Rituals of Daily Living

My domestic life dictates much of my spiritual practice. From kitchen witchery to my prayers to the Goddess, everything is connected. Routine is essential to everything I do. Without my weekly routine, my ritual, I'd be lost. Most of my days progress in two different ways I either go to school, come home clean, make dinner, and do homework or Clean,make lunch,go to work,make dinner and do homework; and somehow fit yoga and a daily tarot reading . These are my every day tasks that I have ritualized.

Every day tasks, when given significant meaning become rituals. As I clean the house I am symbolically ( and literally) freeing our home of all negativity. As I cook my husband meals I fill them with the love that I feel for him and often add extra herbs coinciding with whatever our family is needing that day. Mundane tasks can become extraordinary when you simply attach a greater meaning to them. My Witchy Wife life is not so different than any one else's on the surface. It is simply the intent  with which I accomplish the tasks that makes them inherently different. A spiritual experience for me could simply be walking outside, observing the changes in nature, spending time with my family, feeling the energies beneath my bare feet, dancing, a drum circle, burning a candle or incense-just simple activities that without intent behind them are meaningless.

When my husband is working out of town though my ritual gets disturbed. I have yet to perfect my coping mechanism. The first day he is gone I make a day by day "to do" list. Now I do this every day, but I mean this sucker is detailed as hell. I try to stay non stop busy, once again I always am non stop busy-but I attempt to be so busy I don't have time to stop and breath. This typically leads to me accomplishing an entire weeks worth of goals in 2-3 days. Which is not conducive to staying busy for a week plus of hubstache being gone. So then I get mopey and lazy and the house gets wrecked. That then leads to a last minute scramble to clean it all up before he comes home. This new job has been rough on us, but we have to play the cards the Goddess blesses us with. We are very close to not needing my income. I look forward to that day. Then my rituals will change even more.

What do you ritualize in your life?

My mother, my Goddess

Blessed and happy Witchy Wednesday ladies! I hope you have had a fantastic week! 

Who is the Goddess to me? The blessed mother Goddess is many things to many people. To me she is the divine feminine, the changing seasons, life death and rebirth,  she is in everything and everything comes from her. I see in her what I want for myself-strength, passion, humility, beauty, grace, faithfulness, love, peace, ferocity, motherhood. She is who I turn to in times of trouble and rejoice in when she blesses me beyond measure. She is the warrior queen, still gentle enough to wipe the tears from your eyes. 

Maiden Mother Crone As women and the moon go through cycles, so does the Goddess. The symbol )0( represents the Goddess in her different phases. ) as the waxing moon and maiden phase, 0 as the full moon and the mother phase, ( as the waxing moon and the crone phase. No matter where you are in your life, it is not a place that the Goddess has not been many times. Every year she goes from Maiden to Crone and back. She is the virgin maiden huntress, who will then be impregnated by the God, she will then give birth to him ( this must happen because all this come from her ), she will raise him and he will become her lover, she will mourn his death and the cycle repeats. Life, death and rebirth. All things come from her and return to her.  

Many names, Many forms The way I choose to view Goddesses such as Diana, Brighid, Kali Ma, Athena, all the Goddesses from every culture are simply different forms or aspects of The Mother Goddess. Whatever you are going through in life, the Goddess has a name that you can call her to deal specifically with that problem. 

Worship and Prayer I observe the passing of the season with sabbats and full moon rituals. I will admit to being a lazy witch and not holding circles as often as I should. But I do pray to the Goddess frequently, even if they are only short phrases "thank the Goddess" "Goddess help me" . It may be shocking to think that a Pagan would pray, but I do. Not always within a circle and yes, occasionally on my knees, but more often with raised hands and dancing. The Goddess does not call us to be humble, but to realize the divine within ourselves as we are all apart of her. Communing with nature, being kind to her creation, loving ourselves and one another, singing, dancing-all forms of worship. 

This short post could not even begin to grasp the enormity of what the Goddess is to me. How do you put something so awe inspiring into words? Blessed Be. 

" You do readings ?!?! "

         *Complaining, feel free to skip*   It never ever ever ceases to amaze and annoy me when people are shocked that I do Tarot card readings-and then will ask me to do one for them. Unless you started following me yesterday, I don't know how this is news to you. Not being mean, but damn. How do you miss it? Or that people will ask for a reading, but not know what they are. Not gonna do it. Or "You forgot to do my reading!" , did you remind me on the day I told you to? You were busy and forgot? Me too. Know what your asking me to do, don't insult me by basically saying you don't pay enough attention to me to know a huge part of my life, and don't act like I had nothing else to do that day but your reading. Last thing, I interpret the cards to the best of my ability, it is up to you to figure out where that plays into your life. If you don't see the reading playing out in your life yet, either it's going to happen in the future or the cards just didn't want me to see shit for you. Sorry bout it, I never claimed to be all knowing. Please, feel free to ask me for readings. Remind me on the day I tell you, be prepared with what you want me to look into for you, and use your own brain to figure out possible meanings after I give you the interpretations. *End Rant* 


I got my first deck of tarot cards with money from my 11th birthday. It came in a cute pink box that had "teen kit" on the front of it, with a small guide book, and a thin bag to keep my deck in. My mom didn't care because "oh, it's just a game to her" so I did readings all the time. My very first successful, almost scary, reading was one I did on my aunt's front porch. I told her that she was going to have dental problems. Not 3 minutes later she chipped a tooth on a piece of hard candy. Coincidence? Maybe, but I don't believe in them. I've spoke before though about the guilt I had due to my beliefs because I live in the bible belt and at that time I still called myself a Christian. So every few months I would be overwhelmed with guilt and hide my precious cards away, praying for forgiveness. This went on for about a year and a half. I then threw them away. You heard me-I threw my cards away. I'm literally pink from embarrassment at admitting that. But I did. I had just come back from a church youth group trip and I was all revved up with, what I then would've called the holy spirit, and I threw them away.

In the years that followed I regretted on multiple occasions throwing my cards away. I wished that I could take it back, but I couldn't. After I moved in with my husband I bought a deck of "Angel Cards" and took them to work with me, doing readings for coworkers. People laughed and looked at me funny, but I began to choose a card before every phone call I placed and I could tell if I would be making money from that client. I was falling in love all over again. So when I convinced my then, terrified of all things supernatural fiance, that I wouldn't bring any bad "ju ju" into the house, he consented to me getting another tarot deck. I then gifted my angel deck to @TheSpoiledWife .

Tarot cards are what started my journey into my faith. They set me onto a path of enlightenment that has given me so much joy. My husband, once afraid of what he didn't know, has allowed me to do a few readings for him ( I don't do many because he is a skeptic) and I even invited him to sit in on my Imbolc circle last year. I am able to share my faith with him fully, and nothing I do surprises him anymore, haha. He knows he could walk in the house to find me in the floor with open books all around me on spiritual topics, doing kitchen magick, readings cards, or holding a one person drum circle. He knows this is who I am and he loves me for it. Tarot cards made me into the Witchy Wife I am today.

Witchy and Thrifty

WitchyWife's Thrifty Living Tips

      

        The task of trying to save money can be daunting! For some of us it seems like we're living pay check to pay check, constantly checking the bank account to make sure we have enough for the bills, for others you just want to have a substantial amount of money tucked away for a rainy day or emergency. No matter where you are in life, living frugally is worth it and will pay off in the end! Don't be discouraged or think you have to do everything you've ever seen on a thrifty living blog to benefit from it. Pennies add up! So here is what I do to help my family save money, worry less about our finances, and spend more time with each other. 

1. The first obvious place to save money is grocery shopping. And no I am not about to tell you the secrets of being a crazy coupon lady (if you know them, please teach me your ways!).  Saving money at the grocery store is much simpler than you might think! 

• Make a meal plan:  When I first came across a few frugal blogs one that I read suggested meal planning and shopping for the entire month in just one trip. This sounded great. Less time in the store means less time being tempted, makes sense. But for the majority of us this is not realistic-fiscally or lifestyle wise. I shopped for the entire month ONCE , but the strain on the finances of taking an entire months grocery bill out in one week was just too much for my family. We then moved to a 2 week plan and stayed there for several months. This worked GREAT-until my husbands new job where he is often gone and we literally don't know from one day to the next when he will be home or if he will be going out of town for work. We now do a 1 week plan. We have had to adapt meal planning to fit our family's schedule, but we will never abandon it because IT WORKS! Make a meal plan, look in your kitchen, if you don't have everything you need for those meals write it on your shopping list, buy ONLY what you need for those meals and nothing else. This will save you time-both at the store and when 5 pm rolls around and you have a grumbly belly.  
• Do you really need Walmart or Target?  When I first began meal planning I switched to shopping at Krogers. It is closer to my home (we'll talk about saving gas later), with the customer rewards program I get in store savings and the website has coupons you can load onto your customer card. I could see how much I was saving on my receipt ( visuals are a great reinforcer ). I have now stopped shopping at Krogers too (when I can help it). When my husband is home to go with me, I will now go to Save A Lot or Aldi's. These stores are GREAT for finding deals. Aldi's is my store of choice for the following reason. 
• Stop buying name brand I switched to shopping at Aldi's for several reasons (the store itself actually implements several frugal tactics) , one being that they do not carry name brand products. When myb husband would go to the store to pick something up (rare) he would ask what brand to get, my response was always "whatever's on sale", because honestly generic tastes just as good ( for homemade ingredients, we have stopped buying prepackaged premade food). When you buy namebrand you are not always paying for better quality. You are literally paying for the name and the advertisement behind it. 
• Look at the top and bottom shelves If you don't have those grocery stores in your area, or if you just want to continue going to the bigger store chains-stop looking at the products that are eye level. Companies pay for their products to be at eye level because if it's the first thing you see, coupled with advertisements outside of the store, you are more likely to buy it. The items on the bottom and top shelves are more likely to be cheaper because they don't have a prime real estate spot. 
• Go homemade this is something we've just begun to do. Whenever possible now I make our food from scratch, because a box of flour is cheaper than a box of bisquick ( and flour is used in more than just pancakes!) 

2. The second place you can save money is on utilities. We were lucky to find a rental home that has the utilities included in our rent, but the rent can go up if we exceed a certain amount and we always try to be responsible with the resources given to us. 

• Dishwasher yes, washing dishes by hand does use less water, but it also takes more time. We're women damn it! Our time is valuable! So how can you use you dishwasher in a way that will save you money? Stop using the dry cycle. This will help the electricity bill. Simply wait for your dishwasher to kick itself to the dry cycle and open the door, let the dishes air dry. Nothing could be simpler. 
• Flushing the toilet Any toilet can be turned into a "low flow" system. All you have to do is take a water bottle, fill it with water and put the lid back on it. Then stick it into the tank on the back of your toilet. If the bottle is 20 FL OZ, you will save that much water everytime you flush your toilet. 
• Showers My favorite way to save water in the shower is of course to shower with my husband, but when we aren't showering together I time my shower. Yes, I time my shower. I used to take 30 minute showers (well, I'd stay until there was no more hot water left...is that 30 minutes? ). I now only take 10 minute showers, 15 minutes if I've had a bad day. I get it, the shower is great, it's a quiet place to relax and get away from the hectic atmosphere of our homes. We love our families, but sometimes it feels like the only place we can get away is the bathroom! But no one is saying you have to leave the bathroom after the shower is over. Stay and enjoy the steam. Only spending 10-15 minutes in the shower frees up some room in your water bill to run the dishwasher though. 
• Drying clothes unless we NEED the clothes that day or the next we use a drying line that I've hung in our laundry room. This saves on the electric bill and helps the clothes last MUCH longer. I will admit that it's not often that I do this, we should do it more often though. 
• Turn off the lights!!! My husband is the WORST for leaving lights on when he leaves a room. I'll come home and every single light in the house will be on. Get into a habit of turning the lights off when you leave a room, and during the day OPEN THE WINDOWS, seriously. The sun will warm the house, cutting down on the heat bill and let some light into the house eliminating the need to turn the lights on. 
• Unplug things Ever heard of phantom electricity ? I hadn't either. When an appliance is plugged in-even if it's not in use-it IS using electricity. Crazy, right? Rather than ruin all your plugs by pulling them out all the time, invest in a power strip and just switch it off. 

3. Say no to credit cards. We have one credit card. It is a secured card, meaning we put a deposit onto it to get a certain amount of credit. We did this ONLY to build our credit history. Once we do that we will get rid of the thing. Credit cards are not extra money, they will only bite you later when you need a car loan or a house loan. Not worth it. To keep track of our money, more so our spendable money, we only put into the bank what we need for the bills-nothing more, nothing less. If it's spendable, we keep it out of the bank as cash. When the cash is gone, it's gone. And no I am not saying the spendable money is expendable- two very different things. The spendable money ( aka left over after bills) is for gas, groceries and necessities. The expendable money ( aka left over after the spendable money) is what we use for dates and extras. 

4. Saving on the little things : Gas, cleaning supplies, etc. 

• Gas This is the resource I am probably the worst at monitoring. I only put enough into my car to get me back and forth from school and work for the week, and every week I worry it won't be enough. Somehow it magically is. This is very lucky, because it is inevitable there will be an unplanned trip completely out of the way. But what I attempt to do is group all of my trips together. Don't just rush out when you have one errand to do. Wait until you have two or three and taking the most realistic route based on time and task. 
• Cleaning Supplies  Baking soda, vinegar, bleach, and soap-I basically don't buy anything else. I make my own laundry detergent with baking soda, borax, and a bar of laundry soap. Window cleaner, vinegar. I wipe my counters off with either vinegar&baking soda or a mix of water and bleach. I clean my bathroom with bleach. I sprinkle my carpets before vacuuming with baking soda and it pulls up the dog smell. *I do splurge on Lysol, because my husband and in laws STAY sick (he only gets sick at their house). 
• RUMP's  reusable menstrual products. There are many brands of menstrual cups (what I use) and cloth pads that are reusable for many years. I spend on one cup what I spend on pads/tampons in 3 months, it seems more expensive in the short run. but over the long run it will save me YEARS of buying pads/tampons. 
• Personal Care I now make my own deodorant, and in the future hope to make more personal care products such as moisturizer and other things. Maybe that's something to consider-can you make your won products? Do you really need to pay someone to do your eyebrows or can you do them at home with a little practice? Do you need to pay for your nails to be done or can you do them yourself? 
• Clothing Do you really hate that outdated top? Is there anything you can do to make it more modern? Add an accessory? I strongly recommend upcycling your clothing. 

5. Don't think you're too good for the Dollar store or free give a ways! -That needs no more explanation, lol

These are just a few of the things that I do to save money, they work for our family, maybe they will work for yours. Let me know what you think in the comments below and if you have any thrifty tips please share! 

Our biggest roadblock yet

If you've followed me on twitter for any amount of time it is no secret that I am obsessed with our household budget/finances. This is because we have plans for me to be a SAHW and have been ttc. This month we had planned on paying off the last bit of our debt (approx $1500) with my school refund and putting the remainder of it along with our tax refund back into savings. Our first bump came when my car broke down. It needs a complete new engine. Everything was still okay then though, my mother in law ( a SAHW herself) has been letting me drive her vehicle allowing us the time to get the funds together to replace my engine. All this meant was that I would have to continue working about three more months to allow us time to rebuild our savings. Today we got the call that changed everything though.

JT works with the maintenance crew at our local amusement park and the real estate property the company owns. He has been getting sent home from work early often lately due to the weather, but not enough that it caused a major strain in our finances. Everything was still fine. JT was sent home today due to the temperature being, literally, negative 13 with the wind chill. We were still under the impression that everything was fine. We slept in until 1, watched a scary movie, made love, and ran a bunch of errands; a nice day in general. When we finally got home though we got the call that ruined the entire day. Without any warning at all my husband was laid off from work until AT LEAST March.

They told him that due to the weather and lack of profit from last season, there wasn't enough work for him to do or enough money to pay him. When he told me that it took everything in me to not break down. I don't want him to see me panic because I know how shitty he's feeling already. They advised he sign up for unemployment. We've never had a reason to look into it before-he would only be eligible for $140ish a week. That is no where near enough for anyone to live on. So he left that website and began looking for job openings. We live in a relatively small town-unless you're a nurse or work in a phone center it is difficult to find work.  So he did what we've been discussing for months and called his dad about going to work with him.

FIL gave us a less than satisfactory response. FIL works with a corporate moving company. He makes in one week what Hubstache was making in a month. We had been discussing JT going to work there so that I could quit work sooner, but have been very hesitant in doing so because it would mean he'll be gone 3 weeks out of the month (if not months at a time). We've already discussed this with my in laws, but they don't want that life for us. There were times when FIL came home and JT and my SIL hid behind MIL  because they didn't recognize FIL. FIL told JT to take the week to look for a job and that if he was unsuccessful then he'd talk to his boss for him. I really wanted him to say to come to the office tomorrow, but no such luck.

I only 30 hours a week, we started reducing my hours in an effort to eliminate the need for my income entirely. I bring home a little more than $800 a month. My income only pays for gas, groceries, and other necessities outside of our monthly rent/bills. So now we're left with one income and no savings to speak off. All I can think about is the struggle my mother had when I was young, she never worked and has depended on a man her entire life. When they beat her up and left, the bills were shut off and we'd get evicted. That's a huge reason as to why I became @TheSpoiledWife 's unofficial foster sister ( there was never a change of custody or anything, but i moved in with her). I swore JT and I would never struggle like that. But here we are.

Our dreams of me being a SAHW within the next year are virtually non existent and our ttc efforts of 18 months are halted. I pray to the Goddess that this all gets figured out quickly. 

Mini Meltdown

     Those of you who follow my twitter will know that today I announced I was going to be taking a break, but it was short lived. Here's an explanation for why that happened:

       For the past few days I've been feeling very lonely. To be very honest my sister and husband are the only friends that I have in real life. I talk to people at work and people I sit with in my classes, but none of them are my friends. This loneliness made me begin to  think of a time in life when I wasn't so bereft of human contact. It led me to two occasions. When I was a member of the Christian Church and when I was with my ex. Mutual friends played a key role in keeping me under his control for so long. When JT finally rescued me from him, I lost all of my 'friends' as well. The same thing happened when I stopped going to church. Tonight I began to think that if I went back to a church then I would have more support, more real life connections. I was struggling though with how I could reconcile my beliefs and my skills as a witch with rejoining the church. All day I was unable to speak with my husband. When I finally could, he put everything in perspective for me, as I knew he would.

I'm a witch. I always have been and always will. None of those people were ever my friends because if they were, then they would still be here.

But what does that mean? How do I proceed from here? I'm not sure. I need to focus on making more real life connections and friendships though, otherwise I'm going to have a serious melt down. Wish me luck.

Blessings to you and yours.

Tread lightly

   I have always felt drawn to different aspects of paganism. Even when I was a devout member of the church, going 3 times a week, reading my bible every day, I still felt drawn to this magickal world. A world where I could control the outcome. A world where I was in charge of what happened and the Goddess and God were truly my friend. -Not to say I never felt the 'holy spirit', I felt joyous in gatherings when emotions were running high and everyone was praising the Christian God. I was often a feature worship dancer in the choir's cantata's. I was a leader in my youth group. I led children's church and planned mission trips.
    How is it that I left? Simple-people. At this point you may be saying how could people cause you to lose faith? How could you turn your back on God over a person?
    Everywhere I looked was hollow. The words spoke in the pulpit were filled with hate and misunderstanding of the true souls of mankind. People who Amen'd when guest pastors recalled how a teacher could be fired for being gay 'in his day'. How could I believe in the same deity that these people used to justify their hatred? I decided to take a break from my home church, visit some others, and go back when I felt like I was ready. By the time I went back though they had disowned me. Instead of welcoming me back and saying they missed me, they turned their back and dubbed me a sinner. Every church I found was the same way. So I started a journey, one that I have not yet finished,to find the deity that spoke to my soul.
     What I discovered is that all deity is the same. They are simple reincarnations of the same great being. At the heart of all teaching the commandment is clear-love. Be love and have love.
     However, magick is not acceptable by the Christian church. So where do I fit in? Longing to belong to a church, because in Appalachia that's just what you do. Especially if you're young and married. Longing to be apart of a group with the same religious faith and beliefs, but not willing to part with my Goddess. This is where I am in life. I am drawn to the same faith that would seek to burn me or hang me if they had the chance, all because of societal norms and conformity.

All I know for sure, is that all paths lead to the same place. Walk your path ever so gently and recognize that some have a more tumultuous journey than others. Be love and have love.