Kally's Cauldron

I miss posting my recipes, so I've decided to bring back Friday's Fare. Now I just have to remember to always take pics of what I cook LOL

This recipe is a personal favourite of both mine and Boo's. So basic, yet super yummy!! It's pretty easy to just throw together but for measurements sake, click here for the recipe.

Bangers and Mash

Make up your mashed potatoes however you like them best (I personally have started adding some herb and garlic cream cheese in...gives it a little extra oomph!). Heat the sausages through, then fry up the onions. Make up some gravy according to package directions (if you make it from scratch it's even tastier but I rarely have opportunity to do this since you need drippings from something). Cover the bottom of a casserole dish with some of the gravy, line up the sausages, pour on the rest of the gravy then top with mashed potatoes. Bake for about 20 minutes and voila! All done! If I recall, the recipe says to let the potatoes brown, but if you do that, everything's going to overcook...just let the sides get a bit crispy and you're likely good to go.

Bon appetit!

My boys are still really young, but it's making me so sad to see how big they're getting and how they're changing. Don't get me wrong, it's a happy thing, but it seems like only a moment ago that they were both small (although obviously that moment is a little closer to reality with Bean LOL).
Here's what's happening:





Mid-December, Munchkin started sleeping in his big boy bed. He looks so teeny tiny!! We've always been a co-sleeping family (more to come on that later), so moving him to his own bed made me so sad. He still comes in to visit us at night but it's just not the same. It's even sadder since Bean has never much enjoyed sleeping in our bed, opting for his bassinette at the end of our bed (which he is quickly outgrowing!!) I miss cuddling with my baby during the night but I'm so impressed to see him growing up. Today, he didn't even ask to be put for a nap. He went upstairs to play in his room and when I went up to check on him he was fast asleep in his bed. *sigh* He doesn't even need me to read to him anymore :(





Then, there's Bean. He's sitting up on his own now. And as you can tell, is starting to eat solids. He's still a little finicky with them, preferring Mommy's Milk above all, but I had tears in my eyes the first time he picked up some sweet potato and started eating it. At least we waited till Bean was 7 months. Munchkin was only 4 months when he had his first solids (I know, YIKES right?) Where does the time go?

These particular photos are coming a little late, but I wanted to share my personal altar with you. It's a little unconventional but half the fun of being Pagan is thinking "outside the box". So without further adieu:




About now, I imagine you've realized that I wasn't kidding when I said "unconventional"! Now, where to start? My altar reflects "function over fashion" (in this case 'fashion' meaning a typical altar with all the trimmings). Firstly, the large, spinning spice rack. I have a teeny, tiny house with a teeny, tiny kitchen which equals very little counter space. To avoid using the floor as an appliance storage area, I had to put SOMETHING in the space my altar occupies so I figured spices/herbs would be acceptable.
Secondly, this particular photo shows a green and red table runner as an "altar cloth". I had it like this during Yule, though the rest of the year, I never use an altar cloth. This is probably a no brainer, but with my small altar space right beside the stove, covering it in cloth seemed like something of a fire hazard.





A quick walk around my altar. To the left is my incense burner (I use stick incense at present, I'm on a budget LOL) The bell was a gift from my sister-in-law (though I don't think she knows that I use it as part of a Pagan practice) My South quarter candle has to sit on my altar because the floor is a bad place when you have 2 cats, a dog and a toddler walking around. Santa brought me the little mortar and pestle and I had added the decorations to represent the fairies.





My tarot cards sit on top of the spice rack and my Goddess candle, along with the photo of Brighid sit on the right. Her offering bowl sits in front along with a bowl of blessed salt.





Finally, my teapot serves as my cauldron.

As a Kitchen Witch, I feel like this altar really serves me well. I light my Goddess candle when I cook and make an offering of whatever results. I usually infuse whatever tea we're going to drink with positive energy and serve it from my teapot.

So that's that, hope you enjoy!

Well, it's been a tad cold up here in the wilds of Canada (ok, hardly the wilds). We had a couple of days where it went down to almost -40C with the windchill (apparently it's the same in Farenheit though I couldn't tell you how that makes any sense) Anyway, it's been darn cold.
Boo is still home on parental leave so we've been keeping busy enjoying our family time, hence the lack of posts lately.

I've acquired a couple new witchy books in the past couple of months. Nothing heavy but I've been enjoying both. The Real Witches' Kitchen by Kate West has all sorts of neat recipes for foods, lotions, potions, oils etc etc etc. I'm finding it a handy idea book.
Natural Magic by Pamela J. Ball is a little deeper. It goes through a lot about magical pratice in quite a bit of detail, including some history and a breakdown of the "basics" of magic. I've had to take some of it with a grain of salt, but overall it's been a good and thorough read!(Apparently the reason this one was cheap at Chapters was because it isn't very popular...I can only find it through a personal seller on Amazon and I wouldn't recommend paying $112 for it!)

I do have a few post ideas that I've started but need to do a little research on and since I've barely touched the computer for the past few weeks, I can't say when I'll be able to finish them, but I'm certainly going to try and get a few more posts up in the near future.

In the meantime, the Pooka Pages have their Imbolc issue up so be sure to check that out!

So, I attended my second ever public ritual on Tuesday evening. It was with the Women's Spirituality Group but as it turns out, not the same one that I had spoken of many moons ago.

Can I tell you, it was frigging awesome! The rit was relatively basic and I know that a few of the more experienced practitioners were a little disappointed but much like them, I believe that things will get more deep as time goes on. With it being the first ritual for the group and having so many women new to public ritual they wanted to take it easy on us (which I really appreciated!)

It felt so good to circle with other women. I enjoy being a solitary practitioner, and probably always will, but there's something, dare I say, "magical", about working with other women. It looks like we'll be meeting every other month for now, with the hopes of meeting monthly in the near future :)

I’ve dealt with depression for just about as long as I can remember. It was at its worst in high school (like for most teenagers I imagine). I hated myself and depended on emotionally abusive relationships for my self-esteem. I could literally spend days in bed sleeping because life just wasn’t worth getting out there for. Despite the scars on my arms from my poor attempts at dealing with my emotions and the countless times I sat in the ER drinking charcoal to sop up the bottles of ibuprofen I’d downed in the hopes of ending this existence, I was never ACTUALLY diagnosed with anything. Nurses would begrudgingly stop in once in awhile to make sure I was drinking my libation whilst speaking to me in tones that told me in no uncertain terms that I really didn’t deserve to be there since my wounds were self-inflicted. I’d have a quick chat with the hospital counsellor or psychiatrist and after promising to seek help, they’d kick me to the curb. Maybe this is the down side of universal health care. Maybe it was (and is) the taboo that is depression. Maybe it’s all in my head (hardy har har). Regardless of what it is, to this day, I still deal with mental health issues.

A few years after I finished high school was when I “found Jesus”. I’d be lying if I said that it was no help. Finding a spirituality that made me feel like someone special did wonders for my self-esteem and I’ll always be thankful for those years of my life, even if I still allowed people to walk all over me and use my delicate state as a means of controlling me. It’s not God’s fault, it was those cruel enough to use religion as a form of manipulation.

I was still walking that path when I met Boo. By the time I met him, I had become an entirely different person. I was confident. I had managed to get myself a decent job and was renting my own apartment. I had dealt with a few hiccups but overall, I was a much happier, healthier person.

I was diagnosed with post-partum depression after Munchkin was born. My doctor was quick to put me on an anti-depressant and make a follow-up appointment or two to see how things were going. The drugs did nothing but make my stomach horribly ill and inflict me with more mommy guilt for putting drugs into my breast milk. It was around this time that I discovered yoga. The church that I had attended always looked down on yoga because of its spiritual connotations. This made no sense to me so I started practicing yoga daily and my symptoms improved drastically.

Life got busier as Munchkin got older. By this time I had moved away from Christianity and started following my Pagan path. Then I found out I was pregnant with Bean so although I took prenatal yoga classes once a week for a term, I didn’t keep up my daily practice. I did ok throughout my pregnancy but in the few months following his birth, my depression came back with a vengeance but this time it manifested in completely new ways. Actually, looking at it now, they weren’t really new. You see, I’ve always had quite an imagination. Boo forbade me from watching all those cop/investigative type shows because all they did was fuel the fire. He knew that I worried that there was someone hiding in the shadows of the basement but what he didn’t see were the morbid thoughts/scenarios that would go through my head. Truly, if I put any of my real thoughts onto paper, I would put Stephen King to shame. Actually, pick the scariest, most graphic novel/movie you’ve ever read/seen and multiply that by a thousand. Those are the kinds of things that go through my head at some point every day. Add to that a genuine anxiety that those things are REALITY and you have my life.

I found a couple of those surveys online that you can do to get a basic idea of what potential disorders you may suffer from. I know, it’s a bad idea to go looking for those things and start self-diagnosing because we always assume things are worse than they really are but to tell you the truth, in reading the answers I got, there was “nothing new under the sun”. I’m not silly enough to presume that I actually HAVE 6 of the 10 personality disorders that it “tests” for but it certainly reminded me that what I think and feel every day is not necessarily normal.

This being a new year, I’ve decided to attempt getting help again. My GP is a bit of a pill pusher so I’m hoping that I can by-pass the meds and have her refer me to a psychologist who can decide whether meds are what I need or if I need to change my lifestyle (or both if necessary). I have everything anyone could hope for...a loving husband, two beautiful sons. But it’s so hard to enjoy them when my brain is fried from constantly “seeing” them in accidents, or kidnapped or “insert horrible event here”. I think it’s about time to try and take back control of my own mind. Wish me luck!

Boo and I have decided to make 2011 our “healthy” year. We both really want to lose a bit of weight, but also to just BE healthier, for ourselves and for our boys. We want to be good role models of healthy living to them.

I’ve also made two of my own resolutions that are, to a degree, linked. I want to become a better homemaker, not just in keeping my house tidy and dinner made but in making our home into a peaceful, happy place. My second resolution is to put more effort into my Craft and I have a feeling that as a kitchen witch, the effort put into one of those resolutions will positively affect the other one, so it’s hard to lose!

I’ve also resolved to throw away perfectionism. I’ve struggled with this particular issue for as long as I can remember but I’ve decided it’s time to put it to rest. I know it won’t be easy, but Boo is going to help keep me accountable.

2010 was a wonderful year but I’m really looking forward to what 2011 has in store for us!

Do you make resolutions for the mundane New Year? What are they?

Brightest Blessings in this new year to all of you and your loved ones!