New years resolutions?

So I know this post is a bit early but I have been itching to write all day.  Before I really get into the new year I have something else I want to talk about.  

Chai tea....

I LOVE chai tea, but what is the secret?  Thanks to a fellow blogger I now have this recipe to make homemade chai tea.  Until I am motivated to make it though I settled for store bought.  Now I did this once before and was extremely disappointed.  I will admit I usually head to the coffee shop for my chai tea fix. This time I went the Celestial brand as I really do like their Sleepy Time teas, have since I was a kid and my mom would make it for me when I was sick.  Again I am not that impressed though.  The tea is so weak.  So I guess my question was what do you guys suggest?  Should I put more of the tea bags in the cup besides one?  Or just man up and buy the stuff to make my own?  

Well enough on that.

Oh look what I got for christmas!

This was my gift from my Mom for Christmas.  Now this is not my first tarot deck.  Honestly I have avoided the Rider-Waite deck every time I have gone out with the intention of finding a deck.  Its not that it gave me a bad feeling or that I think poorly of it.  In fact I could always pick it out right away in the shelves of displayed decks.  But I always turned away from it convinced I would find something else that would speak to me more.  I have no idea why I did this since just about everyone has said it is a great deck to have when learning tarot.  I am also extremely picky.  

I only have four decks though I am always on the look out for one that may stand out to me.  I have the Rumi Tarot which is the green deck on the bottom left corner in the picture above.  I have to admit I loved this deck when I saw it.  The art spoke to me more than anything.  I find it extremely hard to work with though.  I can count on one hand how many times I have used this deck.  

I also have the Dream Enchantress deck which is the deck in the bottom right corner.  I love this deck I found it on a whim in a little gothic knick-knack store while in Downtown Silver City.  I have used it a lot.  It is a very feminine deck to be honest.  I think only two or three males are actually presented in the deck.  

The Universal Tarot deck was a gift from a new found friend.  She was setting up a booth in an antique store a few months ago when I met her, ironically during Lughnasadh.  I will be honest I think she read me right then and there as I walked up.  Because she started handing me things that she "thought" I would like without me really having to say anything.  Some of it I bought and other things she simply gave to me.  I was pleasantly surprised and felt a little guilty for the gifts.  So I invited her over for oatmeal cake. =)  I have yet to use the deck but I do plan to.

Well and you all know when the Radiant deck came from.

I don't do a whole lot of tarot reading.  I would like to don't get me wrong.  I think a major part of it is I need to trust myself more.  There is always the hesitation and doubt in the back of my mind.  Even when it is just me alone working with them.

So new years resolutions.  I have never really been one who actually practices this.  I guess I am in the boat that thinks that it is just something to set myself up for failure.  I usually just take some time to mediate and reflect on the past year and more importantly the present.  This year that is more true than ever.  For those of you who have read my recent posts I am sure you remember me mentioning that I had a feeling this new year would bring huge change into my life.  Well it certainly is.  I will talk more about it when things are set in motion.  Not too much for personal reason though which I know all of you can respect.  A lot has already changed some of it very good and some very bad.  Talk about all that another day as it will be a long post.

So one thing I am going to do for 2014 is make a reading list.  Some of you might think its a little cheesy but the thing is I have this nice stack of books of a metaphysical genre and have yet to read any of them in their entirety.  Some of these were gifts others I bought.  I would love to hear your opinions if any of you have read any of these.  Or if you have better suggestions I am all ears!  Some of these I wouldn't have picked out myself for example the bottom two but I will read them none the less.  

So I guess this is just one of the small things I have planned for the coming year.  Tarot sort of ties it self into this reading list I think.  =)

Well I guess that is all for now.  I hope all of you are enjoying your weekend.  

-Nadine

A list of the books and authors top to bottom for those who can't see the picture that well....

Celtic Magic part of Llewellyn's World Magic Series by D.J. Conway

How to Use Tarot Spreads, Answers to Ever Question by Sylvia Abraham

The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Edward Waite

Guide to the Rumi Tarot by Nigel Jackson

The Magical Household, Spells and Rituals for the Home by Scott Cunningham and David Harrington

Natural Magick the Essential Witch's Grimoire by Sally Dubats

Old World Witchcraft, Ancient Was for Modern Days by Raven Grimassi

Tarot Get the Whole Story by James Ricklef

The Witch's Guide to Life by Kala Trobe

Grimoire for the Green Witch by Ann Moura

Ahhhh blergh-ffff!!!

So it is 7:34 A.M. at this moment.  This may not be so early to some of you but for me on a non working day its toooooooooo early.  So why am I up?  Well my side decided that it was necessary to make sure I would regret the decision to get a midnight snack last night.  See Christmas for us is usually a day where we eat dinner at like.... noon.  That way we have the rest of the day to sit there in a nice food coma, much like Thanksgiving.

So when midnight last night rolled around and both my boyfriend and I were still up laying in bed we decided to heck with it and went and got McDonalds.  Yes even I scrunch my nose as this since I do really think the place is icky.  But it is also fast and cheap.  I even made sure to get a chicken sandwich so I didn't feel too horrible about it.  Never the less around... 4:30 - 5 A.M. I began to roll around unable to get comfortable or fall back asleep.

..............and now my boyfriend just walked into the living room proclaiming that he can't sleep without me in there.  Have to admit this made me smile..........

Back to the story....

Rolling around at 5 o'clock this morning.  You think I would have learned by now that this is a sign that in a hour or so I would soon be in pain.  For those of you who don't know I have gallstones.  So the consumption of anything sweet, fatty, acidic, or you know too tasty, in large quantities is not a good idea for me as it will cause my gallbladder to produce more bile for my stomach to break down the food in turn stirring up the stones and making it more likely for one to get stuck in the the tube which is then very painful until it works it way out.  It also causes me to sometimes be physically sick for hours on end which can sometimes be worse than the pain.

At least that is how I understand it.

So the holidays can sometimes be my worst enemy.  I really should have watched how much chocolate I ate out of my stocking. Its really my own fault.  It can be a bit frustrating sometimes though as I will go months with nothing happening despite the fact that I may not always be watching everything I am eating and other times I could have a salad for breakfast, lunch and dinner and then that night I am in pain.

That's the other weird thing.  My side never hurts during the day.  Only after 4 o'clock in the morning will it start to act up.

Well anyways it really is my fault I need to be more careful as this is a very serious issue.  If my gallbladder were to become infected I would have to go in for surgery immediately as it could start to affect my liver.  Sometimes I wish for infection so that they will just take it out.  To have it removed on my own I have to go through the run around of our amazing medical system.  See a specialist that is going to tell me all the things that I already know.....

You know I think that I have made this complaint before..... maybe even on here. O.O

Ok ok I won't complain anymore.  I guess I just got bored since I am now wide awake.  Thankfully in the time that I started to write this post my side has slowly stopped hurting though I still feel like I am going to barf my brains out.  I honestly think it is the pain medicine that does it.  I really don't like to take it but sometimes the pain kicks my butt and I turn into a baby and just want it to go away.

Well I won't whine to you guys anymore.  I think I will go try to lay back down.  Wait for the nausea to pass.  Maybe if a little bit later I feel a little better I will get up and enjoy a nice cup of sugar free tea.  The hot liquid always makes me feel a bit better.  I usually like raw sugar with hot tea but on nights like this I go without.  Not as enjoyable but still very soothing.

Well I hope you all have a wonderful Thursday.  Best of wishes.

-Nadine

Cookies cookies and more cookies!

Well I got all of my baking done this weekend.  My little sister came and spent two days with me and devoted the majority of the day to making cookies.  We did make the homemade hot cocoa I mentioned before and it was AMAZING!  For those of you who like the bitter taste of cocoa I would definitely recommend it.  Of course you can add sugar to taste but both my sister and I are weirdos and enjoy that bitter taste and didn't add too much sugar between the two of us.  We did however use what was left of the heavy cream I bought to make some homemade whipped cream and added it to our hot drinks which helped make a perfect balance of sweetness and bitterness.  It was so easy to make as well.  

2 tbsps of cocoa powder (I have hershey cocoa)
Half a cup of heavy cream
Half a cup of milk
Sugar to taste

SUPER SIMPLE recipe right?!  Who would have thunk. ;) TAA-DAA we have hot cocoa.

Made for a great morning of relaxing.

After we relaxed we got busy.  We ended up making these.... hershey kiss peanut butter thumb print cookies, chocolate chip cookies, and sugar cookies.  Was a ton of fun.  It took us a little bit to figure the oven out.  First time I have baked anything in it and well.... I am used to 'old, don't work so well' ovens.  This one on the other hand cooks really hot so we had to play with temps before we got it right and it stopped burning the bottoms of the cookies.  I love the sugar cookie recipe that I found as well.  I don't know about anyone else but I hate hard dry sugar cookies.  These turned out just right though.

While we made cookies we of course had to watch Christmas movies.  So we watched Dr. Suess's How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Miracle and 34th Street (my favorite), Frosty the Snowman, and The Santa Clause.  Glad that I was able to send out plenty of plates this year to friends and family.  Of course I had to send one home with Cait for her and Mom.

Then I drove one over to my friends Josh and Tiffany.  On the way there I was run off the road by a small fire truck.  No they didn't have their lights and sirens on.  They just decided they needed my lane more than I did.  I am fine though and so is my car, was just a bit of a scare.

I also found super cute plates for the cookies at the dollar store.  Plastic of course, but I thought they were perfect and added I bit of the holiday spirit to the gift.

Yesterday was a good day at work too.  It was my job to keep the kids out of the house the majority of the day that way Mom could get presents wrapped and hidden.  So I took them to see Frozen which I thought was super cute.  Then we went to McDs not the healthiest but eh.  They played in the play place forever but I ended up getting frustrated with... unattended children and a lack of parenting.  I know, I know I shouldn't judge but sometimes I wish desperately that parents would make their children mind.  So we left and I took them to the park where we spent nearly three hours which makes me feel less bad about them eating fast food. Lol

I was also happily surprised to receive a Christmas present from my employer as well. Homemade cookies and some beautiful flowers.

Well that is all for now.  I hope that all of you are having a wonderful week and enjoying your Christmas Eve.

Have a Very Merry Christmas Everyone!

-Nadine

Just saying hi...

So is everyone else ready for Christmas?  Yeah... I'm not either.  Ha ha.

I can't believe how fast this month has gone by.  I feel like it was just yesterday that my house was crowded with Thanksgiving visitors.  I have to admit this Christmas will be a bit different for me.  My sister will be spending her holiday break with her father so she won't be here.  We don't really have any plans for Christmas other than dinner with my Mom.  Unfortunately my boyfriend.... (really should find something I can call him here since I will probably mention him every so often.) volunteered to work Christmas Eve and Christmas day.  He had the Thanksgiving holiday off so he is working Christmas.  So it will be my Mom and I.

Guess again it doesn't really feel much like Christmas.  I am excited none the less.  There is always something so nice about waking up on Christmas morning and enjoying the atmosphere that the holiday brings.  I will definitely be making myself, and friends some Christmas treats (since I am too broke for presents) and will also be enjoying some homemade hot cocoa.  I have never actually made actual homemade hot cocoa but I found a simple enough recipe on yummly.com (love this site, if you love to cook I recommend it.)  Anyways if any of you have a hot cocoa recipe you enjoy feel free to share it.

Oh!  Almost forgot to mention.  I had to the worst scare when I got on to blogger a few minute ago.  Went to my dashboard as usual and it was empty.  My list of blogs I follow was completely gone.  In its place was a simple message about how I can start a reading list of my favorite blogs.  For a second I really thought that they had erased my list and that I was going to have to hunt everyone down all over again.  After a few clicks of the refresh button though my list came back and I was able to relax.  lol

One more thing I wanted to ask.  My boyfriend and I have decided that we are going to start watching our red meat intake.  We both work full-time and have quite a drive to work from the house.  By the time we get home it is hard to get motivated to cook.  So for a while there we both got into the habit of just grabbing fast food.  Lots of soda and lots of burgers.  So we are both trying to quit drinking soda.  Needless to say our house is full of juice now.  Yes I know you have to be careful even with juice but we both agreed we needed to replace the soda with something.  Off track... anyways sorry... so like I said we are trying to watch our red meat intake.  So we have chicken and fish (cod to be exact, I still need to do the main shopping tomorrow) in the freezer right now.  But if I could get some dinner ideas that would be great. So far we both have thought of chicken alfredo, and chicken breast with like veggies... that's about all we got lol.

Well that is it for tonight I hope that you guys are having a great week.

-Nadine

Feedspot?

So this will be just a quick little post since I am currently using my phone.  I just had a question for all my fellow bloggers.  Has anyone heard of feedspot.com?  Or has anyone else received an email from Anuj?  I received an email today and it said that feedspot is a google reader replacement or something of the sorts.  And that my blog "Here In A Fairy Sigh" can be seen there and they have taken notice that I am getting more followers.  27 to be exact.  I was too suspicious of a scam to try clicking on any of the links they provided to view anything.  Guess I am just curious if this is legit?  If anyone else knows any information about it I would really appreciate it if you shared it with me.  Hope you all are having a great week so far.  I am enjoying some down time while the girls are napping.  Anyways will post again soon.

-Nadine

The Holiday Spirit?

Well I have spent the last hour reading many post about the holiday, Christmas gifts, snowy weather.  I will admit I can't help but be jealous.  It is still beautifully sunny here in the valley and we are looking at a week where the weather will stay around the 70s.  It is hard to imagine that Christmas is a mere 10 days away.  Despite the fact that I am always the first person to complain when it is cold I wish it was snowing outside.  I want a day where the air is crisp and I can wear a big over sized sweater, fuzzy socks, and snuggle down under a blanket with a good book and a hot drink.  Maybe have some of my favorite Christmas music playing quietly in the background.

Yeah I know I am an uber dork.  Can't help myself though.  I can't really remember the last time I had a "White Christmas".  Always thought one day I would move somewhere that it actually snowed.  Then I also think about things like blizzards, being snowed in, and driving in the snow, all that stuff that could also come with the snow.  I have actually driven in the snow and it is definitely not my most favorite thing to do.  In fact I hate it lol.

Anyways, I am enjoying my day off.  As a nanny now I get to have to the weekends off though that will soon change when my employer gets her new schedule.  Either way I have spent most of my day being lazy and ignoring the dishes in the sink that are calling my name.  I am in a creative mood.  I have an itch to write or bake something.  Really I would love to bake something but I have found one of the joys of moving out of your parents house is you realize all the small things they have that come in handy and now you don't have.  Like spices.  I never really noticed how expensive spices are until Thanksgiving.  I wanted to make a homemade New York style pumpkin cheese cake but it would have killed my bank account to buy all the spices I would have needed in one go.

Now I find myself with the same dilemma cookies sound amazing but I don't have a single thing to make any kind of cookie.  Thinking with my next pay check after buying necessary groceries I will pick up some stuff to make gingerbread cookies.  If anyone knows of a good recipe or good tips please share it with my as this will be my first attempt at gingerbread cookies.

Well that is all that is really going on here for the day.  I hope the rest of you are enjoying your weekend.

-Nadine

I suppose apologies are in order?

So for those of you are following me... I am sure you have noticed that I disappeared and may have come to the conclusion that I would never return.  But here I am.  So I want to apologize to my 20 followers, I was so excited when you all made the decision to follow me and I feel I have probably let some of you down.  No real excuse for my disappearance.  Life just happened I suppose....

I think a part of it may have been my job at first.  As some of you may remember I was not happy at all working at Sam's Club.  It went from bad to worse I am sorry to say and I personally think if I had written often my dislike for my job would have been frequently mentioned.

A lot has happened this year...

I did eventually quit working for Sam's Club and started working for Safeway.  It was... an experience?  I started working in the bakery as a Bakery Clerk with the hope of eventually becoming a Cake Decorator.  I cake decorated for a total of one week and then spent the rest of my time there mainly working from the hours of 1 a.m. to 9 a.m. as a donut fryer.  Horrible horrible horrible...  I have never really considered myself much of a social person but working by myself in the middle of the night while at first wasn't that bad soon became something I hated.  No one to talk to and what little social life I did have went right down the drain.  I would sleep all day because I worked all night which my body was not liking at all.  Then when I did work during the day I almost missed working the night because my co-workers were so negative that it made me sick and depressed.

Moving along though...

I recently quit working for Safeway I am happy to say.  Now I am a nanny full-time and I love it.  I have to admit I never thought it would be something I would go back to.  I used to babysit a lot as a teenager but well that is what you do when you are a teenage girl you babysit.

Here I am now as a full-time nanny for one family and I couldn't ask for more in a job.  The family is great, they have 4 kids who are all adopted and amazing. 2 boys and 2 girls.  For the safety of the family I will not name names but they are a great family.  I am really happy with my decision to quit my job at Safeway and make this happen for myself.

On another happy note I am also with someone who I will also keep anonymous as he has requested it.  I didn't really expect it to happen that is for sure.  We have been together for a while now though and I am still just as happy as when we first started hanging out.  While we butt heads, and to be honest have polar opposite interests, we click?  He's an oddball but I like it.  =]  He is also probably the main other cause for my disappearance.  We met before we moved to our new apartment which is across town from where we used to be.  So when we moved all my free time went to mainly driving to his side of town and spending time with him.  It was even harder when I started working nights.  It has all worked itself out though.

So that is all I have to write for now.  I am hoping (though I will not make a promise) that I will be on more often, posting more often to be exact.  Despite my lack of writing I have been keeping up with many of the blogs that I follow.

Hope I will see you all soon,
Nadine