August 17th, 2013

Today has been full of cleaning. So far, I've scrubbed down the tub, the walls of the whole first floor, and the kitchen cabinets. I swear, I'm going to smell like a pool for the rest of the day.
Our neighbors across the street had a garage sale this morning; I wandered over and picked up a cool Buddha statue for $2.00. It lights up, too, although I felt that feature was maybe a touch tacky.

He's holding the peaches of immortality, some lucky coins, and a bag (possibly of rice?). After a lot of research and some good guess work, I discovered that the kanji on the necklace, 福, means "good fortune". In Japanese, it is pronounced "Fuku". I think this particular Buddha might be related to Hotei, one of the seven Shichifukujin (七福神), gods of good fortune. At any rate, I really like it and placed it on my little shrine.

Here's what it looks like all put together. I added a shell to hold water and incense, and yesterday rearranged my stone collection so that the crystals are grouped by chakra association. I felt like that balanced out better than dividing them on elemental lines. As you can see, I'm having my new statue keep an eye on my medicine pouch - I don't think he'll let it wander off, do you?