Stuff Christians Like is having "Shameless Saturday." Meaning you can plug your own blog. I don't spend a lot of time at this site. It doesn't hook me the way that it did when i first found it. I have been visiting a few different blogs today. (I'm mostly caught up with blog reading now. The ones i've missed are where i click on the specific post rather than the site in general. I'm a bit frustrated with my dashboard that tells me of new posts. It usually allows me to go back several days, but currently is limiting me to 10 hours, so i think i'm missing things.)
I came across a beautiful photography site. But what impressed me the most was this: Wedding Tips: Exercise Less. The reason? He talks about photo retouching & how that the images on magazine covers & in the magazines - the photos with which women tend to compare themselves negatively - are NOT what those women actually look like. No duh, right? But, those images get in our heads & tend to poison our views.
Take some time to look at the two images of Faith Hill. I didn't catch all the differences at once, but when i did - the comparison of her arms in natural & retouched is amazing. There are lots of many subtle differences, & i didn't notice her arms at first. I don't know why that one - as opposed to the lines around her mouth or under her eyes or her cleaned-up line of shoulders & back - hit me much harder. Maybe just because it is so subtle & makes her a "perfect" but unreal woman.
We have made a decision about our church attendance. We're not going to close any doors but we're going to attend multiple churches. The Lutheran church will still be a home base of sorts, but we're going to limit attendance there to once or twice a month. The rest of the time we'll divide between the Catholic church, probably the Presbyterian church, & occasionally visit others a few of the bigger ones (like Calvary Chapel & some others) in the valley. We're not looking to join another church. But i am looking forward to having the opportunity to know more of what is available in the valley in terms of projects with which we can be involved & getting to know folks outside the small circle we currently have. We've been living here almost 3 years but have relatively few folks with whom we socialize.
For better or worse, the Lutheran church has become somewhat toxic for me. It has a number of wonderful people. It has a good pastor. He means well. But i'm finding that being there almost 52 weeks out of the year is poisonous for me. We're going to cut back on those doses & hope i can manage. I'm hoping the weeks we manage to be there are weeks when he is less harsh, but not expecting it. Kind of Murphy's Law, it isn't likely to be. We don't intend to announce our plans. But we will say something along the line of, "We're no longer able to be here every week," & leave it at that. Any other explanation we've discussed gives the implication we'll be off the hill, which is the form of a lie & we are not going to do that.
I don't remember why i was looking for some Christian cliches, but i came across this post: A guide to . . . It is an atheistic site, but frankly, these phrases tend to be the ones that stick me. Not to be too negative, but i think a "relationship with God" needs to be more authentic & less superficial that what these phrases indicate.
Duane & i saw Sherlock Holmes this week. I was hesitating, honestly, because of a "review" an uncle of mine passed around. It claimed that, well, i'll just reproduce the body of the letter:
It was out and out one of the most satanic films that I have ever seen and none of the
film's press releases or reviews highlight this element in the film, at all.
There is real black magic witchcraft in it and Sherlock Holmes even makes a
floor sized pentagram of his own, literally joining the dark side to solve a case.
It was at that point that we finally left the theater. We should have left
after the first 25 minutes.
Don't watch this film. It's no PBS miniseries. Sherlock Holmes is apparently a witchcraft practicing cokehead.
I'll be honest, it gave me pause for attending the movie. Duane & i see a lot of different movies including the Harry Potter ones. My mother was a Christian paranoid about "things satanic" & it is a major difference between us. But i don't like certain things & i hesitated.
So, i was pretty angry when we left the theater. The (stupid) people who wrote this "review" reacted in a knee-jerk, paranoid manner & had they sat thru the movie they would have found it no more satanic than Agatha Christie, or David Copperfield (magician). Frankly, i think things passed around like this make Christians appear mindless & ignorant. I toned down my opinion, but did respond to my uncle's original letter. The letter arrived to me with no identifying markers, so i have no idea from whom it originated.
What was interesting about this (i replied to everyone he sent the letter & i come from a huge extended family) was that thru it i connected with one of my younger cousins. I try not to respond/react to everything sent out. Sometimes i do reply, however, & i've long felt that i'm a lone wolf in my opinions. I think the family sees me as a strange, odd, liberal (when i don't think i am), kinda weird California person. It has been nice to discover that this younger cousin (whom i've only seen a couple of times) has similar opinions to those of mine. NOT that everyone has to agree with me, of course. But it is nice to feel that i'm not alone with a target painted on me. He had been living in North Carolina (close to our larger family) but is now in Colorado. Maybe sometime he'll actually come visit us.
We seem to have been doing well with giving Mac pills. We do follow it up immediately with treats (for both cats, of course). I'm afraid, however, that before long we're going to find a "stash" somewhere like Rosemary's cat. I'm hoping that by next week when Duane is gone i will have this down to a science & can give the pills alone. He doesn't seem to be fighting quite as much as before. After all, the sooner he takes it the sooner he gets what he is wanting. I'm afraid it is spoiling them both, tho. It used to be that they would get treats maybe 4-5 times a week; now it is twice a day & they are begging for them even more!
I'm going to try a rather novel, unusual, controversial home remedy this week. I'll write about it another time.
Did a massage today. Came home exhausted & chilled. The only thing to do for chill (i mean feeling cold to the bone) these days is sleep. So i did. Thus, i'm awake much later than normal tonight.
I think i could blather on forever, but i'm stopping now. :)
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