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 We moved, and then it took a few days to get the Internet, and then we switched from wi-fi to ethernet cable and so I had to get a different computer, and then I had to crawl out from under the burden of my own exhaustion. Good times! I've done divination every day and recorded it on a piece of paper. Let's see how much I can record here before the tireds get me...

Saturday: The day of the move, I did not feel strong at all (Strength REVERSED), and did not help nearly as much as our friends. Our family was severed (10 of Diamonds REVERSED). It was a crazy day and I had to sleep with an LED streetlight right in my face (Temperance REVERSED). Days where all three cards are reversed seem to be crazy pretty often, and this was not an exception. 

Sunday: I worked as hard as I could to continue the move (8 of Clubs) and we got a majority of our stuff into the apartment, making it possible to live here, a real but partial victory (The World REVERSED). It was also a hectic, miserable day in which I collapsed into bed for a nap at 3 PM, our child was in distress, and it was impossible to find anything (Temperance REVERSED - yes, again). 

Monday: Back to work - I admit that after the upheaval, I didn't trust anything or anyone to be stable anymore and wasn't sure if I could pull it off (4 of Hearts) but fortunately, everything went very smoothly work-wise (Temperance). I didn't do anything at all on the new house (8 of Clubs REVERSED) but my poor husband worked so hard getting things in the right place he was in bed with a migraine that night. 

Tuesday: I had the quiet internal realization that, one way or another, I am going to have to cut ties with my father, but could not at that time decide on the right way to do that, and also want to wait until we retrieve a few last things out of his house (Death REVERSED). I buckled down at work and it went well (8 of Diamonds). The day ended with us moving a few more steps towards normalcy (The World REVERSED). 

Wednesday: I finally felt myself start to move on from the toxic, ugly atmosphere that I'd been forced to exist under for the last fair bit at my dad's place (6 of Spades). I got the idea that it will need to be an email, the cutting of ties, and that it should have as little drama as possible (The Chariot). I guess I've matured at least that much - there will not be the fireworks that happened with my mother, for sure. Mike got a new video game and started to play it while I watched in the evening - a bonding exercise for us (King of Hearts). 

Thursday: A day in which I felt rather pregnant (Strength REVERSED). I had a moment, first in a long time, where I WANTED to do stretches and exercise and longed to spend as much time as possible outside, and did get to do that some (King of Diamonds). I held myself to the vow of actually cooking eggs on our new stove, and achieved that (The Hanged Man). Step by step, we will move towards normal. I can finally, finally see the path. 

Way too tired to divinate now - I will catch up tomorrow. 

 Another day in paradise. 

Me: Yes, I think I felt the most comfortable yet in the office today. I am starting to get my feet under me at the job! :) Which is great, because I'm more than committed at this point, really...

Situation: I realize that my feelings about the situation are coming in waves. Today I had more sadness come upon me this afternoon, but I managed to make sense of it by the evening. I realized that what's happened to me with my father is actually what happened between me and my mother back in 2018, just repeated with my "more rational" parent. 

I have twice now had a parent swear up and down they were ready and willing to do something helpful for me that was their 'traditional' role - childcare for my mother, hosting us in his home by my father (and to his credit my dad has hosted us for over 18 months... nevertheless); they found out quickly that they had overcommitted but did not bother to have a conversation with me about this fact; an excuse popped up that would let them slip out of their vow; they grabbed it like a life-preserver; and while letting me know about this "reason" why they could no longer do what they had promised, they made sure to gratuitously and emotionally blame it all on me as if I had been the real bad guy all along, for ever thinking they would do what they promised me they would do.

My mother claimed, 2 weeks before I was scheduled to return to work with an agreement in place that she would watch my baby, that she needed to keep working at her job instead so that she could afford acupuncture (!), and told me I expected too much of her, that I should have just known she should be caregiving at most half-time (despite this being impossible with my work schedule, and not brought up beforehand). The very moment I got my current job, my father - who had been continually encouraging me to keep slogging through the application the entire previous month, hmm - suddenly "discovered" the threat from the Delta variant like a new religion, put us in an impossible situation with a claim that we were just having a "conversation" about "safety", and then when we let him know we were leaving, patronized me from atop his high horse with how I was "too pregnant to think logically" and how "I hadn't solved the problem" and he "was absolutely not evicting you! You can come back anytime!" But there's been a cautious lightness about him ever since, even as we have been extremely careful about how we talk to each other the few times we've interacted. He's gotten what he wanted. Soon, his house will belong to just him again. 

In short, my entire DNA font-source is comprised of worthless shitheads, who somehow failed over the course of senior-citizen-length lives to  learn the basics of respectful communication. (My brother is ADD, on legal meth for it, married to a horrible vegan childfree bitch, and on the East Coast. I write him postcards now and again but he does not respond. I don't expect to see him again until one of our parents dies.) Well - there had to be SOME shared basis for their awful marriage, I guess!

The hardest thing is that if my dad had just let me know that he was really struggling with having so much family in his home, and that he wanted to make a solid time-table for us to move out, I would have been upset for like a day (OK, a week) and then - accepted it, and made plans. It's his home, after all. He is an introvert pretending furiously to be an extrovert, always has been. He's given us 18 months, and even slept out in a tent last summer when we didn't have enough rooms for all of us. He really has gone above and beyond. Which, in a way, makes this even more painful. I did not see it coming. I still thought, on some level, that he was the reliable one. 

For both my mom and dad, the issue is that they both want to be the type of parent that would, say, provide free childcare for their grandchildren, or let their adult kids in a rough situation crash at their place, no questions asked. But... neither of them are truly capable of what they aspire to. So they've both got a lot of cognitive dissonance about the situation, which finally bursts forth in blaming me for not somehow relieving them from this burden they set themselves up for. Which - yeah nope, I'm trying to raise children in a world implacably hostile to them, and I don't have the time or space to give a shit about Boomer feelings! I can't just pliably adjust myself to them and their whims anymore, as I once did so easily as a non-misbehaving teenager.

Clearly, I'm having a rebellion against my parents at age 35. 0 out of 10, do not recommend! At least when you're a teenager you have all this self-righteousness and energy and inability to understand what a brat you're being. When you're my age, it's more like the grimmest possible slog through a bleak, snow-covered valley. You would never ever choose to do it - unless you have no choice. I went scorched-earth with my mother for a while after she pulled that on me - we only have a relationship nowadays because my mother-in-law and, yes, my father begged me personally to reconcile (and after she completed 100 hours of free babysitting). I suppose I am glad that I gave her a second chance - the babysitting, now that my son is of an age she finds fun, is helpful. And there's no illusions between us as to what she needs to do to maintain our relationship going forward. I don't have the energy or ability to go scorched-earth with my father right now. But... I know what he did. And I think, on some level, he does too. I'm sure he'll spend hours coming up with justifications why he was right. He may even believe them. I guess I hope he does, because that's all he's going to have once this situation wraps up. 

We need good relations in place to get all our crap out of his house, that will take several weekends. I'm going to be using his compost bin - will dump on Saturday evening, while he is at work - until I find a better alternative. My son will need a transition period from "old house" to "new house", which will be easier if we can visit this place on the weekends for a while (while my dad is at work). But as soon as these kinks are worked out... I no longer intend to call or communicate with him in any way other than the obligatory Christmas call, for the rest of his life. He can get any "family" urges out by visiting his girlfriend's family, which is much more enjoyable because she does all the emotional labor so he doesn't have to. He'll get his house back - his nice empty house, filled with nothing but his Facebook friends and his girlfriend who mostly exists on his phone nowadays. He should enjoy his golden years! In silence. My mother got fire; he's going to get ice. 

We will not return here, once we have left, unless my children cannot eat any other way. 

I struggled, but I finally have a worldview that makes sense about this, and am dealing OK. 

Anyway... enough therapy writing, I gotta get to sleep. 

Outcome: I got a question at the end of the day about "if I had finished all the training videos" from the boss, which means of course, "why are you reading the news during work?" The answer being of course "I do not have more than 4 hour of focused learning capability per day, same as the rest of the human race, yet you have assigned me 8 hours of video." Not that I said that (nor did I spend 4 hours or anything close to it reading the news, for the record). Ugh... but also, oh well. I've gotta find some other task I can break up the videos with and still appear "responsible". This does correlate with my karma, though, because I caused this issue by personally choosing to take breaks, and employers have commented about my apparent lack of focus in the past (it actually helps the quality of my work when I take occasional breaks, but that's hard to tell from the outside). At least it should be (relatively) easy to solve. Just one more day left in this week. 

Divination, and bed!

Me: 8 of Diamonds - Comfort achieved through hard work

Situation: Queen of Clubs - optimism, creativity, little one

Outcome: Queen of Spades - oh no not again

Oof... well, I think the Queen of Spades is a marker that I need to be more serious about clearing my karma tomorrow. I NEED this job; I need to take it with absolute seriousness. Other than that, seems like it could be a pretty good day! Let's work towards that. 

 Today's divination was... mixed. I think I understood it, but not entirely sure. 

Me: There seems to be an undercurrent to this card of not being able to speak clearly to others about a situation. I feel that way a little bit at my job (not going to tell them about pregnancy for a while yet) and a lot with my father (duh). 

Situation: Interestingly enough, this card seems to have been "the decision flipped back and forth". I got a letter in my email suggesting that the apartment background check had failed because of insufficient income. I took a deep breath, assumed that the company hadn't been able to track my job as it was so new, and passed the verification task off to my husband. Turns out they just mis-keyed something! We are approved, so we're on schedule to move this upcoming Saturday. 

Outcome: This card confused me. I expected - fully - for it to represent a confrontation of some type with my father. But we had a relatively pleasant chat when I stopped by at home for lunch, and he seems to be over at his girlfriend's tonight. Perhaps he sensed it in the air, and got outta Dodge. It wouldn't surprise me - we used to think along very similar lines. We probably still do. 

I'm relieved - I didn't want to have that confrontation. I just want to move away, to negotiate taking one mattress and some flower pots for my son and the herbs I'm going to bring with me, and to have some time to say goodbye to the garden and the fruit trees that I grew to care for over my time here. It seems like this year, this period even, is rubbing my face in my own past, forcing me to see it differently (truly?) and bid it farewell. I can't predict the future at all but emotionally, I never want to come back here. Part of me wishes we were moving much farther away. 

I can also recognize that as childish, in its way. I want to punish my father for failing me. Which... there's no need to do that; he'll do it himself, when he keeps away from his own grandchild out of fear for so long that my son forgets who he is. Ah, there it is - that's what breaks my heart. My son calls my father Grandpa, but not only did my dad not bother to say any sort of meaningful goodbye last weekend, he will probably not see him again for months, if ever. My kid's not a baby any more - he will notice when an adult HE LIVED WITH vanishes from the face of the fucking earth. What will I even tell him?? There's no excuse for this, none whatsoever. It's pure cruelty, thoughtlessly layered on top of our situation in which homeownership (and therefore place stability) is already not something I can even offer to my children. If I'd known that this is how our time in Portland as a multi-generational household was going to end... I would never have left Seattle. 

I have three more days here. Then I can stop seeing my father, or any reminders of him, and start healing. I will be recovered enough to have a cordial call with him at Christmas, I am pretty sure. 

Anyway, that seems to have been a miss, but I'm grateful for it. 

Divination for tomorrow, and then to bed...

Me: 8 of Diamonds - comfort through hard work

Situation: Ace of Spades - focus and clarity

Outcome: Ace of Hearts - emotional/creative/spiritual flow

A much better divination this time! :) Looks like a day of hard work at work, with a lot achieved, and then I feel better about life at the end of the day. Sounds good to me!

 Me card: I decided to take this card as a suggestion, and so threw myself into taking care of the last round of paperwork for the job next week, not least setting up the payroll software and direct deposit and so forth. Well... I started going through their task list from the top of the page... and read through about 10,000 words of legalese only for the website to crash on me the moment I was about to sign the bottom of the page. GREAT. I also spent incredible effort in the afternoon getting a pair of shoes, during which I had a truly depressing conversation with the proprietor (I go to small local shops for these things as a rule) about how she and her husband and dog almost died during the latest heat wave, as they can't afford air conditioning. I am pretty sure that shop will not be there by the time the pair I just bought wears out. Material focus sucks! :( 

Situation: I felt a tension going about today, both as my dad's friends came tromping through the house and as I drove around on roads that felt very dangerous to deliver my last bag of plums to the outskirts of the city. 

Outcome: I'll fully admit, the Empress card baffles me. The closest I can guess is that the lady who filled up my gas tank at the end of the day was much, much kinder than she needed to be, for working a minimum wage job and standing out in the broiling heat with a mask on.

So today's divination does not seem to be all that accurate - which is interesting! That hasn't happened in a while. 

And that's where I stopped writing yesterday, because I realized that between my recent epic battle against my own family on the astral plane, all the general hectic-ness of recent life and a wart treatment I did on Monday, I am completely exhausted. I've been getting messages - from my own body, from people I've talked with, and from the cards themselves (as I look at them after a great night's sleep!) that I need to slow down and refocus. So I did that in the most basic way, by dropping divination cold and sleeping deeply without Nyquil for the first time in over a week. And for the rest of the day today, whatever the cards may bring... I'm going to stick close to home, putter about doing simple chores, and refocus on my spiritual path. 

Okay, and with that, let's divinate for today. 

Me: 3 of Spades - "disappointment, a loss, separation" or perhaps my period will finally come??

Situation: 6 of Clubs (The Tower) REVERSED - Some problem will come up that you can manage

Outcome: 8 of Diamonds - Comfort achieved through hard work

This divination feels better... the Me card feels like an acknowledgement of where I am right now, with my shaky health and depleted energy. I appreciate that whatever comes up today (there's always something) will be manageable. And I couldn't have ordered up a more preferable Outcome card. So... let's take it easy today, and work towards healing! :)

 Overall a much quieter day, at least internally... thank god. 

I felt much more optimistic, lighter and more able to go out and do things overall today. That would be the Me card, of course. I may even have done too many things! 

The reversed Tower card, too, seems uncannily accurate... as I ran into a farcical buzzsaw trying to pee into a cup today. I dropped in late in the day to see if I could just get it done and found out that I needed an appointment on the Internet, and then when I went home to make one, discovered that there are no appointments available until after the period that HR has granted me. 

I actually find this, you know, really funny?? I've descended into some version of petty bureaucratic hell... lol! I'm pretty confident that between the HR representative and her powers, and calling the office as soon as they open tomorrow to explain the situation, we can figure this out. It would be the height of irony if THIS, after EVERYTHING else, was the reason I didn't get the job! HA HA HA! OMG it would actually be so hilarious, it would almost be worth it. ALMOST. 

Today, for the first time, I considered writing a black comedy piece about this era we're currently living through, and if I ever do, this stupid piss-in-a-cup episode will be included.

And then the Outcome card - Mike came to me to admit he had been feeling stressed more than usual lately, and that turned into a Very Serious Conversation where I laid out in a more organized fashion my Schrödinger's vaccine policy, and how I was going to roll it out, specifically. Specifically... how I was going to roll it out to his mother. 

As the card suggested, it was not really much of a discussion. I explained calmly and with great detail what my plan was, and he nodded along. The closest to resistance was him confiding that he was frightened about how she was going to respond. (He has never once before had to counter his mother at any point over his 38 years. As I remarked after we were done, our mid-life crises continue apace!) I told him that he would of course read any email before I sent it, that my goal would not be to pick a fight but to remove the source of any fight, and finally at one point, that I had done everything I could not to interrupt their relationship any further than it had been, and that the rest of the matter, they'd have to sort out between them. So, uh... not a discussion. I really felt the strain, of trying both to respect his feelings, but also to respect my own shining line in the sand. I think we got there. I don't want to be up too much later - I'd really like us to spend time together as a couple tonight. 

So let's divinate!

Me: Queen of Clubs - creative, optimistic, holding a little one

Situation: 8 of Diamonds REVERSED - "someone slacking off or accepting that he/she will never achieve some goal"

Outcome: 2 of Diamonds (The High Priestess) REVERSED - enigmas upon enigmas upon enigmas, or, some previously hidden feature will influence the outcome

A mixed reading... no time to speculate tonight. To bed!

 Back home after a long drive, I'll try to have this be short. 

My divinations sometimes hit accurate enough, I get concerned that I might have a future career in this stuff. Gods keep me from that...

I already knew that the Me card was me moving forward on my life path of spending vastly less money - we continued along that for most of the day, only spending money on one single meal out during this entire family trip. That might sound like we're still splurging (we are) but compared to the way we used to be?? This is practically putting on a habit and joining a convent! 

FUCK. I wrote a huge, bullet-pointed post about everything I went through today with the Devil card and the Internet ERASED it just as I posted!! OK, we're getting the Twitter version, goddammit!!

My mother-in-law threw every damn manipulative trick in the book at me to try and convince me to get the vaccine. I managed it, we got out the door. I'm so fucking exhausted right now. I am considering not going back to her house, ever, until I have the baby in my arms. She is currently a crazy person. EVERYONE IS SO FUCKING CRAZY RIGHT NOW AND I AM 1000% OVER THE EMOTIONAL LABOR OF DEALING WITH THEIR HYSTERICAL PROJECTIONAL FEARS. 

OK... I've taken a few deep breaths. I promise I had something written here where I was really sympathetic to her feelings, and to the fact that she has bet her entire career and her conception of herself as a Good Person on these vaccines working out in a really uncontroversial way. I swear. 

I was really happy to get back home, which feels like something to do with the 8 of Diamonds card. At least I still have the right to hang out here for a while, so long as I cook yummy dinners and don't spend money. And I'm definitely going to do that until the rest of the people in the world get their motherfucking shit together. I am so FUCKING DONE with people who insist that data that doesn't exist tooootally exists, and the potential future life of my child toooooootally doesn't hinge on it!! Maybe it doesn't. That would be wonderful, and I'm praying it's true. But I don't know that, and THEY don't know that, even if they're doing Olympic-level mental gymnastics to convince themselves that they do, and I'm fucking done with it. I. Am. Fucking. Done. 

I just checked a feed where a few of my friends still post and one of my friends drives a streetcar, and apparently today a guy just walked up right in front of it, yelled a bit, then PULLED THE ENTIRE FRONT SECTION OFF. There are pictures. 

Everyone is crazy and I am going to stay in my house until they all adjust to the world as it actually is, and not what they think it should be.

I did the divination for tomorrow and will offer it here without comment, except that it suggests a homebody type of day:

Me: 5 of Hearts

Situation: 8 of Diamonds

Outcome: Queen of Diamonds

 I was so tired two nights ago that I didn't even brush my teeth before collapsing into bed - and last night, to come back downstairs after a gnarly toddler bedtime and try to type on my mother-in-law's couch - but let's review and get back on track for tomorrow!

Me card: Yeah, I lacked focus - we packed a bunch of stuff but forgot stuff. I was nervous all day waiting for a call. NO CALL CAME. Imma live my life, the end.

Situation card: I don't think too much happened regarding my fertility - if I'm pregnant, I'll be surprised - but I did feel in my gut a connection with going to see my mother-in-law (we are staying at her house this weekend). She is the Ultimate Mother of the family, mothering all her stepchildren (she's up to 4 of those) and many of her kids' friends, too. She's the bedrock of family help for our hoped-for second child. So, there's a bit of a connection there. 

Outcome card: Nature was pretty spectacular both on our drive up, and on the boat we got to ride on that my father-in-law owns. I feel like I've barely kept up with my spiritual practices (I did manage the ritual, thankfully) but the land is beautiful, and a lot of people are (masklessly) enjoying it up here, which comforts me. 

Ok let's do a divination before my computer dies. 

Me: 5 of Hearts - Learning from Past Mistakes, Moving Forward

Situation: 5 of Clubs (The Devil) - Temptation, Attachment, Control

Outcome: 8 of Diamonds - Comfort Achieved through Work and Persistence

Hmm! Yes, the 5 of Hearts is already me - I have put an incredible amount of work this weekend into not spending extra money on anything (cooking, etc). I feel powerfully the sense of "moving forward" into a different life, one which I believe is better. It's really obvious when we go to a place where I used to escape to eat expensive restaurant food twice a day on every visit... the situation card, ouch! I wonder if my mother-in-law will corner me today and try to convince us to spend our savings on buying a house out in the boonies? They apparently worked my husband over while I was asleep two nights ago. I love these people, but their financial suggestions make me want to tear my hair out. I mean, nothing's off the table in these crazy times, but going in on a "100 acres" somewhere around Anacortes with their profligate friends sounds like a TERRIBLE idea. We'll see. I'm relieved to see the Outcome card... I think I will feel proud of myself and how much I've changed by the time we get home tonight. Well, we'll just have to live through the rest of this "vacation" and see!

Not too much needs to be said - it went exactly as the divination said. Amazon called at 8 AM to offer me the position. I accepted it, feeling like I just stabbed myself. I sent in the first round of paperwork and collapsed in an adrenal fatigue for several hours. 

I did get up off my ass later in the day and did a ritual, filled out the form for one last week of unemployment, picked up my son from daycare and cooked dinner. So it wasn't a complete wash of a day. 

I've had a bigger lump of feelings to choke down this time around compared to the last several contracts... to the point of surprising me a bit, so I've been trying to sort through them. 

I have a strong feeling of having been "caught out" - of having been ruthlessly manipulated by Amazon to go back on their schedule, and not on mine. This suggests that I need to step up my game in banishing spells. At least, I think I will be adding the Earth element to the SOP a bit earlier than I'd thought - I think my Fire aspect will develop more clearly if it is balanced. Also, I fully intend to drape the screens with silk when I'm not working on them to block their energy, and will look into other protective symbols and amulets to keep around me, both physically and digitally...

I don't want to lose the progress towards a different life that I began this year - a more balanced, cheaper, higher-skilled, and less wasteful lifestyle. I think, though, that if I continue to pursue the First Degree in AODA in a structured manner, that I can keep the progress I've made, and keep it up, even if it isn't as fast. This might be optimistic, but - maybe having more structure in my day overall will even help it along. I'll roll with what the cards have told me - it's as good a plan as anything else in this crazy-ass world right now. 

It has to be admitted here, as I have observed his contrastingly ebullient mood these past few days, that my husband is infinitely more relaxed when I am also working, even when we have enough money for me not to. And normally, I wouldn't begrudge him that - I mean, I prefer to work! I prefer to be doing something useful and helping other people. Sitting around on my ass is basically what I did this past year while incongruously also earning money. Gods willing, never again. And enough money to have options is a fantastic thing, no question. And I am healed (at least enough anyway) from the dungeon tortures of the last position, and have taken the opportunity to vigorously strap an oxygen mask on my face to face the rest of the age with. 

But... I really, really don't want to be raising an infant and a toddler full-time about a year from now while also dealing with his anxiety. I need to find some (nice, sensitive, polite!) way to talk to him about raising his courage and emotionally accepting that there are times when one of us has to carry the other, without a clear timeline or any promise of anything waiting at the end, and we need to both be OK with that. (Especially since I carried him financially, and our whole family, for a straight year, through a pandemic, with a job that nearly gave me a mental illness. Honest feeling here - come on!) In short... I'm going to have to ask him to work through his financial anxiety. Whee. What fun. 

It can only help to have a serious chonk of cash in the bank to point at in this conversation - and though we have the most savings we've EVER had (though not a fraction of enough to buy a house lololol America is dying :D), I plan to nearly double it with this contract. But the amount of money isn't the root of the problem, so it's only a stop-gap to do so. Mike wants safety, desperately, no matter how much he claims otherwise when I ask him. I love this man, he's a wonderful father and partner and lover, and if this is the worst issue of our relationship I am fucking blessed. But in this ridiculous era of collapsing everything, safety is the one thing I can never, ever, ever give him - no matter what I do, no matter what I choose, and no matter what I sacrifice. I need him to sit with that, and I need him to be OKAY with that. Period. We're going to need to have a Conversation about that... not immediately, but before the baby is conceived would be better. 

At the same time, now that I think about it, once the baby is born - though that will be the tightest, most challenging time for us as a family - I have no more ambitions, at least in the "expand the family" category. I'm not going to have another one, unless there's a big surprise. In that way, things will get a lot easier.

Housing ownership is dead, so that's a whole mortgage we're not going to have to deal with, which is another huge relief. I expect public housing to be the going thing by the time we are old, because I literally don't see what other options the country has at this point - if that isn't what happens, it'll be an RV retirement I suppose. Heck, maybe we can park ours in a circle with others in a field somewhere, garden behind it,  and form a village that way? :)

And I am done, I mean I am DONE, with paying money to "keep up with the Joneses." I will expect my children to be educated--by which I mean reading/writing/rithmetik--and if we can't find or afford a school that can get that done, I will teach them myself. College had better prove, PROVE, that it is value for the money spent. Whether they go or not, after that, it will be up to them. If I can't demonstrate to them successfully the value of clear thinking and being able to research things, then they'll learn things the hard way. 

So aside from this baby, whose life I will never compromise on, I've stepped back from most of the overwhelming costs of an American life - add to this my project to learn how to cook and garden, the likelihood of white-collar jobs being remote for a few years yet (save on transit costs), no longer being young and cute and thus not having to "perform" femininity at expense, my new faith giving me some options to join a religious community, and my extreme disillusionment with politics also opening up new paths to community as well. And for at least the next 30 years or so, I'm pretty sure we'll have free housing at the snap of a finger with our parents, as a fall-back. I hate the locations, but I have managed to swallow my hatred before, and I could do it again. 

In short, I will stop poking my poor husband quite as hard on this soon enough. We'll soon stop adding burdens to our lives, and after a hectic next few years, should actually be able to start winding them down. Maybe if I put it that way... it might help. 

Anyway, I'd better get on with the divination, so that I can go to bed. Absolutely exhausting day. 

Me: Ace of Clubs (Strength) - Overcoming Desire, Building Trust, Courage

Situation: Queen of Spades - Strategy, Intelligence, Ambition

Outcome: 8 of Diamonds - Comfort achieved through hard work and persistence

My cards are still trying to comfort me... I appreciate it. The narrative here, is that I will be strong, I will overcome my desire to run away to the hills from the situation I got myself into, and I will have courage for the future. The Queen of Swords has a naked blade - I'll spend some time strategizing without mercy to myself or others tomorrow. And at the end of it, if I work hard, I will feel much better than I do right now. Fingers crossed all of that is true. 

 Interesting day today! 

Over the course of the day, the worries lessened gradually about the upcoming Amazon thing... I'm mostly calm about it now. Mostly. Though I admit I did wake up a few times with them on the previous night, so there's that. 

I think both the other cards weren't about me at all, but my friend Cory. The Hierophant reversed represented me, offering him the chance at doing a banishing spell, from a source outside of all official tradition. He took all my books pretty eagerly and I think he'll at least give it a chance. So... the Jack of Clubs would be him :)

After this long, hot day, let's do a divination and get to bed!

Me: 8 of Diamonds REVERSED - NO comfort achieved through hard work and persistence

Situation: 5 of Spades REVERSED - NO possible disappointment, powerful opponent

Outcome: King of Spades - Wisdom, Authority, a man in charge. 

My guess about this... I'm not going to be very comfortable tomorrow, lol. Not too surprising given the heat! The situation card to me suggests "nothing happens". And the outcome card... hmm. This card seems to represent me expressing spiritual authority (even if only to the tomatoes). I wonder if I'll finally start to get traction on the next part of the Druid path sometime tomorrow? Once I survive the heat, that is! :)

Let's get through this before the kid gets out of the bath...

The Chariot: Honestly not sure how this represented me today. I'll need to read up on the regular 7 of Spades to understand this card in the future.

Ace of Diamonds: This one was bang-on ;) I took a long nap in the middle of the day, spent some time with Mike <3 and started my period. That is always a time of great peace for me - I just want to snuggle and be held and not think too hard throughout all of it.

King of Hearts - Honestly, not too much was achieved today, especially professionally. I wonder if I need to look an alternative interpretation of this one up as well? If we're going by "master of the emotions" then I feel like I might be there at least for tonight. Hormones help, lol, but I've also been doing the "water" aspect of the SOP for about a week now and it is starting to feel like it's having an effect...

Let's get tomorrow's done. Second day of period, it will be, so let's keep our ambitions small...

Me: Joker (The Fool) - Freedom, Fearlessness

Situation: 6 of Hearts (The Lovers) - Love, Beauty, Union

Outcome: 8 of Diamonds - Comfort Achieved through Work and Persistence

Hmm! Seems accurate enough. I'll be bobbing about at my hormonal spacy-est tomorrow - that's plenty like The Fool. I'm planning to go to another McMenamins - I find them extremely beautiful. And, I hope I'll be working hard on tomorrow's dinner, and that we will all be able to enjoy it together <3

And... that's enough for today, I'm off :)

PS - I looked up the 5 of Diamonds common readings. It turns out it's a feeling of being cast out, of loneliness (though also with the hope of a new community). That was the day I formally returned my keys and cancelled my co-working agency membership, which I'd poured so many hopes into at the beginning of 2020. So... there's another bang-on reading. My cards are really working hard for me. I ought to get them a nice silk wrapping :) It's being budgeted!