I want to post a thank you to all those who have taken part in the special so far and all those who have been advertising me around and about to people. I really appreciate it. Really and truly.

Thank you so much. I love doing this work with people, and I’m so, so very grateful that people have been taking advantage of this opportunity to try my services out when we really need it.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Lately I’ve felt like I’m greatly in need of a turbocharger for myself, but really I just need to pace things. My “good” days have been a bit missing over the past week, so on days where I’ve been feeling good there’s been a danger to overwork myself and make things so much worse.

I was reading a good article the other day that reminded us that the ideal of having everything in balance is more of a myth and detrimental to us. If we try all our lives to get to this balance we’re doing ourselves a disservice. Our role in life is to juggle things, and in order to be able to do this juggling it’s important that we take care of ourselves first and foremost, and try to be in tip-top condition.

That being said it’s not an easy thing to do. I know a good many people are trained or become of the mindset that everything and everyone else is important and we’re secondary. I find myself doing that a lot. I do all these things for my son all through the day, and when he’s napping I spend my time trying to clean or make food or catch up on work (all in a very short space of time). Even when I was on bed rest while pregnant it was hard for me to just do nothing. Unfortunately for my thighs and waist line a lot of my busy work involves the computer…which isn’t so good.

Then again, the way I’ve been feeling lately…it’s good for my overall health even if it isn’t good for my weight. We’ll get there. In order to take care of myself so that I can be a good juggler I need to start doing some exercise, even if it is just boxing and playing tennis on Wii Sports. Build up gradually.

Maybe I’ll find myself re-energized yet.

I’m offering another $15 general reading special. Not valid with any other discounts.

The special is running THROUGH July 12th.

This is a “general” or Celtic Cross reading, which looks at the most recent thing going on which myself and the cards can draw upon and then I interpret the cards to see what advice and insight they offer you depending on what they show has been going on, and what we perceive will be happening in the near future.

Given my computer is working properly now and my camera, I can send 3 shots showing the various cards that I drew for you so that you can get a better idea of your reading. This is my standard practice, but unfortunately two readings in to my last special my computer decided it wanted to catch a virus, and my now dead laptop which was still working at the time doesn’t talk to the camera anyway…

The slots are as follows.

Will be filled by July 3rd.
0/4 filled

Will be filled by July 7th (I have a boring 4th weekend as my hubbie’s working sad.gif )
1/6.

Filled by July 12th
1/3 filled

In order to read for you I need.

email:
paypal email (if different):
date of birth:
starsign:
deck preference: celtic, cosmic, manga, no preference
area of focus: e.g life, love, money, moving, travel, general.

If you don’t have paypal you can click on the “cross my palm with silver” link in the sidebar and pay by credit card the appropriate amount. Or email (cat@beyondmirrors.net) your information.
Pre-pay is smiled upon. My paypal is set up to the beyondmirrors.net email.

Thank you for your attention, blessed be.

I find that sun catchers are something that I really like to have on glass doors, for many reasons. Not least of which is the fact that it’s easy to see which door is open and which door is not so you don’t make a fool of yourself colliding with it and possibly hurting yourself.

When we moved in there were two snowflakes already on the glass doors and then while I was at the closest New Age store in our area that I know of, Avalon I found a beautiful pentacle sun catcher and had to buy it for our door.

But then I felt that things were a little out of balance, our home should be an equal representation of both of our cultures and faiths and given I’m the one who is home and does most of the decorating things are tending towards a more pagan slant. So, I went on a quest to find a nice looking cross sun catcher that would blend but would mean that my husband’s faith was being represented more in our home. It took me several weeks but finally an eBay store held the answer: Wanda’s Window Magic. Wanda makes all the window clings she sells herself and she has a huge variety from holiday themes, to football teams, and I was able to find a very nice Celtic Knotwork Cross and she even painted in a color which would match more the scheme I’m going for.

It now has it’s place on the left hand door while the pentacle is on the right. In the picture above the doors are both slightly open so that I could get them both in the same picture. I’m glad that you can find anything you’re looking for on the internet at times. I’d been scouring google and the yellowpages but with the cost of gas I really wasn’t wanting to drive all over town trying to find something, and I’m definitely recommending Wanda to those looking for window clings, given despite the fact that she’s working on selling her house right now she still managed to get the cling to me within three days, and it’s beautiful. You can tell that she really cares about her work.

In a random side note this is my 300th entry on this blog. Go me!

Certain things are strange to me now that I’m a citizen. I don’t know if I mentioned it specifically on this blog or not (my brain is a sieve) but I got my citizenship in May of this year. Many people don’t realize but I was born in the United Kingdom and emigrated here in 1995. I’ve been living here ever since, and have no thoughts about going home, as it is right now I couldn’t I don’t have a valid passport. Whoops. But I can get a US passport now. I wonder if they’ll have an issue with my green and purple hair?

Anyway…I’ve got the right to vote now, and I’m itching to exercise it, although I have to wait until November. This citizenship has done me a great deal of good, it opens many new doors for me and should help our family out in many ways. I probably still won’t ever get jury duty because of my husband’s employ, but I can vote and have a say in my son’s future, and help better fight for equal rights for those like me who are not mainstream. I might not ever be able to run for president…but some times I entertain the idea of being active politically anyway. I’m in a very small town, and most of the church’s in the area are baptist and the like…but so far we’re doing pretty good…my son managed to scare off the Mormon preacher who came by the other day (and he’s only two). I think generally we weird out a lot of people anyway because there are pentacles and crosses equally all over the house.

Anyway…enough ramble from me. I hope everyone’s having a good night.

I’ve been asked, and have accepted, to officiate the handfasting of two good friends of mine, this coming November. They’re combining some traditional wedding elements in with the Celtic version of the ceremony and we had the first of many phone conferences about the gathering yesterday.

They have a lot to get through, but they have a very good attitude about the situation. They’re willing to mix and match and compromise so that things work out the way they want but also so they don’t weird out any relatives. Weddings can be a very stressful time, and it makes things a lot worse if you have relatives breathing down your neck about various things. Thankfully for them they don’t have quite as hard of a situation in that regard. Their families are leaving them to their own devices for the most part, but they’re also on a very tight budget, which I can understand as well.

I have friends who are going to be doing Chicago travel and other destination weddings, and they’re just doing theirs at a local park, we did the same sort of thing. You do what you can, the main thing is that you and your spouse are happy with the ceremony and that it illuminates your love for each other and the blessings that you have together. My main goal as the officiant is that they’re happy with the words that are being used to illustrate their kinship and their faith and it’s looking as though we’re going to be able to do that very well.

I’m excited.

I got a comment on my “Telemarket” entry from someone at Embarq, and re-reading my actual entry I realized that I jumped topics a little bit and made things unclear.

Here’s the comment quoted for those who you who are for some reason link phobic.

Hi name name is Jenny and I and with Embarq online support team. We would first like to thank you for your business and we regret that we had to lose you as a customer. We are all trying to work through the current economic crunch. I apologize that you had recieved a letter from Embarq about your yellow page ad. I am sure that this was an automatic letter that was sent for mailing before you had cancelled your account. If there is anything that i can do to assist you please let me know. You can email me anytime at **email deleted by Cat** Thank you for giving us the opportunity to help you.

Yes, we have canceled the yellow pages listing. I canceled that last month, when the rep called me to renew. I got my notification from Dex, the company who handles the yellow pages and billing for Embarq that it was canceled. That did not come with a coupon. It came with a note that I still have $23 to pay on the balance of my previous listing and then I will be done with them.

Then on June 3rd (or so) we switched our phone company to Comcast from Embarq. Their a variety for reasons for dissatisfaction with Embarq that prompted this switch. To make sure every thing is crystal clear I will list them all.

1. When we moved to our current location we could no longer do the “Big Business Bundle” through Embarq which meant that we were then paying $96/month + international fees for phone with long distance and international services alone instead of paying $96/month for phone with all those services AND DSL. Why? Because DSL in our area is exhausted. I was told that it could be 6 months to THREE YEARS before there’s more DSL in our area. So, my options were to add an additional $86/month to my phone bill and try to do wireless internet, pay a $400 install fee, and I don’t remember what a month to do satellite internet with a minimum commitment of two years or go with another provider. In fact the second Embarq rep told me that it was probably in my best financial interests to go with another provider for internet, and I thanked her for being honest rather than trying to convince me to break myself financially as the satellite rep had. We’re a small business, and much as I do use the internet for my business I would find another way to work things before paying a $400 install fee, when I just emptied most of my savings account paying the down payment to the mortgage.

2. Embarq were not open on weekends. This has been an issue several times. Where something has happened to the phone or a question has been needed to be answered after 6 p.m. on a Friday and I haven’t been able to talk to anyone until the following Monday.

3. Haphazard customer service quality…this is different from the not open on weekends thing. Customer service has been getting progressively worse, and I’m glad to get out before it really goes down the crapper. I’ve had worse service, but I’m not talking about Verizon Wireless right now.
• When we were getting the phone installed at our previous residence, I was told between 1 and 3, and the guy didn’t show up until 6, and then he didn’t do anything except say he would have to come back tomorrow because it was raining. It’s nice to be able to call up and find out that a tech is delayed and by how long he’s delayed.
• When we had an issue at our first residence the tech came out at 8 a.m. early so I was impressed. He then futzed around outside for two minutes came back in and proceeded to tell me it wasn’t their fault I needed a new phone. I humored him…brought out another phone that I keep spare and plugged it in. Phone still didn’t work.
• Since then when I called to find out why, when we moved in, that tech who I had been promised would be there by 10 a.m. still hadn’t shown up at 11:15 I was rudely told, “He’s running late.” No, really? “How late exactly?” I asked. “I can’t tell you that. He’s late. He’s gonna be late. He’ll get there.”
  Gee thanks. A week later another rep hung up on me when I called trying to find out why the call-forward from the old number hadn’t been put in. When I canceled the one number, given it’s a business number, and we were moving at Yule which is a VERY busy time of year for readings I asked them to do as they had done when we moved to the second place which was to forward it so that if someone called the number that’s listed in the yellow pages instead of them thinking I had gone out of business by getting a “this line is disconnected” message it would say, “we can forward you to the new number of xyz or you can hang up and call it yourself,” but they hadn’t done that.
  What gets me on this is I can understand her hanging up on me if I had called up and gone, “What the bleepity-bleep are you doing, my bleeping number is bleeped up!” but I called and I said, “I think there’s been a mix-up somewhere I was supposed to get XY and I haven’t. Can you fix it?” She listened to my whole explanation from that point and then hung up on me.

So, there’s a variety of the reasons why we’ve been getting more and more dissatisfied with Embarq. I’m not even getting into the brief fiasco with Embarq wireless and their lack of night and weekend minutes and the fact that they charge extra for call-forwarding service to their OWN wireless phone, that I can do for free to my Sprint phone…(oh, wait I guess I just did).

These are a variety of reasons that make me feel it’s laughable when almost a month after I cancel their service I get a card in the mail and a coupon which is telling me how great it is that I’m such a loyal customer and giving me a $10 credit provided I call a toll-free number and talk to them about my being a loyal customer.

I feel this is less of a “loyal customer” reward and more of an “OMG she jumped ship!” generated automated offer, and that if I called there would be some attempt at enticement to get me back.

But no, I’m very happy with Comcast. I’m saving at least $30 a month right now with their bundled services, compared to what I was paying with Embarq, even if their DSL wasn’t exhausted in this area, I still wouldn’t have been going with their TV bundle package because it’s satellite and there are lots of issues with satellite service in our area (my Mum’s GPS can’t even find one in our area) and several of our neighbors have switched back to Comcast from satellite so I doubt we’d hardly ever have TV nor internet if I’d gone that hideously expensive route. Plus my husband is happy because he can play his Halo3 tournaments online without the hideous lag the DSL used to have, and we can get movies on demand on nights that we’re both not working.

The phone service is excellent, even when the power went out for two hours during the storm we had last Tuesday we still had phone because there’s battery back-up on the modem. It’s clear as a bell, and it gives us a lot more information via Caller ID than I used to get. I call about a tech support issue even at 2 a.m. on a Saturday/Sunday and I get someone and they fix it right away.

That’s great. We made the right choice.

Since we switched to Comcast we’ve had a lot less calls from telemarketers which is nice. We’ve had a few residual mortgage lenders calling trying to offer us new rates and some calls for the people who used to have the phone number and have debt that needs to be collected, but overall it’s been nice and quiet on the phone which I like.

I apparently disappointed the Embarq yellow pages by refusing to renew their account…but they did NOTHING for me, and now I have this offer from them that they’ll take $10 off my next bill because I’m such a loyal and devoted customer…um…excuse me? I canceled your service two weeks ago, how is that loyal and devoted? Ah, well…