Buttercups amongst weeds

Above: a little buttercup in the undergrowth.

Well, friends, it's a bit of a weird day already...

I took the long weekend off to attend the Fox's grandma's memorial gathering and family get-together, which is happening today and tomorrow. So I have four days off in a row -- yay!

However... we won't be able to go to the memorial. The Fox's vertigo is so bad today (it's been bad all week for whatever reason) that he cannot even stand up, and when I kneeled down to see how he was doing, I bumped the couch lightly and that small movement sent him into a spiral of dizziness.

(Yeah, and the government thinks that this is someone who is able to work...?)

Since the memorial gathering is being held at a riverside about 2 hours worth of a drive from here, and car rides (especially extended ones) make the condition worse, well... he couldn't realistically do it, not without an extreme amount of discomfort and probably some extreme motion sickness, which would make it impossible to get anything out of the event at all, so there was no point.

I know he's disappointed, and I feel helpless because I can't do anything about it. I know that there are worse things in the world than vertigo, but it's pretty bad when you can't even attend your grandmother's memorial. He was really close to her, too, so that just makes it feel worse for him.

There is a family brunch tomorrow at his parents' place to further celebrate her life, so I'm hoping that he'll improve enough to attend that one, but I am not sure. I gave him a maximum dose of Gravol (which is the only drug that does anything about this vertigo) and it didn't even do anything. :(

Now I'm kind of just sitting here wondering what to do! Don't get me wrong, it's nice to have some time off to myself, but I would rather be helping the Fox pay tribute to his grandma.

I think, to cheer myself up a bit, I will go for a walk in the woods today. I should also go grocery shopping, as we have no food in the house...! So, I guess those can be my tasks today. I have a headache owing to lack of sleep, as the poor Fox was bumbling around in the kitchen very early this morning...! I think I'll treat myself to some sort of sugary latte from Starbucks before I go anywhere else...

In brighter news, I have finally finished (I think) an illustration I've been working on for weeks! I am not sure if I want to do anything more to the background, though. On one hand, I don't want to distract from the main figure, but on the other hand, I do want to give him some context. I might scan it as it is now and then digitally play around with some different options to see how it would look before doing anything more to the physical piece.

It's a storybook-style illustration of a character I developed based on a song -- Uncle Rat, as performed by the Irish band Danu. I have always loved the song and have had the idea for a while now to make a little series of illustrations based off it, possibly to compile into a book or maybe just for fun. Either way, it'll go into my portfolio (which I would like to try and fill up with similar illustrations). The song itself is a little-known version of the more well-known Froggie Went A-Courtin'. It's a really old folk song, actually, and there are a million different versions! But Uncle Rat is the one I like.

I might upload it here, or at least provide a link for those of you who don't know where to find my art. :) I've been keeping this blog slightly anonymous and separate from the rest of my online presence, just because I tend to get things off my chest here and I don't want certain people that I sometimes rant about to read it and get mad at me... haha. Also it's kind of fun to have a "secret" blog...

Let's see... so I still haven't found a family doctor, as that clinic hasn't bothered to call me back yet. I should call them today. I am not sure about the celiac thing. I have a feeling that if I just ate better in general and got enough sleep I would feel loads better! But, like I said before, ruling it out would be good.

Pagan stuff: we had a great meeting last week, but I was so very exhausted afterwards. I'd had a lot to do that week already, I think, and because I had offered to give one of our members a ride, I had to drive for a while to go pick her up and then take her home again afterwards -- and the meeting ran late, so by the time I took her home and got back to my own home it was after 11pm. I was so exhausted, I fell into bed... but then, my allergies decided that was a perfect time to make my sinuses and nose completely blocked. Seriously, it was like a cement block up in there. I could not breathe through my nose at all. And that kept me up most of the rest of the night. By the time my alarm went off at 4:45am I felt like a truck has run over me.

I am not sure whether it was a combination of allergies, exhaustion, and the ladytime symptoms that had also decided it was a perfect moment to grace me with their presence... or whether I'd actually contracted some sort of cold/flu, but either way there was no way I could make it out the door, so I called in sick. A shame, but it was necessary. I was worse than a zombie!

So that was too bad, but the meeting itself was very good. The lady I gave a ride to was so grateful that I was able to get her, as she hasn't been to a meeting since last year owing to her health conditions and mobility issues. She was very happy to get out and be involved in something again, I think. I have plans to hang out with her sometime in the next little while, as I offered to help clean up her apartment. I want to help out because she's been stuck on her own for ages, and I feel like if we were a church congregation, someone would offer to help out... so why shouldn't I? Our group is pretty small, but we should support each other when we can, I think.

Anyway, we talked about a lot of things at our meeting, and it was held in the Sanctuary of the Unitarian Church instead of the smaller Fireside room that we usually occupy, so it was an interesting change. It's a beautiful space, and the late sunlight was filtering in gorgeously.

I still feel like I need to practice more of the practical stuff on my own. I'm now ok with performing some of the aspects of a ritual, like calling a direction or casting the circle, but I still feel odd about doing it by myself. I did do myself a tarot reading last week, though, which was good. I'd like to practice enough with those so that I can start to offer readings to other people. Whether for fun or for extra money. My philosophy with the tarot is not that they are a fortune-telling device. I don't use them to "see into the future", because I think the future is continually shifting, especially our personal futures... they aren't set in stone, because we have the ability to change our lives (to some degree).

For me they're more of a way to explore the sub-conscious and reveal things that we know deep within our hearts but might not want to face or that seem hidden from us. For example, my reading I did last week I focused on a certain question: Where should I concentrate my efforts, on my eventual return to school and medical career, or on my art?

I did a simple 7-card spread that was suggested by one of my tarot books, and as I looked at the cards and looked up their meanings and symbolism, I found them to say that I should focus on using my creativity and passion. I got two fire-element cards in the position that was about "aspects of my personality that would help in this situation." The fire element represents creativity, passion, energy, motivation, and the heart. Therefore, I deduced that, to best use my effort and time, I would pursue my art. Not that I was planning to give it up or anything, but I was just sort of wondering whether I should focus more on the schooling that I'm still planning to take.

Speaking of that. I called up both of the schools for which I am on waiting lists. The one that is actually in my city informed me that I likely wouldn't get a spot until 2018. Argh!! I've already been on the list for, well, I think it's been a year already. Three years to wait just to get into a program is pretty unbelievable, especially when the program itself is only 6 months in length. You'd think they would dedicate more resources to such a popular program... anyway...

Luckily the other school was more promising, but this is the one that is on the island, meaning I would have to move there for at least 9 months. Which is actually fine with me. The Fox and I would potentially like to live on the island in the future, so why not base my career there in the first place? The only potential drawback to that would be if the Fox gets a techie job over here, which he has been working on doing. He went to a job fair last weekend and got some new leads which he is following up on, and I think there's another one next weekend.

So if he's working here, and I get into school on the island, that might be difficult. I've already thought of a potential solution though -- one of my best friends lives there, with her husband, in an army house with several bedrooms. I have asked her if I could potentially live with them for 9 months (that's the length of this program), and she said that would probably be fine. They've already had one of her other friends stay with them for a while, so they're obviously not opposed to roommates. Plus, since this program is part-time, I would be able to find a part-time job and pay them some sort of rent. Whereas the program here is full-time, and if the Fox still doesn't have a source of income by the time I get accepted, then I don't know how we would pay rent.

So, it's all a bit up in the air right now. The island school said that I probably wouldn't get a spot this September but it looked good for next year. I've already bought my FaerieWorlds ticket for this September, hahah, so maybe it's good that it will be next year. Though I'd like to get it done as soon as possible so I can stop working retail.

This has been quite a lot of babbling... my head is hurting more, so I think I better go and get that coffee and fresh air now. Urgh.

Sorry for the somewhat incoherent post. I guess I'm a little distraught over the whole memorial thing. It sucks to have plans ruined by illness at the last minute -- sucks more for him than me, though, so I need to cheer up and be positive so I can help him get past it.

Til next time, hail and farewell, readers!