Some First Thoughts on "Wicca: A Year and A Day"

I was in middle school when I first became interested in a pagan path. After reading Harry Potter ad Tamora Pierce, watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Craft, and becoming increasingly frustrated with Judaism, it was only natural that I would find my way into the occult. I never really did anything with it, however. I read a ton of books and blogs, and decided that if I was going to be a witch, I had to do it "right". However, for a girl with limited budget and not allowed to light candles in my room, it never really got off the ground. I did spend a lot of time researching herbs and coping down Oghams to right secret messages to myself. Not surprisingly, without actually using any of these herbs, I could never remember which herb was good for what. Years passed, and I somewhat forgot about my spirituality in favor of work and moving out and all the other "adult" things that happen. The feeling of wanting to do things "right", has still stuck with me, and prompted me to pick up Wicca: A Year and A Day by Timothy Rodrick. 

Right away, I have a few issues with it.

• This book is very Wicca based. (Okay, not really a surprise.) It can be adapted to a more blended or eclectic path, but it takes some work.
• Sabbats and esbats are celebrated in a row, instead of with the wheel of the year.
• The male god is called "The Inseminator, The Provider, and The Sage". The first term is where I get really stuck. I'm not a huge fan of the whole "Lord knocks up Lady, she gets pregnant, he dies, and she gives birth to him again" thing. At the end of the day, those whole sections are going to have to be reworked for me.
• The list of herbs and other supplies is really, really long. I'm planning on doing some research and picking up a couple of books to help me find substitutions so I can buy fewer herbs.
• He also calls any fragrance oil or essence an "essential oil". If you have some familiarity with these things, then you know that apple essential oil does not exist, but apple fragrance oil does. This is another place where a book that goes more in depth about making oils and incenses will come in handy.
• There are a lot of "traditional sigils" mentioned, but there is no key for what they mean, where they come from, etc. This is really important information for me, because I don't want to be inscribing my tools with symbols that I don't connect with. 
• Chants. I'm on the fence about this, since I haven't tried it. Chanting may become a part of my ritual, but I'm not holding my breath.
• There is a day for the tarot and another for each of the Major Arcana. For me, with over a year of tarot practice, this isn't exciting for me. I do think that someone with no tarot experience will like this, but I'm probably going to be skipping these days, or adding in things for my own practice.
• Lack of ritual bathing. This could very well be a personal thing, but I find a ritual bath to be very powerful. I will probably add them in as I see fit, for example the first and last day.

But, there are also things that I'm looking forward to.

• There is a day each month for a particular god or goddess, outside of the Maiden/Mother/Crone/Inseminator/Provider/Sage. I like this because I haven't done much work with different pantheons, and this will give me a place to start feeling out what deity I relate to, if any.
• Making my own tools and setting up an altar.
• Going step by step through a whole circle casting. I've read through these rituals before, and got very overwhelmed.
• Having lots of oils and incenses made for lots of different occasions and needs.
• Trying different types of magic that I haven't considered in the past.
• Stretching my boundaries and trying things. Like chanting.
• Books! Through researching and finding more reference books, I'm excited to grow my magical library more.
• Developing a strong spiritual, if not necessarily magical, practice.

I don't think that these issues are unique to me. If anything, I believe that the reasons so very few people finish the whole course are 1) they get bogged down by the very long equipment lists with weird herbs, 2) pacing that doesn't match the seasons is very off putting, and 3) they don't do enough planning in order to know what can be substituted and what cannot. So far, I'm happy that I've picked Wicca: A Year and A Day up, but I don't think it's the best book for very beginning pagans out there.