My Birthday and some new crafts ...

Well, it's my birthday weekend and I will be turning the big 5-0 on Sunday. So, I decided to take an extended weekend from work to just relax and do things I enjoy doing. One of them is making crafts, especially for the sabbat holidays. I began working on some items for Imbolg and now I am working on creating some new things for Ostara ...

Small Imbolg wreath

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Imbolg Heart #1 

 Imbolg Heart #2 (wreath)

Small Ostara Wreath

In addition to these, I also made a few other things including a large "The Seasons of Green Man" wreath with a brass Green Man leaf in the middle surrounded by representations of all eight sabbat holidays ...

 Small Lace-trim Cat Wreath

 a small Mermaid  wreath for my Nautical theme in our bathroom ...

 I also came across a set of really cute Ostara bunny tea light holders by one of my favorite artists, Jim Shore ... (LOVE these!)

And, since dare I say I do not do very much cooking, I couldn't wait to make my favorite recipe which I learned from my Nana. It is an old Pennsylvania Dutch soup called, "Chicken Corn Rival Soup." I do not make it very often because it takes HOURS to cook until the homemade rivals (dough balls) are completely cooked . I also thought that it would be a nice idea to make a huge batch for my dad now that he is home from the rehab hospital ... that is until my brother told me that my mom had already made it two days ago! No matter, I will still make sure that he gets a bowl or two along with Mom and Pop (my in-laws) ...

In case anyone is interested in making this dish, the recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:

1 (4-pound) chicken

4 quarts water

1  (10 ounce) package frozen whole white kernel corn

salt and pepper to taste

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 egg

2 hard-cooked eggs, chopped

Directions:

In a large stock pot, cover chicken with water. Cook slowly until tender (approx. 1 hour). Remove chicken, let cool and remove meat from bones. Cut meat into 1 inch pieces, discarding skin and bones. Cut corn from cobs if using fresh corn. Add corn and cut up chicken to pot and season with salt and pepper. Simmer soup for 10 minutes.

How to make the Rivils: (homemade dough balls)

In a separate bowl, make the rivils by mixing the flour, salt, egg. Separate mixture into tiny balls of dough and drop into soup also adding the hard boiled eggs. Simmer anywhere from 15 minutes to a half hour, depending upon how long your rivals actually take to completely cook. Serve hot.

Have a great weekend everyone!

The ABC Award

Whoa, little ole me? LOL! I 'd like to give my warmest "Thank You" to Marietta from her fanastically informative blog, "Witchy Words" for nominating my blog for this very special award! Marietta is a great gal whose blog is not only informative, but has fresh and inovative ideas for her followers. I enjoy it very much!

In turn for accepting this award, there are three conditions

• Download the award logo and add it to your acceptance post.
• Nominate a few fellow bloggers.
• Take each letter of the alphabet and use it to tell something about yourself

Ok, well let's start with my list of blogs:

Magic Love Crow
Wiccan Writes
Cottage Tails
Rasz Art
Foxy's World
Eilis in Wonderland
Cherry City Kitties
Cheapskate Blethering

A ~ Artist. For as long as I can remember I have always loved to draw and create crafts. Many of which I use in my Wiccan practice.
B ~ Beloved by my fur babies
C ~Clergy for Universal Life Church since 2003
D ~ Dispise injustice and cruelty
E ~ Embrace the Wiccan path 
F ~  Friendly
G ~ Graceful. (actually, that is not entirely true, but I can dream can't I? LOL)
H ~ Happy to help anyone in need
I ~ Impractical at times
J ~ Just a gal tries to be the best person she possibly can
K ~ Knowledgable in the Wiccan ways
L ~ Love cats!!!
M ~ Mermaids. I am an avid collector of various Mermaid things
N ~ Never tolerate predjudice
O ~ Over 40! LOL!
P ~ Practice the 13 goals of a witch every day
Q ~ Quite laid back actually
R ~ Relate to others problems fairly easily
S ~ Savor the special moments in my life and those persons I hold dear to me
T ~ Take my personal faith very seriously
U ~ Undeniably friendly
V ~ Very responsible  :)

W ~ Worship the Mother Goddess and Father God
X ~ Extremely open-minded
Y ~ Yurn to endure life's many challenges
Z ~ Hmm, tough one, I would have to say Z's as in I can never get enough of those these days!  ;)



Shew! And there you have it! :)

Looking forward to Spring at last!!

Greetings all! I hope everyone had a very blessed Imbolg! As per usual, things have been a tad hectic for the past couple of months. As most of you probably already know, my father was admitted into Reading Hospital on New Year's Eve and remained there for a total of three weeks. From there, he was sent directly to Manor Care Rehab Hospice facility for another three weeks. I am happy to be able to say that huge thanks to his awesome doctors and nurses who did a great job in contributing to his recovery (and his extremely positive attitude the entire time), he is finally back home again where he belongs. 

A pic of my dad, me and my mom taken on Thanksgiving Day ~ 2013

 Meanwhile, our beloved kitty, Mr. Midnight, is continuing with his Laser Therapy sessions at Eagle's Peak Animal Hospital for his athritis. His Vet Technician and Therapist, Danielle, who has been documenting her patients progress from session to session showed me the videos she had recently been making and I must say that it simply astounded me!! Dogs and cats in need of therapy after a major surgery and even animals who were paralyzed and could barely walk not only recovered very quickly, but most after only one or two treatments were running around shaking there behinds in excitement. It has done wonders for Midnight and now he only needs to go for his treatments about once a month. This is such a great alternative to putting your pet on meds and it REALLY DOES work!!!

Danielle treating her "star patient" Midnight

We also bought a really cool  handmade carpeted ramp for him for those off days when he needs a little help getting up and down on the sofa ...

Well, I don't know about you guys, but around these parts we are sooo ready for Spring! The winter has been quite brutal this year and the horrible snow fall mixed with ice began about a week before Yule and continued to give us bad weather conditions every single week after ...

With Ostara and the Spring Equinox soon approaching, the temperatures are gradually warming up here, but suffice it to say, we are ALL impatiently waiting for Spring!

New crafts for Imbolg

This afternoon we had some rather nasty freezing rain on top of yesterday's 6 inches of snow. So I thought since I was pretty much stuck indoors today, I would work on some more of my handmade crafts and decorations. These are my two new additions for this year's Imbolg ...

The lantern was a Yule gift from a good friend of mine. It is made by Yankee Candle Company and you can use it two ways ~ you can burn the candle or you can turn on the light inside of the top of the lantern which heats up the candle wax in the jar and gives off a wonderful aroma throughout the entire house! Very cool, I just love it!!!

A little something to look forward to ...

Well, with the holidays of Yule, Christmas and New Year's behind us, we can now look forward to Imbolg ~ a time for us all to start anew. Just like the besom, Imbolg represents the "sweeping out of the old and bringing in the new." It is a good time to rid ourselves of all the negative or unwanted things in our lives which we no longer want or need to hold on to and look forward to a better year than the last!

As much as I enjoy the holidays, I, for one, am definitely glad that the year 2013 is past. I must say that it had been a rather difficult one for many, including my family which ended in my dear, sweet 81 year old father being rushed to the hospital on New Year's Eve where he has been since. 

The good news; however, is that he seems to be getting better with each passing day of the new year and he is in good spirits as he is already talking about what he wants to do when he goes home. I have always admired my father for his positive attitude. His motto: "Things could always be worse, and remember, as bad as you may think things are, there is always someone else out there who has it much worse than you do." Kinda puts things in perspective, doesn't it? He is a very kind and caring man who would offer you the shirt off of his back or a helping hand to a stranger in need. I remember a couple of years ago, while he was having his second pacemaker put in, he was joking with all of the nurses and making them laugh just as he is doing now. I told him just yesterday, "I'll bet the doctors and nurses wish they had more patients like you!" LOL!!

Still, all things aside,  I am extremely hopeful that this year will bring us all health, love, happiness, and most of all peace.

A thought for the day ...

This and That ...

Greetings, my friends! I hope everyone had a blessed holiday! A couple of things have happened here already since the New Year. First of all, my father was admitted into the hospital on New Year's Eve for several different issues at once. He had fluid in his lungs and extremely bad swelling in his legs and other parts of his body. Now, my dad is not a big man and they think that most of the swelling was caused by his very serious heart problems. At this time, he remains in the hospital while they complete a series of tests (x-rays, ultra sounds, etc.) on him. They have managed to get the swelling down substantially, but it will take more time.

Secondly, my hubby and I have been feeding yet another stray cat who has been hanging around since late fall. With the horribly nasty weather we have been getting here in Berks Co., PA since way before the winter solstice offically started, I decided to head down to our local Pet Smart store and purchase an outside doghouse for this poor little kitty ~ and just in time! We are expected to get up to 7 inches of snow mixed with ice and extremely high winds tonight. It has already begun and is supposed to keep going into late morning/early afternoon tomorrow. When I fed the stray kitty earlier this evening, she literally darted out of the doghouse and she had eaten all of the cat food I left for her inside the doghouse from this morning before I left for work. We are hoping that she makes it through the winter alright. The good thing about her is, she doesn't seem to stray very far from our house...

And finally, our cats have been passing around a type of respiratory infection i.e. sneezing, running eyes and nose. We have already treated Midnight with anti-bioltic meds  prescribed to him by our trusty vet, but it appears that we must treat ALL of the cats now. With the the crazy holidays and the bad weather, it will have to wait until sometime next week. UH, I am soo over this winter already!!!  LOL!!