling a void? I'm not sure. Very rambling post......

One more for the road

LunarRabbit — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 04:45:31 GMT

I have been away from Tribe for months... and on Tribe for a few hours now. But before I go.... I'm sleepy enough to do something pointless and fun Four jobs I have had in my life 1.) Pizza delivery girl (aka "Pizza chick!") 2.) Daycare worker 3.) Temp 4.) Fast food restaurant peon - sweep floors, clean the coffee pots, etc. Movies I've watched more than once: 1.) The Color Purple 2.) Wizard of Oz 3.) Wuthering Heights 4.) Star Wars Four T.V. Shows that I watch: 1.) ER 2.) Survivor 3.) Nip/Tuck 4.) Lost Four Places I have been: 1.) Calgary 2.) Paris 3.) Las Vegas 4.) San Francisco Four of my favorite foods: 1.) Chocolate 2.) Coffee (not really a food....) 3.) Lobster 4.) Bagels and lox Four places I would rather be right now: 1.) By the ocean 2.) In the mountains 3.) At a bar with friends 4.) In bed .. that one I can manage Things I am planning to do this year: 1.) Nurture friendships 2.) Grow my business 3.) Take care of myself 4.) Learn

Not suprised, or only a little

LunarRabbit — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 02:35:33 GMT

What Sign Is Your True Love? http://www.blogthings.com/whatsignisyourtruelovequiz/ From this quiz, my results were: ---------------------------- Why you'll love a Scorpio: Strong and sexy, Scorpio will overpower you into falling in love (before you even realize it!). You'll love being swept away by Scorpio - into a world of insane passion. Why a Scorpio will love you: You don't mind letting your Scorpio take the reigns, as long as you know you're truly cared for. Loyal and devoted, you would never do anything to set off insanely jealous Scorpio. ---------------------------- The "real life" reaction of mine is that a passionate intense Scorpio would add some much needed spice to my little housewifey life, but in the long run I'm perfectly happy with my steadfast and devoted honey. Oh, and fwiw, I DO might letting him take the reigns (unless it's in bed!). And would not care to be with anyone who is insanely jealous. Been there, done that and this Leo does not do well with jealous lovers.

To my friend

LunarRabbit — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 01:34:30 GMT

Thank you for bringing me back. Your little note had a sunny impact on my dreary mood and made me remember that real friends are always there for you --- even when you least expect it.

For those who need us

LunarRabbit — Tue, 29 May 2007 02:16:42 GMT

May the light of love the love of the moon the moon of the sky the sky of the sun the sun of the universe the universe of us all empower us to take hold of each other and connect to make a cradle for the ones who need to be carried through weakness and crisis we are the mother, the brother, the healer together as one [art source: http://www.ericjhellergallery.com/]

Ugh

LunarRabbit — Mon, 07 May 2007 15:13:17 GMT

After all the emotional stress last week, I'm now sick physically. Horrible sore throat, stuffy head, coughing. The works. Not surprising. I hold in all my stress, afraid I'll start crying and never stop, and then my body just has to get rid of it in some way... in this case it's through snot. Gross. On the plus side, I got my major source of sadness resolved. My friend who I thought was mad at me... was, in fact mad at me. I've been so busy the past couple months that after much teeth pulling, she finally told me that I've been a shitty friend to her. And she just thought that I was trying to give her a not-so-subtle hint. After lots of tears, we got it worked out and she knows I love her just as much as she loves me. Whew.... The problem with both of us is that we each tend to clam up and pull away when feeling threatened emotionally. Not good when TWO people in a relationship do that! The thing with the other friend has not, and will most likely never be resolved. I did swallow my pride and call HER... probably 4 or 5 times over the course of a week. No return call. This has been the story of our "friendship" for the past 20 years, so it's no surprise. I really, really miss my sister. She is out of the country. :( I set my work schedule so that it is my plan to not work from 3 til 8. This gives me plenty of time with the kids, and forces me to work in the morning or evening. It's a small change, but worked out great last week. Baby steps. Haven't had a chance to work on the basement or any of my spiritual healings or prayers. Task list for basement: - 8x10 indoor/outdoor carpet - another coat of paint along the floor - top coat of paint on the walls -- thinking a blueish/purple with irridescent top layer (not sure how to do that yet) - plastic shelving - candles - very small curtain for very small window - new screen on very small window - CD player and headphones (a good ole boombox! LOL) Will try to obtain most of these things for cheap or free. I wonder if any plants would grow in the basement? There is a teeny bit of daylight, but not much. The very small window is in the shade of the house, so no direct sunlight at all. Hmmm....

Feeling blue

LunarRabbit — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 18:39:38 GMT

It's been a very strange couple of weeks, and I don't like it one bit. One of my very good friends is moving out of town -- and I heard about it through two business contacts, and she still hasn't called to tell me herself. Another friend has been very distant, not returning calls and offering nothing more than compulsary politeness to me for over a week. My husband and I are not getting along. A client has moved on. I'm feeling very rejected and unsure of myself. The thing with friend A is disappointing, but unfortunately not a bit surprising. The thing with friend B is very upsetting and I'm trying very hard to convince myself that we'll get past it. She has been my best friend for 5 years, and it kills me not to talk to her every day. The one person whose shoulder I need (my hubbie) is not at all there for me because he is stressed out about work and very short tempered. The smallest attempt at conversation with him leads to a tiff. The other person who I'd call is my sister, and she is currently out of the country. Everyone else is either too close or too far from the current situations. In the meantime, I have an extremely full schedule, my business continues to ramp up, and I am basically putting the family on my calendar rather than being spontaneous. I am not a happy bunny.

Ramblings on a warm evening

LunarRabbit — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 03:38:20 GMT

Why is it that when I have too much to do, I do nothing? I am up to my eyeballs in client projects and I just took on another new one. Luckily, I now know the value of my time and I did not let my feelings get in the way of the price quote. I told myself "For less than X amount, I'd rather be outside playing with the kids". Which we DID do today! The weather was awesome, and we went outside and planted seeds in the garden. Planted some sunflowers, scallions, and sweet pea flowers --- odd combination. Trimmed my herbs that will come back from last year. Felt good to get my hands in some dirt again. Wedding to go to tomorrow. A good friend, but for some cynical bitchy reason, I hate weddings. Hate baby showers, hate birthday parties. Maybe I'm just an old poop.

Work, work and more work

LunarRabbit — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 14:05:30 GMT

When my husband and I first got married, we both felt very strongly that we wanted to have kids and raise them with a parent at home. I was *more* than happy to quit working and take on that role. (LOL... I was sick of my job at the time). A very short time after we got married, I became pregnant with my daughter. I enjoyed being a full time mommy at home with her. Two years later or so, we had our son. He was a very demanding baby, and it took all of my time and energy to just survive the sleep deprivation, much less have anything extra to offer. But I still loved being a full-time stay at home mom. By the time he was about a year old, I felt like I once again had a grasp on my life, schedule, etc. Out of the blue, and old friend and former collegue called and asked if I could help out on a website project. I hadn't worked in 4 years, and knew in that relatively short time, I was way behind on the technology. I was excited to help, but a little unsure of myself. The techology WAS very different, but I was eager to learn and very motivated. HTML and font tags had been replaced with xHTML and CSS, not to mention the much improved server-side technologies. My brain had been itching to be useful once again, and in the midst of Blue's Clues and preschool snack time, it was really cool to remember that "Hey, I am actually a smart and talented individual." It was also quite nice to have a bit of extra income. We didn't have money-troubles per se, but there were certainly those annoying times when we had to wait until the next paycheck before getting the kids new shoes. So, I helped the friend out with her projects, and with her encouragement, I branched out on my own. I created websites for friends and family businesses, did a lot for cheap and free, and volunteered my talents to community projects and fundraisers. Before I knew it, I was being hired by many of the local businesses and they were paying me *real* money. They started referring me to their friends who own businesses, and then those people referred me, and now I have more work than I know what to do with. Great, huh? I am real entrepreneur, a successful small business in the midst of Michigan's horrible economy. I am very proud -- and admittedly surprised. Yes, it is great. However, being the ungrateful wench than I am..... lol... I'm feeling very overwhelmed by it all. My 4 year old son is watching a lot more TV than I feel comfortable with, because "Mommy is busy working on a project". We just spent a week out of state visiting family, and I had to bring my laptop and work nearly every day of my vacation. And throughout all this, I am still getting referrals. So I'm not sure where this is all leading me. Do I put my son in daycare so I can work full time? Do I scale back my business, turning away clients? Do I hire help? I could charge more, which would then natually scale back some of the potential clients, but what feeds my heart is to work with community groups who don't have a big budget. They can't afford me as it is. The money is nice, but I am in a very fortunate situation in that I am not the primary breadwinner, and have a lot of flexibility. The thing is that I love the work. I just hate being overworked and overwhelmed. Do I rennovate my home office, or rent space so I can be a "real" business? How long will this stream of new clients be coming in? Can I count on it enough to invest in something big? Or is this just a fluke of timing, and will level out in a couple months? So these are the things weighing on my mind right now. In the meantime, I am fully recovered from my surgery. I'm still trying to figure out what I can and can't eat (pizza didn't bother me, but McD french fries did), but am otherwise back to normal. Looking forward to getting back to my basement project which is exactly where I left it last month. Just needed to vent before I go on with my day. It's good to be back on Tribe after an absence of a couple of weeks!

On my mind ....

LunarRabbit — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 05:21:24 GMT

Dionysus Pan Aphrodite Mary Hecate Sekhmet And the Dark Lady, the Piper and Himself.

Recovering

LunarRabbit — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 00:40:05 GMT

I was a little worried about all that fine print that I signed away. "Yes, I understand there can be severe complications." Despite being reassured by everyone I know that things would be fine, there is still that little nagging thought in the back of my mind: Are my children going to lose their mother tomorrow? As I was driving home from class the night before my surgery, getting all stressed out, I reminded myself that it was much more likely that I would be killed in a car accident on the way home than to be harmed during my laproscopic surgical procedure. Wait... what?! Yeah, this wasn't helping anything. So in the light of being optimistic, I refrained from writing my last will and testament that night, and concentrated instead on getting caught up with some client projects that I knew I wouldn't get back to until Monday. And yes, the surgery went very smoothly. The anesthesiologist was even able to keep me under the whole time. This was a first for me. It was so nice to just fall asleep on the surgery table and wake up in the recovery room, like normal people. Right now I'm feeling very sore, achy and pretty crabby. I guess people reassured me SO much that I almost expected to be back to normal the next day. Uh... not quite. They did remove an organ, after all. Thanks for all the healing energy and prayers you have sent my way. I feel very lucky to have such good people in my life. P.S. The silly gall bladder illustration is from this site http://weebs.org/weeberworld/gall/index.htm . Not sure if it's the pain meds or not, but I got a kick out it!

Faery Card for Today

LunarRabbit — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 15:00:00 GMT

Today, I pulled a card from my Faeries Oracle deck asking, "What do I need to know about my surgery?" The card that came up was Sylvanius, who I have not yet "met" in my personal readings. The first thing I noticed is that Sylvanius is holding a mask in front of him, but revealing his face. There is a glowing goddess-like fairy standing in front of his torso and there is an Athena-esque fairy holding a sword. To me, this spoke quite directly to my surgery, in which my abdomen is being cut. The card is very powerful, peaceful and revealing (odd combination of adjectives, eh?). The general feeling I got from the card was of reassurance. ("Be brave, you'll be fine.") That I have to go through this short term pain in order to achieve long term gain. I felt like they were telling me that this problem is something that has been affecting my health for longer than I even knew, and getting rid of it will "free" me for future improvements. This really is a month for personal transformations. In just about every way imaginable in my life. The card definition in the book speaks of "unmasking" yourself to see truth. More on this later..... At any rate, the timing of the surgery corresponds awfully well with the moon. If I had been paying attention to such things, I would have planned it that way. Guess my friends in the other world are keeping a good eye on me!

Transformations

LunarRabbit — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 13:10:19 GMT

So I just spent the last 45 minutes trying to figure out how to turn my 4-year old son's Transformer toy from a robot back into a car. Now, admittedly, I'm not very mechanically inclined, but I consider myself pretty intelligent. I figured I could just do a couple flippy things, put the wheels on the bottom and "Voila!". But he KNEW how it was supposed to go, and half-ass just wasn't good enough. (Good for him!) After after many attempts to figure it out, followed by half-hearted pleas of "Let's wait til Daddy gets home, ok?" I decided to use the power of the Internet to help me on my quest. Went to the Hasbro website [http://www.hasbro.com/transformers/ ], quickly found the section for instructions -- guess I'm not the only one who needs them! -- and found about 100 different options listed by name only. Um... is it a Cybertron? Alternator? Energon? Huh? My son can't read yet, but tries to help by pointing at stuff and suggesting, "Mommy! Go to the one with the red letters!" I say (gritting my teeth), "They ALL have red letters, honey." Back to the Product page to try and match this one to the full color photos. Find the one, note the name of it, and go back to the instructions list. At long last, find the one we want (Yay!), and print the instructions. I have the Transformer in hand, the instructions on the desk, and .... um .... gee.... Now what? It shows the car turning in the robot, and I have the robot and I want to turn it back into a car. Can I follow instructions? Yeah, usually. Can I follow instructions backwards? Instructions with no words, just cryptic orange highlights and curved arrows? Um....Apparently not. So I go back to the full color picture and work from there. My son takes the instructions with no words and "reads" them to me. "First you turn the bottom part. Then you bend the guy's head. Then you put the wheels down. And then it's a car!! See, Mommy?" Literally, 45 minutes later, I snap the final piece in place. Heave a sigh of relief. Demand a kiss for my efforts. Get a big "Thank you, Mommy!" And wouldn't you know it? "Can you turn it back into a robot now?"

The Basement, week II

LunarRabbit — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 16:47:41 GMT

Got in a nice full day of work on the basement this weekend. Although, there is still a ton of work to do. I got two coats of primer/sealer up on the walls, and removed the rest of the dirt and dust off the floor -- the best I can do for a dirty basement, anyhow. I can actually see the potential looming on the horizon. Unfortunately, I won't be able to do any more work on it for a couple of weeks, because I will be incapacitated next weekend due to a (hopefully) minor surgery. But maybe I can do some online shopping (or freecycling .... even better!) and get some ideas or actual items for the space. The next phase will be putting some color on the walls. I plan to be as frugal as possible, using leftover paint we have from other home improvement projects. I have a dark purpley blue and a bright sky blue that I think I can do something nifty with. I'm thinking something irridescent or sparkly on the walls would be really cool, too.

The Basement

LunarRabbit — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 02:39:43 GMT

My newest home improvement project is to create a sacred space in a cold, dark room in my cellar-type basement. It is a very interesting prospect in both practical and spiritual ways. We have a "Michigan basement" in a 100+ year old home. (What do people in other states call this type of basement, come to think of it?). Our basement has the original stone foundation, very low ceilings, and probably had a dirt floor not too long ago -- the previous owner added the luxury of a cement floor. I am 5'9" and I can't stand up straight down there. Which makes moving heavy boxes a real strain on the back, let me tell ya! So, down in this spooky, dark basement, there is a little room with a creaky old door that I have decided to turn into a meditation space. I believe this room has a past life as a dark room, because there was black paper on any wall that would have allowed light through. The room is about 5x8 and up til last weekend was full of old paint cans, leftover linoleum tiles, and the like. Last Saturday, I cleaned out the clutter, scraped the (probably leaded) paint off the walls, got rid of the old cobwebs and spider carcasses, and swept up all the dust, dirt and trash from the floor. This weekend, my goal is to slap up a good thick coat of primer on the walls to seal in the rest of the (probably leaded) paint, and to dispose of the trash and toxic waste I collected last week. The process of turning a small, long-forgotten room into something special and sacred is really cool. The metaphorical lessons are not lost on me, as I let my mind wander about the cobwebs and shadows in my own subconscious. And I must admit that I see a bit of humor in slapping a fresh coat paint on my own personal underworld. I have a feeling that Persephone would approve. ;-)

"Lunar Rabbit?"

LunarRabbit — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 18:05:09 GMT

Why is Lunar Rabbit my name? First, it's a little nod of humor to the whole "fluffy bunny" thing. To take it even further, my big sister calls me "Moon Bunny" which I find very endearing. Second, I have spiritual connection to rabbits, It has taken me many years to figure out, and I'm not sure I completely understand it now, to be honest. But I don't collect them or have any as pets or anything like that. I do have one piece of jewelry with a rabbit on it, and wear it very rarely -- although I did put it on this morning. I am having some health issues, felt inspired to put on my white bunny charm for good luck when I met with a surgeon today. (All is fine.. so far!) Have you ever seen "Watership Down"? The book is wonderful, and the movie is pretty good too. There is a part of the movie when the little rabbit, Fiver, is having a vision of the ancient mythology of their heros and gods. There are very stylized images of rabbits in the dream. Many, many years ago, I kept having a vision of a very stylized white rabbit in my dreams. It reminded me of the Watership Down images, but was different enough that I knew it was my own thing and not a movie memory. He/she would jump and play... taking huge jumps as high as the moon. I enjoyed watching this rabbit, as you can sometimes do in dreams. But it was a little baffling to me why it kept appearing to me. Then I started noticing real-life rabbits more often, too. What I noticed over the years is that rabbits appear in my life (real life) to mark something signficant. Of course, living in Michigan, I do see rabbits fairly frequently and they aren't all telling me something. In fact, last year when the rabbits (and deer) ate up our garden, I was not feeling spiritually connected to say the least. Irritated was more like it. But "my" rabbits sometime appear in the strangest places, and even if I don't get it just then, I'll see the significance later on. One specific moment I remember happened a few years ago at my parent's house. It was early morning, and I was looking out the window waiting for the coffee to brew, when I saw a lovely brown bunny in the backyard. It was the day that my husband and I were moving into our new home. The rabbit was sitting there, glossy and lean, in the sparkles of the sunlit dewey grass, happily chomping on her breakfast. I just admired the peacefulness of the moment. She stopped and looked at me, and I felt completely confident that this was the beginning of a beautiful chapter of our life. What they mean to me is a reassuring, "Stop and take note of this." Once I made the connection, they started appearing to me in a more spiritual way, too. During meditations, a little brown bunny will often appear to reassure me that it's safe to go on. Or will meet me at the beginning or end of a journey. Friends and family who know of my bunny connection have told me of moments when "my" rabbits appear to them as well! I honor them in our backyard by leaving gifts of food... which probably isn't such a wise idea for the sake of our vegetable garden. But shhhhhhh... don't tell my hubbie! LOL

It's a start

LunarRabbit — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 19:37:29 GMT

My first post... I've started to write this three times. Trying to come up with something a little more clever than "Hello world." But you know, sometimes a start is just that. Um.... hello world! Why I'm here: To connect with like minded people, so I can stay in touch with my spiritual and magical life as much as I do my every day life. Also to have a journal of projects, interests, dreams and happenings outside of work, kids, carpools, etc. Topics on my mind for future posts: "Lunar Rabbit?!" "Convocation 2007" "Meeting with the Faeries" "My basement project" So.... more later!