Ear infection, no fun at all…

Yes I have yet again been away for some time, once again because I was sick. This time I had an infection in my ear. Not a regular one that lasts for three days and can be made less painful by piercing the eardrum, trust me I do not underestimate these “regular” ear infections, I’ve had them plenty, but one in the middle of my ear, with such an extreme swelling that both my ears were grown shut.

I have tried to describe how it felt entering day six of the infection on Facebook…

Take six needles, if possible a bit blunt and rusty, and boil some oil to 190 degrees. Now create a vacuum inside your skull, stick the needles in both your ears, try to hit your eardrum at least once and pour the boiling oil in your ear as well. Let's not forget to create continuous buzzing, throbbing and whistling inside your head and to remove 90% of your hearing. Now hang a 15 kilo weight around your neck and stay awake for 5 days. 

Welcome to my world. 

I have had severe backaches, burns, broken bones, migraine, deep cuts, neck aches and what more, I am no sissy, but ear-infection is by far the most painful experience I know.

I am right now still not completely recovered, due to my diabetes it seems to take longer to feel completely okay again, also my ear still stings a bit when I don’t take pain killers at least twice a day. But I am getting a bit better every day and I have been back at work for several days now, working half days.

Other than that, keep your eyes open for workshops, courses and other interesting events we have planned in the coming months at Ixani. We’re possibly starting a tarot club type thingy, and I am preparing something that will allow you to get into contact with “your own” tarot card. Keep your eyes open for details on Ixani.nl I don't want to give away anything yet....

And another week… mead and kittens.

Freya has been with us for a week now, the little diva is getting along with everybody as long as each of us knows our place, any deviation from written protocol is met with sharp screeching and the occasional wack of the paw. She even has new drink and food bowls, pink with a little crown on it.

So week two of working Monday and Tuesday evenings. Working the evening shift is not all that brilliant. It’s not too bad on the day itself but on Wednesdays and Thursdays when my regular shift resumes (which means getting out of bed at 6:00 or earlier) I have trouble adjusting. Last week especially Thursdays was terrible, I had a hypo (extreme low bloodsugar caused by my diabetes) and the rest of the day I was extremely tired, or sleepy to be exact, constantly fighting to keep my eyes open and not being able to focus on anything. So I’ll have to be extra careful not to let that happen again this week.

I did my first practice session with my tattoo kit. First I let my wife actually fix one of the guns because it would not work for mister technical… L But now I actually fully understand how the thing works and I got to working the synthetic skin. I now know where my main challenges lie. I have to get a steady hand and see how to move my hand while maintaining a straight and steady line and I will have to keep a sharp eye on where and how I place my needle. Other than that I now know what materials I still need. I have confidence in achieving a certain amount of skill within reasonable time after which I will start abusing my own skin.

Yesterday we went to a small renaissance fair type festival thingy. It was okayish considering it was free admittance. One big bonus was the presence of Mead and More (http://www.meadandmore.nl/) . Mead and More sells mead…. And not just one kind of mead, they buy, import and sell all kinds of mead from all over Europe. My favorite is Wild Rose Mead, of which I immediately bought a bottle off course.

Ixani has her new site up (www.ixani.nl), be sure to check that, I can’t wait to get started again on my readings and workshops, I actually haven’t done a single tarot reading since Anja closed the doors a few weeks ago, so I hope the opening of the new location will be soon!

here's what happened

So here’s a short update type thingy on my life. Stuff that happened and stuff I’ve got planned.

Here’s the short list

- Sorry for leaving you
- Ixani closed for the summer
- Greebo our cat and beloved friend died
- Plans for becoming a tattoo artist fleshing out
- Mum’s cat has kittens, we decide to adopt Freya
- Seriously ill
- Updating my virtual presence and taking a new approach to social media
- RIP NL Tarot Forum
- Auryn showroom
- Coming up

And here is the same list enhanced with a blog like text.

Sorry for leaving you

Yes I’ve been away for a while, I came close to not going back to blogging at all. But I couldn’t leave this one to die. I have downgraded my online presence a bit, more on that further on, and the blog doesn’t really fit in this new approach to the virtual community. But screw it, I have to get my attention-fix somewhere, so for now it stays up.

Ixani closed for the summer

Friend and business relation Anja from Ixani (www.ixani.nl) where I do most of my tarot readings, workshops and coaching’s is moving her shop along with a summer break. Which means that regarding a lot of my tarot and coaching activities, I’m taking a break too. Which is in many ways a good thing, though at times a slight financial inconvenience, especially regarding my Mc Donald’s habits. I am out of a burger budget.

Greebo our cat and beloved friend died

Not everybody is able to understand how completely devastating the loss of an animal friend can be. Our cat Greebo died, most likely of a heart attack. She was ripped from our midst so suddenly we barely grasped what happened. She died in my arms after a terrible but mercifully short struggle. I miss her so much, her cold wet nose against my skin, her warm furr against me as we’re dozing off together on the couch and her running down the stairs in the morning greeting me while cheerfully meowing. I miss you poezemeis.

Plans for becoming a tattoo artist fleshing out

On a lighter note… I have found a tattoo kit of which I think it will help me along my first steps of my plans to become something of a tattoo artist. It’s a long road with many obstacles. I have been careful to find a balance in what I am willing to invest at the moment and what can be done on long term when I learn more about the art itself and how I am able to make it mine. So I have gone some steps above the ultimately cheap Chinese kits but have steered away from the serious professional tattoo guns. So now it’s practice, practice, practice on synthetic skin, fruit and vegetables and pig’s skin and ultimately myself.

I have also played with a name and a logo for when it all gets serious. Who knows, maybe some years from now I will open a shop. For now however it is just playing with ideas, coming up with different scenarios for where to take this tattoo thing.

Mum’s cat has kittens, we decide to adopt Freya

Only a few days after our poor little Greebo died, my mums slut-cat gave birth to four awesome miniature tigers. It is her third litter, it was also about the third time she managed to run away…. That’s what I said slut-cat, when she goes out, she goes to “get some”. Seriously Sophie is one hell of a cat and a great mum. One of the four kittens was Freya, it’s hard to describe or to see on the photo’s but Freya was so amazingly pretty and weird it took her little effort to win our heart and manipulate us into adopting her. We had armorered ourselves against it and we were still stricken with grief from the sudden loss of Greebo, but somehow every objection we had seemed to vanish after coincidence after coincidence and everything seemed to point us to this kitten we have now named Freya Greebo Goldilux.

Seriously ill

A few weeks ago I completely lost my voice. The following day I was hit with some sort of über-cold. Having trouble breathing and being awake for more then half an hour at the time I felt completely miserable, though the pain in my throat cleared I still had no voice and my problems seemed to have migrated to my chest. After going to the doctor I learned I had some sort of bronchitis. Medicated and rested I was still too sick to do anything useful for a period of ten days, after which regular life slowly returned, though up till now I still get tired way too fast and still have some mucus-throat related problems. I seem to be producing slime in Ghostbuster proportions and keeping thing “solid” on the toilet remains somewhat of a challenge during most of the days.

Updating my virtual presence and taking a new approach to social media

You know that angry post with which I left you? Well that attitude stuck for a while. I had a lot of frustrations to sort through and I am still working on that. One thing I did was take a good look at my life in cyberspace. Facebook, twitter, blogspot, myspace etc. etc. a lot of my regular frustration seemed to stem from somewhere online. So I changed that around, I chose to minimize and centralize my online efforts. I deleted a lot of “friends” from facebook, starting with colleagues. Somehow half of my friendslist seemed to consist of colleagues. So at home I would still be constantly confronted with work related issues and at work my private life seemed to have become public property. Though I had first planned to quit Facebook altogether I decided to just cut down a lot.

RIP NL Tarot Forum

Yeah I scrapped the forum, nobody came there so no use in keeping it up, it appears there is just too little need for forums anymore. I personally find Twitter and facebook too superficial. As I have posted before I have a warm fuzzy feeling when it comes down to for a, but there’s little sense in me posting all by myself.

Auryn showroom

This last weekend we had a fathers day type happening in our friends webshop showroom Auryn. It basically boiled down to beer, BBQ and lots of pretty girls. Yes I had a blast. It was interesting to see was the girls behind some of the biggest beautyblogs (makeup, fashion etc.) of the country. Some took a very professional and businesslike approach to their online presence and some just “do what feels good”, neither strategies are any guarantee for success or failure it seemed.


At one point there was a bit of a fuzz and half of the ladies there took out their Blackberries and Iphones, apparently there was some sort of online drama with other beautybloggers calling each other names…. A wave of gossip ensued and suddenly I pictured this American beauty salon with all the women gossiping with curlers in their hair or under those fifty style blow dryers. Some things never change, even though the means by which things are done may.

I am soooooo looking forward to the next Halloween themed Auryn event, where I will actually be participating… how? You’ll see.

Coming up

So what’s next? Well I have a pretty busy schedule coming up filled with kitten adventures, tattoo practice and computer games (Alice the madness returns, F3AR). I’ve got ticket to Cantus Buranus (Corvus Corax and orchestra) and Castlefest (renaissance fair type thingy but cooler). Harry Potter the Deathly Hallows will soon be hitting the theatres and when I’ve gone and watched it I can claim having seen all the HP flicks in the theatre… still having an internal debate on if that’s something to be proud of.

My inner nerd is content.

Asleep or working… I need to get shit done. The Sun

Asleep or working… I need to get shit done.

Lately it seems like I am either asleep or at work. I can’t shake the feeling of being lived. I have a total lack of energy and to a large extend I can’t find the willpower to do the things that need doing. For instance because of our purchase of a sony photo camera we can make a photo album for free, this is a two to three hour job which has been sitting there waiting for more than two months. I still have to scan in the tattoo designs I made two months ago for my ex-brother-in-law. But my inaction also reflects on my health, I am gaining weight and my blood glucose can not be benefitting from this. And so I find myself in this downward spiral which I find very hard to break. Especially now with the daylight saving shit stealing an hour of weekend from me.

I am hoping the lengthening of days and the rise in temperature will slow the decline so I can once again gain some control and be able to get shit done.

I want to congratulate Ixani beauty, wellness and new age shop, with her one year anniversary.

So todays’ card

The Sun

The sun is a card which is usually considered to be a good sign. It represents hope, joy and vitality. Summer, light and warmth indicate a better period in life or a brighter state of consciousness. There is always the warning that the sun can also scorch or cause drought, blister the skin and ruin crops. Too much of a good thing can be even worse than the lack of it.

Sick and planning... so four of swords....

Yay, a new blog…hooray for me!

So I’ve been quite sick, in case you hadn’t seen my sad facebook posts, I even cut down on my gaming a few nights, somehow watching a screen while your whole face is filled with mucus has it’s challenges, like not being able to follow anything on screen with puffy eyes. Also running to the toilet while in a multiplayer game is less than fair, though I think sometimes the team might be better off with me just standing in a corner. Which doesn’t mean I haven’t done any gaming by the way, just less.

Another thing I’ve done is thinking…. Thinking is a challenge for me to begin with, but this time it was kinda serious as well. I am going to pursue some new things. One thing will be tattooing. I am planning to invest in equipment, getting information and getting some papers that I will need. I don’t know exactly where it will lead, nothing solid there, but I do know for sure that I am going to take the first steps. Art and especially small designs and doodles have been my “thing” for quite a while and I have designed hundreds of tattoos through the years, I now feel it is time to take that next step and see how that plays out. So keep your fingers crossed for me there and who knows if things work out I may give you peeps a discount!

And no, this does not mean I am dropping my tarot activities… I am actually planning to shift the gear up in that department as well, together with Ixani we are already picking dates for workshops, courses and even a course in designing your own Tarot deck, when there’s enough response off course.

So there’s that, a short update… yes I am alive and yes I plan to do more posts soon… I’ll keep you posted.

Tarot a girl thing?

Friday, almost weekend and it couldn’t have come quick enough for me. Tropical temperatures and soccer are not my “thing” so this week has been quite the challenge for me. Just have to wrestle through a few more hours of work today.

This weekend I will spend some time getting to know my Shadowscapes Tarot (http://www.shadowscapes.com/Tarot/index.html )a bit better. It is by far the most beautiful tarot deck I have seen. Up till now I haven’t had time to actually do a reading with them, but this weekend I am planning on doing just that. Funny thing came to me though, the deck, especially compared to some other decks I own is a bit feminine. Looking at tarot as a whole it all feels a bit aimed towards the female species. I never thought of it before, but right now I feel Tarot is a bit of a female “thing”. Most of my clients are also women, off course I would love to say that it is because of my raw masculine charm, but I’m afraid that might not be the case…hahaha.

Oh well, I hate soccer ( or any sport on TV ), I have no interest in cars, I have long curls and now I count tarot as another of my feminine traits… I am so in touch with my feminine side it might be considered harassment.

This weekend I will be writing a review for Aeclectic Tarot (http://www.aeclectic.net/ ) on the HR Giger Baphomet Tarot… not a feminine deck by the way, keep an eye out for that.

And while we’re spamming check out http://www.ixani.nl/ (Dutch) and the Ixani forum on ixani.forum2go.nl (Also Dutch). This is the shop where I do my readings and the accompanying discussion forum on anything spiritual and mystical.