Return to Phae

 So, I just finished up P.  I have Q started (I started it before I'd finished N, just never got around to finishing it).  R, S and T and then I will be all caught up.  My summer was pretty good, thanks :)  How have all of you been?

I have an idea for what I want to write about for S, but I'm finding myself a little stumped on R.  I'd love to do another short story or maybe do an image for one of them, but I'm not really sure what.  T, maybe trees or totemism or travelling.  

I'm also gonna get back to doing the Witchy Wednesday meme, when I remember.  It's really important to me that I embody the 'Blogginh Without Obligation' tag that I have on all of my public blogs now.  Somehow it helps me to keep things in perspective.  Just that little graphic and the pledge not to beat myself up if I don't blog every day or even every week.

I also got a comment encouraging me to go back to working on my Wheel of the Year section as well.  And snooping around my blog, I found that I could pretty easily get a handful of book review posts up pretty quick as well.  Time to start scheduling again so that I don't have to worry about things getting done on time ;)

I've recently finished the line art for my Halloween painting.  I have a great idea for one to do for November as well.  The November one involves snow impressions  - which is another area that I've never really explored before.  I love trying new techniques.  It makes me feel like I am really moving forward rather than catching up on rusty old skills.  I think I may call the November one something like 'A Thousand Words' or '50,000 Words' in honor of NaNo.

What would be really fun is to team up with someone who planned to write and have them use one of my paintings as the base for their NaNo submission.  That would require getting my snow painting finished before November, which wouldn't be impossible. Hmmm, anyone wanna do NaNo but don't have an idea yet?  If I get no takers, I may advertise that idea on my blog.

That's about all that's new and interesting with me.  Time to turn Gobbles the turkey into the sink to finish thawing before he goes in the brine for tomorrow.

Research is fun - well, kind of. I've started the research for my environmental piece. I've found an awesome blog that is run by a guy who lists the latest scare tactics and then shows what the science actually says (there was a piece from March about the claim that our oceans are turning to acid). *rolls eyes*

I've also decided that my Virtues of the Goddess series is not going on my blog afterall. I am going to submit them for publication in Witches&Pagans. I ws going to submit them to SageWoman, but W&P seems to be a larger/more professional operation - and they are the same company, so I don't feel bad choosing them over SageWoman.

( In where I do the rambling ... )

I just don't really like it. In fact, I'm not sure that I can think of any that I do like (unless Stevie Nicks counts, I like her). I know that a lot of folks love the chants and stuff, but I'm not really into it.

I like a lot of different kinds of music, but so many Pagan songs seem so forced - like the artist is trying really hard to make the song be overtly Pagan in the lyrics when it just doesn't fit the melody (or the music just doesn't grab you the way a really good song should).

Anyone have any suggestions of their favourite Pagan songs? I'm in a singer/songwriter sort of mood lately, so music of that nature may work better for me.

( In other news ... )

 This is mostly a post-it for myself.  However, feel free to comment if you have ideas or suggestions.  The Pagan Blog Project is currently on the letter G, but it usually takes me at least a week to get a decent post put together, so I start writing my next letter about 10 days in advance.  Which puts me on H.

There are a lot of H topics I would love to write about, but I'm having trouble picking just one.  Here is the list so far:

Hugs, Healing and Pocket Humanity - this would be about how the interwebs have helped to usher in an age of anti-social society, and how more than the earth needing healing (the earth adapts), we need to work on healing humanity.  I would also throw in the free hugs video for heart-warming appeal.

Happiness - this would be about finding the simple joys in life, and how much I've learned about being happy from my daughter.

Harm - this would be a breakdown of what the adage 'a witch who can't hex can't heal'.  There are a lot of Sacred Mists brand priestesses around these days, and I am tempted to rub their faces in the dirty edges of the Craft (there are also a lot of people who are doing 'Shadow Work' that they think is about facing your fears and then whining when it leaks out into the rest of their lives - but that rant can wait for later).

Honey - I would love to explore the magical properties of honey and bees.  Went to the farmer's market yesterday, and they were selling great big buckets of it.  I really want to buy one just to say I have a BUCKET of honey!  

Organic Pagans: Healthy Living - this one is an idea held over from the LOTP website.  It would be an exploration on cooking from scratch, buying organic on a budget, getting exercise and how obesity is not a lifestyle choice.  There seems to be a contingent in the Pagan Community right now who think that because there is a call for healthier living that that means that everyone expects Pagans to be skinny, and that there is all this prejudice against plump Pagans all of a sudden.

Hair - this one would be a look at how hair has been prized historically, and how it relates to a person's self esteem, and different cultural/religious views on headcovering and whatnot.  It would totally start with a youtube video of the song from the musical 'Hair'.

Herbcrafting - this would be a fun, light hearted article detailing spring and herb crafts and gifts.

I guess it comes down to tone.  Now that I have followers, I'm starting to think of these articles as less for me and more from me.  I'm not sure I want to preach at cyberspace, and I'm not sure I want to steer clear of controversial subjects in an effort to keep from upsetting the neo-fluffs.  

I may also give up my tumblr account.  I haven't found anything that wasn't fluffy or goth-fluffy there at all.  It's kind of been a big waste of time.

So, Wordpress is working on a beta of a Friend's Page called Blog Surfer, which so far looks pretty cool. Also, Firefox has a new add-on for rss feeds, so that I can read all of my friends' blogs from where ever they happen to be right in my browser window.

So what I need to know from all of you is - where are you homes on the web? Wordpress blogs? Where ever else you prefer to be other than LJ?

Lemme see if I can remember all of mine (though, not all of them are regularly updated):

Wordpress
Livejournal (obviously, since you are reading this)
Insanejournal
(possibly other LJ clones, but I would have to look)
Blogger
Covenspace
Paganspace (which may be deleted soon if I don't stop getting spammed)
Deviant Art (I only recently found out that they have a blog feature too)

I think that's it. Blah, no wonder it's so hard for me to keep my webpage updated!

--Phae