Travel Log 9-25/2: Hilarious

I just had to post this because it is hilarious.
   Have you ever seen the Gerber Graduates yogurt melts? Well if you haven't they look like little tiny pastel piles of poo. So I started calling them "fairy poo". Which today squirticus(aka my 2 2/3 yr old) has picked up on that and has been demanding that I give him " more poo to put in his mouth." I laughed so hard I cried.

Travel Log 9-25: Finally Friday

It's Friday!! There is much skipping and dancing and general merriment here that the end of the busy week has come.
   Now to begin the busy weekend.
   On the agenda is going to the fair, see Cloudy With a Chance Of Meatballs (I have to, It's my daughter's favorite book and used to be mine. Even if it's rotten gotta go and see, lol),  watch my 9 year old's soccer game, and get squishisaurus rex's ( my 1 year old) hair cut for the first time.
   Oh and I had an awesome idea for a birthday present for my daughter ( aka Her Royal Highness, or HRH for short who will be turning 8 in a few weeks). She saw the drawing that I posted here and she made up a story about what she thought happened before and after the image. So I wrote it down and did some more drawings and am going to out it into a book for her for her birthday. Her own book that she wrote! I think its cool, so i hope she will too. I'll post the whole thing up here once it's done =).

    Because there was a car accident feet from my father and the kids as he was walking them to school ( he insists that it's the most fun he has when he gets to do it) I looked up and figured I'd pass on this safe travel spell from Spells That Work.com:

Safe Travel Spell:

Tools

• White Feather
• White Embroidery Floss
• Silver Charm

Instructions

Keep yourself and loved ones safe while you travel by casting a Safe Travel Spell.
To start, take a white feather, some white embroidery floss, and a silver charm shaped like a wheel.
Use the floss to fasten the wheel charm to the quill end of the feather.
Tie off the floss with a loop so that you can hang or wear the feather.
As you work, say: “Hermes, wing-footed messenger of fair Olympus, see us safely to our destination.”
Hang the feather in your vehicle, or wear it whenever you travel in an airplane or in someone else’s vehicle.

Travel Log 9-24: Close But No Cigar

Thanks everybody for your belief in my large and widespread knowledge of minutia yesterday but I was not correct. I was close, but I missed the mark. Here is the origin I found:
SMART AS A WHIP - "Bright, clever, alert. A whip 'smarts' and operates with snap. In the days of horse-drawn vehicles one was often able to urge on the horse merely by flicking or cracking a whip near the animal, and if that failed, you could be sure of results by seeing that the flick or crack touched him lightly. The transfer must have arisen from that widespread exercise. An expression in use early in the 19th century was 'smart as a steel trap,' which does indeed operate smartly too, but by 1860 the 'Mountaineer' in Salt Lake City was printing: 'Mr. A___ was a prompt and successful businessman, 'smart as a whip,' as the Yankees say." From "Dictionary of Cliches" by James Rogers (Wings Books, Originally New York: Facts on File Publications, 1985).

Darn it. I think I like my answer better anyway =P.

Travel Log 9-23: Wound-down Wednesday

    I have no idea why, but for some reason Wednesday's are always worse than Mondays for me. They always drag and I have a horrible time motivating myself. I drift off into wool-gathering and it takes ages just to feel like my brain is actually functioning. So I've taken to finding ways to wake my brain up, even if it doesn't want to be. Since curiosity is my greatest virtue and vice I give myself a question to answer. I write down what I think the answer is, then I research it and see if my answer is correct. I figured I would share this weeks wake-up question with all of you and see what interesting answers you come up with!

So here goes-

     Where does the saying "smart as a whip" come from? (I've never found whips to be particularly smart, I mean you don't see many whips hanging out in Mensa clubs...)

here's my guess: I think it has something to do with the fact that coach drivers (or perhaps it was their assistants) in the 1800's in Britain and the US were popularly called "whips" and would have to be particularly cunning in finding routes and customers in the larger cities.

    I'll post later with the research I can find. I can't wait to find out what you all think it means!

Here's a stress relief spell I found at Magic Spells and Potions that helps me to keep from getting overwhelmed: 

Rising lightly on my feet
I now go the day to meet,
Tasks and works flows clear and free
and get sorted, 123!
First things first and last things last,
in the future, now is past,
simply do what must be done,
simply have it now begun,
Let's get started, now let's go,
tis my will, now make it so!

Travel Log 9-21: Busy Busy Busy

I feel like that magician from Frosty the Snowman this morning. I'm busy busy busy. Our youngest just turned 1 yesterday and got chocolate icing up his nose, which was cute, but it still hasn't come all the way out. I shouldn't find this as amusing as I do, but every time he sneezes chocolate flies out of his nose. I can't help but laugh and he looks so affronted. It's adorable.
 The other half of this crazy team started his new job this morning ( which that candle spell I listed in an earlier post- totally worked thank you Witchery!). We're currently a one car family so I had to get up before the sun to get him there, but on the up side I am way more awake right now than I normally am. Luckily this won't go on forever because there is a train station a few blocks away from his office so we're going to go on a trip this weekend to map out a route. Plus we have tickets to the LA county fair this weekend so the kids get to go and pet the fuzzies( sheep, goats, horses, and sometimes a cow) and the not so fuzzies( turtles, pigmy hedgehogs, centipedes).
    I've also started a new motivational tool for myself and the kids. I put up a white erase board with all of our tasks and goals for a given week. Every week that we get all our stuff done we get a star. For every star there is an incentive as well as a day trip somewhere if we get all of our stars for the month. It makes me feel more productive already! And since one of my goals is to exercise I should be looking not so fluffy in the next few months. Which is really good because I think I'm stretching the "fluffy" definition a bit far, lol.  I actually learned a great workout technique when I was taking karate. Set a timer for a minute and do one exercise continuously for that minute. Repeat 5 times with different exercises. Really effective if you don't have a lot of time to do a work out. My goal is to do it every 2 hours while I'm at home.
    If anyone knows of exercises to do in the car while stuck in traffic let me know.
     Since I've already been out and about this morning I'll include a spell I found to clear a traffic jam I found at Everything Under the Moon. I hope It works, or at least makes the stop and go less boring =)  :
Spell To Clear A Traffic Jam

Repeat the chant below when you are stuck in a traffic jam.

Gods of Movement and of flow,
ease this mess that causes woe.
Move these cars along their way
And keep traffic moving through the day.

Travel Log 9-19: I'm So Rumbly in My Tumbly!

So with Mabon just a few short days away, and Samhain tugging at my attention( thank you so much wonderful magazines and displays with awesome ideas that will make my kids ecstatic and my husband crazy- yes I'm looking at you Better Holmes and Gardens Halloween special!) I decided that I will have a great big last minute family feast. Only about 8 people will be coming, and I've recently found some awesome recipes for a great menu and some decoration ideas that I can recycle(with a few adjustments) to work for Samhain as well!
 So I shall try my hand at making a post roast with all the vegetables and pumpkin mousse served in little pumpkins!  And researching the season as I do every Sabbot( can never learn too much you know- true mark of a library witch, lol) it got me inspired to actually do some artwork, which if the tech gods are willing I will be able to post below.
This is the pen and ink version

And here is the colored version. The scanner did some odd things that I actually liked so I left them in.

Here is a nice Mabon prayer I "borrowed" from a Mabon ritual I found by Lady Brigit.com. I think it would make a nice Blessing for the feast we shall have!

Goddess
Ladies of the Harvest,
Goddess Mother,
Brighid, Goddess of Transformation,
Keeper of the Cauldron, Cerridwen.
As the balance of nature starts it’s shift
from Mother to Crone.
We look within to partake of the knowledge and wisdom you have given to us.
We call upon you to help guide the way.
Blessed Be.
God
Lords of the Harvest,
Great Father, Dagda,
Horned One, Great Warrior,Cernunnos.
Now is the time of the second harvest,
when the sun enters his waning time.
Before the last rays of light descend behind the night.
Illuminate our path to our inner being.
We call upon you to help guide the way.
Blessed Be.