"Things fall apart/the centre cannot hold" - Yeats

That has kind of been my life for the past 3-4 months. Nonetheless, welcome to 2016! I had high hopes but the first bit kinda sucked, I'm not going to lie. Now that we've crash landed into it and things may finally be calming down, I thought I would pick up the scattered pieces of my life that lay strewn about and try to put them together - one of those pieces is this blog. 

Let me give you the run down.

As I'm sure many of you already know, Heather and I bought a house back in November. The process started at the end of September and went into October. After some really frustrating hiccups during that process, we moved in mid-November. The move was by far the most jarring one I've ever had, and that day was a bit of a hot mess for sure, but in the end, regardless of how many tears were shed, we had a house. And it is our house.

We were just starting to get settled in, when we went on vacation in early December. We hadn't planned  on taking a vacation at all last year (or any time in the near future for that matter), but it kind of fell into our laps at the end of last summer, so we couldn't refuse it. We knew we would be leaving some boxes and stuff to unpack when we got home, which was fine. Not exactly how we'd hoped things would go, but that's life, isn't it?

Our trip was fantastic - an awesome break from the craziness that had been happening in our lives. We got to see some friends, that, although we don't see very often at all, are kind of like family now. 

The real shittyness happened pretty much as soon as we got home.

Both Heather and I got sick on the last day or so of our vacation so that by the time we got home, we were in full blown sickness mode. I ended up with a sinus infection, and Heather had one heck of a nasty head cold. We both missed some work because of it, and once we started feeling better we were finally able to start thinking about the first Christmas in our new home.

I started to put up our little Christmas tree and got out the tote of decorations, and just when things were starting to feel like home and plans for a family Christmas dinner at our house were made, all of that fell apart. 

We were taking out our old couch to make way for a new one that we'd bought and was supposed to be getting delivered the next day, when Heather noticed something in the folds of the couch. It was a bedbug. A small one - not even an adult, as we would come to find out - but that one tiny bug threw any plans we had made right out the window. We found it on December 22. That close to Christmas, no one was able to come and spray our place, but we were able to get a guy in with sniffer dogs. They both reacted positively to a small spot around where the bug was found, so we decided to go ahead and get someone in to spray with chemicals. 

Heather was a mess. It was her worst nightmare come to life. Literally. 

We were essentially living out of ziploc bags for nearly a month. Every time we came in or went out of the house, Heather had to run everything through the dryer. We even had to find temporary homes for our reptiles (which we are still so thankful for). To say it sucked is putting it mildly. 

Once the pest control officer came out and sprayed, he was able to confirm that it was likely just the one bug - there were absolutely no signs of anything else. That was peace of mind enough for me, but Heather was still scarred from it, and will likely always be to a certain point. She is doing a lot better now though, and is about back to her regular self. Our house still vaguely smells like the chemicals the guy sprayed in some spots though, an unwanted reminder of some of the darkest days we've spent together.

Once we were done with the chemical treatments (only 2), we got our new couch delivered, and slowly started getting our lives back in order. We were able to cook in the kitchen again, we could be in the living room and not be afraid, and we could start to finish unpacking, and finally, the ziploc bags went away.

It's taken us this long to get our office mostly in order, and to finally get our ritual room put together. 

I cannot tell you what it's been like for me to not have an altar set up - to not have a place to focus on. It sucked a lot. It's been almost 5 months since I've had an altar set up, and let me tell you, I did not feel right for those 5 months. I might even go so far to say I may have been a bit depressed. I'm not sure how that works because I'm not very familiar with it, but now that I was able to put the final touches on the alter last night, I feel like a fog has been lifted. Everything seems brighter, more vibrant. Even though I was up at 5:45 this morning, I was okay with it - not tired and reluctant to get out of bed. It's like night and day.

So, with that, here's a closer look at my "new" altar.

So I've got a few things going on, as you can see. The main alter has 3 components.

The top level, if you will, is my working altar. It's where the magic happens (literally! Teehee). Anything I need to charge, any spell I cast or sachet I make, or anything I need to do really, is done there. It's got representations of all of the elements, plus an offering dish.

The middle level is kind of a placeholder spot. It's stuff I want to have quick and easy access to, but I don't always use. Things that don't really have a spot otherwise, but I want to keep out.

The bottom level is my ancestor alter. This is a new section that I've been wanting to set up for ages, and I'm actually really excited about it. Originally I had envisioned it as one of the little side altars, but I couldn't figure out how to get photos on there, so after a bit of thinking I re-worked it ever so slightly and came up with this idea. I really like how it's turning out, but I'm not quite done yet. I need to sort through some old photos and pay a visit to my parents house before it will feel "done", I think.

And this is my meditation altar. It's a tad on the cluttered side, so I may tweak this one as well. Originally I wanted it on my main alter, but had to re-work it slightly and so this is how it ended up. I think it will do just fine though. 

So this is my "healing" altar, which is another new addition. I had the idea to set one up after a ritual I went to for Yule. It's very simplistic, and it's going to take a little work to be "done", so for now it's super bare bones. I really just wanted to have a candle, preferably a 7-day candle, and a dish or something that I could put people's names in (for people that have asked for good vibes or healing or that kind of thing). I'd like to spruce it up a bit more than that, so this might be another one that evolves more consistently. 

So there we go, my new space all set up! Finally! And on top of that, I'm feeling a bit more like my normal self. I think maybe it has something to do with having that space set up, but it could also be that we've been cooking in our kitchen again, and the majority of our animals are back. I've been noticing that the days are getting longer as well, so that could be helping too, I dunno. Either way, I'm crossing my fingers that there are brighter days ahead. 

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*Note* I wrote this last weekend and didn't get around to posting this until now because I wrote it as a note on my phone and then had to e-mail it to myself, then I copied and pasted the e-mail here. I'm not sure what Blogger didn't like about that, but it obviously didn't like something. Sorry for the odd white "halo" around the text, but hopefully I can fix it somehow.