Happy Ostara!

Hope you are having a lovely day! If you want some inspiration feel free to pursue my Ostara pin board.

And if you have not already signed up for Poppy’s Seeds Academy Newsletter follow this link and get special love from me every Tuesday!

Preschool projects

Little and I worked on this project the other day. First she separated and sorted all of the bands by color. Then we used Youtube to find out how to make the bracelet and then we went out to the laundry line to find a clothes pin.

We were about half way done here, and it occurred to me that this would be a great little protection trinket.

“keep me safe, keep me sound
while my wrist you are wrapped around.
I will be out of harms way
all through the night and day”

Full moon

Tomorrow is our full moon circle and the ritual still needs some work!

Imbolc is in two short weeks and that event needs a lot of sprucing up.
Meanwhile I share this.

and I got caught up in it too!

http://wildhunt.org/2014/01/how-the-2000-union-witch-trial-became-breaking-news-in-2014.html

Brigid

as I seem to be without time these days I shall share another painting with you that I am in love with. 

Goddess of the Month

This year I have picked a different Goddess to work with each month

January is Athena

 

This is also by Susan Seddon Boulet

and Yes she is one of my favorite artists 🙂

a beautiful painting

Brigid by Susan Seddon Boulet

 

Domestic Goddess Guide Book aka your witchy Home Management Binder

well another year has come and gone and so as I like to do during this quite time between years, I am assessing and analyzing how my systems are working for me and figuring out what changes need to be made. There are A LOT of changes that have to be made! We have moved to different house and Little has started preschool. So I have modified my original Homemakers Binder so that it will better fit my needs and my family needs. There are a lot of pictures and a lot of links. I have taken a week or so to put this together and I am still working on it.

What you will need:
A binder I have a one inch binder with clear covers so you can slip papers in for the cover
tabs
post it type flags
paper
a printer (if you want to print out the links)
and a hole punch
and tape I always need tape.

I wanted a homemakers binder or home management binder that fit me better. Yes I clean my house but I also cleanse my house. Lots of magic things happen here and so just like my BOS this book starts with a few little tie bits of magic.  A prayer for patience and a picture of Cerridwen to bless my home hearth and endeavors.

I then have two sets of tabs one is the typical down the side type and I have used the set of 8 from Martha Stweart avery line.
They are:
1. Launch pad (don’t worry I will explain it)
2. Cleaning
3. Menu Planning
4. Food storage
5. Projects
6. Financial
7. Garden
8. Cleaning Recipes.

1. Launch Pad Section

I have those extra post it tabs across the top in just my Launch pad section.  So lets walk through what I have in there. First up is this daily rhythm which I made based on this one.

next up our weekly Rhythm. This one is still in flux but since Little and I have had our schedules changed this needed to be changed as well. As you can see I’m still literally penciling it in until I find a rhythm that really works for us but its still a good example. 

Next up is our Yearly Themes now if you have followed me on here or in my life you realize I am sure that I am crazy and like to plan things out. So much so that my wonderful fellow admins at The Pagan Mama have started calling organizing Poppy-fing. So you might know, or might not be surprised to see that I have monthly themes for Little and I. We try to plan activities with them in mind and check out books from the library within the theme.  These themes have been the same since she was 10 months old or so. Each year it feels new though as each year what is age appropriate is changed.

Next up is the 30 day challenge which I got from here. Go check it out because it is really much prettier. She did it all in color but my printer was acting up and I just can’t wast paper. Anyway If I’m am trying to establish a new habit I like to do one at a time, one month at a time. It helps solidify it for me. So I will be printing out one for each month. 

Next  I have an sheet for important dates. I didn’t show it to you as there are you know personal dates and names on it but you can find one here.

Next up is a to do list. there are lots of pretty ones out there but I just used a sheet of scrap paper (again I hate to waste paper) and scribbled January to do List at the top.

Next up is the 52 Weeks to an Organized Home challenge from Home Storage Solutions. 

Which of course is followed by A donation tracker. Because I am sure as I go through each area I will be purging items and passing them on to a new home. Might as well use it the numbers for our taxes. 

I have a calendar in her too. This one is just for tacking cleaning and house to dos. I am not sure if I will keep it like this or not as I do use a Flylady. Wall calendar and my personal Filofax which has this same calendar in it. I just LOVE this calendar! It is from Lime Tree Fruits and all of her printables are just beautiful!

2. Cleaning

Ok next up a cleaning schedule and hey i’m still working on it.  I also have a smudging prayer taped on the inside of my cleaning divider.  You can find this daily/ weekly  sheet here along with one that is filled in for how she does it.  After that I have a Monthly Zone sheet from here. You might also like this weekly sheet  I am not sure which one I will end up using myself. I say check them both out and see what works best for you.

Because as I said I cleanse my house not just clean it I added this sheet that I originally wrote for my Facebook page. 

3. Menu Planning

We eat. We eat a lot here and I cook a lot here. so here is my menu planning and shopping sheet.  There are lots of good ones out there but I made this one years ago and just keep using it. You can get the PDF here menu plan I also keep a few recipes behind this for things I will be cooking this week. I am also working a few other sheets for this section and I will share them when I finish them. 

 

4. Food storage.

I think a lot about food. I spend a lot of time with food. growing, buying, cooking, reasserting on and on and on. so this section Might not be for everyone but it is for me. I know some people are prepers and this will not meet their needs and some people for religious reasons feel they should have a years worth of food ready. I on the other hand lived through the 1989 San Andres earthquake. My house was 2 miles from the epicenter. My entire neighborhood pitched our tents and camp around our yard. While other people went to stand in lines for food and water for hours and hours I never had to. Mom being the good Girl Scout she was, was prepared and we had enough food for us not to worry and enough to share too. I took from that experience how important it really is to be prepared and so it is something I have been working on. I also have started canning, which means I need to take a better assessment of what kind of food my family eats and at what rate. Just how many pints of strawberry jam will they consume and how many pounds of tomatoes will it take to make 52 jars of sauce? These are questions I am working on answering. The following section has some sheets that help me track and figure it all out.

 

 

 

you can get this sheet here 

Canning Inventory here

I also have a Panty inventory and a freezer inventory which I failed to get a picture of somehow.

5. Projects

We all have them.  We all need to track them and think them through so we can complete them and do a happy Yay me I finished it dance! I found this cute sheet here to help out with that.

 

6. Financial

mostly what I have here is a sheet like this from Organizing Home life.

7. Garden. I found a whole lovely downloadable notebook for the garden section. Again I am trying to answer one of lives questions how many tomatoes do you need to grow to make 52 jars of sauce, have enough for salads and eating and not have too many?  And how many plants do I need to plant to get that many tomatoes. Not to mention all the other yummies that need to be grown and of course the herbs. What herbs can you grow to cook with and make potions with? You might want to make a list.

8. cleaning recipes.

Finally a section to keep all the fabulous diy natural cleaning recipes. Both to clean the house such as uses for lemon below or rosemary salt to bless the house and how to make moon water. All the good Kitchen witch recipes I need to know. 

There are a few more things but that is pretty much it for now. I know it’s a lot so what I think I might do is break it down now that I have given you the whole shebang maybe I will go back over each section and do a step by step for that section. This way I can add in all the extras.

also just for you I made a pin board with most of the links 🙂 http://www.pinterest.com/heleneliz/domestic-goddess-guide-book/

 

Learning about me

My best friend took this picture of me. She said it was nice. I think it sums me up well. Colorful and cozy scarf and uncomfortable with a camera pointing at me. Not because I have issues with cameras but because I dislike being the center of attention.  As much as I dislike it I seem to end up there though.  Because I seem to end up in charge. I’m a see things that need to be done and figure out a way to do them. I am a natural leader which really just means I don’t mind telling other people what to do.  I would much rather be like the Wizard of Oz pulling strings behind the curtain but I seem to be in front of the curtain much more.

So as uncomfortable as it makes me I have decided it is ok.  This is a big step for me. It means that I can be not just a natural leader, but a good leader.  I have struggled with the responsibility of a coven. I have struggled with leading a group of very special and wonderful people who look to me to create something wonderful and magical for them. I have struggled and stressed over creating the right ritual and experience for each one of them only to hear things later about how this or that was not good for them. Silly I know. I know you cannot please everyone all the time but it still hurt my feelings. I have struggled with the last-minute phone calls of “I want to do this” and then trying to work what ever this is into the plan that I had been working on for weeks. Mostly I have struggled with feeling like I was not doing a good enough job to provide them with the deep spiritual experience that they have been craving.

Do not get me wrong. It has been a great year for me and my coven. We have grown both in number and in-depth. We have all worked hard and created a rare find of a truly wonderful and supportive community. We like each other and as far as I know everyone get along. I think everyone is heard and I think everyone feels an ownership. This issues are just my issues. They are just about me.

And then I realized.

I am not really a creator or a provider. I am a connector.

I connect people to the things, the people, or the Devine they seek.

I do not need to reinvent any wheels I can simply help them find the right wheel for them.  As funny as this sounds it has been a relief and an eye opener. I don’t need to feel like I need to know everything I just need to know someone who knows what I need to know.

I am very excited for a new year where I can go back to sharing things, or people who are wonderful instead of feeling like I need to figure everything out 🙂

lost and found

I have been getting lost in the daily life and the oh so many things I have on my plate

a few are:
family
work
Being High Priestess to my coven and taking care of them
Being admin at The Pagan Mama and doing my part to take care of the community
Admining my own page on Facebook
cooking
cleaning
shopping for gifts
Writing new spells
teaching my online course
writing a book

So basically I’m just like you 🙂 and have too much to do.

I also found this article from witchesandpagans.com and I thought it was brilliant!