Chalk Art, a Run in with Pagans, and the Return of a Sworn Enemy

 

1.) Sidewalk Chalk looks surprisingly good on the porch rafters

It turned out kind of Bavarian looking, and it took about an hour. 

Paint would look nicer, but would also be a heck of a lot more work. 

2.) The F%^&ing pin-worms are back. 

What a way to ring in the new year. 

11:30pm on New Year's Eve, and I hear a sad, miserable little cry from Little Girl. I grab a flashlight, go into her room and check, hoping my hunch is wrong. 

It's not. Sure enough...they're back. My kiddo is infested with pin worms. 

Again. 

2020 just had to get one last nasty little dig under the wire before bowing out. 

So I spent a good chunk of New Year's day washing sheets, tossing plastic toys and stuffed animals in the dishwasher and washing machine, vacuuming, and spraying random objects with vinegar solution, wiping them down, and praying it's enough. 

Stupid little white wiggly threads of misery. 

3.) Uh...no, not THAT kind of shrine. 

So I ended up with an Altoids tin, and I've been thinking about trying to make a little pocket shrine with it dedicated to Mary, something like this...

Image Credit: Terry Scelfo, Etsy Shop. Used with permission

I have a lot of holy cards and neat looking odds and ends that need a home, and it seemed like a fun project. 

 I put "pocket shrine" into a search engine to look for inspiration and ideas...and that's how I found out that pocket shrines and "altars" are popular accessories for neo-classical pagans (I think that's the correct term...could be Wiccan, but I'm not familiar enough with that to know if they honor the old pagan gods or not) and those into witchcraft. There were several YouTube tutorials on making them; I think that was most, if not all, of the videos on the subject that came up, and several of the image results too. 

It was really, really weird bumping unexpectedly into an occult subculture like that. If nothing else, take it as a cautionary tale about letting your kids research stuff online by themselves. I was searching for something I thought was pretty innocuous from a Catholic perspective and ended up on literal how-to videos for witchcraft and preparing small sacrifices for pagan gods. 

If nothing else, if you happen to want to look for pocket shrine ideas, be sure to specify what exactly it is you're looking for. 

4.) I had a professional ultrasound

And it was an odd process. 

First off, when you see a midwife instead of an OB, and the midwife isn't attached to a hospital, they have to send you to a separate facility to do the procedure. Turns out, most people who go to a separate facility to get an ultrasound on a doctor's orders aren't getting a prenatal ultrasound; they're there because something is potentially wrong. They're also quite a bit older. 

So, there I was, a 20 something woman, sitting in a waiting room with a bunch of nervous senior citizens there to get their liver, kidneys, or spleen checked or something. 

Then, when I got called back, I got put in a dark room with the tech and the room's one light, a recessed, very directed light, shining directly into my eyes. And the process took a full hour, I'm guessing because it was a diagnostic scan. 

I'll hear what things are like in there once I have my next appointment. Bitty Baby looked normal as far as I could see though.

And we found out that she's a girl. 

5.) King Cake

It's not decorated correctly, but I didn't feel like hand coloring sugar. It never turns out the right shades, and there's always a ton left over. 

I know it's technically a Mardi Gras food, but back when I made it for Mardi Gras, we always had to deal with the leftovers taunting us from the fridge for weeks on end during Lent. If I make it for Epiphany, it's long gone by then (or we only have a reasonable amount from the freezer on Mardi Gras instead of this huge mongo bakery item to deal with). 

I was hoping to do a house blessing/ chalk over the door too, but that turned out to be a really busy day for us (national politics and hoopla aside). Trail Life meeting, a last minute fishing trip made by Chris and Little Boy, and a much needed grocery run all conspired to keep it pretty low key this year. 

I did get the Christmas tree put away though. 

6.) I made a pretty thing 

A friend of mine sent me a really pretty holy card that I wanted to display. I happened to have a little home decorating sign that, painted blue over the glib little quote, made a very nice frame for it. 

I don't know why the image is sideways. I wish I knew how to fix it, sorry about that. 

7.) I'm getting my "serious" writer skills back in shape

I wrote my first serious post in a long while the other day, about the tendency by some groups in the Church to neglect, minimize, or ignore certain cases of abuse that don't fit a certain narrative (namely, what I like to call the "It's All the Gays' Fault" narrative). If you're an adult woman who's been abused by a priest, you're all but invisible to a lot of people thanks to this narrative. 

Not the most cheerful of subjects admittedly, but it's something that's been on my mind a lot lately. 

Bonus Quick Take because that last one was depressing. 

I just discovered this artist, and her stuff is really cool. You can check out a bunch of her paintings here. 

See the rest of this week's takes here.