Saturday, September 26, 2015

Celtic Classic 2015

http://www.celticfest.org/festival_information


This weekend is the Annual Celtic Classic Highland Games & Festival held in Bethlehem, PA. Since the festival always lands on the very same week as our anniversary, hubby and I always make every effort to attend. Here are a few picks we took from this year's Celtic Classic event.


We really enjoy watching the bagpipe band competition. Both local and out-of-state bands come to compete and their judges hail from Scotland and Ireland ...

 
 

 
 
There is always plenty of wonderful entertainment, vendors and great food!
 
 
 
We decided to walk around downtown Bethlehem where there are also some cool things happening. Live music, horse and buggy rides, and some awesome shops ...
 
 



 
We stopped into a quaint little mall to grab a bite to eat before heading home for the day ...
 

 
Beautiful weather and a very lovely day ... all in all a great way to spend my last free weekend of vacation before heading back to work on Monday!

Friday, September 25, 2015

Our Anniversary & Update

 
Greetings all and happy Friday! I want to give a huge "Thank You" to everyone for sending their positive thoughts and healing prayers to my MIL and also to our baby girl, Kiki. Mom is back home as of this morning safe and sound. Her hip had gotten dislocated again and that was the reason for her bad fall. They knocked her out with anesthesia in order to put her hip back into place and she is now home re-cooperating. One hurdle down, one to go!

Now for a bit of happier things. Hubby and I had decided to go out for our anniversary dinner last night. In light of my MIL's current situation, we had to postpone the aforementioned dinner which included all of us until she is, of course, feeling better. Hubby gave me my anniversary gifts as well ...

Mermaid light switch cover for the bathroom

And the matching bookmarker that came with it

A very pretty mermaid toilet seat which matches the color of our  bathroom rugs

 
A very thoughtful and beautiful complementary mermaid light switch cover sent to us from the vendor my hubby purchased the toilet seat from ~ we decided to use in our bedroom.
 
 
 
 
Tomorrow, we are planning on attending the annual Celtic Classic in Bethlehem, PA. I will post more on that along with some pics from the festival sometime this weekend.


Wednesday, September 23, 2015

When it rains, It pours!



Well, let's just say that today was definitely the worst vacation day I have had in a long time. This morning I got up early, dropped Kiki off at the vet for her procedure. They finally called me around 4:30 in the afternoon and said they couldn't find any polyps in her nasal cavities which was what they were checking for in the first place. Instead, Dr. Heather thinks she may have a tumor that might be blocking her right nostril, making it difficult for her to breathe and is also giving her sneezing fits and a runny eye. She suggested we have a biopsy performed to find out if what she has is cancerous. We will find out in about 7 to 10 days what Kiki's results are. In the meantime, (and $800.00 plus later) they sent her back home with us along with three different medications ~ prednisolone (5mg), cerenia (24mg), and doxycycline oral (100mg/mL).

 
Poor little girl, she was not allowed to eat any food all day and we were told that she can't eat anything until tomorrow morning because the anesthesia would probably make her sick in the stomach. She sat by her food bowl all night...
 

And if that wasn't bad enough news, hubby and I received a phone call from Med Alert tonight telling us that my MIL fell! Hubby immediately ran over to the house to try and find out what was going on. When he arrived, the ambulance was taking her away to the Reading Hospital. He said she was conscience, but had bruised her eye pretty badly. She and my FIL had just stopped over for a little visit this afternoon and were we talking about how we couldn't wait to all go out for a really nice dinner together for our anniversary tomorrow night. Guess not this week for sure. As I always say, "NEVER a dull moment!" We are praying for the best for everyone!

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Project Clean Up: Day 1



As planned, I am doing my fall clean up beginning with the attic which I started last year. I much prefer to work in the attic during the cooler weather and so I always try to plan my vacation weeks in the fall. Today, I spent a couple of hours cleaning up and organizing the attic one box at a time.

Before ...

After
 
While going through some old boxes of clothing, I came across a black dress which I haven't worn since 1998 ...
 
 
Next, hubby's downstairs game room. :)

Monday, September 21, 2015

This and That ...

Happy Monday to everyone!!! As I had mentioned previously, this is my week vacation and  I have lots of things lined up to do. Started off this morning with oral surgery for my tooth implant. I have an absolutely wonderful doctor who explained the procedure to me step by step. He implanted a root (looks much like a screw)  up into my gum so that my dentist could make an artificial tooth made of porcelain and place it in. I had two stiches put in and I am scheduled to go back to my oral surgeon next week for follow up. After he gives the go-ahead, I can finally get my new tooth from my dentist. And so, it looks like I will be living on soup and other soft foods such a pudding and mashed potatoes for the next couple of days or so.

On Wednesday morning, I must drop off our cat, Kiki, at our vet for a procedure to find out if she has  polyps in her nasal cavities. If so, they will remove them while she is under anesthesia and we get to pay the ridiculously wallet-breaking bill! Oh well, what can you do? She is our little girl and we love her enough to not want to see her suffering unnecessarily.

Our Kiki-girl
Mr. Midnight cuddling up with Tabitha yesterday afternoon

Hubby and I are looking forward to a nice dinner to celebrate our wedding anniversary this week. I picked up a cute little dress while my sister Aurora and I were out shopping last Saturday which I am planning on wearing out ...

(The front)
 
 
(The back)
 
I also bought a cool ceramic two-votive candle holder for Samhain/Halloween at our local Yankee Candle Store. Of course, it is adorned with cats! LOL!   ...
 
The votive candles I am using are my favorite fall scent, "Autumn Leaves."  
 
Well, I guess that's all for now, my friends ... Until next time, Brightest Blessings!!! 

Sunday, September 20, 2015

A Family Affair: Our Mabon Celebration!


 
Although Mabon is not actually until this coming Wednesday, my sister Aurora Skye and I had decided to get together a little early for our ritual celebration. I re-vamped my solitary Mabon ritual so that it would work for two people and we kept it fairly simple and intimate.
 
 
The ceremony included the usual elements ~ casting the circle, calling of the corners, invocations of the Lord and Lady, meditation, blessing of the wine and bread, etc. After which we thanked all of the deities, closed our ritual, opened the circle, and remembered to give back to the Earth.
 
I made a couple of head wreaths for us to wear during ritual.

 
Aurora brought along four mini pumpkins which she grows herself in her backyard. We placed two on our altar and set the other two around a couple of the corner candles.
 
In the old days after my fellow solitary friends and I would gather for sabbat rituals, we would eat, drink, talk and be merry for the remainder of the evening. These days; however, Aurora and I much preferred to spend some sister time together by hanging out and perhaps doing a little shopping. As much as I really love having a house full of friends and family, sometimes it is nice to just simply relax and enjoy the day! 

 
)O(   )O(   )O(   )O(   )O(   )O(   )O(   )O(   )O(   )O(   )O(  

Friday, September 18, 2015

And so it begins!


Greetings, my friends! As of 4:30PM today, I have officially begun my week vacation!! I have a very busy week ahead planned with a special (albeit early) Mabon ritual celebration with my sister Aurora Skye tomorrow afternoon.


Looking forward to the time off and, most especially, Mabon. Hubby and I will also be celebrating our wedding anniversary next week as well ... more about that in a later post sometime next week.  :)

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!!

Tuesday, September 08, 2015

This and That ...

Greetings to everyone! Just a quick note to the winner's of the Mabon giveaway, I will be mailing out your gifts to you tomorrow afternoon so if you still haven't e-mailed me your address in which to send your gift to at Ladycaer1964@yahoo.com, please do so. ;)

 
After surprising my mom with her scrapbook, I realized that I had quite a few left over pics to use up and so I decided to throw together a little scrapbook for myself as well. This one; however, is a tribute to my all-time favorite men's skater (yup, you guessed it alright), the late Christopher Bowman who died in January of 2008. It is only a few pages long, but it is filled with lots of personal photos, magazine articles and quotes/interviews from over the years, and so on. I even organized it chronologically ...


 

 
"Hans Brinker From Hell" is a title which Bowman gave to himself in regards to his own real-life rebel, bad boy persona. In a sport that is, for the most part anyway, considered effeminate, Bowman took a rather aggressive approach to proving his masculinity. According to his coach of 18 years, Frank Carroll, he "had a girl in every part of the world including communist countries." He had very unconventional training habits, and when he improvised his long program at the 1990 World Figure Skating Championships (an unbelievably gutsy performance which won him the bronze medal), it frustrated Carroll so much that he had decided he had had enough. And, in spite of all that he had done to try and help Christopher throughout the years, including getting him into the Betty Ford Clinic and further taking care of him while he was in drug rehab, he finally gave up. After that, Bowman had been coached by Toller Cranston for a short period of time and then, finally, the reputable John Nicks who coached him until Bowman's retirement from competitive skating in 1992.

 
 

 
 
Christopher Bowman's skating career was, to say the very least, amazing considering all of his self-destructive behavior, most notably his (according to him) $950 a day cocaine addiction and his affinity for being a reckless free-spirit in a sport which requires the ultimate commitment and personal sacrifice. This had caused two of his three coaches to quit working with him. One thing that always astounded me is how someone with so many demons off the ice achieved so much success on it. It speaks volumes to just how "naturally talented" Chris truly was!


In her book, “Figure Skating: A Celebration,” author Beverly Smith says of Bowman:

‘The most amazing quadruple jumps ever seen were probably those done during a sparsely attended practice session at the World Championships in Munich in 1991. American Christopher Bowman, a self-described “Hans Brinker from Hell,” knew that his coaches Ellen Burka and Toller Cranston, were angry with him for his poor training habits and hearty enjoyment of party life. During the final practice, he skated up to the boards, held up one finger to his disgruntled mentors, and said, “Watch this.”

The controversial skater landed three quadruple toe-loops in a row, just to please them and to ease the stoney silence. He had never landed any before, and he has never since. Had Bowman ever trained with any discipline, any skater, including Browning, would have been hard pressed to defeat him.’

 
Brian Boitano, the 1988 Olympic champion, once told the Chicago Tribune, "If I had to pick the three most talented skaters of all time, I would pick Christopher as one. He had natural charisma, natural athleticism, he could turn on a crowd in a matter of seconds and he always seemed so relaxed about it."
 
*Oakland, California, USA - 1992 World Figure Skating Championships, Men's Free Skate - Christopher moved up from 5th to 4th Place after this skate!*

During what would be his last amateur performance at the 1992 World Championships in Oakland, he injured himself near the end of his long program. Always a fighter, he bravely finished his competitive routine, pushing through the pain which you could see in his face with every jump he did. After he had finished, he hobbled off of the ice holding his left knee while his coach John Nicks helped him to the “kiss and cry” area to await his scores from the judges.
 

His cause of death was ruled an accidental drug overdose, leaving his fans and admirer's wondering how someone who, as his former coach Frank Carroll was once quoted as saying, "could have been one of the greats," had never quite found the drive within himself to live up to his full potential.
 
All the same, the skating world had lost a very talented, unique, and truly beautiful individual who, for better or worse, lived his life on his own terms ... always.