Saturn Trine Venus

So I gave up on the Christmas Cards and was going to spend today making New Year Cards but that doesn't seem to have happened. Marvelous and wonderful news is that Good Girl, who's been refusing to use a litter box since I got back from vacation a month ago, broke down and used it this afternoon for both functions. The relationship will continue. Iffy there for a while.

Pluto Square Sun

How I can say I no longer have an interest in astrology when I go www.astrograph.com at least twice a week to see what my solar return chart would be like in 2019 or so if I stay in Silver or go to see my sister in Spain or John in Palm Springs and exactly WHEN my Progressed Sun will square natal Chiron I really don't know, but it's the truth.

I'm certainly no longer as obsessed as I was for many years, when I filled three-ring binder after three-ring binder with home-made calendars showing every transit for the day, complete with bi-monthly charts of new and full moons showing as bi-wheels against my own horoscope.

Still, here I am watching io sprite show Pluto is squaring my Sun right this very second and for the rest of the day, and have done my very best to honor it by telling myself I am NOT a playwright, NOT a writer and fully acknowledge I have to change my life.

Update Two Days Later:
Well now I feel pretty silly as absolutely nothing Plutonic manifested itself, even with Saturn squaring Chiron three hours after the Pluto aspect perfected.

Mars Conjunct Neptune and Sun Square Pluto

... so to continue with the joke's on me, I got to the service station place at eight o'clock on the dot except I'd put the hour back the night before because the U.K. Daily Mail told me to so I got there at nine o'clock on the dot.....

.... which meant it took them two and a half hours to fix the car so I couldn't play tennis and to add Pluto's insult to injury it turned out the car needs a new alternator as well as all the other stuff it needed so I need to take it back tomorrow for another Saturn in the Eighth $300. Good thing it's only money.

Mars Conjunct Neptune

Fortunately (or not) for me this means Mars is squaring Saturn, and for once I was able to get through a list of boring and painstaking *tasks*. Whether this was due to astrological influences or because I've cheerfully decided to triple the dose of my antidepressant I'm not sure, but either way it felt good. Slowly but slowly I'm working my way through sorting through clothes and making alterations to those that need, er, altering. I took photographs of the wildflowers that are still blooming and reframed a piece of embroidery, reminding myself never to compare myself to anyone else or I'd have been back in bed in five minutes.          

This was yesterday. This morning I woke up, turned on the heat and nothing happened. This is when I'm glad I have some knowledge of astrology. No seething inside for me. I'm saving that for when I take the car in at eight o'clock and they're not done in the ninety minutes they said they would be haha.

Oh boy - is this the joke's on me or not? Read on...

Venus opposed to Sun...

.. and much too cold to get out of bed. Forty-two degrees and thirty-three last night - first time this year Pretty Boy has asked to come in in the middle of the night. Supposed to get to sixty-three today so if there's no wind a perfect day for continuing to clean up outside. We shall see.

To be continued:

Well, three espressos and back to sleep - has to be some kind of record. Three phone calls - another record - one asking if I'd let a couch surfer I don't know stay in the airbnb room for a night. No. Another wondering if I'd be home so a book I'd asked about could be dropped off. Yes. Last one from a would-be neighbor telling she was unable to keep the house and would be moving out. Hate to say sad, under the circumstances, but sad.

Any outside work? Hahahahaha.

Sun Trine Saturn

Praise the Lord for this one - just as I'd decided my life from now on in would be playing tennis in the mornings and then retiring to bed for the rest of the day and reading the Daily Mail, here I am rearranging my little bedroom for the winter so I don't freeze sleeping in the ell of the two big windows without even thinking about it - just walk in, decide to do it and so help me, do it.

Looks horrible, but I knew it would. It's time to decide whether I want to keep the iMac and so the desk or let it go and - gasp - perhaps not even HAVE a desk. Way too much to contemplate for today. I can for the first day in what seems like ages feel as though I've accomplished something other than watering the plants.

Uranus Conjunct Mercury

I'm not sure what it says about me that I barely notice this. A couple of unexpected events - wasps in the airbnb room, a chance (hah!) meeting with an astrologer I have heard about for fifteen years but never encountered, the recirculating pump for hot water doing the reverse of its supposed function and cutting OFF hot water to both bathrooms - but thoughts coming at me so quickly I can't handle them and wanting to share my new insights with everyone I meet - not a chance. Sad.

Sun Trine Moon

I should take it as a positive that I spent this day sitting in front of a computer for four hours attempting to force an artificial ending onto a play I've been "writing" for six years before giving up and realizing I need to start again.

Mercury Opposed to the Sun

 Being a much more take charge person than I think I am, I had decided my new potential tennis partner needed a lesson from Coach so she doesn't make all the mistakes I did when I started to play again after many years.

(I started to take lessons ten years ago, was one of the worst in the class, and the other worst in the class and I decided that rather than embarrass ourselves in public twice a week, we'd start to play together and pick up all kinds of horrible playing habits that meant we continued to be terrible.  Only when I broke my wrist four years ago (Pluto to the south node) and then tore a rotator cuff the next year (Pluto STILL on the south node) did I start to take lessons again when my shoulder was healed and have now just about reached beginner status.)

Three of the six courts at the university where we play are being reconstructed from the ground up, and when I arrived at 8:50 am for the 9:00 semi-private lesson Coach was already there and greeted me with the news that the three available courts were occupied.

This is so boring I am putting myself back to sleep, but the supposed point of it is that a mini comedy of errors ensued and he and I drove from parking lot to parking lot looking for my potential partner, whom I had neglected to tell which parking lot to go to and was sitting forlornly on the steps overlooking the occupied courts, until the three of us connected at last and drove to the high school, where all six courts were empty.  You had to be there.

Jupiter Opposed to Venus

So since I got the queen bed for the bnb and moved the full-size that used to be in there into my tiny back bedroom, the single bed that I used to sleep on became obsolete.

I bought the base with its two drawers and extra storage under the plywood at Gospel Mission thrift shop back in the days when they used to have furniture and paid $5 for it. The mattress was my Christmas present to myself two years ago and was latex foam from Overstock and J gave me the Ralph Lauren sheets for it. The mattress pad I bought at Walmart.

And yesterday, with Jupiter opposed to Venus, after listing it on Grant County Goodies for $30 for the whole kit and caboodle for less than 24 hours, it was snapped up, carted away, the front porch no longer looks like an airbnb outdoor experience and I am $30 richer, a very good thing as since I upgraded to the queen bed I have had absolutely no bookings whatsoever.

Venus and Mars Conjunct Jupiter

The Mars bit was easy - a tennis lesson where where a male class-mate lent me a good racket to use for a couple of weeks as a replacement for my $10 Walmart head, which he says is holding back my game.

The Venus bit - lazy lazy lazy, no motivation whatsoever to put the house back in order after the previous two days when *handymen* descended to take care of a multitude DIY tasks I'm incapable of doing myself - repairing a ceiling after a leak, re-attaching a towel hook to the wall, replacing a doorknob, making a new gate to keep the deer out, helping me move furniture yet again after the replacing the full-size bed in the airbnb room with a queen size and then putting the old double bed into my tiny back bedroom and God knows what else, leaving every room in the house in a state of chaos.

Best of all, of course, was the decision NOT to tile my bathroom as it would involve removing the sink and lavatory and take about a week, which I cannot afford to do as since I blacked out time on airbnb to - hysterical laughter - replace the full bed with a queen, I fell to the bottom of the third page of listings, am never seen and have had no bookings for weeks.

Very little of this has anything to do with Venus conjunct Jupiter but the lesson to me is clear: take the title of this blog seriously or give it up.

Sun Trine Uranus

It has to be at least six years since I bought a couple of boxes of ceramic tile at a yard sale in California, thinking that I'd get the bathroom tiled. Since then they've been sitting in a shed where the trash and recycling gets kept getting dirtier and dirtier.

Well, that was written four days ago and was all I could manage. Back to am I lazy, depressed or seventy-two, or, most horrific thought of all and one I had better acknowledge if I am ever able to do anything about it, is my dream of *being a writer* exactly that - a pipe dream?

Glossing over that, making a supreme effort and attempting to finish the post, I spent the day piling the tiles in the kitchen sink, scrubbing each one, placing them outside on the front porch in the sun to dry and then bringing in the dry ones, putting out more wet ones, etc. etc. etc.

You had to be there.

Venus Square Uranus

Presumably whatever this was doing happened in my dreams as I was sound asleep as it perfected and sound asleep for most of the day leading up to it.

If this is a precursor of what's going to happen next year when Uranus conjuncts Venus I think I'll stop wondering about what's going to *happen* and invest in some flannel sheets.

Jupiter Opposed to Mercury

OK, so that's over, and I did sit myself down at the desktop and yet again start to go through Anonymous and Me from the beginning, getting to page six before I gave up and retired to bed to read The New Yorker, better I suppose than the mailonline.

Yesterday's questions remain:

How can I tell how much propane is in the guest room tank when the dial is covered with a large wasp's nest (large wasps' nest?) which I discovered yesterday when I lifted the cover to find out?

Will it be possible to assemble the bed frame for the new queen bed, currently taking up a 60" by 80" space on the living room floor (the frame, not the bed), or is it bent beyond repair and I should just find someone to take it to the dump, eat the $120 I paid for it as it's impossible to get it back in the box it came in and either order another one or have people sleep 9" from the floor?

Should I accept that no-one wants to buy the two three-drawer storage units that used to support the full bed in the airbnb room that have been on grantcountygoodies for a week and are now sitting on the front porch and

a) call Restore and have them come pick them up?

b) attempt by myself to put them under the full-size mattress which is now in my tiny bedroom balanced on a frame that is too small for it because it used to support the twin-size mattress that I used to sleep on that is now propped up against a cabinet in the dining room?

c) leave them on the front porch and accept that I now live in rural New Mexico?

d) how am I going to find someone to replace the re-circulating pump that provides hot water to the airbnb room when the plumber who installed it originally fifteen years ago seems to have vanished from the face of the earth and no-one else has ever heard of one?

Today's question so far at 8:42 a.m: is the above enough to be going on with and should I just get up and start to deal with it all or shall I

a) attempt to go back to sleep?

b) get up, make another cup of coffee and bring it back to bed and do my Fluencia for the day?

c) get up, make another cup of coffee and bring it back to bed and attempt the quiptic in the Guardian?

d) none of the above.

More will be revealed.

Mercury Conjunct Jupiter.....

....., Uranus coming to conjunct Mercury and Jupiter opposing it tomorrow and - what? Nothing, except I'm posting here.

Not quite nothing, of course. The house is in total disorder since the queen bed arrived a week ago. The old full is in my tiny bedroom and the single mattress I used to sleep on is propped up against a cabinet in the dining room.

The chairs in the living room are all squashed together to make room for the bed frame, which arrived a day after the new mattress and frame got put together, and since one of its bits is bent and I can't fit it where it's supposed to go it's just sitting in the living room, a big 60" by 80" open iron oblong that I have to keep stepping in and out of.

With all of this today seemed like a really good day to finally go through the boxes of CDs I've wanted to sort for ever, so the dining room table and kitchen counter are covered with naked CDs and some full some empty plastic cases. No wonder I went to bed at 8:15.

Venus Square Sun

Triumph - Venus around and I don't stuff myself to the gills with something sweet but have a Mexican Rueben at lunch with a friend and actually manage some work outside, carefully digging up all the cosmos seedlings I can find and putting them together under the apricot tree. Apricot tree? Who wrote this?

Progressed Midheaven Square Saturn

Well the progressed MC opposing Neptune on the day the water heater broke down got me to post on here, so I have to record the tons of gravel and big rocks that have been arriving here with the subject aspect in place to attempt to fix the arroyo washing over my private road problem. Nice.

Jupiter trine Moon...

... and Moon trine Jupiter on the same day, perfecting hours apart.
I've been enjoying the Jupiter trine Moon, wandering around outside with scissors deadheading things and cutting back the vinca, even working on the play I've been writing for seven years, which I was doing five minutes ago as the Moon trined Jupiter exactly and the friend I haven't spoken to for two weeks because I HAVE been working on the play called and we're having lunch tomorrow.

Holding on to my hat now for 4:19 when the big 'un happens. Best possible outcome I can think of would be to be able to write "BLACKOUT".

P.S. Well that didn't happen and neither did anything else of note, except another *pleasant* day. Sorry to see this one go.

Sun Conjunct Pluto

So once again the symbolism is so literal even I, the laziest person in the world these days, am compelled to post.

So what broke down was the Roomba - well, it didn't really break down but the front wheel that propels it on its way to map out my house and tell Google I need a table and two chairs instead of a desk with one in the airbnb room while picking up all the dust and other detritus from the floor was so clogged with cat hair that it could hardly turn - a victim of its own success, as it were.

It's the one part I find difficult to clean. You're supposed to be able to just pull out the little ball, give it a clean and pop it back in but I can never get it out. I did once go online,  look up how to do, and remember it being very easy, but that was a long time ago and what I've been doing for ages is simply pick out what I could with tweezers and leave it permanently semi-clogged. Pluto was having none of that. It was stuck and wouldn't move.

Feeling very grateful that it was the Roomba and not the car or the fridge, I went on line again typing "Clean Rolling Ball on Roomba" into the search box and immediately, there was my answer. It's not just taking out the little roller ball, it's removing the whole housing it sits in and THEN taking the little ball out, cleaning it, putting it back into the housing and replacing the housing, ball and all, into its little hole. Piece o'cake, and with any luck I'll remember that next time and not have to look it up again.

Real Time New Moon on Progressed Ascendant

So if your progressed Ascendant has just gone into Leo and there's a new Moon at 00 Leo, smack on top of it, does it mean anything?

Stay tuned.

Venus Trine Moon

Two posts in a row - give myself a pat on the back here and not say something sarcastic about how long can I keep this up.

The book saga continues - loaded up three bags for the library book sale and took them first to a friend for her to sort through. Went and bought an oil tank cap before I went to her house, having discovered that's why the light on the dashboard is on - NOT true. I discovered the reason the dashboard light is on after I got home, so the real test is to see if the light goes off AFTER I put the cap back on.

Moved out of the bnb room and back into my own little beddie in preparation for someone coming today after an extended black-out period.

Not sure how home and Venusian that all is, but not complaining.

Venus Sextile Sun

OK, I need to rouse myself here and start to post again, and what better than this? Not yet seven in the morning, and a friend is taking a bag of home-grown peaches (I mean, could anything be more Venusian?) to work with her for me to pick up, and in exchange I'm giving her a selection os short stories as I've been on a rampage and throwing out books.

Somehow I survived Pluto square the Sun at the same time as Chiron opposing natal Chiron and realized the life I've let myself fall into, for want of a better expression, isn't enough. I could put it differently and say being a lazy pig doesn't work for me longterm, but a short post will have to do for now. God willing I can get back to posting regularly. Or not.

Mars Square Sun

So off I go to Ace at 8am with the two hoses I am trying to join together  WITHOUT taking the crucial bit I managed to pull off and of course no one can do anything without seeing the bit I didn't take...
Smile sweetly and say I'll go back with the missing bit and of course I don't because by 9am it's too hot to do anything outside until the sun begins to go down, so get the room ready for the new peeps and make an attempt at clearing up the house.
And not too much energy after the labors of the day before to take my mind off the gravel in the driveway costing $800 and the dryer not working after the new boiler was installed and the new wiring for the new boiler costing $400 on top of the $950 for buying and having installed said new boiler...
Think I am beginning to understand Saturn in the Eighth.

Chiron Opposed to Chiron Exact

So in the middle of the night the boy cat is mewing to be let in and, half asleep, I forget what the particular noise he's making means. In he comes with mouse in mouth, and I groan and fall back into bed, trying unsuccessfully to go back to sleep and ignore the ensuing commotion, which goes on for at least an hour as the girl joins in.

In the morning I wake up with both cats asleep on the bed and presumably somewhere in the house a dead or alive mouse, unless of course said mouse is inside one of the cats being quietly digested.

It's my day to host the UpWords game and I turn the oven on and wait for it to reach 300 degrees so I can make the shortbread I prepared the day before. It's only 80 in the kitchen and I rig up an attractive old tablecloth across the window to keep the sun out. Shortbread done, it's out for breakfast with a friend and then back to the house where I eat four pieces of shortbread before the gamers arrive and I eat even more shortbread along with the de rigueur Sea Salt Caramel Talenti Gelato that accompanies UpWords.

Temperature's up to 98 by the time I've lost as usual so I retreat to the supposedly cool back room where I sleep, polish off what's left of the Sea Salt and then float on the bed in a stupefied sweat till about eight, when I stagger outside to water.

Four more goes of this, I think, stretching out to 2019. No sign of the mouse.

Chiron opposed to Chiron....

...AND progressed Sun making the square so far equals having a tennis ball in the face and falling over and grazing my knee during the same "lesson". Hmmmm....

Presumably I now begin to teach people how to use steak for non-edible purposes and recommend Neosporene for skinned knees.

Progressed Midheaven Exactly Opposed to Neptune

Just when I think the thrill has gone as far as astrology is concerned there's a day like today when the symbolism is so ridiculously right on I can't not post.

Saturn squares Neptune natally for me and I can hardly wait to see what's going to break down the P MC squares IT in August, but no prizes at all for guessing the household appliance which gave up the ghost this morning - the water heater, needless to say.

Venus sextile Uranus

New friends? Not really. Spent most of the day playing with the house plants trying to root the string of pearls and string of hearts (both very Venusian haha) and then most of the rest of it wrapping a present for a new grad to take to her party. Lots of people and old friends but alas, no new 'uns.

Mental Discipline

AKA Saturn trine Mercury, and lo and behold, pitiful though it may seem, I managed to print out three photographs and send them as thank you cards - AND write notes and address the envelopes and put a stamp on each and get them to the post office. To this I have sunk, and I'm only half joking.

Uranus Conjunct Mercury

Well I washed the car today haha.

Mars Conjunct Uranus

This got off to a great start with me finally attempting to get the table John brought for me in March off the front porch and into the b&b room to be sanded and painted, but then I put on too much sunscreen, got it in my eyes and that was the end of activity for the day.

Sun sextile Mars

So if I'm still in bed at 11am on a Sunday morning with this aspect in effect, the sun shining and plants outside that need watering do I *assume* I'm depressed, lazy or seventy-two years old?

Any feedback gratefully considered.

Sun Square Pluto AND...

... Mars trine Neptune at the same time. Place your bets now as to which of these is going to win out.

Yesterday felt like Sun square Pluto with Centurylink down and forty-five minutes spent on the phone to get my dollar thirty-four credit.

Nothing like hearing "For faster service visit our website at centurylink.net" repeated every twenty seconds when the reason you're on the phone in the first place is because the Internet service they provide is nonfunctional. Also a treat to call both technical support numbers you've been given and hear automated messages telling you there's no problem.

No contest here though really as the slowest moving planet wins and after a brief bout of sorting through winter clothes and throwing out some Mars took over and I watched the last few confusing, badly-written and poorly-lit episodes of Bosch Season III on Amazon. Too boring to watch again to try to make sense of it so it's Stephen King for the rest of the night.

Sun Sextile Saturn

And a good thing too, with the airbnb room to get ready after being vacated by a house-sitter unfortunately unaware of Mrs. Do-As-You-Would-Be-Done-By. Perhaps a book-marked copy of The Water Babies casually left on the coffee table in there would have helped haha, but too late now. Shower tiles scrubbed with vinegar, toilet cleaned, bathroom floor swept, washed and sealed, most dog hair removed I hope, general waft around with the feather duster, fridge and microwave cleaned etc. etc. etc. and bedside rugs not even dry when airbnb peeps arrived, but no worries there and an eventual reward when tennis plans for evening cancelled due to gale-force winds and super host allowed to fall into bed and continue watching Bosch Season III.

Uranus Square Midheaven

Astrology strikes again, with this perfecting the day after I get back from a two-and-a-half eye-opening trip and spent the night in my own room after what seems like years. Something is afoot, as The Daily Mail and Lexulous no longer hold my interest as I'm almost ashamed to admit they have for so long.

Could it be the stirrings of ambition? Maybe, as on the plane yesterday a whole new beginning of the play I've been "working" on for six years came to me and I was compelled to jot it down on the back of my boarding pass haha. The logical next step is to open Final Draft and make the changes, which I shall do now and god willing return to this before another six weeks have passed.

Mars Conjunct Venus

And once again it is proved beyond doubt that Venus in my chart is crasser far than love or art - a call from a friend with an invitation to go and dig up some of her trailing rosemary I lust after led to a couple of hours of wrestling with clay-mired mint roots - and I mean wrestling - so I could plant the rosemary in its place.

The first warm and non-windy day of the year - and as of Sunday the sun up until 7:30. Hallelujah!

Sun Square Uranus....

... and there's absolutely nothing out of the ordinary, except - aha! - I actually manage to buy three bags of salt - the forty-pound kind - when I'm at Walmart, which shamefully enough IS out of the ordinary for me as it's on a par with putting air in the tires, another of the aspects of living out here that I find irksome. Now THERE'S a word.

Double Dose Mercury and Saturn

So Saturn trines Mercury exact this morning and Mercury does the same to Saturn at almost the same time - in about fifteen minutes. I can only hope the influence hangs around for the rest of the day as while it was coming to a crescendo yesterday *all* I managed to do was four loads of laundry to get the house back to a semblance of order after having two friends with an eight-year-old staying here for a week and then begin a search online for the tires I bought last July as I now need two more and presumably they need to be the same kind that are already on the car.

After more effort than I am usually able to muster I did indeed find them, and maybe today I'll have the concentration to go back to my tax filing and get that done at last. And order the tires. That would do, pig.

Neptune to Mars

I had the first pass of this last summer and spent a lot of time photographing flowers and feeling immensely grateful for my life.

This go-around hasn't been quite as pleasant. It's been happening at the same time as Pluto squaring the Sun, which I am thankful is now over, as January was a month from hell I never want to have to repeat and god willing won't have to as when Pluto reappears later in the year things will be different, she says confidently.

So - glossing over my experimentation with anti-depressants for most of January I suddenly, tonight, with Neptune to Mars exact tomorrow, have severe toothache - missed a dental appointment when I was sick earlier in the year - and have been routing around in the medicine cabinet looking for leftover painkillers from when I broke my wrist and tore my rotator cuff two and three years ago respectively.

The point to this, if there is one, is that just as I feel I can't be bothered to keep this blog going and don't think I will make another post, there's a manifestation so - so what? - so glaringly As Above So Below even my current unmotivated anhedonic self cannot help but fire up a page and put some words down.

I might even do it again.

Pluto Square Sun

If that was Pluto, you can have him. And he's not done yet. On the day this culminates, Mars is squaring Saturn and opposing Neptune, just to add to the general paralysis haha. Flu - or some unidentified bug that knocked me out for two days at the beginning of the month, depression, inability to get out of bed, no interest in anything, freezing cold, unusual for this part of the country, a cat peeing and leaving turds in the living room, depression, inability to get out of bed etc. etc. etc. - not what you could call an auspicious beginning to the year.

Sun Trine Jupiter

Sixth day in bed with no energy but had just enough to check flights to Spain to perhaps go and see my sisters in April. Use miles to get to Boston and then fly from there for less that $550 round trip. Score.

You Really Have to Laugh

So one of the things I decided NOT to do in the New Year - note the absence of the r*s*l*t**n word - was to stop wasting so much time reading Readers' Comments. I don't need to know what Fezzie in Cambs think about Kim Kardashian's psoriasis or what Gimmeabreak has to say about George Michaels - of course, I don't need to know about KK's psoriasis or anything more about George Michaels - but at least let me stop there, I had said to myself as yet another year promised to begin with a six-years-in-the-non-writing-stage play remained unwritten.

I was going to get so much done in the week between Christmas and New Year's Day and somehow with back to back airbnb-ers and being Hedda Hopper on both days all that got done was lots of laundry and food shopping and cooking and then it was January 2nd and I decided I could at least give myself a break and stay in bed for a day, and then I couldn't get out of bed and slept for two days and felt like sh*t when I did wake up, and then when I did get back to the Daily Mail I must need to update Safari or something BECAUSE NONE OF THE READERS' COMMENTS ARE VISIBLE AND ALL I SEE IS WHITE SPACE.

And having exhausted myself with the supreme effort of writing this I shall now go back to sleep for another couple of days and hope that when I wake up The Play will be finished.

Hahahaha

So what do you do when you're having a Mars return on the same day you have Venus sextile Venus and you've been working like a crazy person for a week?

You get out the extra-creamy macaroni and cheese leftover from yesterday's Open House and you put it in a frying pan with some butter and more half-and-half and a couple of slices of Velveeta and warm it all up and eat a great big bowlful and go back to bed, that's what you do.