Lots of pictures! All of these were taken in the last week. Yes! That means we figured out what was wrong with the darn camera! It would take forever for them to load, so I made my favorites of the kids into a slideshow. And my Mister James is home, safe and sound! Tonight is also the Harvest Moon. That is traditionally the first full moon closest to the Fall Equinox, which was just this last Sunday, also known as Mabon. I found a beautiful video about it this morning at Youtube, quite by accident and I've also included it here. Yes, yes, I know, this is a heavy post. Sorry about that, but I've been lazy. :D This week has been long and crazy.

Sunday, my Pagan Soul group did a wonderful service at Church in honor of the equinox. However, we did not perform a ritual; it was more a teaching service. I designed an altar, Big Momma Designed the World was read, and four group members talked of why they were Pagan. Only Charles came with me to Church that day. LOL The little monkey helped me set up the altar, and managed to pilfer not only two apples but a pear AND ate all of it. He stayed upstairs long enough to light the Chalice, listen to Big Momma and embarass me by sitting his apple core in the altar's basket of vegge (we were sitting right in front of it, and it's our basket so he thought nothing of it). We barely made it home in time to go to his friend Michael's bday party as well as welcome my little traveler home.

On Monday, I spent over an hour lazing around outside with the kids and got some awesome pics. It was a beautiful day and although there was a bit of a bite in the air, it was still warm enough that I felt quite comfortable outside barefoot. I read bits of The Children's Year and Earthways to get ideas of projects to do with the kidlets now that the wheel has turned to the new season. We got to my mommy group late, and stayed even later so it wasn't until after 7 that we got out of there. We stopped at the co op on the way home; we needed milk and something for dinner. We didn't have much money but in the end we came in under budget and took home hearty roasted red pepper & tomato soup to be eaten with some tasty wheat saltines also bought, slices of cheddar and some lovely coconut pudding that the kids had fun helping me make. We didn't get home until 7.30 and it was almost completely dark already. Dinner was put on the table just in time for Carey to get home from his class.

Tuesday, poor little Deedee woke me up at 7 after peeing her bed. So she and I took a quick bath together before we curled back up in my bed and we all slept until 9. Carey's mom dropped off some nice outerwear vests for the boys and they're quite pleased with them. Deedee was happy too because her new winter tights came in. I hit the clearance sale at The Children's Place, got lots of socks and tights and then managed to get it all even cheaper by making use of a $10 off coupon that I had. Only $2.30 a pair of tights is very nice, even better than the dreaded Walmart!

Today, well today was very blah. I couldn't get interested in anything today and it was made even worse when I realized that I wouldn't be able to attend my Full Moon Circle. Not only did I not have a ride (she was sick), but Carey wouldn't be getting home in time from class for me to go. I think that had a lot to do with my attitude today. I look forward to it every month, and I especially looked forward to it this month because of the Harvest Moon. James also didn't want to do his lessons today. He happened to see me saving a copy of an old primer from an online site that happened to have The Gingerbread Boy in it, and got quite fixated on it. So I had him sit down and look at it Then, we looked up a recipe together and made gingerbread that's quite tasty. It's chilling in the fridge right now, to be made for breakfast in the morning. So I guess I wasn't as blah as I though but I still didn't feel that great. Instead, after dinner of baked pancake, baked apples and sausage I curled up with some hot cocoa with a Poirot movie, and Deedee's coat.