*42-year-old wife and mother of a 7-year-old little boy. Live with Spouse and Spawn and two dogs and two cats.
*I do naughty things like regularly feeding the raccoons and opossums that live near my house. I have regular visitors and I have named them all. I am following the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission’s instructions to keep my bird feeders empty until the salmonella outbreak has subsided, though.
*I have what Spouse describes as an obscene number of books. I used to keep them organized by the Dewey Decimal System, but we have moved into a smallish house so now most of them are in storage. Most prominent non-fiction sections are herbalism, homesteading, history, occult, travel, and diseases.
*Project manager (ugh! Not particularly fond of that title, but I am a PMP) in a public health research company. Started as a temp employee in the lab, became a laboratory supervisor, then an operations manager, then a study manager over the past seventeen years–all at the same company. (On the same project, actually.)
*Guardian ad Litem for children petitioned into the court system in my county.
*I have been diagnosed with interstitial cystitis/painful bladder syndrome since 2008, so if anyone else is having difficulties with that condition, I’m here if you want to talk to someone.
*Marentide-bearing Ebenguard. Pisces Sun, Scorpio Moon, Virgo Ascendant, Aries Mercury, Aquarius Venus, Pisces Mars, Cancer Jupiter. I don’t know the rest. Earth Goat in the Chinese zodiac. INFJ in the Myers-Briggs test that they had us do at work long, long ago. Hufflepuff.
*I love Leonard Cohen and Spouse understands that he will always be in second place. Spouse does have the advantage of still being alive, though.
And here is a list of my character strengths that I had to do for some reason–probably for therapy.
Thorn_Character_Strengths.pdf (501.7 KB)
Marentide? INFJ? Project manager (so someone who loves organizing chaos while pretending they don’t actually enjoy organizing chaos)? Organizes their books by a library system? Appalachian? RACOONS!?
We have so much in common <3 <3
I have zero good photos of my outdoor children, but here are a few mediocre pictures.
This is Totoro.
And Parker.
And Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell, who eat all of my broccoli in the garden.
Look at these beautiful babies 
And we are a fairly Appalachian family. My ancestors (at least, the Swiss lines) settled in the Uwharrie Mountains back in the late 1600s, so we’re technically in the Piedmont. We still consider ourselves uplanders, though. 
I grew up in Bell Co, and my mom and bio-dad’s family seems to be the entirety of EKY to the point that I’m at least 1 of 3 "Amber Peace"s from the area in my generation. Our main family cemetary is in Harlan. I’m not sure if my mother’s family came from the NC Peaces, because we don’t have enough info, but my bio-dad’s family is firmly Irish/Scottish (Kidds and Dunaways) that are your stereotypical “we found the mountains, now we’re not leaving” kind of people. Their main cemetery is in McCreary co.
And this probably sounds really weird to people who didn’t grow up with family hollars 
I have a mild obsession with watching Tiktoks about pet raccoons.
My dad had a friend who used to be a nature photographer. They had a whole family of pet raccoons and when there wasn’t enough exciting wildlife around, they’d stick the raccoons in a tree, take photos, and then call them back home! I wish Dad would tell me thier name so I could look up thier work
Now that I have my teeny tiny, inner city garden I’m getting really into the idea of learning about herbalism. What are your favourite books on them? Whats your favourite occult book? What fascinates you about diseases?
In comparision to some of the other colleaugues who have left for greener pastures how has the experience of working for one company for so long been?
Now most of your books are in storage what system are you using to organise the others?
Have a lovely day
Ooooh! I got so many great journaling topics from @violetlily! I am going to address them each over the next week or so.
For now, since I have a work deliverable to finish up, I will just enter the following:
Despite my obsession with Leonard Cohen, the band/musician that I have seen in concert the greatest number of times is The Moody Blues. I have them on in the background right now while I’m working.
Now I’m trying to figure out which Moody Blues is the Ebenguardiest. Story in Your Eyes mentions tides in every chorus.
Your wild friends are so precious! I would love to have some opossum friends.
WOAH! I don’t think I’ve ever met another human (other than my dad & uncle) who knows about the Moody Blues! Thanks for bringing them back into my mind, I need to put some on today.
My first black henbane bloom! My H. alba plants haven’t bloomed, yet, nor have my brugmansias or daturas.
Well, ouch.
One of us! One of us!
Heather: A TMI Post
I’ll start with the win because I needed a win dreadfully today. I’ve been doing Tommy Rivs’ running for beginners six-week course through iFit, and today was the big day. Today we completed 30 minutes of continuous running–the goal for this course. Now, on to the next.
There were some barriers. Yesterday, I learned that I need to be off of all meds besides my prescribed duloxetine and levothyroxine for the next two weeks due to an upcoming medical procedure on the sixteenth. Yesterday. Yesterday, I learned this. No Aleve, no ibuprofen, no Excedrin, no herbs of any kind. I take kratom daily for pain control. There’s a back story.
I have interstitial cystitis, IBS, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, (depression and anxiety, obs), and the newest complaint over the past two years–peripheral neuropathy of unknown etiology with loss of balance. (Seriously, I’ve had MRIs, nerve conductions tests, etc. They say I’m normal. I don’t think this is normal.) I noticed the loss of balance, first, because I used to take pole classes for fun and exercise. One day, I wasn’t able to do footwork that used to be easy for me. A few weeks later, I started losing my grip strength. Things hurt. Things already hurt because of the interstitial cystitis, but this was pain that felt like it was in my muscles?, ligaments?, tendons?, nerves? of my arms and legs. Know what helped? Kratom.
Anyway, so I stopped taking Mitragyna speciosa cold turkey yesterday after I got home from my appointment. I’m still taking a quarter teaspoon of her cousin, Mitragyna hirsuta when I try to go to bed or when I absolutely have to or I’ll completely lose it. Four times a day, today, but I want to be completely off by Monday, if I can. And now, everything hurts again. Everything. Hurts. Again. And the only thing I can take, Tylenol, doesn’t do jack. But I did get a win today.
