
May’s monthly tarot card was the Four of Pentacles reversed: The reversed Four of Pentacles can appear when you are re-evaluating what’s important to you, especially when it comes to money and wealth. You may be loosening your grip on the need to surround yourself with ‘things’, in favor of seeking out more love and happiness in your life instead. You might be compelled to declutter your home or opt for a minimalist lifestyle. Money is no longer your number one priority and you are redefining your relationship with material possessions and money. The Four of Pentacles can also reflect a strong desire for security, stability and certainty and you are doing everything within your power to create a stable environment for yourself. Even when your outer world seems chaotic and in a constant state of change, you can create more certainty for yourself by controlling your inner environment. You might find tidying the house or organizing your things to be calming and relaxing under these circumstances. Lepidolite for anxiety relief, Gabbro to remove blocks and open pathways, and Malachite for transformation and change.
This card definitely felt timely for me, even though I pulled it back in January when I did my Wheel of the Year spread. As you know, I’ve definitely been in tidying and organizing mode, in fact, at the beginning of May we finished up with the last of the dry cleaning and our closet cleanout is finally done.
We also did a little upgrade on our back patio. We’ve had these Adirondack chairs forever along with the little table, but one of the chairs had already disintegrated and the second one was not too far behind.

It was just a sad state of affairs and neither one of us really wanted to hang out back there. So, we ordered a little bistro table and chairs set and it was pretty easy to put together. It’s metal, in kind of a rubbed bronze color, so it should withstand the elements a bit better.

I don’t know if I’ve ever shared the lights Eric hung either, but I just love how this looks now. It’s not fancy, but it is such an improvement over those old rotting chairs.

And since we’re in improvement mode over here, I was talking with some friends about curly hair and how mine just always looks frizzy and I normally end up just throwing it up in a ponytail because of the frustration with it. They gave me some great tips and I decided to give a couple of the simple ones a try.


One of the big suggestions was to comb my hair while in the shower with the conditioner on it and then not comb it when I get out of the shower, but just scrunch it. They also suggested using a leave-in conditioner, so I dug out one I’ve had forever (below) and gave that a try. And as you can see in the photo above on the right, the difference is night and day. Just those couple of easy changes made a huge difference in my hair. I’m thrilled.

My curls are much more defined and much less frizzy. Hurrah!

My friends have been raving for awhile about a show called Our Flag Means Death. I finally got HBO Max downloaded on my tablet and figured out how to stream it. And I absolutely loved it. It’s funny (and I don’t find a lot of things funny) and clever and just very well-done. I highly recommend it if you haven’t seen it.

And since I was in pirate mode, I decided to try this imp I received with my order from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab. The scent notes just say it’s the scent of pirate rum, but to me it was buttery and sweet and nice-smelling. I will definitely be wearing it again.

And completely unrelated to my OFMD obsession, Eric decided to finally buy the pirate flag he’s been wanting forever. It’s Calico Jack’s flag and refused to unfurl for me for this photo.

We love it. Our neighbors must wonder about us, between the pirate flag and the gothic door knocker.

I did have one more OFMD-inspired thing to share. Ms. Bathory’s Apothecary had a Blackbeard perfume that I just had to have. I also purchased one of her What We Do in the Shadows-inspired perfumes, Nadja. That show is next on my list to figure out how to watch. She sent along a sample of her Briar Rose soap and one of her Ed soaps (also OFMD inspired).

In non-pirate news, Eric’s sister made a delicious dessert one weekend when she came over for dinner. We had skillet pizzas that Eric made that were soooo good, but I totally overate. And then for dessert, she made these cannoli cups that were basically cannoli filling (pistachios included) in a chocolate cup. Oh my goodness they were amazing. It was a really good dinner. Oh and Eric made blackberry Italian cream sodas to go with dinner. Yum.

We had one more home improvement project this month. As I’ve mentioned before, we rent so we can’t really do anything permanent to the house itself, so we have to kind of work around that. This side of the kitchen annoys Eric a lot because it’s basically a big white blank space. Years ago we changed the doorknobs on the utility closet doors and we hung the metal pieces above the doors to try to break up all the white. Eric decided to try using a peel and stick chalkboard roll. We put it on the pantry door and it’s great because it’s a matte black, but more importantly it adds some interest to that side of the room.

It still needs something over there, but the change on the pantry door really makes a huge difference. Very happy how this turned out and it was easy to do.

Anyway, that wraps up May. I couldn’t end this post though without acknowledging that Memorial Day always makes me think of Star Wars.

Ramses too.