Cassie
Junior Member
Happy to be here
Posts: 181 
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Post by Cassie on Jul 6, 2013 23:51:13 GMT -11
This is really an extension of a thread that began in Anonywicks. Perhaps here we can go into more detail and reacquaint ourselves in a more permanent thread. How have our lives changed and how have we changed as people between when we were regulars at MW and now? In the Anonywicks thread it was clear that there has been a lot of personal growth, which I see as a very positive thing and maybe worth sharing.
AS for me, I still travel around Europe teaching English, promoting courses and supervising other teachers. I have been promoted a couple of times in the last couple of years and have quite a senior position in the small company I work for now.
My home life has been painful with my Mum suffering from early onset dementia. She has now reached the stage where she doesn't really know who I am anymore. I had to find a care home for her and am in the process of selling her old house to pay for her care. Deciding whether to give up work to nurse her full time or continue with my career was quite a tough decision. I still try to play as active a role in her care as I can though.
I split up with my boyfriend four years back and was happily single for several years. Eighteen months ago I met a woman and was shocked to find out that she was actually my Ms Right! We have had a happy and successful relationship since then despite living far apart (she is based in Switzerland). The fact that we are both bi, helps, I don't think it would work the same way if either one of us were completely lesbian. Anyway, starting this summer we will be spending much more time together which will be great and we have a lot of future plans.
Spiritually I accepted what I had known for a while that my true path was Satanism. I have become quite active in various Satanic circles.
In terms of my personality, I'm still me. I tend to be a happy and positive person most of the time. However I have had to toughen up a lot in many ways and I have developed a much harder edge. I am probably far less patient with idiots and users than I used to be. I embrace and use my darker side much more these days. A few of my beliefs and opinions have probably changed significantly too.
Well, that's enough of me!
How have the rest of us changed, grown or developed over the last few years?
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Kalika
Junior Member
Rawr.
Posts: 106
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Post by Kalika on Jul 7, 2013 14:02:54 GMT -11
I'll bite... (though I half wonder if this should be moved to Introductions?) Home life has been up and down... the artist formerly known as Kodiak and I have two little girls together, though he and I went our separate ways several years ago. Most recently, involved in a steady, healthy, happy relationship, and life has been good. Our girls are happy, healthy, and beautiful. Spiritually, I was lost for quite a while. I've gone through periods where I couldn't even pick up the tarot cards, to doing readings every day. And now I'm somewhere in between. I refer to myself most often as agnostic, but I definitely still have strong pagan leanings, and ties to Kali. (Hence the whole sticking with the name thing.) I still love divination, and encouraging personal growth and development in others - as well as in myself. I'm still me, just couched with a little more maturity, and a little more perspective hopefully.  |
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Graphite
Moderators 
The Big Bad
Trimming fat
Posts: 453
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Post by Graphite on Jul 7, 2013 14:58:27 GMT -11
Well, I have gone from being an unemployed/on extended vacation/sick leave thing to having fallen into being a small business owner with my own art business. This is relatively new and I have been doing it for no more than 2 months minus one day. So far, totally okay.
I am still married to Iggy and we still are very happy with our feline son Mal.
I am still an atheist, still interested in various things on a psychological level but all in all a very sceptical human.
Personality wise I am a bit more grown up, but essentially the same. Time does that to most of us.
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Cassie
Junior Member
Happy to be here
Posts: 181
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Post by Cassie on Jul 8, 2013 3:50:00 GMT -11
I'll bite... (though I half wonder if this should be moved to Introductions?) I'll ask a friendly mod. Kaylara or Graphite perhaps... (Practising using user tags)! |
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Kaylara
Moderators
Ich bin ein Berliner.
Posts: 48
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Post by Kaylara on Jul 8, 2013 4:19:09 GMT -11
Heh. That's a good question
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Post by Flaire-FireStar on Jul 8, 2013 13:29:20 GMT -11
Nah, I think it's fine here.
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Graphite
Moderators
The Big Bad
Trimming fat
Posts: 453
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Post by Graphite on Jul 8, 2013 13:36:21 GMT -11
I am not of any specific opinion. It can stay or it can be moved.
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Post by tehmanagement on Jul 8, 2013 14:02:51 GMT -11
Oh jeepers...
Uh.... My boyfriend of a couple of years and I broke up, and I've since left the staffing firm I was with, and was unemployed for about three months. Out of unemployment I worked my way up from intern at a local internet radio station to manager of social media and their website.
Last year I took a month off to walk from Boston, MA to Washington, D.C. and came back with a new outlook on pretty much everything.
I left the internet radio company a couple of days before they downsized in April 2013, and have started my own business working in search engine optimization and enterprise social media management. I also help my roommate and friend run a local music promotions company out of Boston.
Spiritually I remain firmly agnostic but will entertain philosophical discussions on just about anything. I enjoy learning above all and if anything my path is truth seeker. Along those lines I'm currently planning a walk from Boston, MA to Salem, OR in March of 2015.
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Draco
Theme Mods
Posts: 273
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Post by Draco on Jul 8, 2013 14:22:57 GMT -11
I almost got married...
Well I'm a regular attending UU now. Was the Spirit Play teacher, ended up teaching the Youth class and sometimes help with those outings. Might possibly be doing Spirit Play again in the near future. Do community service stuff through there.
I help clear invasive species here in the local woods. I've been getting much better in touch with my native background sense you all probably saw me back at MW.
I also work with a group of Wiccans now who are a mix of Gardnerian and family trad/traditional witchcraft/Cochrane based lineage. They are kind of hard to place in that regard but they are wonderful. that's really the reason I stay in this area.
I also learn stuff from my friends at the Cherokee Nation, and keep touch with them. I was going to plan a visit this summer but I don't know where it went... but I'm still planning to take a bus out there. There's a bit of pressure for me to move out there to but while the grounds would be a good place for me Oklahoma in general doesn't sound too inviting.. so we'll see.
That said I've been helping a friend with his Alchemical and Hermetic treatise and he has invited me to be a guest at his lecture in February. He's with an occult research and think-tank group and is looking forward to working with me in the future.
So I am having connections open up for me. I'm seeing the possible of much more travel back and forth in my future up I'm fine with that if I can make it happen so I don't neglect any one area of my life.
And I broke my toe several weeks ago.
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Post by Flaire-FireStar on Jul 8, 2013 15:18:28 GMT -11
News of the weird. Since I'd left MW, I'm still with the same company as I was before. But last year I've since moved to Vancouver as they shut my branch down on the North coast. (Makes no business sense to anyone, but president's decision.) That said, I've moved from an administrative/service scheduling/product sales/warehouse position to full time CSR for product sales and dealing with five demanding salesmen.
I've been with a certain someone for a year, still going strong.
In 2011 I took my first overseas trip to New Zealand, going alone. I met up with my tour group in Christchurch a few mere months after the earthquake there and were (treated) to a tour to as close to the red zone as we could get. If anyone wants pictures, I didn't take any. Seeing the destruction there, I was almost in tears. Seeing people's homes ripped apart. It was unbelievable, moving, and I found it morbid that there were people taking photos. Outside of that, the trip was amazing. Even in winter, the scenery of New Zealand is breath taking.
After that, I took a trip to visit a friend in South Korea. The humidity was brutal, but the culture was so easy to get submersed in. And the scenery around Daegu was gorgeous. Travelling to a country where English is hardly spoken, if at all, I was surprised at how easily I found it to be there. And be a foreigner. Went to Gyeongju Love Castle. (NSFW if you Google it.)
And the mighty stomping boots have been retired after a number of ankle injuries.
Oh, yeah, and I got fat.
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Post by halfwaynowhere on Jul 8, 2013 15:54:15 GMT -11
Hmm, where to start...
In February 2011, my father passed away. One month later, I started dating a guy with so many health issues, it was pretty obvious to everyone but me that I was looking for someone else to take care of. Bad relationship. Didn't last too long. He passed away last year in May, well after we broke up, but it got me realizing that life is short, and if I wanted to get where I wanted to go in life, I needed to DO something about it. Sitting around trying to meet guys on free dating sites wasn't the answer. So I went back to school last Fall.
I also spent a good chunk of last summer at Disneyland, which I credit to helping me overcome a lot of my anxiety issues. I made new friends with shared interests, and conquered some of my control issues by letting myself enjoy some of the thrill rides. It's an important part to my story, as silly as it may seem.
So back to last Fall, when I went back to school. I had been cooking and baking a lot, and decided that baking was a real passion of mine. So I enrolled in the local community college's hospitality and restaurant management program, that was piloting a small culinary program. I excelled in the baking and pastry course, and was invited to represent the school in a commercial baking competition. I took second place in the regional competition, and third in state, so that's not too shabby.
I also became active in the hospitality club at school, something that even a year prior, I never would have thought possible. The first thing I really did with the club was help out with baking for a Halloween bake sale, where I met someone very special. We started dating early November, and he moved in with me early December. Fast, but it was the right decision for both of us. We were planning on eloping in May, and working on starting our family this summer, but life had other plans for us, and now I'm nearly six months pregnant, and we put off getting married. Since we hadn't made our plans public, I didn't want it to look like we were only getting married because of the baby. We're thinking August or September now, depending on how certain recent developments play out. Our little girl is due mid-October, and I'm looking forward to spending our first Halloween as a family.
So that's about it. I still pretty much live on the computer, but I do have a little bit of a life outside of it now. I'm still very much an animal person, currently fostering and bottle feeding two kittens. I've cut back on the creepy crawlies, I only have 2 leopard geckos and a tortoise now. Still working my seasonal job, which means not working at the moment, and looking for work while pregnant is proving to be difficult. I'm trying to launch a pet photography business but have so far been unsuccessful.
Those are the big things, anyways. Definitely a lot of growth and change over here!
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Post by jemsidhe on Jul 8, 2013 16:01:53 GMT -11
I have grown a lot spiritually since I was at MW. I have started doing more instead of talking online. I've been involved very much with the local pagan community, helping out at events or with whatever needs to be done. I have, officially and completely come out of the closet. As such, I don't talk to much to my extended family and I am finding that, it doesn't bother me like I thought it would. I talk to my father and my grandfather, I see everyone else Thanksgiving and Christmas...if that. I've been giving thought to just staying at home on these holidays and starting our own thing instead of going to family. My daughter will be off to college in two years, I think, its time to evolve and stop doing things around everyone else. I have found family in the friends I have made over the years through the pagan community, some of them are in the same boat as myself, so who knows, maybe we all can get together instead. My sister came and lived with me for a little while. She is 15 and has major issues. That really put me to the test, as she says she is very much Christian, which is fine, but she's the very judgmental kind, and in my house, I don't tolerate anyone making fun of or trashing someones path. Real long story short, she ended up moving out, because she has having thoughts of killing my five and four year old children. I don't tolerate that either. Um, I am still with my husband, almost nine years  . We've had our ups and downs, but we work through it. He has just started a new job and we are building a house! I can't wait to get out of this little apartment and have room to set things up how I really want to. Other than that...same old stuff, just a different day. |
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Kalika
Junior Member
Rawr.
Posts: 106
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Post by Kalika on Jul 9, 2013 9:58:47 GMT -11
Nah, I think it's fine here. I was thinking it would encourage more people to open up if it was less public. Maybe, maybe not. (Giving reasoning for a line of thinking is always helpful!) Which reminds me.... |
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Post by Flaire-FireStar on Jul 9, 2013 13:19:26 GMT -11
Can it be seen publicly as a guest? I know when I was a guest (before y'all were invited,  ) I wasn't able to view any forums. |
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Kalika
Junior Member
Rawr.
Posts: 106
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Post by Kalika on Jul 9, 2013 15:12:52 GMT -11
Can it be seen publicly as a guest? I know when I was a guest (before y'all were invited, ) I wasn't able to view any forums. Yes. Just checked. |
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Aidron
Junior Member
Posts: 71 
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Post by Aidron on Jul 10, 2013 16:56:20 GMT -11
I mentioned hair, right? Because that pretty much consumes most of my waking hours.
I am part of a team who are opening the one and only elite Paul Mitchell salon in the largest metro area in the state this Tuesday. And the opening comes after plethora of idiotic delays from contractors, inspectors, and various other individuals meant to inspire one to commit suicide, homicide, or both.
If I am not working behind the chair I am usually either studying, attending advanced classes, or training to become a national educator for John Paul Mitchell Systems with hopes to become a regional color coordinator such as my friend and mentor Candace who oversees the entire southern US. The rest of the time our team does the hair for fashion shows, and participates in or holds charity events at least once a month since we believe giving back is the rent you pay for your time on earth. And our goal for each stylist is to pull in six figures a year after 12 months of working behind the chair and to understand that when you stop trying to be better, you stop being good.
Other than that I still avidly read the tarot (and have 4 brand new decks on the way right now). Still a practicing witch. Completely devoted to Hekate. And I barely own any clothing that isn't black cause of work.
Oh, and I totally forgot. I quit smoking a year and a half ago and after 15 years, the fact that I no longer smoke still catches me by surprise now and then.
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Thetis
Junior Member
Posts: 71
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Post by Thetis on Jul 11, 2013 2:19:34 GMT -11
Very little has changed for me. I'm still in nursing school limbo. I'm working as a nurse now and working on my associates. Then I'm going to take a long break and decide whether or not I really want my bachelors. Still with Nick and still living at home and thinking of moving to Canada within the year or next spring.
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Xentor
Moderators
Forceful Pacifist
Posts: 391
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Post by Xentor on Jul 11, 2013 9:28:18 GMT -11
Got married. Got kids. Going to immigrate into the US this year. Got fed up with MW a couple years back. Needed more time with the family. Feeling better now. Got more time now for MW and AllPaths because the wife and kids are an ocean away. Not happy about it, but yay, more time. Got to finish some stuff. Got a new job. Became the permanent music teacher for our woodwind band, while it lasts.
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Post by forest4thetrees on Jul 11, 2013 13:48:20 GMT -11
ohhhhh... lets see... i think most of you knew me when memnoch and i were dating... well, we ended up getting married (yeah, someone actually got suckered into marrying him! holy crap! and yes, there are times i wonder what on earth i was thinking... lol) so far, no kids. not from lack of trying though... i've bounced around a few times job-wise and am currently working at a high end daycare while looking for a job actually in my field. i've gotten a few bites but nothing concrete so far. keeping my fingers crossed that the most current nibble pans out! (so uh... any good job-getting mojo ya'll can send me would be much appreciated right about now...) i'm also trying to get my photography company off the ground. so far it's been a slow start, but hopefully that'll change as time progresses. ummm.... spiritually speaking... i've meandered my way to being more of a general pagan type... haven't really done much delving recently. probably should change that soon. -ish.... lol |
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Seasin
Junior Member
Cleaning bones and skulls
Posts: 54
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Post by Seasin on Jul 29, 2013 12:30:12 GMT -11
Let's see...
About 9 years ago I owned my own business and was with an idiot that I was actually considering ways to kill (yeah, it was THAT bad). Weighed the option of prison or getting the hell out and then met my current Love. Said goodbye to the business and left the idiot alive (though in retrospect I know the neighborhood strays would have enjoyed the meal) and moved across country putting as much distance between me and the idiot as possible.
My Love and I bought a house and got settled, started raising Arabians. Then over the past few years sold them off and started raising emus and poultry. The goal is pretty simple, raise most of our own food (at least meat) and be somewhat self sufficient. So I spend most of the day tending to the animals.
I used to paint, sculpt and sketch more than I do now (really need to get back into it). Life has a lot less stress so we're both pretty darn happy. As for hobbies, I clean and collect bones / skulls and am working on articulating skeletons. I still make soap, oils, candles and all that (also make our own emu oil at slaughtering time). And I have my saltwater reef tanks. Eventually I will master the guitar.
As for the whole spiritual thing.. well. I'm still just me. Never could buy into any of the man made religions or drink the koolaid. But what we do works well with our personalities and gets us some pretty darn great results. So I think we'll continue doing as we have since it works well for us.
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Sita
New Member
The shadows call to one and all
Posts: 18
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Post by Sita on Jul 30, 2013 3:37:32 GMT -11
Got older.
Still as boring and introverted as ever. Still married (12 years next week!) son will be 11 in 2 weeks and in 5th grade.
Nothing really has changed, I don't think.
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Post by Cev'aq on Jul 30, 2013 5:49:21 GMT -11
I drifted to atheism for a couple of years. Got a pretty awesome tech job. Lost everything I own, which prompted my gradual return to faith. My job got even better. I'm rebuilding my life. In a nutshell.
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Post by thewomanmonster on Jul 31, 2013 17:48:20 GMT -11
Finished my diploma in Criminal and Social Justice.
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. We've had our ups and downs, but we work through it. He has just started a new job and we are building a house! I can't wait to get out of this little apartment and have room to set things up how I really want to.
) I wasn't able to view any forums. 
