Gettin' things done

[andrewmck]

This post is especially for rinoa_caraway, who desired it - nay! Demanded it! :)

Yeah, slack I know. I only just got here and already falling behind in my LJ posts! Well, I've been gettin' things done! 

The kids have been playing all weekend. Kylie has been working in the garden (her favourite place). Thank you Universe for sunny days! This has left me free to complete lots of things I've needed to get finished. So it was crank-the-music-up-to-eleven and roll-up-the-sleeves for me. I'm very satisfied with the amount of work I accomplished.

I took some time out on Friday night to watch Capricorn One on DVD. That is one great movie! Last time I saw it (on TV) I was about 11yrs old. Looking back now, that film is probably the start of the Conspiracy Theory style-film, and of X-files, and the Michael Crichton techno-thriller, and even the action film with its mad helicopters vs bi-plane chase scene (although that is a long time coming in the film).

I took Cobweb to have her vaccinations on Saturday, and did the family shopping this afternoon.

The only interruption to my work was Kylie and the kids coming in every hour or so saying "Have you thought what you want for Solstice yet?"

Solstice! Already? It was only just Equinox. How would I know what I want for Solstice? I don't think I've even read or used my Spring Equinox gifts yet.

I don't need to worry too much about the kids though. They have Solstice wish-lists that make the Nag-Hammadi Library look like a pamphlet!

Comments

[eneit.livejournal.com]

as all kids should do! I'm quite worried about my daughter. She has no idea what she'd like for Christmas, and she's only 13. That list should be at least a half mile long and completed back in September ... shouldn't it? What kind of abnormal child have I raised?

[ashr501.livejournal.com]

Nah, thirteen you know what you want, you just also know there is no actual point asking your parents for the sort of expensive, useless, trendy, overpriced, gift she wants :)

[bayre.livejournal.com]

Yes, Solstic already!!!!!

I saw Capricorn One in the theater of all things. I still tihnk it's a great movie, and didn't know it was on DVD, me thinks, hummmmm....another one to find.

Oh, and thanks for the turn on to Wolfmother!

[ashr501.livejournal.com]

In the theatre? 1978 it was released, I was 8yrs old :) I picked the DVD up for $2 in a Bargain shop :)

Wolfmother, yeah, great band. I've always been skeptical about bands that just sound like a bands from another era (Oasis, Jet, The Strokes, etc). But Wolfmother don't actually sound like any other band, they just sound like.... like, the late 60s/early 70s! The songs sound really familiar, like I _should_ have heard them in my dad's old 78s and 45s collection he gave me when I was 10. Love it :)

[bayre.livejournal.com]

I was 18. Graduated highschool that year. Oh my!

[rinoa-caraway.livejournal.com]

Damn straight, I demanded it! And thankyou =) you have an interesting life! And so should post more. Ooooh. Is it for religion reasons you choose to call the holidays by their ancient names, or just preference? ^^ just curious. I know them by their original names too, having delved into Wicca in my younger years xD

Wow, our Christmas is looking pretty bleak actually. Money just won't go far enough. But when you know your financial situation, you tend to just not worry about wanting things any more =)

I remember, I was never one of those difficult kids. The only 'big things' I ever wanted in my younger years, was a bike and a playstation ^___^

[ashr501.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, I suppose the thing is we don't just call the common-holidays by their ancient names, we actually celebrate the ancient festivals and try to ignore the more modern ones altogether.

Why? Well, partly religious. My wife and I are both pagans (Thelemites to be exact) and are ordained Priest and Priestess in the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica (Gnostic Catholic Church). We haven't been attached to a congregation for over a year as we want to concentrate on our real-family more than we did our spiritual family (the conrgegation). We believe that the real, observable, scientific events of Solstices and Equinoxes have more value to our kids' spiritual and scientific understanding of the World, the Universe and Nature in general than the secular holidays do.

For example: Easter is a Spring Fertility rite of ancient Greece. It is now subsumed into Christianity as the Crucifixtion and Ascension of Christ and, in the Northern Hemisphere, still falls in Spring. It even retains the fertility symbolism (rabbits, eggs, etc) but these symbols have little meaning when we are celebrating a Spring Fertility rite in the middle of Autumn in the Southern Hemisphere. So... we have our Easter in Spring, where the symbolism can be explained sensibly :)

Also, the Summer Solstice also always falls a few days before Christmas (usually sometime between the 20th and 22nd).

The kids love it though, they get Four major celebrations a year (Summer/Winter Solstice, Spring/Autumn Equinox) plus they still get to celebrate X-mas with our immediate families (who are either Catholic, or religiously-indifferent, and celebrate Christmas like everyone else).