Hello. My name is Louise

and I have an online shopping addiction. (I have mentioned before that I have an addictive and, yes, bingeing personality in general, right? Why eat one chocolate when you can eat the whole box? Why buy one item when you can empty your bank account?)

Made the mistake of hitting eBay tonight. Whew! Bought some nifty things but really, really, REALLY need to put the Paypal account to bed. For the next several months at least. If you ever learn anything from me, it is to shop around BEFORE you buy anything ‘cos you gotta hate when you make an “all sales final” kind of purchase only to find it on sale somewhere else for less. I’m a bad bargain shopper. Hit a couple of those over the last several weeks, although in fairness, once you figured in taxes, duties, etc., for the cheaper items, most of them turned out to be OK in the end. But there were still a couple…ah, well, you live and learn. Hopefully.

Feels like Sunday (that’s what happens when you take a couple of days off) so imagine my surprise to see Saturday horoscopes on Jonathan Cainer‘s site tonight:

Saturday, 29th December 2007

Your Weekend: ‘Plus ca change, plus c’est le meme chose.’ The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or so they say in France. Here in the rest of the world, things move on! We can’t make them stay the same no matter what we do. This is both a blessing and a curse. You are now keenly conscious of something you would like to change if only you could. But it is changing! It is just not changing in the way you think it ought to change. If you are going to resolve to do anything for New Year, resolve to let more time pass. 

Your Week Ahead: H G Wells remains one of the greatest writers of all time. In his day, though, he was derided for suggesting that one day, people would visit the Moon. With a great combination of irony and poetic justice, his famous fiction became the inspiration for millions of twentieth century schoolchildren. Some of these boys and girls grew up to be scientists. They took his dream and made it their dream. Then they helped to make it come true. That’s what the power of imagination can achieve. As you prepare to enter 2008, you have a special vision. It is not invalid or irrelevant. It’s just slightly ahead of its time But that time is coming. Soon. 

Jonathan Cainer Horoscopes

[Added July 31, 2008]

It’s funny to me that this post gets more traffic than any other post in this blog. Well, not so much funny as kind of sad. Especially since it really didn’t contain anything really interesting to anyone who isn’t the same sign as me and wasn’t viewing the post on the relevant dates.

So, I felt I needed to add some useful information to the post, since you’re here anyway. Sound like a plan?

Jonathan Cainer is a UK astrologer. A friend of mine passed his URL on to me in late 2006. I don’t normally pay attention to horoscopes, though I do like Astrocenter’s when I bother reading it — usually I just never open the e-mail because I’m not usually interested in what the Universe apparently has planned for me. Most daily horoscopes are so vague as to be useless. Jonathan Cainer’s, though, I read most days. His horoscopes are surprisingly pertinent. To me, anyway. Your mileage may vary. I frequently read the ‘scopes for friends and family members, and they’re usually pertinent to them as well. They’re more like Astrocenter’s horoscopes in the sense that they are not vague.

If you’re on Facebook, so is he. You can add him as a friend (not that he’s going to become your best bud or anything, you understand) and you can even add his horoscopes application to your profile there. He’s also on Myspace but I’m not a Myspace fan so I’m not going to help you out there — go to his Web site if you want more information about that.

His Web site offers additional astrological tidbits, including his really marvelous Astro Love Computer and daily thoughts. You should really check it all out.

(Original post)

September 13:

Being alone is not the same as loneliness. You can be alone in a room full of people; it is a state of choice. You’re not lonely at this time, although you might feel alone. It is your choice who you associate with, but you may be attracting a few strange looks at the moment if you’re doing your Greta Garbo thing. Far better to say to people, ‘Look, I’m just taking some personal space, OK?’ It’s a good day to gather your thoughts as well as getting your act together in a personal way – just don’t let others befuddle you. Be aware that you’re acutely sensitive at the moment.

September 14:

Your Weekend: There’s an element of personal creativity around you at the moment, and where better to express it than in your one-to-one relationships, whether that be with partner/spouse or close friend? Don’t let yourself get into a rut. I’m not suggesting you suddenly light lots of firecrackers, but it is a good weekend for socialising and reminding yourself how important good quality company is to you. And it wouldn’t hurt to remind others of how important you are to them either, even though this may have to be done in a somewhat subtle way. Stay in the centre of things, and then you won’t feel left out.

September 15:

Your Week Ahead Forecast: Things always get a bit intense around this time of year. It is something to do with the approaching equinox. Your mood begins to alter and your mind gets made up. Suddenly you feel ready to fix whatever you have been previously putting up with patiently. You are no longer willing to be backed into a corner or trapped by awkward circumstances. You may not make much of a fuss, but in your own sweet way you start to move the goalposts and rewrite the rulebooks. Some years you make a few small adjustments. Other years you reach life-changing choices. This year, you are being brave. You will not regret this.

September 17:

Sometimes, we do all the things we are supposed to, but they just don’t work. We end up starting to suspect that somewhere in the cosmos there’s a mischievous imp with a wrecking agenda. Its aim is to create chaos wherever we go and whatever we do. Why bother, we say to ourselves, attempting anything? Sooner or later, surely, it will all go horribly wrong. Maybe, sooner or later, it will. But the fact remains that, right now, no imp can stop your current plans from working well.

9 Universal Year

N. tells me 2007 is a “9” year, which she says last occurred in 1998. 

I’m thinking she may be misunderstanding the “9 Year Cycle” thing. What you’re supposed to do is add the individual digits that make up your birth day and month to get a single digit that is your personal year number. To determine what year of your cycle the current year is for you, you add your personal year number to the individual digits that make up the current year and reduce it to a single digit. For example, my personal year number is 7. 7 + 2 + 0 + 0 +7 = 16 = 7. For it to just be based on the calendar year would be a global thing (since it would apply everyone currently alive on the planet), not a personal thing. Mind you, 2006 (especially the tail end of it) seemed like it was a Year 8/9, not a Year 6, so who knows. 

N. and I have the same personal year number. She mentioned that she’s undergoing a crisis of sorts as well, though we are manifesting differently.

[Added] Ah, I see that 2007 is a “9 Universal Year“, which is supposed to denote “a year of total and consummate housecleaning for the world, its governments, its corrupted administrators, all business and social organizations and each individual soul now sharing our planet’s energies.” So, I was right in that it’s a global thing. “2006 (an 8 Universal Year) saw the start or beginning of the pangs of distress that are about to move across the world and the individual landscapes of our lives during 2007.” Kind of a depressing outlook. And yet there does seem to be some stepping up of Mother Nature’s power on the planet. Something’s afoot.