About me

Hey! I’m Thalassa, author of this small corner of the internet. I figured I’d go into a bit more detail about myself than the small blurb on the side of this blog…

I am a (occasionally doting) wife and a damn proud momma of two adorable and brilliant children:
I have been married since 2004 to a wonderful guy (often referred to as The Hubby or Daddy Man) that I met on deployment.  Funnily enough, we met when he came to fix my rack on board the ship, and eventually ended up getting to know one another when we realized we shared a love of canoeing in the Boundary Water/Quetico area of Minnesota and Ontario.  Once we returned from deployment, we went on our first date and eight months later we got hitched.  Like most military marriages, we’ve spent as much time apart as we have together…just as much now that the hubby is a civilian since he still works for the military (just not in uniform).  Somewhere along the line, we acquired two minions–Chickadee and Sharkbait, and much hilarity, joy, frustration, adventure, and (most of all) love has ensued.

I am a veteran of the United States Navy and beach addict:
When I decided to join the military (first female in either side of the family!!), I went to my father’s father and told him that I was thinking about joining the Navy.  I’m not sure if Grandpa was trying to talk me out of it, or into it…but his first comment was “When you join the Navy, you’ll see the world honey.”  His second comment, delivered with suitable pause for maximum sarcastic effect (which is standard delivery in my family) was “They leave out the part where most of the world is water, and that’s about all you’ll see.”  My response was “As long as I see a beach from time to time, I don’t care.”

My grandfather, whom I wrote about after his death, was also a sailor…and I don’t doubt that his sea stories played a large role in my choice of the Navy.  I enlisted in 2003 as an E-3 deck seaman and was discharged honorably at the end of my time in service as a newly frocked Hospital Corpsman, 2nd Class. Since then, I have been slowly chronically our random sea stories, Naval lore, etc into its own blog (truly a work in progress).

I am a part-time steampunk hausfrau, Civil War reenactor and Victorian natural history aficionado:
I love the Victorian aesthetic. Love it.  I love it authentic, neo, with a dash of sci fi/fantasy, upside down, inside out, in literature, dressed, or undressed.  Seriously, the Victorian era is were its at…except for the lack of modern technology and conveniences. Luckily I married a man even more geeked out on history than I am.  The Hubby mainly reenacts Union, though the unit he is with also portrays a Confederate unit (in the reenacting world this is known as “galvanizing”, after actual Civil War phenomenon).  I portray a amateur naturalist, which was an acceptable 19th century hobby for a middle class woman, and I occasionally blog on this subject as well.

I am a canoeing fanatic, returned student and semi-erratic blogger:
When I was a freshman in high school, I had this wild yen to go on a canoeing and camping trip in the Canadian wilderness. I fell in love. There is something of an intangible and otherworldly beauty about the cry of the loon echoing across the lakes, the meditative slip-slide of paddle through water, the blazing show of the Northern Lights, and the muscle burn of hard work on a long portage. Though I had already possessed an interest in biology, mainly marine biology, ever since reading a kid’s biography about one of the first women marine scientists, Dr. Eugenia Clark, the North woods made me consider something other than the allure of the ocean. It took a decade and was interrupted by 6 years in the United States Navy, but I eventually finished my biology degree. Now I am in the process of taking some time off to play with the kids, get life in order and go back to school for my graduate degree, probably in environmental studies.

If you have found this blog, you probably have also figured out that we are a Pagan family.  More aptly, I would describe my theological belief as a pragmatic sort of pantheism and my religion as Unitarian Universalist Pagan:
Definitions of Paganism are always tricky for those that fall under the umbrella of Paganism…specifically, both the hubby and I have similar (but not identical views) regarding a Universal Divine (or a Divine Universe) and a multitude of ways in which divinity is expressed, both within and without humanity. If pressed, I’d describe my opinion on the nature of “God” as theopanist, but my practice is based on an archetype-based soft polytheism. We include our children in our practices and we share our beliefs with them as part of our family values and traditions (which include prayer, meditation, rituals, celebrating the Wheel of the Year, being mythology-literate, etc) as well as teaching them about the beliefs of others. Our family also belongs to a local Unitarian Universalist Fellowship where we are regular attendees and our children participate in RE classes.

I am a practicing witch and herbalist, mainly working with domestic and elemental magics. For the most part, my blog covers a bit of all of these things, with a bit of randomness tossed in from time to time:
I’ve been interested in herbalism and alternative medicine since I was in high school and my (very open-minded) mother was working on her MSN (graduate nursing degree). In the years since, I’ve been amassing information and whipping up my own brews and blends, both in conjunction with information from clinically supported scientific and medical studies and from old school herbals and herbalists–depending on what it is to be used for, and how it is to be used. My spiritual practice (including magic) is mainly based in the home, herbalist and the specific location in which I live. While I consult a variety of sources of traditional magic in building my own practice, I am not adverse to mixing things up a bit or trying unconventional ideas. I blog about all of this, and life in general–as a Pagan parent, as a veteran and a Pagan, etc.

I enjoy my family, swimming, being nerdy, the great outdoors, NCIS re-runs, chai tea–iced or hot, aerobics, trashy romance novels, baking bread, singing off key, surfing the internet and painting. I also like long walks on the beach and NPR’s Science Friday.  I love to read. I am passionate watershed ecology and local conservation efforts:
And let’s not forget The Voice. Adam Levine, yummy! Seriously though, every Wednesday, you can find me watching the newest episode of NCIS online (we have cut the cable cord in favor of Netflix) whenever I find a free minute. I’m a huge fan of contemporary/urban fantasy, traditional fantasy, historical romance, and fantasy/sci-fi romance for my “relaxation” reading, as well as pop-history, especially if it focuses on medical or scientific history…I haven’t updated it in a while (or done much with it at all), but I also have a book blog that I occasionally make it over to.

But most of all…I’m just trying to take extravagant pleasure in the act of being alive:
At the end of the day, aren’t we all?