I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.

~Susan B. Anthony

I am amazed at how judgmental and cruel supposed Christian people can be.  I was raised Catholic.  My mother is Catholic, my father is agnostic, and they both are former hippies.  (when I say former, I mean that they do not dress like hippies, but retain the same beliefs and values)  so I was raised with religion and faith, but I was also taught to question authority, respect all and find the good in everyone I meet. 

I have been on a spiritual quest for a while now.  And when people ask about it I talk about it.  I have read books about Witchcraft, Wicca, Paganism, the Sacred Feminine, Mary Magdalene, Celtic lore and Goddess worship.  I have discovered that I never lost my way, I just needed a new perspective.  These ancient cultures/religions all believe that respecting nature and respecting each other should come above all else.  Basically, treat others as you wish to be treated.  And the three fold rule, anything you do will come back to you times three.  If you are nice your niceness will come back to three fold, if you are cruel, you will receive three times the amount of cruelty.  I have always lived this way, (again the hippie parents influence)  I don’t believe that reading the bible and preaching it will get me into heaven, but being a good person, being nice, helping my fellow humans, and always having a kind word will bring me more reward than anything else. 

I have seen that people have a tendency to ridicule any belief or value that does not mirror their own.  They tend to demonize the unfamiliar.  Because of this, the ancient cultures went into hiding because they were branded evil.  The amazing thing is that these cultures/religions survived even in the face of annihilation.  Why?  Because there is truth in them, there is an undeniable comfort in them.   The main focus of these pre-Christian religions/cultures is to respect nature and all of mankind.  Can Christians honestly say they follow this?

My sister in law and her husband call themselves Christian.  And they are wonderful people, they work with society’s cast offs and rehabilitate those that the world has given up on.  However, they also sit in judgment of their own family.  They have told my father in law that he will most likely end up in hell because he does not attend church and questions the existence of God.  I’m sorry, but I can not find a shred of respect there.  The kids once found a slug in the yard when they were playing and she showed them how the slug melts when you pour salt over it.  Even my 10 year old questioned her respect for nature and all living things (goddess bless her)

I am not saying Christians are bad people and I don’t want to stereo type; I know there are all kinds of people in all religions.  I believe most are good and caring.  What I am saying is that I seem to be practicing what they preach, yet according to them I am still destined for hell, but they go against their own teachings and judge and disrespect me, and they get to go to heaven because they read the bible? 

All I can do is continue to follow my destiny and help my love and my girls to follow theirs.   My hope is that one day my girls will live in a world where there is religious tolerance, not only for the mainstream religions, but for the forgotten religions and even the non-religions. 

The story that got me ranting about this today is here. 

Have you ever felt like a phone call that's been disconnected?
Shannen Doherty

6:22 am--Drag my ass out of bed (should have been 5:45, no later than 6:00 in order to have the day run smoothly). 

6:29 am--Step out of the shower not feeling quite as refreshed as I should (the Teen Queen stole my lavender/rose body wash, had to use unscented)

6:33 am--Realize that I forgot to condition my hair, therefore I now have a head of straw that I am almost certain will not look good no matter what

6:44 am--I have finally done something to my hair that actually looks cute

6:45 am--Everything in my closet seems to fit a tad too tight due to June and July being one huge glutton party for me, finally find a skirt that of course needs ironed.

6:58 am--Go down to the kitchen to have a word with the girls before we have to leave.  Turns out the Teen Queen left without saying good bye 10 minutes ago, and the Drama Queen is in the midst of making her lunch, which is a welcome relief from last year when all she did was stand there watching me and letting me know how wrong I was doing it.  :x

6:59 am--Finally get into the car.  Now in order for me to get to work by 7:00, we need to leave the house at 6:25 so that I can get her to before school care at 6:30 and then be on my way.  Even on my best day, I cannot make it to work in 60 seconds so I am officially screwed.

7:04 am--Get to the school, sign in the Drama Queen, tell her I love her in sign language, because if I said it out loud someone might hear me  :shock:

7:09 am--Run down the stairs to my car and run out of my sandal, stop, pick up my shoe, turn back around and run right into a jogger and knock her on her ass.  Now, I am tempted to tell her that if she give up this horrid habit of getting up at the crack of dawn to run instead of munching down sugar filled cereal and a cappacino like the normal people do, she would not only be too big for me to knock on her ass, but she wouldn't be in the path of a madwoman trying to turn back time to make it to work on time for once this month.  However, I keep my tongue in check and help her up telling her how sorry I am and realize that this woman must be a stepford wife robot because she barely has time to blink before she is off and running again like nothing happened. 

7:18 am--Look in my rearview mirror and realize that I have forgotten to put on makeup this morning.  So I dig around in my purse, find some makeup and slap it on while I am also trying to drive, change the radio station to find some actual music and not inane chatter of morning dj's hyped up on their own egos, and drink my carmel frappacino I took out of the Teen Queen's stash in the fridge.

7:33 am--pull up to work while downing the last of the frappacino and desperately wishing I had 7 more. 

7:34 am--Open the door to my office and realize somebody has jacked with the air conditioner so that it ran all night and made my tiny office feel like a meat locker.

I am exhausted and it is not even 9:00 yet.  I feel a starbucks break coming up.  And I just realized that I forgot to bring a lunch this morning so it looks like I will be hitting Mickey D's this afternoon for a fiesta salad (my new favorite lunch)  Oh well, it can only get better right?  :roll:

When you have confidence, you can have a lot of fun.  And when you have fun, you can do amazing things.

     ~Anonymous

   Saturday afternoon I went to my friend P's house.  She put on a luncheon for our friend A who is having her 2nd baby next month.  When I walked in P was talking to another woman I didn't know.  As soon as I said hi, P says to her friend, "K, this is Jenn, the one I was telling you about.  She's the fun one!".  At first I thought, "That's kind of cool.  I'm the fun one."  Then it hit me, that's a lot to live up to.  What exactly is the fun one to do?  Was I the afternoon entertainment?  Was I supposed to stand at a microphone with a martini and cigarette and toss off one liners?  Was I supposed to tap dance and do vaudeville?  Or maybe I was to distract the others so they wouldn't notice P trying to put out the fire that had erupted in the oven scorching the would be appetizers. 

   That question was answered 15 minutes later as we all gathered on the patio with our drinks.  We all sat at the patio table, and L said "So Jenn, what stories have you brought to regale us with today?"  Talk about pressure.  Now I never go to a social gathering with an arsenal of stories.  I just happen to have a lot of stories that somehow relate to what people are talking about.  And yes I admit, there are times when I absolutely cannot relate a story, but I do it anyway.  Usually, I just hang out, listen to everyone talk about their daily lives, then interject with a story that fits right in.  This demand for a story threw me for a loop though.

  So, my question is, does everyone in a group of friends have a title?  And, do we always have to live up to that title?  I mean, what if I wasn't feeling particularly fun at that moment?  Or didn't really feel like sharing an amusing story?  Ok, that last one is a bit far fetched, I always love sharing stories, but I don't go into a social gathering with an arsenal of stories to bark out on command.  I just usually have a story that relates to something we are discussing.  Like when we start talking about giving birth, I talk about how I had a midwife with my first daughter and what a great experience that was.  Then that usually leads to my second daughter's birth when I started asking for the epidural when I was about 4 months along.  Believe me, when you do natural birth, you remember that pain quite vividly. 

   Maybe I should just be happy that people enjoy listening to me talk, I mean I do love to talk.  And I do love to share stories and make people laugh.  But honestly, I would not go to the slut in the group and say, "So, tell me about the last guy you did."  I think what bothers me about the whole thing is that nobody else in this particular group really initiates conversation, so I always feel like I have to be "on".  Sometimes, I do just want to hang out and listen, but when I am introduced as the fun one, or the one with the stories, I'm just not quite as relaxed as I want to be in a social setting.  For now, I will just start stockpiling stories of my life, and whip them out when commanded, and insist that I must have a cocktail first.  I mean, nobody works for free do they?.   :lol:

A writer writes not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to communicate.  Behind the need to communicate is the need to share.  Behind the need to share is the need to be understood.

~Leo Rosten

Mercury is in retrograde.  Since Mercury rules communication, thinking, perception and the ability to process and disseminate information, this means that all of that is thrown out of whack for the next few weeks.  Thank Goddess, because I thought I was going crazy.  I have lost all ability to communicate.  I would talk and trip over my words, or completely forget words all together.  I would type an email and lose all control of my fingers making it nearly impossible to type even the simplest word.  I would have a great topic to blog, and then be unable to put it into words.  I was even having trouble just free writing.  Then I learned about the retrograde and it all made sense.  I know there are those of you who do not feel the magnetic pull of the stars and planets, and you choose not to read anything into it and chalk all this up to coincidence.  That's fine.  But I bet the next time you stumble on your words or have trouble putting your thoughts into words, you'll think about it, if even for a split second. :wink:

I love to write, I always have.  So, when I lose this ability, for whatever reason, I get a little freaked.  This time though, after retyping an email for the 5th time, I decided to just go with it.  After all, maybe this is fate's way of telling me to find another creative outlet.  So, I started crocheting again.  I do it off and on as the mood strikes me.  This time I made the Teen Queen (I have got to find her another nick name) a really cute purse.  And because I wasn't focusing on writing (whether in my journal, on the net, or just because), I really took my time on the purse.  It turned out very cute.  I have also had this overwhelming urge to paint.  This usually means, I paint a room in the house, but this time, I actually want to buy a canvas and some oil paints and emulate Da Vinci, or Clyfford Still (a great abstract expressionist).  This is a new desire for me.  I have never picked up a paintbrush in my life, save for the water colors in kindergarten.

I have also decided to go back to counting my blessings and not my burdens.  I lost this attitude a while ago and I really hate dwelling on the negative, so in the spirit of positive thinking I have made a note of things I am grateful for today:

• Clean panties-- (kind of goes back to Cyberpal's blog a few days ago  :lol:)  usually commando I only have a few pairs for when I need them like today, I decided to wear a skirt and absolutely needed them


• Knee high boots--like I said, I decided to wear a skirt but I had not shaved my legs, so the knee high boots not only make me feel sexy, they serve a camouflage purpose as well


• Sleeping in--even though I told my love to wake me at 5:45, when the alarm went off I just could not get out of bed.  He let me sleep until 6:30


• The boss being late this morning--as long as he walks in 5 minutes after me, he never has to know that I slept in


• Midnight sex  :D

Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead. ~Lucille Ball

I decided I needed a change to lift me out of the funk I have been in.  So I became a redhead.  I love it.  I feel like a new jenn.  Yay.  So, we are getting ready to go back to Iowa this afternoon.  An 8 hour drive with my love and the girls.  Shouldn't be too bad, except for maybe the Drama Queen giving us new reasons on why we should have taken a plane.  And the Teen Queen pouting about one thing or another.  It will be nice to see my family again, but the newness of that usually rubs off in about an hour. 

I am just going to go with the flow.  Usually when I am expecting the worst, the worst tends to happen.  So, I am back to being laid back and letting destiny take it's course.

I'm not sure how much access I'll have to a computer so I'll end this blog with a list of some of my new favorites :D

My New Summer Favorites:

1. 
   
   Movies:




1. Donnie Darko--this was a recent DVD buy for the Teen Queen, I watched it and loved it. 


2. The Village--I am a big fan of M. Night Shyamalan, I think he lived up to his previous hits with this one. 


3. Big Trouble--I caught this one again on cable and laughed my ass off.  I want to buy this one to have at home to watch on a lazy Sunday afternoon


2. Actors:




1. Joaquin Pheonix--he doesn't have a lot of screen time in The Village, but he is awesome.


2. Adrian Brody--he plays a great part in The Village, brilliant


3. Jake Gyllanhal--he makes Donnie Darko real.  And not too shabby to look at too :lol:


3. Foods:




1. Dairy Queen vanilla ice cream cone, nothing beats it on a hot summer night.


2. Big Bill's Pizza--the absolute best New York style pizza in Denver.


4. T.V. Shows:




1. The Amazing Race 5--It's a cheesy reality show, but I love the constant activity and clash of personalities.


2. Will & Grace re-runs--I love the older episodes, Karen is one of the best bitches on T.V.


3. Charmed re-runs--I used to never admit I loved this show, but I find myself racing home after work to catch all of the episodes I missed during the primetime showings.  My girls are hooked too.  My love says it's the stupidest show he's ever seen, but he knows all of the characters names and who they are sleeping with.   :)


4. Monk--I love this show because you know who did it and why, but you have to keep guessing till the end to see how.

Well, that about covers it.  I better get my work done so that I can head out to Iowa to see the whole fam damily :lol: