Vicarious Thoughts

My Quivers Full has a write up on her family’s Chore Chart method which I want to make a few notes on for future reference/ideas.

• In prominent place (on fridge) and easy to use (move from one side of the line to the other when complete)
• Chores portrayed using photos of area/object at home and written title
• Examples of chores: Make Bed, Brush Teeth, Clear table, Dishes to Kitchen, Dirty Clothes in Laundry, Pick Up Toys before Bed. (age appropriate)
• Add chore each year child gets older
• Optional Chores available for additional money earning (quality control in place) – otherwise set allowance
• Balance between getting paid for helping around the house and working together as a family
• Banked allowance into savings (by choice) is matched by parents

Guilt-Free Homeschooling has an interesting post about which Social Skills are important to teach a preschooler and offering ideas for instilling them in your child. By learning Social Skills your child should be on the front foot when it comes to that ugly word Socialisation. Carolyn includes ideas for: Patience, Sharing, Fairness, Sportsmanship, Appropriate Behaviour, Communication, Lengthening your child’s attention span, and Improving their Observation, Memory and Motor Skills.

Ragamuffin Studies has a post which I’ve taken a small snippet out of, as it is not the focus of the post (Moral Courage – which is really interesting in itself).

According to Dr. Kidder, there are five universal core moral principles. They are:

• honesty (a.k.a. truthfulness, integrity)
• fairness (a.k.a. justice)
• respect (tolerance and respect for self, family, others, and respect for life itself)
• responsibility (a.k.a. self-discipline)
• compassion (a.k.a empathy, mercy, love, generosity)

In order to behave ethically, a person must demonstrate all five of these.

and finally, Trinity Prep School has a summary of the value of Fairy Tales in your child’s life based on A Study of Fairytales by Laura Kready.  I’m going to be bad and post it here excluding the lovely quotes she’s also gathered regarding Fairy Tales as I needed a good reminder myself :

1. Fairy tales bring joy into a child’s life. Joy works toward physical health, mental brightness, and moral virtue. Joy is the mission of art and fairy tales are art products.
2. Fairy tales give the child a power of accurate observation.
3. Fairy tales strengthen the power of emotion, develop the power of imagination, train the memory, and exercise the faculty of reason.
4. Fairy tales are play forms. The fairy tale, because it presents an organized form of human experience, helps to organize the mind and gives to play the values of human life.
5. Fairy tales extend and intensify the child’s social relations. His sympathies are active for kindness and fairness, especially for the defenseless, and he feels deeply the calamity of the poor or the suffering and hardship of the ill-treated. He is in sympathy with that poetic justice which desires immediate punishment of wrong, unfairness, injustice, cruelty, or deceit.
6. Fairy tales introduce real literature to the young child, so that having enjoyed real literature, he will later be eager to satisfy his own desires.

Things you don’t hear too often (luckily) …. Police siren approaching then just after it goes past – the siren stops at the same time an almighty crunching sound is heard. Ran to the front gate expecting to see a mangled car against one of the gum trees – but it was only groinch of the car as it turned tightly and quickly into the driveway two doors down. Husband suggests we head back inside as other cop cars pull up and someone uses a megaphone to tell the driver of the car who pulled into the driveway first to get out of the car slowly etc etc.

Instead – the guy does a runner. Street was cordoned off for a couple of minutes – and now there’s just a cop stationed at the top of the street.

EDIT: 1/2 hour later and just heard 5 cars move to one location about two blocks from here. Hopefully they got the guy this time.

EDIT: 5 minutes later – spoke too soon. Looked out window and there’s a guy with a gun (armed offenders squad). Beautiful photo opportunity. He appeared to be just checking out the place – he’s now out the front and so is a dog handler. Pics or it didn’t happen applies I know – so pics have been obtained – not good ones though :P

EDIT: 15 minutes later? – Street is cordoned off – Guy is holed up in garage apparently with a firearm. Armed Offenders Squad has surrounded the place. Negotiation is underway but doesn’t seem to be going so well. (I think I’d get bored if I had that guys job). Keep missing the interesting pics.

EDIT: 4:30pm – Realised I forgot to mention this is happening two doors down. Negotiations still haven’t proceeded. Husband is out back grabbing pics of AOS on the roof of a nearby building.

EDIT: 4:45pm – Finally agreed to communicate – they’ve slung a phone line across our property and our neighbour’s for him. Wonder if he can make toll calls? Need to get a new camera – this one is too unresponsive when it matters and I don’t *think* it’s the operator.

EDIT: 5:00pm – So they go to the trouble of slinging this phone around the neighbourhood and now they guy won’t grab the phone and use it. I can see the negotiator clearly now – but it’s too dark. Feel sorry for these cops standing outside in the cold – was a nice clear sunny day with only a little rain so it’s probably gonna be bitterly cold again tonight.

EDIT: 5:30pm – Not much happening now since the guy finally retrieved the phone and then after taking a while to work out how to use this complex device … started talking to the negotiator on this. Hopefully the next update will be to say this interesting experience is over and things are back to normal. I wonder where my neighbours are?

Small bit of background detail – this started at 2:40pm (from my perspective) when I heard the police siren and the crunching noise.

EDIT: 6:30pm – It’s over :) – Guy came out and was taken away – dogs got overexcited as they do :) . Police are as you would expect quite tight lipped but did let us know there was a firearm involved and no one was injured. Sounds like the negotiator did a good job :) Extra supplies had just been brought in as they expected it to drag on into the night. It’s been raining on and off for the last hour.
Pics below – please note these were all taken surreptitiously so these are the best ones.

Posted this on an email group late last month and thought it was worth posting here for prosperity, since I don’t write informative posts very often.

Well, first off, I decided to do this because I wanted to consolidate as much as I could into my control journal, which I’m certain is a lot thicker than would be allowed by FlyLady! :P And I was tired of buying ephemeris, calendars and diaries – especially when they were often not in my timezone or were and weren’t detailed enough.
So I started scouring the internet looking for resources and I found these.

Swiss Ephemeris
http://www.astro.com/swisseph/ where I got for the Sun and Moon Signs and other planetary transits
http://www.astro.com/swisseph/ae/2000/d5ge1_2006.pdf
Those are in UT (universal time) so you have to make adjustments for your timezone and daylight time changes. I found out how they work out the dates for our daylight savings start and finish from our government website.

Then I went to http://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO/astronomical-applications (which is a brilliant site).
And after finding my latitude and longitude for the town I live in (Marton, New Zealand) via another search I grabbed the Sun Rise and Set and Moon Rise and Set (cause I might as well eh) from here http://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO/astronomical-applications/data-services/rs-one-year-world

Also grabbed the all important Moon Phases from here http://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO/astronomical-applications/data-services/phases-moon

And the solstices and equinoxes from here http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/EarthSeasons.html

Then I sat down with my printed out weekly calendar from http://www.diyplanner.com and my gel pens (gotta love’em) and started creating my ephemeris. Didn’t take me too long – I chose to go through each step entering it in before moving onto the next piece of information rather than trying to get all January done then Feb and so on.

I don’t have any aspects or their times written in cause I figure work with the basics first then after I understand them (probably a couple of years from now) I could move onto the aspects. I’m only new to astrology really and I wasn’t able to find a resource for Void-of-Course Moons, so that is also missing if it’s important to you.
I have a table showing the best times for particular types of spell/ritual work based on the moon sign and moon phase that I’ve also added and I’ve also added a table showing the best times to do things in the garden based on the moon sign and phase also.

Something else I learnt, if you have a Llewellyn’s Magical Almanac, the colours and incense mentioned each day are from a system created by Amber Wolfe detailed in ‘Personal Alchemy’ which I don’t believe is being published anymore. I personally haven’t seen Daffodil Incense in my travels anyway.

I like the result of my efforts – it has all the features I’d look for in an ephemeris with no extra “stuff” that I wouldn’t use.

Stolen from nemorensis

How To Behave as a God
Oberon Zell

No matter how we formulate our philosophy, the true test of our strength lies in our behavior; our ability to embody the principles we hold dear, and apply them in our daily lives to the building of relationships and community, the integrity of our actions, and the strength of character that inspires others to grow and transform the world around them. To these ends we advocate the following principles of behavior:

1. Be Excellent to Each Other! Thou art God/dess. To truly honor the Divinity within each other is to treat each other with respect, kindness, courtesy, and conscious consideration. This involves honest and responsible communication, including the avoidance of gossip and rumor-mongering, and the willingness to reach for understanding rather than judgment. Learn how to communicate in a positive, life-affirming way. We prefer to avoid us/them and either/or thinking, and to instead take an inclusive systems approach that sees the Divinity in all living things. To this end we also deplore coercive behavior that does not respect the free will of others. We prefer to lead, not by guilt
or coercion, but by inspiration and example; not only to be excellent to each other, but to strive for excellence in all our endeavors, no matter how seemingly insignificant. Tribal values we hold include Loyalty, Generosity, Fairness and Hospitality.

As Gods, we can no longer cling to outmoded, archaic identity labels. These would include racial labels (like black, white, yellow, red), ethnic labels, (Asian, African, Chinese, American etc., ) and even political labels (conservative, liberal, socialist, libertarian etc.). These labels may be useful to explain where we came from, but as Gods, we have transcended all these. We are Gods – a separate and unique race, culture and politic.

2. Be Excellent to Yourself! Again: Thou art God/dess. Divinity resides within as well as without, so how you treat yourself is how you treat that Divinity. Self-abuse, whether through irresponsible use of substances, overwork, self-denial, self-deception, or simply running those tapes that undermine self-esteem, are all insults to the Divinity within. Treat yourself kindly, with compassion rather than judgment, and it will be easier to treat others that way. Take care of your body, home and possessions, as a piece of Gaia that has been entrusted to you. Be a conscious guardian to the Temple and the God/dess within.

3. Honor Diversity! In Nature a diverse ecosystem has more stability. There are many styles of living and ways of living, each of which has something to offer to the overall puzzle of life. Be open-minded and receptive to new ideas because this usually manifests in growth of the spirit and the mind. Learn about differences rather than judge them. Be willing to explore others creative abilities to manifest a sense of well-being and confidence in their own Divinity. Sexism, racism, or rude remarks directed towards others sexual preferences; body type or personal habits (insofar as they do not harm others) have no place in this community. All life is sacred.

Once again, we can honor our BACKGROUNDS, but who we once were is not who we are now.

4. Take Personal Responsibility! (“With great power comes great responsibility!”) The necessary counterpart to individual freedom is the willingness to be personally responsible for all of our actions, and for our effects upon the planet. Only through the practice of personal responsibility can we become responsible collectively and live a life of freedom and maturity. We are not a religion of gurus, Mommies or Daddies who can tell you what to do. As a religion that respects equality, we must take equal responsibility for making things happen, preventing harm, or cleaning up mistakes. To this end we also advocate one of the principles taught in kindergarten: Clean up your mess!

5. Walk Your Talk! (and, talk your walk!) Talk is cheap. It is fine and well to proclaim to be a feminist or environmentalist, to preach heady Pagan gospel, or to play holier than thou. It is only in practice that words become Truth, and change becomes manifest. But do not be afraid to fail, for in order to grow, our reach must exceed our grasp, and it is through failing that we learn.

Multi God Practices

Major Excerpt from above, below:

Things I’ve learned working with multiple deities:

1) Don’t expect them to get along. Certain pantheons just don’t mix. If the religious tradition they come from doesn’t take well to outsiders, and isn’t historically syncretic, the odds on them even being on speaking terms with other pantheons.

2) If you “talk” with a mixed group, do it on “neutral” ground. Don’t expect one deity to be happy with getting dragged in to the “home territory” of another pantheon. Wars have been fough for less.

3) Ask them before you mix them in ritual, and make sure to check out the ritual with both (or more) before you start. Permission to call more than one is not a blank check. The ritual should be home written, and have elements sacred to both deities, or go strictly “vanilla”. Don’t drag a diety from Tradition A into completely foreign ritual from Tradition B. (Do not invoke happy fun Grandfather Coyote in a Dianic ritual to Isis!)

4) Some deities from even the same pantheons don’t mix well. Have courtesy, don’t use a blender. Don’t start or egg on fights. You life could be their chosen battleground. The one who loses most is you.

5) If you’re going to honor multiple trads’ deities, make sure to spend time with each according to their own rituals, not just in mixmaster mode. Those rituals are their home, and part of their power. The whys and wherefores of this are a matter of theory and debate, but it seems to prove out in practice.

6) If a deity says “not now, I’m busy”, accept it, and thank them anyway. They have more than just dancing attendance on you to deal with. If you are not their dedicant, and have no interest in being such, don’t expect them to drop their other priorities to come to your tea party. If you are their dedicant, realize that you aren’t the only one, and most gods expect you to stand on your own two feet, not run to them with everything (certain jealous desert gods being the exception to this.)

7) Don’t make promises you have no intention or mechanism to keep, and be sure to keep your promises. The gods have loooong memories for slights. If you make a promise and find yourself unable to keep it, don’t just blow it off, explain and apologize to the deity in question, and see if they will accept a different promise/action.

8) Don’t overcommit. Multiple patrons need to all agree with the arrangement, you, and each other. If you don’t keep this in mind, they’ll end up fighting over the shreds of you, and you will be torn apart from the inside out.

9) Spending time with and learning from a god does not mean a lifetime (or even long term) commitment. While you always need to give “tithe” (a term for the particular god’s price for the knowledge), don’t promise 10 years service for a brief conversation. While in general it’s better to have a god that may “owe” you, don’t assume how they will pay their debts/balance the scales. They are gods, after all, and what they may see as a boon may not be to you right now.

10) Gods are not simple. Their motives are complex, multileveled, and not human. While myth and lore may portray them as engaging in seemingly immature activities, realize that such things are often simplified in the telling, and you may not know the whole story. We won’t even begin to discuss demigods and other such beings.

11) Gods see time differently. They see things in terms of human lifetimes, or split seconds, their view of events is different. Dates tend to be “fuzzy”, unless you are very specific, and they use you for a clock.

12) Be careful what you wish for, you might get it, but with the god’s interpretation of what you wanted and/or needed. This is especially true if the god you asked is a trickster or a subtle sneaky type.

13) Making demands of random deities isn’t a good idea either. While some magical traditions “command and compel” demigods and other spirits, it’s not a good idea to try this with most gods.

14) A relationship with the gods is always give and take. The best way to avoid misunderstanding is to know yourself, your needs, your weaknesses, and the lore of the god in question. If you have this, there are fewer suprises.

15) Do not take up a relationship with a god because it seems to be the “in” thing to do. Be courteous, but you need not dedicate yourself just because some colleague or teacher pushes you into it. If a god calls you, you will know, and even then not all callings are for a lifetime. Again, know yourself.

16) You always have a right of refusal. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. If we had no free will, our value to the gods would be nothing. Be polite in your refusal, and be prepared for some very effective persuasion. Don’t slam the door shut on “later”, but be firm about what you want and need for now, and why a close relation with them is not part of it. Gods aren’t like human lovers. They understand waiting.

I wanted to do make my Mum a Memory Book for Christmas so I scoured the net for inspiration on how to start and found:
Make a Memory Book for Mum

But in the end, I didn’t want to take the chance of making her a book that she wouldn’t enjoy so I just made her a blank book, using the instructions found here:
DIY Planner – Bookmaking
I modified the spine so it is covered and doesn’t require decoration.

I also spent some time looking for DIY Gifts and came across these two sites, here and here.

So then I got sidetracked and did some research to get into journalling and found:

• 10 Ways to Create Content for your Weblog
• Joy of Journal Writing
• Found this image here
  

As I’m ever seeking the “perfect” planner, yesterday I came across this site that has free Tarot Templates – 5 of them in fact plus a plain lined page template. In 8½ x 11-inch page size which isn’t ideal for me but seems to be a relatively popular size for those in the DIY planner arena.

Speaking of DIY Planner – I was browsing their forums yesterday and came across a post about bags that interested me. Okay, so it was actually discussing Man-bags, but I figure with my love for compartments, pockets and closures, a bag styled for men is probably more me than the lovely leather bag I currently have that carts around all my stuff currently. Plus when I purchased it the store apparently forgot to tell me they’d thrown a black-hole in there as well.
So anyway, the post had me searching the web looking for the ultimate Me bag. Some of my issues are that I like to have a lot of stuff onhand and currently my planner doesn’t fit in my bag. However, big bags dwarf me as I have a small-boned figure. I think I need a tall rather than wide bag because of this. I also have small shoulders and shoulder straps don’t stay put most of the time even with the weight of my bag. This is especially so when I’m juggling a small child and assorted paraphenalia. I need my cellphone easily accessible and a place for my car keys which I can get to with ease. Currently, I either “lose” them in my bag pockets or in my own pockets and end up doing the frantic scrabble through the bag and/or slapping of my person looking for them next to the car – only to realise I’ve put them in the stroller cup holders!
I also want to be able to get into the inner compartment with once again – ease, yet still have that compartment protected from prying eyes and bad weather (thinking more wind than rain although they’re equally important.
So the results of the search are these.
Lewis N. Clark Bicentennial Travel Organizer – Whilst I like the tall shape, one fastener for the main flap and the promise of many, many pockets, the problem with this bag is that it is just too darn small for my needs. I liked the style so much that this lead me to a better match for me.

The Lewis N. Clark Bicentennial Travel Shoulder Bag – Still has a tall shape, the promise of many, many pockets, and a nice capacity. The problems for me with this bag is the two fastenings for the main flap, the lack of externally accessible pockets (despite the highly visible side bottle pockets which I’d be unlikely to use for that purpose), and the top handle being attached to the flap which if I picked up the bag when it was unlatched would gape unhandsomely.

I just sent this to an email group and thought I might as well post it here as well.

I’m a procrastinator from way back so I’ve had a lot of fun putting together my planner for the remainder of this year and all of next year. Just so you know, this isn’t me just going off the rails in a bid to get organised. I used to hate using a diary – and I’d often only use the first few weeks then my use of it would peter out but that’s all changed. Now, at the end of the year my diary always looks Used! The way I got into using them was at the end of high school – that year I had the usual notes from classes, Homework assignment instructions, Exam and assignment due dates, but then on every available space I would paste in a witty quote, a joke, grafitti from friends or a picture that inspired me (nothing deep, more along the lines of something I wanted to own) – but mainly the jokes. It was passed around the room in a boring lesson and it’s amazing it never got confiscated. I think it was that though that cemented my love for diaries – the ability to amuse another.

When I’ve used a planners I’ve always made it from an A5 Ringbinder. Coming from New Zealand, Letter and Legal sizes are a little foreign :P but A5 is a slightly fatter 1/2 Letter size and is about the same size but a lot thicker than the diary I would use otherwise. This means it’s easy to cart around and can be opened in front of you while sitting in the drivers seat of the car.

I thought I’d share the organisation of my planner for this year. I took the equivalent of a weekend to put this all together – including time cursing the printer for multiple paper jams. It’s roughly based on the one used at FlyLady.

1. Diary – This year I’m using a slightly modified template from DIY Planner (link below). I just made a few adjustments like removing the times from the boxes down the side of the page as I have very floating awake hours (generally 11am – 2am or thereabouts). I printed this out on old business runon pages and the paper was of a thicker quality. The entire diary printed out took up the entire ringbinder so I’ve only got 3 months in the diary at a time since I know that I only ever refer to previous dates for notes that shouldn’t be on a diary page anyway. This works fine especially with the other parts of the planner.
2. Daily – This is the section where I have my daily routines (courtesy of FlyLady)
3. Weekly – I have my fixed weekly schedule including those provided by Flylady once again.
4. Monthly – This is where I’ve made up for only having 3 months in the diary part of my planner. I have sub dividers for each month in this section and I rotate them so the current month is that the front. Within each month is a monthly calendar for at a glance needs. I also have my important dates list – with everyone’s birthdays and public holidays that don’t move. This way I can reuse the list next year with no problem (especially if you put in the year rather than the age of the event ie 1979 instead of 26th birthday. I also keep a blank page in each month so I can jot down notes quickly.
5. Projects – I use this a lot as I have much on my plate. I have 5 dividers in this section. Each indicates a project that I’m working on. For me, I’ve got one tab for each of my businesses, one for an ongoing work project, one for home, and one for short term events – like Christmas. Under each tab I have my lists of things to do – both shortterm and longterm and notes for ideas, products, information etc. At the front of this tab I’ve put a small stack of paper that I replenish every so often.
6. Not currently using this for anything.
7. This tab is labelled Food! In here I keep my meal plan for the week, and the recipes that go along with it. Perhaps I should quickly mention my meal planner – it’s very simple. I have a box each for 8 meals for the week (8 so I have 2 to fall back on – and one night is “can’t be stuffed cooking” night). 4 boxes for Dessert Ideas/Recipes, Breads to bake, Breakfast ideas, and Baking for the week. And finally at the bottom of the page I have a checklist to ensure the recipes have a bit of balance (I have a tendency to go for Carbs and Chicken!)
8. This is a bit of a hodge podge – just misc information that I can’t find another place for – but can’t chuck out yet. At the moment I have two pages in there, one has instructions on using our new phone system – which is designed for people with photographic memories and the other has okay … It has the coordinates for the town I live in, a login/pass for a website, and a quick family tree going back about 10 generations. Believe me, at the moment I actually use this information. When I look at it and go “Why?” then it gets biffed in the bin.
I almost forgot to mention, today I finally printed out a map of New Zealand, a local map and a world timezone map to add to this section.
9. Also not being used at the moment but Emergency Information is meant to go in here when I make time to write it out. The survival kit list, Emergency Numbers, Insurance Policy numbers – you get the drift.
10. The ultimate address book – once again more dividers for A-Z (in 12 dividers). Pretty self explanatory but I also keep bank account numbers for suppliers I deal with in here too.

Other parts of the planner are:
Bookmarks – one has Today written on it for the diary and the other just floats around depending on where I’m spending the most time.
Clearfile Sleeves (Page Protectors?) – I have these in each Projects section for misc bits of paper and receipts, and in the Food section for receipts.
Bags – not sure what to call these but they’re put out by the people that make Day Runners. A side sealable clear pocket that fits pens etc nicely.
Post-its – Taped to the inside front cover so I grab them when I need them.

One of the downsides to my planner is it doesn’t have all those cool pockets that larger sized planners do. I haven’t found an A5 portfolio that doesn’t have a 6-hole ringbinder attached. Another downside is the thickness of the paper I’ve used has meant the planner is a lot thicker than I would have liked.

Oh and just to be a bit out there and because I hate ringbinders normally for this reason – being left-handed I’ve made my planner open from the left instead of the right so in effect I’m working from the back of the ringbinder. Probably sounds really crazy so just ignore me :)

Finally, I thought I’d share links that I’ve discovered on my journeys. Please bear in mind that I’m coming from the perspective of running several home businesses as well as a household so some of them are more professionally-minded if that doesn’t offend anyone for me to say so.
http://www.diyplanner.com – I can’t recommend this site enough. They have a *lot* of templates that are adaptable and in different page sizes too!
http://www.flylady.net – Well I had to include this site eh.
http://shesorganized.com, http://organizedhome.com, http://organizedchristmas.com – separate sites but part of the same group, they all have something to offer.
http://www.lifehacker.com – There are some real organisational gems on this site.
http://members.tripod.com/~frankysj/org-00.html – some useful stuff here as well.
http://www.43folders.com – I guess you may have to go looking to find information that is useful to you but I found a couple of techniques that have helped me at work – and the comments from viewers are always eyeopening.

Think that’s enough from me for now?
If you have any questions, I’m happy to answer them.