Give your mom a Very Happy Mother’s Day!

Diane and Mom 11-24-09

Happy Mother’s Day!
She was there when you were ill,
there to comfort you.
She was there for that first step, first book, first date,
there to cheer you on.
She was there to teach you things,
there to help you up when you fell.
Now, she waits for you to be
there for her.

 

The Earth is our Mother, we all live on Her!

Earth from space, ain’t she beautiful?

A bit of the history of Earth Day from our friends at Care2.com: “Unlike the first Earth Day in 1970, the 20th anniversary in 1990 became a huge event thanks in part to greater television and radio coverage and a multimillion dollar budget. More than 200 million people in 141 countries participated helping to lift environmental issues onto the world stage. Earth Day 1990 helped pave the way for the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.”

May your joys be many,
may you soak in the light,
may the flowers in your garden bloom,
sweet and bright.

Happy Earth Day!
Diane T. and furfamily

Today is Imbolc (Lady Day or Feast of Brigid)….February 2nd

Have a Sprightly Imbolc (Lady Day or Feast of Brigid)….February 2nd

Imbolc, pronounced: EE-Molc, (is an old Celtic name).
Incense: Rosemary, Frankincense, Myrrh, Cinnamon
Decorations: Corn Dolly, Besom, Spring Flowers
Colours: White, Orange, Red

This holiday is also known as Brigid’s (pronounced BREED) Day. One of the 4 Celtic “Fire Festivals. Commemorates the changing of the Goddess from the Crone to the Maiden and celebrates the first signs of Spring.

This is the seasonal change where the first signs of spring and the return of the sun are noted, i.e. the first sprouting of leaves, the sprouting of the Crocus flowers etc. In other words, it is the festival commemorating the successful passing of winter and the beginning of the agricultural year. This Festival also marks the transition point of the threefold Goddess energies from those of Crone to Maiden.

For more information, go to the source: http://www.thewhitegoddess.co.uk/the_wheel_of_the_year/imbolc.asp

Have a Hopi Holiday!!!!!!!!!!!

Have A Hopi Holiday!

It is true, much time has passed,
a year has flown away.
The season changes colors,
with red, greens and gold,
the festival of lights hold sway.


Yuletide is upon us, time to think of friends,
to be thankful for all of
our lucky happenstance.
To remember good times
in grateful abundance.


I wish you all a Heartfelt Holiday,
no matter what you are calling it,
anyway!
Be it a Holy Hanukkah,
a Spiritual Soyal,

a Captivating Christmas,
a Kickin’ Kwanzaa, or
the most wondrous
Winter Solstice!

 



If you live in Australia,
it’s summer solstice,
the longest day of the year.
If you live in the northern climes
the night is longest here.

 

But no matter where you are,
whether
planetside
or
star……

All I could wish for you
is
peace
(internally),
and a larger worldwide view!

By Diane Tegarden (c) 2007

I’m dreaming of a GREEN Christmas!

I’m dreaming…of a GREEN Christmas!

Here are three Green tips for your holidays:

* In the U.S., annual trash from gift-wrap and shopping bags totals 4 million tons.
Green it: Use gift bags, which can be saved by the recipient and used time and time again. Or, wrap your gifts in scarves, which can also be part of the gift.

* The 2.65 billion Christmas cards sold each year in the U.S. could fill a football field 10 stories high. If we each sent one card less, we’d save 50,000 cubic yards of paper.
Green it: Send all your online friends and family free ecards from JibJab.com, myfuncards.com, amerciangreetings.com or punchbowl.com, to name a few.

* Each year, 50 million Christmas trees are purchased in the U.S. Of those, about 30 million go to the landfill.
Green it: Buy a living tree and replant it in your yard after Christmas, or in your local mountains or parks. Or, get a fake tree and use it year in and year out. If you miss the smell of a pine tree, get a big pine-scented candle and burn it to release the smell of pine into your home.

* If you have people on your list who “have everything” consider making a donation to their favorite charity in their name and do everyone involved a world of good!
Green it: Send the donations to animal shelters, National Resource Defense Council (NRDC), or your favorite environmental advocacy group!

The above statistics* were found at the Recycleworks website, however the suggestions on Greening it are all mine!!!

Lighting the Yule log….

Let us pause to consider the meaning of winter solstice, it is the shortest day of the year and the longest night. A time to pause and look back at the last year and savor its good, to reflect on what we could have improved upon, and to be thankful the light will survive and revive.

May you light the Yule log with ones you hold dear,
and celebrate happiness and health all through the next year.
May the long winter night be passed in warmth and good cheer,
for it’s time to remember the past and bring your brighter future near.

Blessed Beeees,
Diane T. and furfamily

Blessed Be this Hanukkah week….

To honor the eight-day oil miracle, Jewish families light one candle for each night of Hanukkah every night – one candle on the first night, two candles on the second night, and so on. A nine-branch menorah holds all of the candles, with the ninth candle used to light the other candles.

In addition to the lighting of the menorah, other traditions include spinning the dreidel, eating oily foods, and giving gifts and Hanukkah gelt. The dreidel, a four-sided top with the Hebrew letters “nun,” “gimel,” “hey” and “shin,” is spun by family members to determine how many nuts, raisins, tokens, or chips are won based on the value assigned to each letter. Nun is nothing, gimel is all, hey is half, and shin requires the player to add a token into the pot.

Live Christmas tree or fake Christmas tree; which is better?

Here’s some information I’d like to share about the live Christmas tree vs. the fake Christmas tree debate.

We have over 20 large trees on our property already (many of which we planted, including two Christmas pines). Now that we don’t have any more room for trees, we contacted the City of Pasadena about replanting a live Christmas tree anywhere in the city. They kindly refused saying that they were concentrating on “planting only indigenous trees” so that the water consumed by the new trees would be less than non-indigenous trees (like the huge pines). We called conservation groups, the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts, all had run into the same restrictions. So, if we do get a live tree, where will we plant it after Christmas?

My homemade cranberry sauce recipe for the holidays…….

My homemade cranberry sauce recipe for the holidays…….

I use three bags of fresh cranberries washed and rinsed, add fruit juice to about 1 inch below the top of the big pot I make it in, add a couple handfuls of nuts, sometimes a handful of raisins, shred some fresh orange rind in it, add a bunch of cinnamon and brown sugar and honey to it and then let it come to a low boil.

I then stir and boil it some more, making sure to squish or “pop” all the cranberries as it’s brewing. Keep adding sugar until it tastes semi-sweet (don’t want it to be too sweet), and then let it cool. Mine comes out kinda slushy, not in jellied form, like the canned cranberry sauce, but everyone in my family raves about it. Can be served with traditional turkey dinner, delish with ham and served over waffles and pancakes too!

Hugs, Diane T. and furfamily

Finally…it’s Halloween!

Here’s a poem I wrote, inspired by the holiday….

The Witches’ Cauldron
by Diane Tegarden

A writer is a witches’ cauldron,
full of toil and trouble.
And as a poem comes to mind,
the pot begins to bubble.

It starts out as a single thought,
rising to the surface.
Then faster, faster they roil up,
til all boils at a purpose.

When it is finished, the story told,
you’ve no more to do.
The battle settled, your reward won,
until it starts anew.