Blue Moon, Summer's End, Celebrations

I meant to post about the blue moon earlier, but, you know...life :-)

Did you get to see it? Here in upstate NY, it was amazing. I gathered to do ritual with Blue Moon Circle (it was our night, after all) and it was wonderful.

Then on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, I got to spend some time with one of our original Blue Mooner's, the lovely Robin, and her family. If you have been coming here for a while, you have probably heard about Robin, hubby George (who put a barn roof on for me this summer, bless him), and my two goddess-children, Sophie and Nate. Nate is going off to pre-K today for the first time! And Sophie is in first grade. Wow. Since the family moved about 45 minutes away, we don't get to see each other nearly as often as I'd like, so it was a real treat to drive up with pal Ellen and spend the day hanging out with the Wrights.

We had a fabulous BBQ with foods from the garden (and the kids made the best deviled eggs I'd ever had, with eggs from their own chickens). It was the perfect end of summer day.

That's ice cream and fresh strawberry rhubarb pie the kids are eating, sitting by the pool. See what I mean?

And a belated happy 50th birthday to my wonderful sister Sarah, who's big day was yesterday. And happy anniversary to my parents, who have been married for 54 years. Freaking amazing, all of them.

So, did anyone else do anything worth celebrating last weekend? And did you see the moon?

Barn Roof: Before and After

You might remember back in May when I posted this picture of my barn roof:

Thanks to the fabulous George, it now looks like this:

And this (from the other side, in brighter light):

Happiness is a new barn roof :-)

Contest Winner Melissa and Borrowed Husbands

Melissa is the winner! Contact me, Melissa and tell me which annual you want. (email me at magicmysticminerva at yahoo)

Today was "rent a husband" day. Snort. My pals Robin and Jess were kind enough to let me borrow their husbands for the day to get some major outside work done that I couldn't do myself. (I paid them, of course--it was a lot of work.)

Yay George! Yay Andrew! George got here about 8:30 and Andrew at 11, and I worked outside with both of them until about 4. They took down some pieces of trees and shrubberies that had gotten way overgrown, George re-wired a broken light for me (damned ice chunk!), Andrew mowed, and stuff like that.

But the big thing was the entrance to the house. Because I live in the country, the back door is where everyone enters the house. And I suddenly realized the other day that while I'd been cleaning, reorganizing and throwing out stuff INSIDE the house (in part to revamp the energy in a positive way, and in part because the stuff was just making me crazy), the outside of the house looked like sh*t. The concrete pavers that led to the door were cracked and crumbling and ugly gray. The door, which was installed 10 years ago, after I moved in, was still gray primer. There were weeds and piles of crap everywhere. NOT good feng shui, that's for sure. Also not pretty.

So George redid the pavers, and moved some hostas I had by the barn. And I FINALLY painted the danged door. Now it looks like this:

Yay! I'm going to buy a few pots of colorful flowers to jazz it up even more, but for now, I am tired and happy and very grateful for borrowed husbands.