The wind has been whispering to the trees all morning. I didn't even suspect it was raining at first, just louder whispers. The rain was quick and sudden, no little sprinkles leading up to this downpour. The sound soothes me. It's another whisper, less obscure. It speaks to me of cleansing, washing away all the dirt and muck of winter, of rebirth into beautiful spring.

Things are blooming everywhere. It's ridiculous how happy a little bit of color can make me. It's been a long, hard winter. I need that color, especially that green. The grass is so green right now. It stands out, emerald and glowing in the misty grayness of this rainy day. The crocuses and daffodils bob in the rain, taking strength and heart. I wish I could say that my seeds are being pleasantly soaked right now, but as it's Wisconsin, I haven't planted them yet for fear of frost. In fact, this pleasant spring rain is supposed to turn to snow before the day is out.

I don't know if I can handle that. I won't think about it. I'll just continue staring out the window at the rain, enjoying how the sound mingles with the soft music playing, enjoying even the smell of it. The rain makes me happy, and more creative than usual. I'd best take advantage of that.

The storm outside is constant. The wind pounds the house. The snow falls in an unceasing torrent. It is a quiet storm though; no thunder, no lightning, none of the things I love about storms. No, this is a winter storm, the latest in a constant chain of them. My town is nearing thirty inches of snow in the last two weeks. Where is it all to go? We can barely leave our house. There are no sidewalks to walk on. Our shovel has long since broken. At least we have food in the house this time, unlike last week.

I suppose this wouldn't be such a bad thing if I enjoyed winter. After all, a nature-worshipper such as myself is supposed to enjoy all seasons, yes? Not really. I can certainly see the beauty in winter. I can respect Nature's great power during this season. That doesn't make it my favorite season in the least. I feel so trapped. I cannot go outside to partake in it at all. The snow is nearly waist high in my backyard, though I am very short so I suppose maybe thigh high for most. The temperature threatens to freeze the tears in my eyes. When it was still fairly warm, I walked about a mile down to the cemetery and took pictures of the statues covered in snow. Winter wasn't so bad then. I felt much more connected.

There won't be any days like that anytime soon, I can tell.

Sitting in my cold house, staring outside at the snow, I feel half-dead and hibernating like the trees. Like most everything at this time of year. This is my dormant period. No sap runs in my veins. Just ice, and more ice. I haven't been warm since December. I wait in silence for spring, for the returning of life, not only to the snow-covered trees, but to my own life. I long to walk in the woods and see the green leaves, the emergence of buds. I ache to bury my hands in the soil of my backyard. I pine for the spring rains, so much more cleansing than the slushy winter snows. I cannot wait for the sound of thunder to shake my house.

Imbolc has come and gone. I listen to some people further south speak of signs of spring. I seethe in jealousy. I must remind myself that March is around the corner, Beltane not far ahead. It may seem like a lifetime now, but I need not wait much longer.

The house is quiet, and all is dark. Next to me, Josh breathes evenly, giving rhythm to the silent morning. I look at the glowing red numbers on my other side. Just after six. I've been asleep less than four hours.

My heart beats faster than normal. My legs twitch. I close my eyes and play music in my head, Loreena McKennitt, soft and relaxing. I picture green fields and weeping willows. I try to make patterns in the darkness of my closed eyes. Nothing works.

Do I give up and crawl out of bed, or stick with this vain effort at capturing a few more hours, minutes? I debate for half an hour, then crawl out of bed.

I can't see a thing, so I hit the lights. Their brightness is blinding, shocking. Josh immediately begins to moan. I step back towards the bed and throw the blanket over his face while I scoop my pajamas off the floor and begin putting them on. Josh writhes on the bed, and sticks his head out of the blankets to look at the clock. He looks at me with dismay on his face, and I tell him to go back to bed. I turn the lights out and leave the room.

The house is so silent and dark, it almost feels like I'm intruding. The night light in the hall casts minimal orange light on the tan carpet. The night light downstairs is much brighter, illuminating the kitchen with its blue glow. The window on the back door reveals nothing but blackness. It's winter; the sun still hasn't woken up yet. It sleeps in late, peacefully, like Josh upstairs.

I turn on the kitchen light and begin to make tea. I reach in my tea cupboard to find a pack of chamomile. I don't drink it often. I rarely have trouble sleeping. There, in the very back, is one packet all alone. I put the packet in a mug and pour the hot water, then turn off the light and head back upstairs. What better to do at six-thirty in the morning than stare at a computer screen?

I sip at my tea, trying to soothe my still-racing heart. Every once in awhile, I check the window next to me for the sun's progress. The morning stays obstinately dark for nearly an hour. It seems very sudden when I steal a glance out the window and see the grey light of morning. The snow on the rooftops bounce back the colorless light. The bare tree branches stretch darkly across the grey sky like spilled ink; except where steam on the window fogs my view. There, the branches blend into the grey background. The view out of my window reminds me of a watercolor carefully done, and then dripped on before it's had a chance to dry.

I finish the last of my now cold tea and admire the way that the grey light softens and masks this room. The paint is not quite so offensive; the shadows from the various odd angles mix and blend until there are no angles at all, just soft lines.

This does not last long. By the time I finish writing this, the sky is still grey, but the light is strong enough to irradiate the room and reveal its usual garishness. The magic is lost. I can hear Josh tossing and turning alone in the bed. Perhaps I should join him; try to reclaim a bit more of my stolen sleep. The morning is still young.

I haven't been here in awhile. I've been pretty busy since the wedding. We found a house and moved, I started a new job and then lost it due to the store being closed, Christmas came and went. It's been very crazy.

I don't know if I'm going to spend a lot of time online anymore, just because I seem to have so much to do. The house is mostly set up, but there's always a box or two more to unpack. I'm still working on finding another job. I'm painting a lot more now that I have the room to. Hopefully I'll post more painting pictures on here soon.

Still, I feel that there's a certain lull in life right now. I'm trying to do more relaxing things. Painting helps, yes. I also want to spend a bit more time online, try to catch up with friends I haven't talked to in awhile. I finally have a bit of yard to put a garden in; I can plan it if I can't plant it yet. ;) I have plenty of things to do around the house. Spring will be a very busy time for us with planting and painting and other fun house things!

I feel kind of terrible that I have done no rituals or magic in the new house yet. I haven't even set up an altar. I'm unsure of where to set it up. Ideally, I'd like to put it in the kitchen, as I follow a kitchen witch path. Or should I put it in my art room, as I love the way my creative energies seem to exert a certain magic? Should I do both? Should I worry about putting an altar downstairs where guests can see it? I haven't even done a cleansing ritual like I wanted to when we first moved in. I thought of doing it on New Years, a sort of beginning-of-the-year-cleansing. That didn't happen either. I think I'd like to do it for sure on Imbolc. If I don't do it soon, it would feel kind of silly to do it at all.

Luckily, this place seems fairly neutral and free of energies. It's a very old house, but I don't feel any spirits, much less any negativity. I was a bit worried that I would, but when we first toured the house, I felt nothing but warmth and excitement. Upon moving in and having lived here a bit, I feel a neutrality to the place, as if it asks to be charged, shaped, bent to my own will and purposes. A cleansing ritual should be done first, just to be sure, and then perhaps a ritual for happiness, warmth, prosperity.

The one thing I still feel sad about is not living close to the Arboretum anymore. The city park is near us, but that doesn't compare to the hiking trails and beautiful panoramas and wild atmosphere of the arboretum. Especially here in the winter, I feel a certain disconnect with nature. I took a walk to take some pictures in the cemetary the other day, and that helped a lot, I think. Just to be out in the elements... perhaps there's no arboretum here, but I can connect in other ways.

Well, hopefully I'll be visiting more frequently these days. And if anyone has any first-time gardening tips for me, I would love to hear them!

A lot has happened in the past few months. It feels like I'm living a whole new life lately.

The biggest thing, of course, was the wedding. I worked myself into an absolute panic attack getting things ready, and nearly worked myself into a panic attack that day as well, when all the little things went terribly wrong. We used a judge as our officiant, and he refused to participate in the rehearsal, so of course we had no clue what we were doing when the actual ceremony happened. It must have turned out alright, because I did get compliments on how beautiful the ceremony was, so they must not have noticed too much. I did, though.... And our DJ for the reception was just terrible. It must have been his first day, because he just didn't know what he was doing. He came late, he didn't play the right music, he was late startind all the important dances so people were leaving before they were even happening... Grrr!

I guess I could pick out all the little things that went wrong forever, but I know what's important is what went right. We got married. We had fun. The guests had fun. We got a lot of compliments on how interesting and creative our entire celebration was. I got told I was beautiful about a million times. So overall, it did go well!

I'm married now. I'm a wife. It's been a couple weeks, but it is still so wierd to think of myself like that. We've been together for five years, living together for three of those, engaged for a year and a half. It's been a certain way with us for a long time, and now it's supposed to be different. It doesn't feel that different... but it is.

It's starting to feel different a little bit at a time. We have a new car that's "our" car, with both our names on it. We share a bank account now. We're buying a house!!! Yes, it is different, yet perfectly the same between us. In a way, I knew it would be. We have always been completely ourselves around each other. We know everything about each other. There's no reason we should change after marriage, even though a lot of people have told us it would change. We already do things equally; we already had both our names on a lot of things; we were practically married anyway. This just gets things down on paper. Things may change years from now, but that's natural. Of course things are going to change later, when we start having kids and such. That doesn't mean we'll be different people. I know who my husband is; I know his quirks, his good qualities and bad; he knows mine. People are so pessimistic though. They are! Yes, I'm aware that 50% of marriages end in divorce, I know people who have went through terrible divorces. Is it so wrong to have a little confidence despite the statistics?

Oh well. Things are going well, that's all I need to tell myself. I'm really excited about this new house we're working on buying. We should have it by the end of November, maybe early December. It's going to be more money than we're used to spending, but I'm working on getting a full-time job and my husband (wow, still feels wierd) is even thinking about a second job. It'll be worth it to get this house; it's huge! Ugly, but huge. And ugly can be fixed. It's an old 1900's house that's been pretty recently updated and remodeled... I can't say I like their remodeling choices, but as I said, ugly can be fixed. Some paint, a new floor here and there, a little landscaping down the road, and it'll be good. lol!

I'll post pictures of the new house when we get it! For now, here's some wedding pictures!!!

Edit: - Ok, apparently the photo attatcher isn't working for me. But go check them out in my photo gallery!!!