A Hot Mess And Godless

     I've had a bad mental health week. I'm sure many of you have been there: pulling yourself out of bed and forcing yourself to shower and head to work so you can pay bills is hard enough, but the idea of standing in front of a stove and cooking seems completely impossible. Kids still gotta eat though.      So what do you do? Well I for one am a big fan of encouraging independence in children by giving them the occasional opportunity to feed themselves (at age appropriate levels of course) so "mom's feeling like a bowl of shit tonight meal" #2 was them making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with apple slices for dinner. The apple slices were impressively their idea. I'm very lucky to have kids that actually enjoy eating fruits and veggies; night #1 we ordered pizza. By night #3 I was feeling guilty about not cooking so I popped in the kitchen to make one of the easiest and quickest things in the pantry: ramen noodles.      Yes, ramen ...

Yay! You've ended another week without strangling anyone! Here's some deals and tasty recipes to reward you for making it through another week of work and parenthood!  Deals I love this week: Groceries  Free, yes FREE chocolate at Frys! Download this week's  Free Friday Download  before the end of the day today and stop in sometime before April 4th to redeem it!  Fry's also has a great deal going on for strawberries 4/$5 and deals on soda I will be taking them up on! Check out your local store's Weekly Ad  for more!  Feeling crafty? Have a big project you've been waiting on good deals to purchase materials for? Head over to Michael's for a 40% off one item AND 20% off your total purchase you can use together! I'll be heading in there myself today to pick up materials for some ritual wreaths I'm making for a Grey Faction project! *See bottom of blog for more info*  Sprouts has an amazing 72 Hour Sale  going on this weeke...

Welcome to Frugal Fridays! Where I go over good deals I've spotted going on throughout the week!  First up is Fry's Food & Drug stores! Fry's recently started doing Digital Deals;  digital coupon sales that can be used up to 5x in one transaction. These sales typical last Friday - Sunday but this isn't always consistent and not every store is the same, so please check your local weekly ad before hopping in your car. I'll be stocking up this weekend and tossing a few packages in the freezer for later as these typically go for $4.49 each at regular price. If you want a good tip on how to rack up some extra fuel points while you're saving some cash at Fry's start at the register before you shop. Purchase a qualifying Visa gift card that  you can use on the groceries you're about to buy and you'll earn 4x the fuel point spent on that card purchase PLUS the fuel points you earn from the groceries. It requires two transactions through th...

     Many times when you met someone who identifies as a Satanist or Atheist, there is a back story of intolerance and/or abuse through one of the Christian denominations or other main stream religions. I come from the unique position of having suffered religious abuse through Paganism. I know you're probably thinking the hippies with the crystals and sage? Really? Yes. Really.      I live with a disorder, Manic-Depression - Bipolar, whatever label you want to give it. It is incredibly unpleasant and not an easy thing to live with either for myself or the people around me. I spent much of my life being shamed and gas-lighted for my mental health issues. If I took medication I was "crazy and needed meds", if I didn't take medication everything that came out of my mouth was dismissed "because I was just off my meds." People close to me, friends, family, and significant others, would try to distort reality and pretend conversations between us did or didn'...

         I know; I've ranted on about all kinds of things this week and by this point you're sitting there thinking  okay bitch now tell me how to save some money already! Alrighty Then! I don't "extreme coupon." I'm not going to make wild claims that I can help you lower your grocery bill from $300 dollars a week to a few bucks. 1) Nobody got time for that. 2) It's actually a huge pain in the ass to try, and as more people have been trying it, more stores have changed their sales and coupon policies to stop it. I can give you solid advice on knocking off a few bucks here and there though. I'm quite the frugal shopper, in a household of five (6 if you count the dog) I have to be, and some things you just pick up on after doing it for so long. So here's a few general (and realistic) tips and advice to get you started on your money saving way. * Focus on where you actually shop (or where you know you will realistically make the trip out to)...

     One thing I've struggled with as a practicing Satanist mother is how to still incorporate holidays and traditions that my children can enjoy and have fond memories of without wading through volumes of Christian or Pagan based rhetoric - There's nothing worse than finding an adorable bunny garden statue with "I Love Jesus" or "Blessed Be" plastered on it's butt! But hey that's what spray paint is for right?      Anyway, I think it's important for kids to be able to enjoy holidays, (life is hard enough, let them enjoy a damn chocolate rabbit once in awhile), and I want them to still be able to have memories and traditions with our extended families who don't share my views on religion. A huge part of this is compromise and setting boundaries. Some hard No's on my end: no church, no Jesus/God nonsense when it comes to gifts/Easter baskets etc, and the expectation that if you tell my kid about something that isn't real like the too...

"Satanism encourages any form of sexual expression you may desire, so long as it hurts no one else. If all parties involved are mature adults who willingly take full responsibility for their actions and voluntarily engage in a given form of sexual expression - even if it is generally considered taboo - then there is no reason for them to repress their sexual inclinations." ~ Anton LaVey      I know, it's hard to look at your kid and think someday they'll be out in the big grown up world having sex. But newsflash, it is almost guaranteed they will. You can't prevent it, and honestly you shouldn't try to. Before you start hitting the report button let me finish.      Sex is a completely natural part of existence. After all it's how we, and most other creatures procreate and continue to supply this planet with life. It's also, for most people, enjoyable, important, and there is absolutely nothing "dirty" or "impure" about it. I co...

     I had planned to launch this blog last December with my first post being all about the benefits my family has enjoyed once I finally abolished the tradition of Santa Claus from our home. This idea came after several years of frustration over many "mom blogs" floating around on the Internet that I mostly enjoyed; as long as I ignored the emails that flooded my inbox with home school bible study packets and Noah's ark craft tutorials, and almost every single one of them wants to tell you what they did in church that Sunday or how this particular psalm is getting them through rough time in mommy-hood.  I just want advice on how to get my kids to do their own damn laundry and what's on sale at my local grocery store. I don't give two shits about your women's only bible study class and I shouldn't have to.      Oh that's another thing; I cuss. A lot. I am so sick of this image perpetuated in not only the online mom blog arena, but in the way our gene...