Mountain Witch

This blog consists of recipes, crafts, writing, spells, and all the parts of the natural world that interest me and bring me joy. Please note that a lot of what I write about has to do with my childhood trauma, so that may not be for you. My name is Rebekka. I live in a small Alpine village in Austria. I am a mother, wife, jewelry designer and the owner of a small business!

[nesselhexe]

Isn’t it amazing how your shitty old car can smell your hope that things are getting easier in life and then immediately come up with an issue that will cost a thousand to fix? The accuracy in timing is inspiring

[nesselhexe]

Why is my resting heart rate 50 when I am not an athlete lol

[nesselhexe]

Finally almost done with my taxes for 2024 and 2025 and it’s forced me to face that fact that we’ve somehow been surviving off an income of (approximately) 23k€ a year. 😭

No wonder things have been so hard and stressful and I constantly feel like someone is going to take me out back and put me down. My nervous system is wrecked, but now Antonio makes more than that at his job alone. So really if I even manage to make any profit at all this year, even 100€, we‘re better off than we have been the past two years.

I know it’s still going to take another year or two until we’re out of the hole and recovered, but just being able to pay for things like heating oil and fixing our car without having to borrow money from someone or go without groceries is an absolute blessing.

I should have admitted defeat sooner. Antonio wanted to get another job in 2024 and I selfishly convinced him not to. I keep thinking about how if he’d done that then, most of this damage never would have happened 😭 All I can do is keep trying to fix things now. It seems like when it comes to money, I have to learn every lesson the hard way. This is the one part of life I have the most trouble with.

[nesselhexe]

I am trying so hard to give this little girl the best childhood I can. I have so much less money than I used to, I’m beyond burnt out, and I feel so guilty sometimes for not having more time or being more patient, but I’m still going to give it my all. I love being able to talk to her about fairies and gnomes and plants and mushrooms and then at the same time answer her questions about war and corporate greed and inequality. She’s so smart and so kind and I will never be able to explain what a privilege it is to take care of this beautiful soul. I’m so lucky.

[nesselhexe]

There’s a clothing company (very small) that makes elaborate and gorgeous dresses/costumes that are made to order. I’m always in awe of the beautiful things they make and the photography on their socials is equally stunning. I was always thinking that one day in the future I’ll save up money and get something… until I read their website.

They have a policy that states if you’re above a size 14/L they’ll add a $100 fee for „material costs“. This made me reconsider everything and also made me realize that literally every single model they’ve ever used in their pictures on social media is basically waif-thin. I’m realizing this is clearly their desired aesthetic and they’re hoping to deter bigger people.

Now I’m mad. The average dress size for a woman in the US is around 16-18. Most women in the US are size 14 or above.

If they need $100 extra for the average size, then just make your prices $100 higher! Genuinely what the fuck. It’s clear why they’re doing this. Sorry my giant fat ass doesn’t match your pale waif aesthetic.

[nesselhexe]

The three richest families in Austria have more wealth than the bottom 50% of the population. The average home price in my village is now about a million euros.

In my region, people making 3000€ net a month are very lucky, most people earn less. Right now, our combined household income is even less than that.

I try to stay positive, but watching all our neoliberal politicians do everything to appease the rich while ignoring every issue the working class people face (which inevitably makes these people support the far right rather than the left that will actually help them thanks to years of global CIA funded propaganda that makes everyone scared of communism) is DEPRESSING.

Sometimes I wish I didn't know anything about political theory. Sometimes I wish I didn't know that we are all likely going to be living through continued worsening barbarism rather than a socialist working class revolution because people are so brainwashed by aforementioned propaganda. I'm watching it all happen around me in slow motion. All I can do is try to organize with the handful of actual leftists here and try to talk to liberals in hopes they'll realize that voting for the same neoliberal spineless losers forever is going to keep pushing us all farther and farther into this hell.

When uneducated people try to tell me I live in a socialist country, it's hard not to laugh. If I did, my husband's salary wouldn't be less than 1% of the CEO's salary. We wouldn't be giving half our income to a landlord every month. We'd have actual, functional and affordable (or free) public transit. Need I go on?

Europe is capitalist with absolutely zero plan to move toward socialism. The social democrats running most European countries are spineless capitulators to fascism. The one good thing we have is socialized medical care which genuinely needs to be considered the bare minimum of a functioning society, but they're already purposefully ruining it and manufacturing consent to get rid of it entirely. Things are bleak.

They can get better, but only if the working class wakes up.

[nesselhexe]

How it feels having so many ideas for crafts and DIYs and other ways to improve your house and make it Sp whimsical but you can’t really do any of them because you don’t own your house, you’re just renting

And when it comes to owning a house, the odds are quite stacked against you because the average cost of a house in your region is over half a million euros and the laws of your country say you need at least a 20% down payment so unless you suddenly have a way to have €120k+ at your disposal, it’s quite unlikely you’ll ever own a house which also means you’re probably never going to execute any of these ideas

Capitalism sucks and I hope I get to watch it die in my lifetime

[nesselhexe]

Accepting my chronically ill body also comes with accepting the way my looks have changed. It’s okay. I can learn to love this version of me too.

[nesselhexe]

CW: medical talk/weight/body image

Once in a while I’ll get pictures popping up on social media that remind me what I looked like in 2021/22 when I felt physically the best I have in my entire life and also looked the best 😭

As of today, my weight gain has spiraled out of control and I’ve lost about 70% of my hair. I feel so bad most of the time, I’m sick SO often, and I’ve lost so much of my physical fitness. Also my blood pressure got really high and hospitalized me in 2024, and now I’m on 2 different medications until anyone bothers to find the root cause of all of this. Every doctor I’ve tried to get to listen just tells me I’m obviously eating more than I think I am and if I just tried harder to lose weight all my problems would go away. They don’t listen that I quite literally felt a massive shift in my body and it just doesn’t respond to anything the way it did before.

Not to mention, between 2019 - 2021 I lost 80 lbs on my own by loving to hike and lift weights and getting really serious about nutrition. So obviously I know how to do it. It’s just that in 2022 after moving back to Austria, my body completely stopped responding to any of my lifestyle changes. My hair started falling out in clumps and my body just started falling apart and I developed a severe iron deficiency and insomnia and heart palpitations and gained back 35 lbs between then and now. I just keep wishing someone would find out WHY and actually help me and fix this. I don’t feel good physically and it’s making me hate how I look even more. I reached a breaking point in 2024 and paid out of pocket for a private cardiologist just for him to tell me to lay off eating sausages. I am not kidding, he literally said that. (Sausages aren’t even a part of my diet)

[nesselhexe]

Nothing pisses me off more than when conservatives try to insult me by calling me a blue haired liberal

I‘m obviously a purple haired communist you buffoon, don’t ever fucking call me a liberal again

[nesselhexe]

[nesselhexe]

Antonio might finally have a job. It pays less than €2000 a month for full time shift work but it’s something nonetheless. I really really hope this one works out.

I’m now about €3k behind in business bills (with over €5k due before the end of the year) and if I can’t come up with it they’re going to send my bills to court and take our car away and ruin my record and then Antonio won’t be able to get to work and then they’re definitely not going to renew his residency permit next year. Idk how to ask for help and I honestly don’t want to but I just don’t understand how things got this bad overnight. Like even with the tariffs I didn’t expect it to be THIS bad. My sales have dropped over 90% and this has been going on for over a month. Every day on my social medias I’m getting a shit ton of comments from trumpers saying they’re so glad this is happening to me and they can’t wait for it to happen to more people. Meanwhile some horrible racist calls a little kid a slur and they raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for her. I just can’t understand this world anymore. My heart hurts all the time. I feel like I’ve failed everyone I care about.

[nesselhexe]

My accountant has now taken Antonio off payroll and she said that he should apply for unemployment but I just had to tell her that I don’t think the immigration officials would like that, but I’ll ask our lawyer. People love to hate immigrants but if they had to live like one they probably would not be able to handle it lol

You’re not allowed to use safety nets even though you pay into the system and you’re held to a way higher standard than anyone else. Yeah, even if you marry a citizen. This has been true in every country I’ve lived in.

It sucks that no matter what country we live in, we will always have this issue. I just don’t think it should be this hard to marry and have a family with someone that holds a different nationality.

[nesselhexe]

Oh and Antonio is still looking for a job 😑 so far things with everyone who has offered help hasn’t actually worked out so back to square one and still looking

I just want to know that rent can be paid somehow. After the 15th my bank account is going to be negative a couple hundred unless I can prevent that this weekend so I’ll be working on that in the mean time

[nesselhexe]

I just had a reality check of how bad everything floating around in my brain is rn when going through my screen shots. It might just be that damn phone. I think I need a little breaky-break. My current life atm is already a big enough shit show without weighing myself down with the burdens of the entire rest of the world that I currently have zero capacity or power to do anything about.

I’ll be coming back to this on Monday to keep being everyone’s annoying communist witch aunt

[nesselhexe]

People around town are starting to get the news that we can’t ship to the US anymore and everyone looks sick with concern when they talk to me. Antonio is likely going to get a job at my uncle’s work, but it’s shift work so he’ll do 6 am - 2 pm one week and then 2 pm - 10 pm the next :( I know he’s lucky to even find anything rn because things are bad globally and here too but all of this is just.. shitty. We worked so hard to build this life together and for a while it felt like “wow, we made it!” and more or less now it’s all going away

[nesselhexe]

I was so optimistic last month that we were getting caught up on everything and things looked pretty good. Now everything has imploded and I have lost the ability to service 98% of my customers. I am devastated and I’ve had a now 5 day long headache that won’t go away. I’m so tired and I can’t believe this is happening.