The One Where I Lose Half My Followers & Piss Off My Neighbor Who Reads This Blog

*Clarification......this is based on MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCES that I PERSONALLY have had with several churches of two different denominations. This is NOT AIMED at ANY AND ALL religions and churches. I don't presume to assume that all religions are the same when it comes to their views and ideals. Having said that, this post is not about YOU. It's about ME and my realization that I was WRONG. Let's not forget that this is what this post is about.

You know, I’ve posted on here before that I’m not a deep person.

And I still stand by that.

I’ll tell you why.

Every time I have these deep meaningful thoughts, they fall to shit by the time I’m done.

Case in point.

I’m not a religious person. At all. I have major doubts about God, the Bible, the whole shebang.

But what really chaps my ass is organized religion.

Yes, as mentioned on here before, I attend church.

I go pretty much every Sunday.

But…I mostly go because of my daughter.

She’s expressed an interest in church. I suspect it’s mostly because of Sunday school and not the sermon at 11.

However, I’m willing to take her every Sunday until she gets to the age where she can make an INFORMED decision about religion and beliefs and church attendance.

It’s my job as a mom to make sure she’s well rounded. Other than a Methodist church in town, our religious choices are slim to none.

It’s a nice church. I know several people in the congregation. They’re good people. You won’t find me complaining about them on here.

I even like Bro. D. He’s a nice guy.

Now, church is a voluntary activity. It’s not mandatory in order to, well, be an active member of the community. It’s helpful, but not mandatory. You don’t get in trouble for not attending (I’m talking legally here, folks, not religiously).

And, if you live in a tiny southern REPUBLICAN town, a majority of the folks that you interact with on a daily basis are of the same mind when it comes to their politics.

With the inauguration happening today, a topic that was broached at church on Sunday was to pray for the new President (and my mind interpreted the tone of this being said, not the words, as to mean they want to pray for his heathen pagan soul, not a general “make everything work out OK” prayer).

Now, I’m real prickly when it comes to separation of church and state. Religion doesn’t belong in the White House and the White House doesn’t belong in church.

Back when the election was going on, there was some talk up at the pulpit about the Democratic nominee. Nothing outright was said, but you could tell what he WASN’T saying and you could see heads nodding in agreement in the pews.

I was thisclose to getting up and walking out the door. But, I chose not to make a scene.

This past Sunday, I had a feeling something might be said in regards to Tuesday’s festivities and history making occasion.

And, I wasn’t wrong…but I wasn’t right either. Nothing big was said and my hackles laid down and rested from being raised for so long.

But, it got me to thinking.

This is one of the reasons I don’t like organized religion.

The incredible feeling of moral superiorority.

It’s their way or the highway.

No tolerance for other religions.

The incessant need to gather more and more followers (sounds kind of like blogging, eh?) and to convert non-believers.

I’m a huge proponent of letting people believe what they want to believe. I’m a big believer that no one religion is right OR wrong.

It drives me insane and I can’t stand it that they are not tolerant of others. I dislike people like that.

And then…..I actually listened to my thoughts and realized…I’m just like them.

I’m sitting there in the pew feeling all morally superior because I have tolerance for others.

When in reality, the joke was on me the whole time. Cause I was sitting there judging them for THEIR beliefs.

How fucked up is that?

So, from now on….no more deep thoughts.

Or if I have any, I’ll make sure to spin them so I rival Jack Handey.

Hanging Head In Shame,

Mama Dawg

Camper Girl

My camper girl came home last Thursday! I was so happy to see her.

She had a blast.

It was a Baptist church camp...aghhh...but she wanted to go.

Before I get all sorts of hate mail about this...I've explained before that I'm not religious. I especially don't believe in organized religion.

However, my daughter is interested in church and Sunday School and bible camp and all that. Since I don't feel it will hurt her to learn and it will only enhance fellowship with our community, I attend church every Sunday WITH her. Mostly cause she's too young to go by herself. And, I feel that since I'm always growing, it can't hurt me either. I like learning and I like the sense of community that I have when I attend.

That got way off topic.

Let's get back to the topic at hand.....my camper!

Here's a pic of her unmade bunk. I took this on the day I was picking her up. She had the top bunk.



Here's a pic of her when I first got there. She was sitting on the floor near the front of the fellowship hall where they were putting on a performance for us. We still hadn't hugged yet but to be honest, I don't think she cared much at that point. She was just so excited to be a part of this whole experience. You can just see the joy in her eyes! (and yes, I know she has a severe case of red eye, but I'm about to leave for the day and I'm off work tomorrow and I'm too lazy to go and correct it. She can be the evil queen that owns the bunnies from below!)



Here she is performing a song in sign language. She was so proud of herself. She's been going around all week singing all the songs she learned. It's so sweet.



I'm glad she's home.

Later,

Mama Dawg

Starbucks Mug

Light of my life is currently on candy restriction. She’s not allowed to have it at all….period…..end of story. She can’t bring it home and she’s not allowed to have it. I know I can’t control her eating candy when I’m not with her and I accept that.

At church this past Sunday, before the sermon, B’s brother in law talked to all the kids (see one of the prior posts). They leave the pew and go to the front of the church and stand around while he tells them an amusing story that relates to something about God or Jesus or stories in the Bible. They all then get a piece of candy and go sit back down with their parents.

Well, since light of my life is on candy restriction I had remind her before she went up to the front that she couldn’t get any candy. Well, that pissed her off. She flounced back down in the pew and announced that if that was the case, she just wouldn’t go up there. Oh, boy. That was the wrong thing to say. I reminded her that the reason she went up there was not to get a piece of candy but to listen to what Mr. K had to say. The candy was just an extra. I made her go up there. After he got finished with what he had to say (again, see one of the prior posts), he mentioned that he had some special Valentines’ candy for the kids. Man, oh, man….did I feel like a heel then. Light of my life looked back at me with such longing in her eyes that I so badly wanted to reverse my decision and give in. However, I had to remain firm. I shook my head no and she pouted her way back to the pew. She actually sat there and cried while in church. My heart was breaking but I couldn’t do anything about it. She was crying silently so unless someone was watching, you didn’t even know she was doing it. I just let her cry.

Now, this is the amazing part and this is just one of the many, many, many, many reasons why I love and admire my daughter so much.

She kept pulling away from me on the pew and wouldn’t allow herself to lay down on my lap like she normally does during church (yes, I know, bad mommy). However, she didn’t pull away from me rubbing the back of her neck or stroking her hair. She also eventually stopped crying (without any prompting from me) and laid down on my lap. She started playing with my fingers and snuggling a bit.

She did all of this without me prompting or encouraging her. I thought that showed huge signs of maturity that she managed to get over the whole situation without me having to have a discussion with her or threatening her or punishing her.

I also thought I showed incredible signs of maturity by letting her work it out on her own instead of having a discussion with her or threatening her or punishing her.

I’m so proud of us. I think we’ll be fine. Of course, I say that now…..I can only imagine what it’ll be like in a few years when she hits 13.

She later went to Wal-Mart with M, C and their grand-parents while mom and I went traipsing through a daffodil field. I had gone to the bank to get some money for her lunch and her allowance (I never keep cash on me) and was only going to give her a $10 but decided to let her have the whole $20 to spend. I advised her that she had to buy her own lunch but that she could keep the change. She was so thrilled.

Know what she did with the extra $10 she had?

Spent it on me.

She bought me a Starbuck’s coffee mug with Starbucks hot chocolate and marshmallows. It was one of those special Valentine’s combo present things. I’m not a huge fan of hot chocolate but I do like Starbuck’s hot chocolate and I had been contemplating buying one of their mugs. It was a great present.

I just could not get over her generosity (albeit with my money).

I am so proud of her.

Later,

Mama Dawg

My Weekend

This weekend was so nice. First of all, the weather was BEAUTIFUL!!! Just stunning. I love these kinds of days. It was a bit chilly in the morning but then it heated up enough during the day to get into a short-sleeved t-shirt.

Light of my life wanted M to come spend the night Friday night, so after we visited with B & L for a while, I brought them back to the house. It was close to 11 at this point, so the girls went straight to sleep.

We all woke up around 8 or so. Mom cooked pancakes (she makes the best pancakes, hands down), eggs and sausage. I cleaned a bit. The girls were in the playroom playing with Barbies.

I had to go to the vet to get some flea meds for the boys before they closed at 11. When I got back and took care of the cats, I informed the girls that they needed to get dressed and go outside to play. They wanted to play with the baby doll stuff outside so I dragged out all the baby doll beds (three), the highchair, playpen, swing, light of my life’s princess table and chairs, a quilt for them to use, clothes for the baby dolls, toys for the baby dolls and the kitchen stove. Yes, the kitchen stove. Of course, it’s a plastic Playskool kitchen stove that’s filled with play kitchenwares and plastic food, but you can’t set up house without having a kitchen.

They played this way for at least 2 hours. It was good for them to get outside.

Now, before you ask what I was doing during this time, I’ll go ahead and let you know.

I decided to take this opportunity to drag out my work table (an old dining table top on top of 2 saw horses) and my big masculine power tools. I had a couple of projects to work on that required my circular saw and my jig saw. Since the day was gorgeous, I figured it was as good a time as any to work outside.

I have a shelf that I need to put up in the bathroom to put all the laundry detergent and stuff on. Right now, it all sits on top of the dryer and it takes up so much space (that could be otherwise used for other random miscellaneous crap). So, I had gone to Home Depot earlier in the week and got a white shelf. It was 5 feet long but I only needed 3 ½ feet or so. Instead of getting them to cut it, I decided to do it myself. I’m sure I could find somewhere to hang the other 1 ½ foot of shelf that’s scrap.

I got that cut and then moved on to the Barbie dollhouse.

See, a couple of years ago, I got a bee in my bonnet to build light of my life a Barbie dollhouse. However, I didn’t just imagine a quaint little four room house. Nope, I had grander ideas. Barbie was going to have a mansion. Nothing short of 16 rooms for that b*tch. This required me building 4 separate 4-room houses. I drew out the plans (like they were real hard, it consists of 4 rooms that are 14”h x 16”d x 16”w). I actually managed to get one section built. It’s custom painted (each room), I cut out windows, made curtains, made some furniture, made flooring (out of tea stained balsa wood), placed down carpet (real carpet remnants were used), etc…..My goal was to wait a few weeks and then start on the next section.

Then our world went black. Our life was disrupted for well over a year. Decisions were made and we packed up our worldly belongings and moved. During all this time, I was never able to get back to building the other three sections. I promised myself that I would get it finished before this summer. I went and bought the wood about a month ago and I actually did some work on it Saturday. I got the exterior built of another section. All I need to do now is put in the interior floors/ceiling/walls, paint the rooms and put in flooring.

Then do the same thing for 2 more sections.

Ambitious, I know. But it will be completed…..just in time for light of my life to declare her love for Barbies to be over and done with.

Sigh……

B came over while I was in the middle of all this. We visited for a while. I kept on working on the house while we visited. The girls had gone in by that time and like most kids, could sense that I was enjoying a nice adult conversation and decided to some outside at that point. They wanted to show off their house to B, so she went along and entertained them for a while. She invited light of my life to come over to play, so they left and I finished up what I was doing.

I went over later to visit and to collect light of my life.

As you can tell by previous posts, we are over there all the time!

On Sunday, we got up and light of my life got ready for Sunday school. B normally picks her up and takes her with them since she teaches a Sunday school class. However, I got a phone call from H that morning (H is the landlords daughter, she’s 13 and is friends with B’s girl C). She told me that B wasn’t feeling good and wasn’t going to church. H asked me if I’d take her to Sunday school when I took light of my life. Being the good neighbor that I am (or am trying to be) I said it was fine. And it was. However, unbeknownst to me, B had made arrangements to have her mother come pick up light of my life since she was already having to pick up B’s girls to take them to Sunday school. We got it all straightened out and made it to Sunday school on time.

At church, before the sermon, B’s brother in law talks to all the kids. They leave the pew and go to the front of the church and stand around while he tells them an amusing story that relates to something about God or Jesus or stories in the Bible. This Sunday, he was talking to the kids about Valentine’s day and was trying to tie it in to Jesus loving you forever and all that jazz. Now, M is his niece and she’s up there with light of my life and other kids. M is a sassy little thing (not in a bad way, but in the wholesome, positive, extremely HILARIOUS way) and she doesn’t let adults get by with much. She loves her uncle to pieces. Her aunt (B’s sister) is sitting in the pew this whole time. Her kids are sitting with her as well and her mom and dad are there, too.

The story he was trying to relate to the kids is that when he was younger, he had a crush on a girl named Michelle. He gave her a special Valentine (one of many that this girl received….apparently she was a popular girl) with a big ole’ smiley face on it and asked her to be his. This girl returned the Valentine with a big ole’ frowny face and declined his request.

The point he was trying to get across was that if you gave your heart to Jesus, you can bet he won’t return it and he will keep it and protect it and cherish it forever.

However, I think the kids missed this point. Why? Well….it's all because M loves her aunt and felt the need to defend her honor.

See, uncle, when he started the story, told the kids about loving this little girl. M got indignant on her aunt’s behalf and raked him over the coals for loving someone that is NOT HIS WIFE!!! She had the whole church rolling. The choir was chiming in, the congregation was chiming in, and the other kids were chiming in. It was hysterical.

You gotta be proud of M for standing up for her aunt. It was truly touching. I just wish someone could have taped the whole thing. B could have won some money on America’ Funniest Home Videos or whatever it’s called now.

That girl is a trip.

The rest of Sunday was nice and relaxing. Mom and I went to see my grandmother and we went driving. My aunt thought she knew of a field where some daffodils were growing and wanted to show them to us. I brought my camera along, of course.

We then made the ubiquitous trip to Wal-Mart and came home.

Went to B & L’s for hamburgers and hot dogs. Came home and went to bed.

I love living up here.

Later,

Mama Dawg