Celebrate Litha!

Better known as the Summer Solstice. Technically, the first offical day of summer, where the sun rises and sets at its most northern point. This will also be the longest day of the year. It also may be my second favorite day of the year.

Now for a little Pagan education.

Litha marks midsummer or the midpoint between Beltane and Lughnassadh. The Celtic celebration of this day is the Oak Festival.

Litha celebrates the height of the sun's power and the abundance of summer. Everything is alive and growing towards harvest. However, we must remember that what goes up, must come down.

In the past to celebrate this day, fires were lit for purification, protection and in the hope that the sun could be kept powerful for long enough to ensure a good harvest. People would leap over these fires in the belief that the crops would grow as high as they could jump. Drumming, dancing and singing were common, making this festival a noisy and social time. The full moon in June is known as the Mead or Honey Moon, and mead is a traditional drink for Litha, just as June is a popular time for weddings and hence honeymoons.

Litha is a time to consolidate your strengths and clear away negative thoughts and energies. It is a time to be joyful and full of life, while at the same time mindful of the waning of the light from now until Yule.

Everyone have a great Litha day!

Withdrawal

I haven't listened to JLC in about a week and I'm suffering from withdrawal. I'll have to make my smart playlist even smarter than it already is when I stop listening to my 80's flashback - all day and all night.

Been out doing errands this morning. Had to be up at the crack of still dark out this morning. RTL had to catch an early morning flight to Redmond, again. I'm thinking that Redmond should just be moved south a few miles. It would make it a lot easier for me to avoid early morning NPR wake up calls.

Then off to the floor store to return the floor samples we borrowed over the weekend. We had all the hardwood floors refinished before we moved into the house, but we didn't/haven't done anything to the floors that were tiled or the closet floors. We were considering installing some in floor heating for the bathrooms, but have since discovered cork flooring. So I think we've narrowed it down to cork tiles for the bathrooms, closets, and pantry.

And I went into the new Target that is closer to the house. OH MY GOODNESS! It's beautiful! Two floors and clean and not junky and it's very Berkeley.

Haven't been to the grocery store for people food or the pet store for Bella food. I'll get around to that eventually. I've got access to the car for the next couple of days to make running errands less of a hassle.

I've put on my junky clothes so that I can implement phase 6 of the juniper attack. Sounds like a B horror movie from the 50's.

The dog has been relegated to the back porch today. No cozy inside bed sleeping for him. Besides the toilet paper, digging through RTL's workbag for paper scraps, and the copious amounts of other mischief he finds; today he figured out a way to reach his treat bag in the pantry, ripped through the plastic baggie and ate what I believe to be approximately half of the treats in the bag. Not sure if the cat aided and abetted in the crime, but I believe that climbing the litter box was part of the plan.

Taking a break from RTL's freelance work briefly to do all of this. Let's consider though that I sat in front of the computer for about 13 hours straight yesterday to finish phase 1 of the task because RTL's freaking out about getting it done. Yes, I am having that moment when I want to ask "if we didn't live together would you be breathing down my neck like this?" I am semi-regretting that I agreed to help out. I keep reminding myself that it pays property taxes for the year.
Also taking a few moments so that the maid, dishwasher, laundress and gardener can get some work done around the house. They forgot to show up this weekend, so I had to giggle a little (OK, I laughed so much that I almost got the hiccups) when RTL couldn't find the clean clothes she wanted this morning. But the mess is driving me crazy, so I think some cleaning up is in order.

How Dixie are You?

I said that I would post the link, so here it is. I like this one better than the others because it actually explains the origin of phrases used.

How Dixie are You?

Oh, I'm 100% Dixie according to this (extremely scientific) quiz.
Not sure how I should answer "who's your daddy?" now.

Cork Floor

I was going to just post the sample picture of Cleopatra but the jpeg was too pixelated and looked terrible.

To see the Cleopatra pattern

I couldn't find a good sample of Toledo. it is very similar to the Cleopatra, but red where Cleopatra is blonde.
I think we decided that all the closets and the pantry will be Toledo and the bathrooms and laundry room will be Cleopatra.

yarbiedoll, let us be guinea pigs before you rip out the tile. It is amazing that cork is all the rage. It used to look like sheets of bulletin board, but now Wow, it kind of mimics marble. We had looked at it before in Richmond, but it wasn't advised for wet areas like bathrooms. Or else you had to go through a time consuming task of making sure that there was enough sealer to prevent rot. Now, they are pre-fab tiles with 5 coats of sealer that interlock and you only have to worry about the perimeter in a wet area. And we don't need in-floor heating because cork retains heat spectacularly. Although I have to admit that I am hoping that I'll find the original tile floors underneath the linoleum in the front bathroom. Not sure what I'll do if it's there.

Boredom

I'm bored, so I'm messing around. I'm going through pictures and uploading the ones I like.
You can barely tell that I airbrushed floating arms out of this one.
Just playing around.
bored bored bored bored bored
I have other things I should be doing, but I'm not motivated anymore.
I was motivated to rip out juniper, now I just want to relax. And my thumb hurts where I bashed it on the debris bin.
I'll go watch something on tv while I eat an early dinner.
I need a pepsi. Maybe I'll walk up to Lee's.