Sunday Greetings, dear friends! It’s me again!

I have a confession to make, it is not my fault that I am late. It’s Lady A’s. She emailed me and told me not to log in. She had some updating or something she had to do. I can tell the night owl was busy last night. Wow! I love new graphics she put up. I sometimes wonder when that woman sleeps. I am looking out the window right now. There she is with Kiki checking on the animals. She loves doing it, so why not let her do it in peace.

Lady A is enjoying herself. So I will get to work and hopefully bring some joy into your life. I will be putting on more spells today. Just give me time to do it, I have to type each one up. There might be a little pause between spells but the next one will be coming up shortly

Have a great day,

Annie

More Happy Holidays Comments

The Daily Motivator for December 5th – Enormous advantage

Enormous advantage

Your life is what you choose to make it. It cannot be any other way.

Other people may give you things, experiences, attention and knowledge. Yet  it is up to you to make meaning out of it all.

What happens is significant because of what you do about it. The value of  what you own is based on the value that you choose to give it.

Instead of seeking to gain an advantage, realize that you already have an  enormous advantage. It is your unique life, coupled with your ability to make  choices and to act on them.

There is no use in worrying about what has happened, or living in fear of  what might yet happen. There is everything to be gained by choosing to live each  moment with positive purpose.

You have the opportunity, and the responsibility, to choose how you envision  and live your life. Take the opportunity, now and always, to make it a joyous  and fruitful manifestation of the very best possibilities.

— Ralph Marston

The Daily Motivator

Good Sunday Morning, my beloved friends and family!

 

I hope everyone is having a super fantastic Sunday. I wish I could say I was. I have just received very bad news from WordPress and the WOTC needs help. The WOTC has always had our own domain name no matter where we went. The reason behind that is were no other group or site can try to past themselves off as us. We have worked very hard to have the reputation we have. I don’t want anyone else to ride in on our coattails and pretend to be us. So that is the reason behind us always purchasing our own domain. But WordPress is different from any other site we have ever dealt with. On the other sites, if we did not renew our domain, we would still be on the net (but not as witchesofthecraft.com). We would just be witchesofthecraft/msn.com for example. But at WordPress, if we do not renew by December 2, we will no longer be on the net. Poof! we are gone. I know WordPress has changed quite a few things and this is one of them. When we purchased the domain here, we were told if we decided not to renew we would go back to our old addy with them. Now if we do not renew, we will disappear from the net totally. All the hard work and information, we have put on this site will be gone, forever. If I had not just received this notice, I would be looking for a new home. But in the length of time we have, I don’t have time to do it.

So I am about to become a nervous wreck. We are about to lose everything. I am about to lose my baby. Oh, it breaks my heart. I call the WOTC my baby because I have poured blood, sweat and tears into this site as always. I have endured a lot and most of it you don’t know anything about. But we have made it through all the rough times up until now.

I personally don’t have the money and I hate like heck to ask for donations but I am desperate. I have had an extensive illness as you know. The other people that work here all volunteer their time because most of them are laid off. We love what we do. Doing this for you, is the reason we get up every morning. How many other Pagan sites do you see putting out a daily publication? None, except us. We love doing this. As far as I am concerned I am doing what the Goddess intended for me to do. Spreading Her message and teachings to you. So I am now forced to humbly ask for your help.

Please, please help save the WOTC!

It doesn’t matter how much you can give, every penny helps. All I ask is that you please help save the WOTC.

Please, I am asking from the bottom of heart for your help. I have never been so humble in my life as I am right now. This is my passion, you are my family and the reason we do this every day. Please don’t let our mission and message fall by the wayside. We have to Dec. 2nd. If we don’t have enough to renew our domain with WordPress, I will let you know Dec. 1st. Then we will say goodbye forever. Oh, Goddess this can’t happen, I pray.

Thank you for reading this and also any donation you can give us to help us renew our domain.

Lady Of The Abyss & Witches Of The Craft

More Sunday Comments

Ok, Now Let’s Talk, lol!

I wasn’t going to waste writing three or four paragraphs and then they just disappear. That was what was happening yesterday. I was never so angry in my life. I was actually running early, in a good mood, sit down and nothing!!! What little posting (I think two or three posts) I got done, took about five minutes to posts. Then they would just disappear. I tried to tell you that I was going to do the daily posts at The Apothecary while it was working. I went to link and when I did the message just disappeared. I don’t know what is going on. I know this is about the second time this has happened.

I got bored with nothing to do and when over to Blogger to check that site out.  I actually got to playing and made a Witches Of The Craft over there. I was fuming, I tell you. I had it all laid out in my mind. I was going to combine the Apothecary with the WOTC. I had it planned were I could do my daily postings and then on the other side have our store. To me, at the time, it wasn’t a bad idea. I have played with Blogger’s design and the tools they offer are really pretty cool. I know they offer javascript and WordPress doesn’t.  JavaScript allows you to put on some really nice graphics and images. WordPress doesn’t allow it because they say javascript is too easy to put a virus in, which is bull. A smart hacker can put a virus in any script they want too, html, java, etc.

I am beginning to wonder if all of the problems we are experiencing is due to The Apothecary. Before we ever opened it, I went to the WordPress forums and asked them if you could sell on WordPress. Instead of answering the question like a human being, they deleted the post. I got to doing some research on the net about selling on WordPress since nobody here wanted to answer me. I ran across one or two articles that said you couldn’t. Then I ran across hundreds of articles that said you could. Come to find out, WordPress has a strict policy about selling merchandise on their site. It is a no, no! But they admit theirself, that is a site does daily postings then they can’t do a thing about them selling. I am beginning to wonder if the part about “they can’t do a thing about it” is a crock of crap. I read were individuals were pointing out certain sites selling. WordPress would respond, “Aren’t they doing daily postings?” Perhaps WordPress fixes it were you can’t do the daily postings, thus getting rid of that site.  Or perhaps they force, you out. Everything has run through my mind. I know at Blogger, they don’t mind if you sell. They are giving small business in Kentucky free sites to sell and promote their stores. That is a big deal on TV, Google and the KY government have agreed to give small businesses free websites for a year. It’s not a bad deal at all, I checked into it and after the year, you only pay a dollar a month for the site. I know it would cut down on some of our expenses greatly.

As far as The Apothecary goes, I don’t know what is wrong with the merchandise already on there. We have not sold anything at all. We have not made one cent off of it. Instead, it is starting to put us in the hole. We have people over there but they are enjoying the postings. Well that’s great but The Apothecary was suppose to be our way of raising  money were we wouldn’t have to ask for donations. Instead you will notice the donation button is back up on this site. I honestly don’t know if it is worth the effort anymore. I have seriously thought of moving it. Put it on a site were we could advertise it and then maybe it might make a dollar or two. Our expenses run us a total of $590.00 a month, might as well say $600.00. So you see that is why we need the donations. And I didn’t even mention the animal refuge. We use to like to donate to the local food pantries but that has had to cease. The economy just sucks for everyone right now. But that was the purpose of us opening The Apothecary, to make money were we could meet all of our obligations. And I wouldn’t have to continuously ask for donations or have a button on the site. That grips my rump, I feel like we are always begging. I hate that more than anything. It also get me that we can be self-sufficient by opening up a shop. We have always received donations from local folks. We still do or else we wouldn’t be on the net right now. But they have had to cut their donations back. They explain, when times get better, they will get back to their usual donation amounts. So you see we are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

I am glad the people at the Apothecary are enjoying the postings. But it is suppose to make us money were we can survive. I really think I am going to go ahead with my Blogger idea. Google will advertise, promote and put the site in all the major search engines for free. What Google is offering right now for small businesses is too good to pass up. I seriously believe I would be crazy not to take advantage of what Google is offering. What do you think?

Daily Motivator for July 24 – Focus on results

Focus on results

Progress comes when you focus on results. Progress happens when you visualize  the results you desire, when you expect those results, and then work to make  them happen.

Focus on results, and you can figure out how to bring them about. Focus on  results, and you have a way to know, in each and every step, whether or not  you’re making progress.

Good intentions are nice, and sophisticated methods are impressive. What  really count, though, are the end results.

Any effort you undertake will use your precious time and resources. Make sure  you get the most value in return by staying focused on the results.

Don’t allow yourself to remain stuck in mediocrity. Don’t fool yourself into  thinking you’re doing great when you’re really doing not much at all.

Clearly and specifically define the results you seek, measure your progress,  and weigh each action, each effort, accordingly. Focus on results and you’ll get  the very best ones.

— Ralph Marston

The Daily Motivator

Facebook Monitors Your Posts and Chats To Catch Sexual Predators

Facebook Monitors Your Posts and Chats To Catch Sexual Predators

By

Ever wonder if Facebook is reading your posts? Well, it is—or, its computers are, at least. And if you say the wrong thing, you could be locked up.

That’s the takeaway from a recent Reuters article, which recounted a case in which Facebook’s software detected a man in his thirties allegedly trying to set up a meeting with a 13-year-old Florida girl for sex. From Reuters:

Facebook’s extensive but little-discussed technology for scanning postings and chats for criminal activity automatically flagged the conversation for employees, who read it and quickly called police.

Officers took control of the teenager’s computer and arrested the man the next day, said Special Agent Supervisor Jeffrey Duncan of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The alleged predator has pleaded not guilty to multiple charges of soliciting a minor.

Facebook’s chief security officer told Reuters that the company’s monitoring software uses actual chats that led to sexual assaults to predict when another might occur. This is eerily similar to the hypothetical software I discussed in an article last month on whether police could arrest people based on suspicious-looking Google searches. I noted in the piece that while the idea might sound far-fetched, the technology already exists, and it might even be legal.

In Facebook’s case, the scanning hasn’t stirred outrage—probably because it seems to be focused on catching sexual predators. There are two reasons why online predators make sense as an initial target for automatic-monitoring algorithms. First, soliciting sex with a minor on the Internet is a crime in itself, not just a prelude to a crime (like, say, searching Google for ways to murder someone in their sleep). And second, sexual predators are unlikely to elicit much sympathy, so the public is more likely to tolerate intrusive means of nabbing them. Facebook is fighting creepy with creepy.

The key to the technology’s success—from a public-opinion standpoint, and possibly from a legal standpoint—is avoiding false positives. Arresting an innocent person based on a Facebook chat would surely cause controversy. So according to the Reuters piece, Facebook dials down the algorithm’s sensitivity, to minimize the chances of this happening.

It seems clear that this technology has the potential to do some good. But that shouldn’t blind us to the fact that it represents a further erosion of our online privacy, one more serious than selling our personal information to advertisers.

A pill that creates the desire to exercise?

By Melissa Breyer

Scientists have discovered a compound that could make sit-ups and StairMasters as attractive as snacks and the sofa.

 

More than one-third of U.S. adults are obese. Obesity-related conditions (heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetesand certain types of cancer) comprise the nation’s leading causes of death. When it comes to the competition between food and exercise, food clearly wins the blue ribbon.

But it’s not for lack of desire. Type in “motivation to exercise” in Google and prepare yourself for 61,900,000 results. It’s just hard to get into the rhythm of going to the gym. So hard, in fact, that people often opt for wacky weight loss fads (diet goggles, anyone?) and questionable diets instead (hello, feeding tube diet). Or, they simply surrender to obesity.
But as researchers are struggling to create safe and effective weight loss drugs, what if there was a pill to make you want to work out? As science fiction seemingly comes to life, it may become a reality. A team of Swiss researchers found that when a hormone in the brain called erythropoietin (Epo) was elevated in mice, the mice were more motivated to exercise.
“Here we show that Epo increases the motivation to exercise,” said Max Gassmann, D.V.M., a researcher involved in the work from the Institute of Veterinary Physiology, Vetsuisse-Faculty and Zurich Center for Integrative Human Physiology at the University of Zurich in Switzerland.
Pop a pill and champ at the bit to hit the gym? This would have remarkable benefits for a wide range of health problems — obesity, obviously, but also mental health disorders for which exercise is known to improve symptoms.
“If you can’t put exercise in a pill, then maybe you can put the motivation to exercise in a pill instead,” said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., editor-in-chief of The FASEB Journal, which published the research. “As more and more people become overweight and obese, we must attack the problem from all angles. Maybe the day will come when gyms are as easily found as fast-food restaurants.”
Now if they can just come up with a pill that motivates you to clean the house.

 

CDC denies rumors of zombie apocalypse

With reports of flesh-eating coming in from across the nation, rumors of a possible zombie outbreak are spreading on the Internet — but do you really have anything to worry about?

 

By Laura Moss

 

On Sunday, a New Jersey man sliced his belly open and began throwing pieces of his intestines at police. On Monday, a Miami man was shot to death by cops while eating the face of a homeless man. Then, on Tuesday, a Maryland manadmitted to dismembering his roommate and eating his heart and brain.

With all these bizarre incidents occurring within a matter of days, it’s no wonder that “zombie apocalypse” has been one of Google’s most popular search terms this week. However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says we have nothing to worry about.   Read More Here….