So today my May 2020 Ipsy Glam Bag arrived— and I have to say that the special add-on I purchased for the teenager was more exciting than my goodies.
Huda Beauty Sapphire Obessions
This eye shadow palette came with a full set of make-brushes. The colors are fairly true to what you see on the cover. The teenager’s school colors are blue and gold, plus who doesn’t love a good splash of glitter.
But the glam bag… I’m not impressed with the color scheme of the actual bag. The brush from FARAH is a blending brush and has a lovely soft texture.
The Benefit Roller Lash mascara I’m not going to open right now because I recently ordered black mascara that came with my last bag.
Same story with the AutoBalm Day2Night eye shadow — the color is fairly identical to not just one but two of the recent colors sent. So I will also save this until I use the earlier product. Good news is, it’s one of my favorite eye shadow colors, a neutral bright beige with some shimmer. Hides my tired eyes.
The Moroccan Magic Maruka Honey Lip Balm will also remain sealed as I’ve gotten lip product in every Ipsy bag and don’t leave the house enough to need an extra in my purse. I’m not even sure where my purse is.
So that leaves the Soroci Spot-Light Eye Cream. Which I am actually excited about trying. I’m old— my under eyes could use some firming.
I put some on and it feels good. Only time will tell if it makes me any younger.
And I decided to use this month’s bag to store unopened cosmetics and store it in our cupboard so that if the teenager and I need something we have it in reserve.
Mondays are hard for most people. But they are especially hard for my four-year-old Goffins cockatoo, Nala.
I get it. My weekend routine is laid back and includes lots of periodic cuddles and the occasional pizza picnic on my bed, whereas Mondays involve her being ignored while I work.
The Monday through Friday routine used to be— before the Coronavirus pandemic— about 30 minutes of early morning cuddles, some free roaming time while I got dressed, then back in her cage to watch (listen to) Sesame Street until Hulu decided no one was watching.
I think that’s when she would take an afternoon nap, based on her behavior I see when I’m home.
Around 3 p.m. my teen daughter would come home and open her cage door so she could roam until I got home around 5. Then I’d cuddle her for about 30 minutes and bring her down to the kitchen while I cooked.
Then she came back up to my room and around 8, I returned to cuddle her, and watch some TV on my iPad in my room since she refuses to go to sleep without a person in the room.
I have only had Nala four months. And I don’t have experience with parrots/large birds. I barely have experience with budgies.
When I first brought her home, she plucked often. Of course the change was upsetting. She settled in and used plucking primarily as a way to get attention or express that she was overstimulated.
But on Mondays, she would strip her belly or legs and be standing in a pile of feathers. Luckily our routine has minimized that.
Now she occasionally plucks a feather— but it’s often a wing feather and she makes herself bleed. She did this yesterday and I blame myself. It was Monday. It’s a cold May, and I couldn’t get warm so I was in and out of the bedroom all day trying to find someplace to work.
Every time I tried to work with her on my shoulder, she would bite my ear (telling me that she knew I was distracted and not focused on her) so I would force her back to the “bird playground.”
And after work I rushed right out to go grocery shopping.
But like a good bird mom, I came home and rushed up the stairs to cuddle my Nala. My neighbor texted and wanted to go for a walk.
So, with Nala literally yelling at me, I went for a walk and picked up a pizza. (The new Pepperoni Cheeser! Cheeser! from Little Caesars). I thought I would apologize with a pizza picnic.
Nala had plucked a wing feather and was covered in blood. We had our pizza and I brought her down to her shower perch and gently bathed her. She seemed to enjoy that. Or maybe she recognized my remorse.
We then watched TV but she refused to cuddle. She would only sit on my shoulder and chatter. Literally giving me an earful.
So today I brought her with me to go make coffee. She loves coffee and is fascinated by the coffee machine.
As we were going downstairs, I don’t know if she lost her footing, or if my balance was off, or if something scared her… but she fell down the stairs.
I felt awful. But all Nala cared about was her morning coffee. She seems fine and is stealing the budgies food as we speak. But it’s sometimes very humbling to live with a bird.
As one of the perks of the online writing community, I have had the pleasure to meet Fausta, a life coach and therapist who has a wide range of capacities and wicked sharp writing skills. She has been working on her blog, and her business, Fausta’s Place to Ponder.
People often influence and inspire each other in the most unexpected ways—often without trying—and I’ve admired and respected Fausta for a long time in just that kind of subtle way.
Like most of us, she’s a real and imperfect woman with a quiet vibrancy. She’s touched me with her honesty about life as a woman and the everyday struggles as a mother, building/continuing her career/business, dealing with her own and her family’s health and keeping her heart and emotional state strong and well.
Isn’t that what most of us are trying to do? In a recent blog post (linked below) she talks about our attitudes and how our mental framing of tasks impact how we perform them. I have continued to ponder this.
I love routine, order and cleanliness. But with 4 cats, 4 birds, 1 teenager, a full-time job, my own physical and emotional issues and a coronavirus pandemic, I can’t always achieve/complete/do everything I want to do.
I have to employ more mindful self compassion, and with the teenager’s help I am growing in this regard. She and I have been discussing the differences in how our brains are wired. This helps me look at my setting from multiple points of view.
My goal, in what used to be Standard American Life, was to workout either at the gym or at home 3-5 times per week and never leave dirty dishes in the sink overnight.
Now, the gyms are closed. I’m eating too much fast food. And my goal is to clean the kitchen every morning— as my energy levels are higher and it reinforces the idea that every day is a clean start.
But I still need to examine my motivations. There’s a flip side to chores.
Today is Sunday. Yesterday, I got up, did a load of laundry and started the dishwasher. I cleaned all the litter boxes— no small chore with four cats, but oh so worth it.
Two kittens and 3-legged Overlord
I did some other odds and ends too but I’ll be darned if I remember them.
And then I attended a business meeting, had coffee with a neighbor, cleaned up after the birds, let the teenager give me a haircut (a rather severe one that doesn’t exactly match the crazy hair I have, but give it two weeks and it will be perfect), split a ginormous, super-sweet cinnamon bun from Cake and Corolla, enjoyed dinner from Dairy Queen, and watched Hell’s Kitchen for the rest of the day.
What yesterday looked like
And I’m not beating myself up over “not doing more.”
But this morning— I got up, washed the pots and pans, unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, did two loads of laundry and hung them on the line, fed the menagerie, scrubbed them kitchen counter, took out the compost, emptied the garbage, carried the garbage outside, and vacuumed and washed the kitchen floor.
All before 9:30.
And I feel good about the work I got done. Even if I am still worrying about cutting the grass, working out this week’s budget, and dealing with this week’s groceries and work stress. I dread both. I *don’t* want to do the grocery shopping and I never know what will happen at work on Monday.
So I have a delicate balancing act— what can I do to feel good about myself and my house and what can I do to not exhaust myself?
Because you see, I know I also do chores and scrub the bathtub to avoid facing my fears and emotions in the stillness.
Chores let me use the energy of my angst to achieve something positive, but in the end, that’s not always the best approach to my emotional health and physical self.
PS—
Early on in this pandemic I invested in good old fashioned cleaning products: Pine Sol, Ammonia, Fels Naptha, Borax, etc. I opened up the Pine Sol today. Just felt like my neglected floor needed something extra. I got this at the Grocery Outlet and as you can see it’s not traditional Pine Sol. It’s like super floral. “Fresh Scent” by patooty. Someone just exploded a fake floral bomb in my house.
I wanted to change up the wardrobe today— so with the almost freezing temperatures in Pennsylvania on the weekend my roses should be blooming for the first time…
First of all, let me put out there that I am not as confident as I appear in that photo. I’m almost 45. I have stretch marks, muffin top and I’ve never been stick thin (well, except for that summer I lost 30 pounds) but I’ve always tried to be healthy and strong.
I’ve had a baby. I’ve broken bones. I’ve struggled with anemia, cerebral palsy and on occasion anxiety. I’ve had great jobs I didn’t want to leave (ever) and bad jobs that I didn’t want to go to.
But like many of you, I keep going. I have shiny happy days, sleepy days, down days, days I just don’t want to end and days when I cry myself to sleep.
Today I chose this outfit as my warrior’s attire. I got the shirt and the necklace from The Attic in Bethlehem and let me tell you— I never would have bought this shirt if not for the state lockdown/pandemic.
I would have said, ‘hell, no, that’s way too skimpy.’
And left that shirt on the rack. But it looked so damn cute on the mannequin— which I think that mannequin has bigger boobs that me. No, wait. That shirt clearly looks tiny on the mannequin and my boobs are bigger.
Who wore it best?
But I decided to wear that shirt and I consider it a pledge of confidence to myself. NOTHING will intimidate me today. NO ONE will change how I feel about myself.
And I am adorable.
And to make it even more powerful, I wore my circle necklace also from The Attic. I have christened it my “keep going” amulet, because circles are round. They roll. They keep going. And this one is glittery and clear. Clear quartz is the stone used to purify things and recharge them.
Although it’s not quartz, it has a shine like quartz so I will use this necklace to remind me to keep going and keep my thoughts free of negative vibes.
New beginnings
Now bare with me for one more topic, I’m a little superstitious and as you can see I’m almost done with my journal. New chapters always begin at the end of my journal.
I’ve been working with Aspire for Autonomy for work, and I’ve been striking up some personal conversation with Darnell about helping with his organization. I’m impressed with his energy and hope to learn more about their goals.
About a week ago, the teenager tossed the kittens in my bedroom for cuddles while she took a shower.
Which has lead to scenes like this:
Four cats in my bed Three cats
But now every night Fog curls in a ball on the rug outside my bedroom door. So I let her in, thinking there was no way she’d spent the night away from her brother.
But she did.
And now she sleeps in my bed every night and gets me up at 5:30 every morning. Except this morning.
Yesterday I allowed myself to eat my feelings—in the form of a Buffalo Chicken Specialty Pizza with spinach instead of onions (six slices), Parmesan bread bites (probably half the order), and sweet BBQ bacon specialty chicken (again probably half the order) from my good friends at Dominos. I’ve had the same “delivery specialist” the last two orders. And my last order was on Thursday.
And I washed it down with a big glass of Two Rivers Brewing Bankers Brown Ale. But I must say, my cockatoo, Nala, approves of my bad decisions. Click on the link under the photo to see Nala playing with the empty box.
That was not a healthy way to deal with stress. But it’s over and done and it felt so good in the moment.
Bad decisions often do.
But today was a new day and I don’t surrender. So, I bring to you a list of the things that brought me joy today.
1. My professional peer Lynn from another non-profit locally reached out to me today on Facebook. We had a lovely Zoom chat on my lunch hour and discovered in addition to our journalistic pasts, we also both have three-legged cats. Go figure.
2. One of my colleagues sent me a photo of the tree from the courtyard at our office.
On this dark, damp day (over the course of which my toes NEVER got warm despite my super thick winter socks), this photo put my day right from the get-go. Why?
Because it’s a magnolia tree. We had a magnolia tree in our yard when I was young— and as my work colleague observed—the extremely short life span of its flowers makes them somehow more special. I used to climb the one in my girlhood home and I love the silky feel of the petals as they tumble to the ground.
3. I’m working on a last minute state grant. A food recovery infrastructure grant that could buy our agency a new commercial freezer. The state representative I’ve been working with has been so nice and so responsive, I told him it’s truly been a pleasure to work with him and he told me I made his day.
From a grant I’m working on
I shared the proposal with the mentor my boss appointed to me, and he liked it and pointed out some areas where I could strengthen it. I also asked some connections for a letter of support and I received a truly heartwarming letter from one.
So, regardless of what happens, I feel good about the work I do.
4. My daughter spent the day helping her grandmother with yard work. I’m proud my daughter doesn’t mind physical labor. She sent me this text:
Mom.
Mom.
Mom.
Look what I got.
Yes, an old broom
Now, my daughter and I will bless this broom as part of her spiritual journey. A witch’s broom.
And finally, this one isn’t from today, but…
5. I found these jars in the garage. And they are really pretty.
A Crowler of Lager and a Growlette of Banker’s Brown Ale
I’ve made it a personal goal to try as many creative, innovative small local businesses as I can during this pandemic lockdown.
I’m living on my own and raising a teen daughter with a salary that doesn’t leave much extra — especially when you count in the fact that my dentist quoted me a price for my crown using my husband’s insurance when we’ve been separated for almost a year and I’ve been off his insurance for six months. My insurance has no coverage for such procedures and I owe almost $900. And the tooth isn’t even right.
But I’m veering wildly off topic.
I saw on Facebook— oh, evil, evil Facebook— that Two Rivers Brewing Company less than 2 miles away is offering free delivery. Two Rivers, in that beautiful old building (Mount Vernon) only a few blocks from my office. Two Rivers, home of the magnificent peanut butter/bacon/seasoned cabbage cheeseburger.
I didn’t intend to order beer. I was looking at the menu, selected the Bankers Brown Ale in the Growlette (32 ounce reusable glass bottle) for $11.25 and a $10 lager crowler (32 ounces in a big can). I thought I saw that if you ordered by 8 pm they delivered on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
I hit the button and the web site said it’d be at my house in 30 minutes. They called in 15 and said they were on their way.
Beer? To my door?
The man delivering it had a nice black zipper Two Rivers Sweatshirt, gloves and a mask and he brought me the beer.
Nice and cold.
And I poured a glass of the Bankers Brown Ale which is reminiscent of my all-time favorite beer—Samuel Smith Organic Chocolate Stout.
Now I can order pizza and beer. One should arrive hot, the other cold.
So as I have mentioned—the teenager and I have made consignment shopping a pandemic sport. The Attic, a consignment shop in Bethlehem, has hosted live events and posted pictures of merchandise for sale on Facebook and Instagram.
My teen and I love to peruse the Instagram offerings and direct message each other from various parts of the house about items we think the other will like.
I ordered a bunch of necklaces. I used to wear a necklace every day and my necklaces were always symbolic. The amber I bought to purify energy around me. The emerald that reminded me who I wanted to be. The Celtic knot pentacle pendant that reminded me of my heritage and my spirituality.
I stopped wearing necklaces because Nala, my Goffin’s cockatoo, thinks it’s a game to bite the chains in half. And I didn’t know what necklace fit anymore.
So I bought used jewelry.
Now the necklace on the bottom of the photo is my standard one with my pentacle, my amber and a charm my father gave me recently to remind me that he loves me.
But the others are from my Attic buying spree.
And I don’t know what made me buy Horus. I think I started with the red strands of tiny beads. Then that sparkly circle. And Horus was an impulse. (I had already paid my invoice when the Attic posted the Tiger’s Eye necklace.)
And the Tiger’s Eye I bought very intentionally for the stone’s properties as, to borrow from one random website, “A stone of protection,Tiger Eyemay also bring good luck to the wearer. It has the power to focus the mind, promoting mental clarity, assisting us to resolve problems objectively and unclouded by emotions. Particularly useful for healing psychosomatic illnesses, dispelling fear and anxiety.” (Charms of Light)
I can use some focus and good luck.
But why Horus?
I saw the bird with the stone in his belly and thought he’d be homage to my flock. And I thought he looked Egyptian, so as a pagan and a former scholar of Africa, the attraction made sense.
But today as I got ready for work, I was overcome with the urge to know who my bird pendant was and the magical properties of turquoise.
So, turquoise: (from the same web site) “Turquoiseis a purification stone. …Turquoise balances and aligns all the chakras, stabilising mood swings and instilling inner calm. It is excellent for depression and exhaustion, it also has the power to prevent panic attacks.Turquoisepromotes self-realization and assists creative problem solving.“
Are you noticing a theme? Albeit a coincidental one. This is what I mean about the universe sending tools and magical objects. (I posted about this concept in my witchcraft series: My previous witchcraft series)
So I googled Egyptian bird gods and found my falcon-man Horus. And this is what encyclopedia Brittanica told me:
“Horus, EgyptianHor,Har,Her,orHeru, in ancientEgyptian religion, a god in the form of afalconwhose right eye was the sun or morning star, representing power andquintessence, and whose left eye was the moon or evening star, representing healing. Falcon cults, which were in evidence from late predynastic times, were widespread in Egypt.“
Yesterday was a frolicking good day of silly adventures and hearty chores— I feel the after effects of hauling all that trash from the garage yesterday burning in the tops of my thighs.
This morning I enjoyed coffee with my mom in my home and then sat in the morning sun and read more of William Prystauk’s manuscript, Debauchery. He asked me to edit the final manuscript before it heads to the printer as his regular editor was unavailable.
Bill and I have been friends for more than a decade now and I told him I’d love to take a look if he didn’t mind as I’m a HUGE FAN of his previous Denny Bowie novels— it’s just the right blend of counter-culture, dark crime, intelligentsia and erotica.
Bill takes on some kinky themes. His characters experience the best and worst of the human condition. They ooze love. They survive trauma. They admit their weaknesses and accept their fetishes. They explode in rage and sometimes toy with pain.
Everyone seems vibrantly alive yet always on the precipice of tragedy.
And while one person might look at the words, the events, the violence and the various expressions of sexuality and squirm in the face of its counter-mainsteam manifestations, the way Bill has crafted the tale makes the more disturbing twists easier to stomach and nothing is ever gratuitous.
The first book, Bloodletting, focused on love and acceptance— that a real relationship won’t ignore any part of a person or their desires. In Debauchery, the antagonist examines not only the motives of the people involved in his current missing person case but also challenges his own world view and his connection to his own unorthodox living arrangements.
Bill has made a valiant effort to keep each novel in the series a stand-alone, but please don’t start with this one. I think the reader needs to read at least one of his previous books to appreciate the depth of Denny Bowie’s angst.
Or shall I call him Dennison?
I know Bill was pleased with my one week turn-around on this just slightly more than 80,000 word manuscript. But when the story is this compelling, and has such a strong, unique voice, you can’t put it down easily.
Angel Ackerman 