Full Moon – Blood/Ancestor Moon Crests (with BONUS Lunar Eclipse)

In keeping with how things have been going, blog-wise, of late: This post should have gone up four days ago. bear with me.
 
I know. There’s a whole Thing about how you’re not supposed to lament about your lack of posting on your blog because the people who don’t care will now be aware of it, an the people who do care will just be glad that you’re posting again. None the less, the whole business of trying to keep a blog committment when All The Things (all the time-sensitive, externally-imposed-dead-line-involving, income-generating Things) are piling up around you and you still have to spend 24 hours in a given 10 day period in transit and are foregoing The Computer for the duration of the holiday weekend… Anyway. Suffice to say, things are feeling a little overwhelming around here, and are likely to remain that way for at least another week.
 
At least I got a new batch of candles made. 🙂
 
Now that Thanksgiving is passed, and the big Leatherdyke Phamily Reunion has happened for another year, I’m in, well, recovery mode. But beyond that, I’m trying to keep all my plates spinning at once, and not let any of them fall. Getting sick (even though this happens every year – eventually we’ll get sensible and book an extra day at the hotel for Recovery Time) isn’t helping.
I can’t say that I’m getting much from the Full Moon energy that’s floating around, and I’ve missed the eclipse (useful for boosting any magic you’re getting up to) entirely.
 
Looking down the road, towards the tail end of waining Ancestor Moon, we’ve got Samhain coming up. I’m contemplating doing a dinner – roast a(nother) turkey, have some of my pagan friends over for food, light up the altars, and ask people to bring pictures of their dead relatives with them.
Or not! Maybe I’ll just do something tiny at home.
 
I asked, in my New Moon post for this lunar cycle, which things I – or you, dear reader – is/are prepared to let die, to turn under for the season (or for good), to allow to go fallow or dormant as we get through the coming Winter.
 
As it stands, I’m looking at Nanowrimo, knowing that – poetry feature having been and gone two days ago – it’s time to dig back into The Novel and see what I can do with it. My writing goal is a little more than the 1667 words per day required to hit the 50K mark in thirty days, but it’s still low. 2000 words (typed – I figure, if I’m actually doing this as a Nano participant, I’d be better off relying on my typing speed. But we shall see) per day will get me 2/3 of the way through The Novel, based on a projected/anticipated final first-draft word count. Here’s hoping.
But that’s not letting something die.
 
Seriously. I feel both overwhelmed and under-active. I guess the more accurate term is “disorganized”. Umpteen different things to deal with, but not a really good understanding of exactly what I need to be doing between now and, say, November 3rd, when Frost Moon kicks off. I make lists of long-term projects, and then lose the lists. I make lists of short-term goals (like “to do today”) and only get half-way through them because of all the other stuff that didn’t make it onto the list – laundry, dinner, picking up books-on-hold from the library – that had to get done as well.
 
Right now, my main over-arching goal is to get my house back in order.
Unpack from Harvest. Put away my poetry print-outs (somewhere…?), shelve the books (new and old) that I own, so that I only have library books out and about. Clear the coffee table and the side tables. Put away all (ALL – do I even have room for all?) the health-outreach brochures (urgh…). Put away the unused canning jars. Clear the shelf on the hutch so that it’s no-longer a collection of random, un-housed kitchen detritus (predominantly tupperware, by the looks of things).
And that’s not even close to all of it. :-\
 
Anyway. My Blood/Ancestor moon has, thus far, been rushed, harried, and “busy” rather than “productive” (or at least “busy” rather than “as productive as I could have been”). Disappointing. Hopefully I can turn things around during the next ten days or so and bring this cycle to a positive and accomplished end. 🙂
 
Wish me luck!
 
 
TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.

Chocolate Pumpkin Coffee Cake Recipe

So I’ve got pumpkin.
I’m making pumpkin butter, but I wanted to make some use-it-now goodies as well, so I decided to make a coffee-cake type dessert. I had a look a three different recipes, and then made one up based on the general idea of what I’d seen.