When the news broke last week about the death of Antonin Scalia, I quickly saw my social media feeds explode with people happy with his death, and the political banter that a new judge should be appoint or not. I'm not going to get into the politics of this, nobody wins with that.
Back in 2006, I began a journey that I did not fully realize how it would shape my life. I started the Clergy Training Program of ADF. At that time, we really didn't have a program, we were using the Generalist Program as our first circle. Over the next couple years we added new circles, and then we rearranged the courses and added a few more. The program itself surely has changed since I first started working on it. I have survived these changes, and did get everything done to get the old version of the CTP completed before that was sunset...
Over the past two weeks or so, the topic of racism within the Neo-Pagan community has reared its ugly head again. A good article on this can be found here.
Kirk (the cat) has gone back to the vet today for a follow up to see how the drugs are working for him. I have to say, in the past couple weeks, he has become himself again. The inappropriate urination has stopped, and he's been more snuggly like he usually was prior to Christmas. Overall, he's back to what he was like... for better or worse. The goal of the vet visit was a heart rate between 120 and 160. It was around 150 when he was calm, and 180 when he was excited... not bad overall, especially considering he was at a place that makes him nervous.
Today we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr's birthday, which would have been his 87th. Today is a day we should be focused on the state of racism and bigotry in America as that is what King worked hard to get us past. So, how are we doing?
I have been living in my house now for about 11.5 years. That first year here, I had discovered a mouse in the house, only one, and I was able to catch it with a live trap. I released it out at the back of my property, and I never had another issue. Since that time, I have added a few cats to the family, 3 cats to be specific. I figured that I would never have mouse issues again as at least one of them would be a mouser. A couple months ago, I heard a commotion out in the kitchen, and found that in fact, my most docile cat, Epic, had found a mouse and had caught it.
So, trying my hand at making a pattern... this is the Questionable Content Worry Hat.
This hat is loosely based on the pattern by Alex Tinsley found at: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/worry-hat
When I went to knit this pattern, I found that it was to small for an adult head. I also wanted to add a black border to mimic the drawn border for the hat. So, I modified this pattern to make it more to my liking.
Last weekend was the Christmas holiday. I had plans to visit family and have a relaxing weekend. Instead, I had a cat that showed signs of distress, and been worried about him all weekend. What is wrong with the cat, and the root cause, is still up in the air, but the one thing we are sure of is that he developed a heart murmur in the last 4 months, and it's a significant one. He'll be on a platelet inhibitor (Plavix) and will get an echocardiogram in 2 weeks (first appointment I could get). Good thing I love the little devil as it's not going to be cheap.
We once again have traveled around the sun, and our northern reaches are pointing as far away form it as they can. This means we have just passed the longest night and will be having longer and longer days ahead of us. This is a time that we honor Suna and pray for her return. This is a time where we honor Odhinn and ask her but take us in his wild hunts. This is a time to spend with friends and family and to celebrate each other.
It is the ADF Election season again, and I'm just coming to process what has happened in the past 10 days. In what have turned out to be the final hours of the nomination window for ArchDruid, on Friday I was approached by Rev. Nancy McAndrew, without any prior communications on the whole AD election situation, and asked if I would run for ArchDruid. I will be frank in that I had no intent on running this year going into the election season, I was honestly not even looking at running for any office. I am though a big proponent for not having uncontested elections.