Hi as everybody can obviously tell I'm new here, and more importanly I'm (really) new to Wicca.  As new Wiccan I'm obviously still really stupid so I'd like to plead temporary insanity in case of any misconceptions, misinterpretations, or just plain wrongness. I would like to ask anybody to help me medicate erroneous assumptions or concepts.  That said I have two questions one of lesser importance and one of greater importance, first the one of lesser importance.

I'm kinda having trouble with the the sabbats more specifically they're dates.  Can anybody help me in this regard?  I'm currently residing in Botswana and being here a while kinda threw of my sense of seasons. (this place has basically two seasons a hot time and a cold time and it takes about a week to change from the one to the other)  And appart from that I don't really have much of a concept of time as I view time as being relative.  So pointing/pushing me in the right direction would be much appreciated

Next which is my first problem as a Wiccan (and probably one of the biggest problems I've ever faced).  I'm from a Christian home, and although my parents are very open they're still kinda umm skittish?  Anyway the problem is mostly my dad, he's had some really hard times (he's parents kinda rejected him) and most of my life there has been a lot of tension and fights (nothing violent though) and he and my mom repeatedly got on the verge of a devorce.  But luckily they stayed together and now my dad has mostly worked through his problems. (which is one of the things that I admire about him)  He and my mom are just about the only Christians I know that aren't racist actually live according they're believes. (which basically revolves around love and forgiveness)  Which after skipping alot of stuff as not to make the story any longer than it needs to be.  My dad attributes just about all of his success and healing to God (obviously the Christian one in this context) and he truly believes in him, and (I think) he really want to give us the best. (which is about where the problem comes in)  He believes the best he can give us is knowledge, love, preparedness for the world and hopefully a strong faith in God.  At which point you can probably start to see the problem but to make sure you understand correctly I'm afraid if I tell him he'll feel like a failure.  I'm pretty sure he'll accept me as I am (although not sure enough that I'd chance it) but this is the most important decision I've made yet in my life and I'd really like to share it with him.  Now I've asked him if in a situation similar to this one what he would do and he said that he wouldn't tell the other person.  Which is exactly what I'm going to do but how do I work through this every time I think about it I just want to burst into tears.  I have no idea how to fix this, I'm really glad I found Wicca it's made me really happy so far (I'm pretty severly ADHD so going from wanting to burst into tears to being ecstatic isn't that hard, fortunately) and I plan on sticking with it.  But at the moment this is... well for lack of a better term, it's scary.  Anyway I think I've bored you lot enough for one day, and I still have to save atleast _some_ of my sob stories for another day.

So have a nice day, enjoy yourselfs and stay out'a trouble.