Family is important. But if they’re annoying, make sure you live at least a hundred miles away. Try to make the distance greater if they are the types who would try and steal a boyfriend (or girlfriend) from you, if they would try to borrow money, or if they only take and never give anything in return. That giving-and-taking logic doesn't necessarily apply to material things. It can also apply to emotional currency. If they only want to complain or tell you all about their day, and never show the courtesy to listen to anything you have to say, they're not worth having around. That same logic applies to friends, too. If your friend/cousin/sister/you-name-it only wants to talk about her life (men are guilty of this, too, I should add) but won't spare a moment to listen to you when you're feeling down, dealing with a dilemma, or even if you're having a great day and want to share that joy, distancing yourself from that type of person is never a bad thing.
Keep the good ones near and the bad ones, send them Christmas cards and be done with them. If they plan to visit, fancy up the house so they see you doing well, but set a time limit, too. There's a reason for the old adage, fish and company stink after three days.
​If you can ward them off by saying your roof is leaking or something like that, go for it. Sometimes one must tell white lies for their own health.
​

Being of a witchy nature, I do love Halloween. Or, as many witches refer to it, Samhain.
​I tend to refer to it as Halloween, though.
I know All-Hallow's Eve is when the veil between the living and dead is thinnest, but because I can't see ghosts, it's not something I bother too much with. If they don't have the sense to show themselves to me, that's their loss.
​I do enjoy the theater of the holiday, however. 
​I love nothing more than to get dressed up. In some ways, every day is Halloween for me.
​Some people use it as a day to indulge some hidden side of their nature, where they hide behind a mask or makeup to be sexy or scary or funny. Others use it to express some true side of themselves. I count myself among the latter.
My day-to-day goal is to present my Fiona-most self. That means extra sparkle and my usual false eyelashes. A bit of mousse and hairspray never hurts, either. 
Personally I like to dress up -- in fancy dress or costume -- whenever the mood strikes. 
​For Halloween I'll buy as much fun makeup and sparkly items as I can get my greedy little hands on. But I'll also wear all red or pink for Valentine's Day, or wear shades of emerald for St. Patrick's Day. For Easter I'll wear bunny ears and pin a bunny tail to my behind. For Christmas you can guess I'll be sparkling as much as any holiday tree. My daughter sometimes refers to me as a human Christmas tree, and I think that is probably the sweetest compliment she's ever paid me. Who, after all, doesn't love to admire a beautiful, sparkling holiday tree?
​So, yes, Halloween is fun, but it's only one day to be blazingly glorious out of 365. 
​Now, excuse me. I just bought some cat ears, a leopard-print dress, and some rhinestones. I'm going to get ready and hit the down.
​Have a purr-fect Halloween. I know I will.

It's me. Fiona Wheeler, aka the Glitter Witch.
Did you miss me? Of course you did!
​Well, well, well ...
​It's Friday the 13th. In October, no less. How positively spooky.
​Personally I don't believe in bad luck. I think you make your own. Of course, there are exceptions. Sometimes someone can do something with evil or misaligned intentions and that can snowball and affect others in its path. 
​But walking under ladders? Pffft! Walking is always good for you. It's why I'm still the same size I was while in my twenties.
​Breaking a mirror? Were I to shatter a mirror the only bad luck I could foresee is that I would not be able to see my face clearly.
​Black cats? Cats are wonderful, amusing and magical creatures. They're also self-cleaning, so how could they be bad luck? (Personally I prefer dogs. I have two beagles, Beanie and Hooper, but my daughter Poppy and writer Magenta Wilde tend to prefer cats. Whether one prefers cats, dogs, hamsters or an iguana, so long as you have something to love which loves you back, well, how can that be anything other than good luck?
​If you do want a bit of good luck and good feelings to land in the palm of your hand, however, I would advise picking up Magenta Wilde's first book, Giving Up the Ghost. ​(It's available here on Amazon.com for 99 cents, or free on Kindle Unlimited. Frankly I think the book is worth ten times as much because I'm in it.) It has my daughter Poppy in there. It has me. It has my sweetheart Tom. It also has the handsome Roger Montgomery, on whom my daughter developed a quick crush. Once I got a good look at his broad shoulders and those icy blue eyes, I can't say I blame her. If I were twenty -- I mean five -- years younger I'd be mooning over him myself.
​Now there are some complications in the story -- you need tension and a bit of conflict in a story -- including problems with a ghost which I would only describe as in need of a time-out, but I promise there's humor and heart in my girl's story.
​And when you laugh, you cry, and you meet these fabulous characters, it's pure good luck, let me promise you.