Note to Self: Men

I can't go into all the details of what happened yesterday. I wish I could. I had wanted, in the beginning of the day (which started for me at about noon), to blog all about the details of going to hang out at a park with some friends and stick fight and generally have fun. We DID do that! I had wanted to post pics with their permission, but instead of asking first like I should have (note 1), I just whipped out my trusty camera and started snapping away, only to have the guys I was hanging with insist that I delete some AWSOME shots! "I might join the government one day, and um, well, I don't want any photos to ever get used against me!" (He WASN'T doing anything in the pics that could be misconstrued to my knowledge, but anywho.) What's a blog without pics? So, I won't write on that too much, excepting to say that I ALMOST kicked Mike's butt, and I DID get one (tap) in with my big stick (when he thought we were done fighting and had turned his back, heh). But alas, yesterday's stick fighting, on top of being quite entertaining, was for my own physical AND Spiritual education, though at the time, I just thought we were having fun. LOL - I should have known that there was a REASON that Erik all the sudden called me up out of the blue (this is SO NOT his custom, in fact, it was the 3rd time he'd ever called me). Erik wouldn't do something like that unless he knew God wanted him to, and when God wants something, um, USUALLY it's a Spiritually related thing ;) (Note 2).

Ok, so now that I've written a little bit on our day at the park yesterday, I'd like to make some notes to myself about the lessons I learned from hanging out with a grand total of 7 college-aged guys, 1 man, and just 1 of me, a 31 year old woman. I'll say here that there was no more than between 4 and 6 males to my 1 femaleness at a time. Had I had to deal with all 8 of them at one time, I think I might have smelled the cofee and headed for the hills! But, with fewer around at a time, somehow, my "straight black" was easier to swallow. Yes, you guys can be "asses" too ;) :p I do want to say here, THANK YOU for not coddling me, and from even being interested in actually LEARNING from me!

Why's that a big deal? I've been just friends with some, and dated other, guys before. I was even engaged once, and might as well have been engaged to another guy, though the subject only came up once when he just wanted sex and I said no. You'd think I'd have this "being one of the guys" thing WAY down by now, right? Well, I'll ask the WWW this: how can a woman really get it all down flat when the men in her life either are coddling her (because it's gentil (sp) or good manners or whatever) or they just aren't being real with her on any level, but instead are just being what they think she wants them to be in order to get what they want from her in return?

Last night, in particulary, I got a HUGE dose of (at least 90%) raw maleness, though I do suspect that toward the end, they did coddle me somewhat, when they realized that I'd genuinely had more than I could take for one evening but was still doing my best to just accept their maleness and just deal with it. Erik is my Spiritual Sibbling, my partner under God, and is a totally AWSOME brother to me! He's there with me through everything, fun and not so fun. Yet I had an epiphony yesterday that there's a specific reason for why he's in my life, beyond the friendship and all the Spiritual stuff. He isn't just anybody. He's a man. And he has very real, very MALE friends who have been and will in the future periodically pop in and out of my life, sometimes not so periodically, who are like my brothers. Yes, I have a genetic brother, age 27, who is autistic and really is unable to be there for me the way normal brothers at least CAN be (if they choose to be) there for their sisters (if they have sisters, of course ;D). Those of you women who have brothers who are really there for you, I can only ask you to imagine what it would be like if your brother were badly injured in some chemical accident that left his brain fried and his body only somewhat under his own control. For my brother, that's autism. For me, it essentially means not having a "brother" in the sense that you experience that relationship. Yes, Jeff does reach out in the few ways he knows how. But really, he can't BE THERE for me in the brotherly, ULTRA MALE way that Erik and the guys I spent yesterday with are able to be. Autism has stripped him of that.

So, on to my notes to self:

1. Ask before taking pictures and expect to be told no by most of the guys. Why this is I'm not sure, but I think it may have to do with how little boys and girls are treated when having their photos taken "Oh, you're so CUTE! Now, stand like this, and pose like that. Awwe, how ADORABLE!!!" Etc. Guys just seem to have it engraned into them that photo = steeling part of my soul. So, ok, just expect not to have too many pics/videos of my guy friends.
2. Assume that they will inherantly only want to do traditionally "male" things. If they write poetry, they'll only admit it on a date with some girl so they can see how far they can get with her, because of their "sensative" side. If they do photography themselves, it's only to make a buck. It's not because they have any real passion for photo-ops (see #1). If they sew, it's only to darn their socks after having learned to do so in WWII. (Go GRANDPA!)
3. Never say "He seems so INNOCENT!" about a guy in front of his male friends. Or in front of him. Just say it to my girl-friends who don't know him if I'm going to say it at all. Somehow, "innocent" equals "not as much of a man." It equals "that guy's gonna get beat up tomorrow by us, his guy friends." They don't get it that this means "eligable batchelor" to some women (though women really shouldn't judge, either).
4. It's ok to burp, fart, and sneeze funny in front of them. It's really just no big deal. Honestly, they DON'T care. Seriousely. Got it? Just lett'r rip ;D
   
5. Tell them to go to hell if they make some negative remark about me as a person. Oh, wait, that's not right. Ask them if they meant to hurt me... Ok, got it.
6. Know that when they are making negative jokes about others, they are doing this because they think that's what a joke is. It's a joke to them. Something that causes them to smile and make funny sounds (laughter). It's not like they really think all those bad things about people. They do it because they think others ought to be able to laugh at themselves. They don't inherantly get it that it's up to others to crack their jokes about themselves - it's not up to them to make the jokes for those people. They don't understand that they might be losing points with the opposite sex by making those jokes. They don't stick to the rule "if you can't say something nice..." To them, "nice" = "pussy-wimp-sissy." They don't do "nice." Not even to the women in their lives, even though they love those women dearly. They just don't do it. They consider "nice" to be a purely feminine trait. They don't apparently consider it to be a quality that applies to all human beings.
   
7. Men run at the sight of tears in a woman. Even if she really IS trying to hold it back for their sakes, they still run like the wind. They are afraid to show their sensative side if sex isn't the payoff. A woman has a LOT of power over them in this arena. Yet they aren't stupid. Tears aren't a weapon. Only let them happen if they really are unavoidable and genuine.
8. Everything you say will be held against you if they don't agree with it or if they are in a different mood than you are in (which will be a lot of the time). Either they will argue with it along with personal insults, or they'll ignore you. This is just their way. Again, it has to do with being "macho" or "tough" or "not too sensative."
9. They won't notice your bruises, and they'll thank you not to notice theirs. They have to be tough, remember?
10. They aren't afraid to treat you like one of the guys if you aren't afraid to act like one. Yet they still have a thing about not hitting a woman too hard with their big sticks - they understand what it means to not cause those bruises themselves. This translates to other sports, not just stick fighting. They'll always be a tad more reasonable with you than they are with each other. If they aren't physically reasonable with you, (period, not just compared to each other), if they aren't gaurding you from physical abuse, then there's something seriously wrong with them and they are a waste of your time.
11. It's ALL about ego and fear man! Ego and fear. They MUST be macho in order to be men. They MUST overcome both ;)
    

I think I'll become a Lesbian now ;) Oh, wait, convents don't take lesbians, right? Darn.

CoverGirl, Part II

This is my response to Laura's post I am Not Thin to Me at Camacho.tv. Heh - as usual, I just can't seem to pair it down to the quota ;) :p

Thank you for sharing that Laura. I, for one, needed to read it. Just last night, God told me that I have a beautiful ___________ (fill in any body part here, though He did name a specific part) and it just put me in tears. I HAD to agree with Him! But I didn't want to at first because I'm so used to regretting that part, as it's been used against me in the past by people who just AREN'T Loving towards others, or are generally insensitive/unthoughtful/unmindful of their words. People say that words can't hurt. Last night, before this thing with God, I found out from some experiences yesterday (private story) that YES, words CAN and DO hurt, when you haven't yet been through the whole thing of Knowing God. The lesson I learned was that I can't put any stalk in the negative opinions of others unless God Himself pulls me aside and says "Caroline, Love, we need to talk..." I have to keep my heart only for Him, and not give it to ____________! Who is ___________ that they can DEFINE ME as a person??? Particularly based on outword observations, and not inward ones??? No. God's opinion of me is the only opinion that counts. Everything else is just hoo-hah.

As for the chubby-kid thing, I was the "tub o' lard" clear back in first grade, according to my overly-starved-ultra-vegan-all-food-is-evil classmates. They picked at me, defined me, were intollerant of me, all in the name of "if something were wrong with me, I'd want to know about it!" And so I bought into it. I had problems with my family too, as they didn't seem to like me much. And so forth and so on. My heart belonged to all these people, and believed that they must be right, and I became depressed and did the whole "emotional eating" thing as soon as I learned that people eat ice-cream in order to feel better (heh - I shoulda stuck to the chocolate varieties!) And so I fulfilled their prophecies and BECAME fat. Looking back at my 1st grade and before-that pictures, I have to ask, "What in tarnation was wrong with these creatures?" I WAS NOT a fat kid to begin with! I have some VERY cute photos of me from back then! It was all in my head.

I worked my butt off from the beginning of 8th grade on. JP (you know who I'm talking about, Laura) really picked on me a LOT, even making me give him lists every day of the foods I'd eaten the day before, and convincing me to give JC (a very thin girl in our class) half my lunches every day, which in and of themselves had almost no calories! I went home and excersized for at least an hour straight every day. JP once sang, to mock me, "You are so beautiful to me" in history class. I didn't know whether to believe all that work had paid off, or whether to cry and hit him.

In my freshman year, I couldn't even do one push-up. I worked my BUTT off for that one, and by the middle of the year, I could do my 50 GUY PUSHUPS faster and better than almost all of the guys, and definetly than all the girls excepting for Cerise! (She TOTALLY rocked, and I'm sure she still does!) My weight went up and down for a couple of years, but mostly down, and by the time I was 18, I was all the sudden actually pretty (when I held my stomach in, lol). Well, that got taken advantage of as you well know, and I eventually realized that I didn't care for this "thin" business and if I felt like eating (soy) ice-cream, potato/corn chips & salsa, and a lot of other high-cal stuff, then that was my own business and JP, that nemisis in my own head, could take a flying leap. That was a mistake, because eventually, the whole bad body image took root in such a way that I really did HATE my body. I've hated it for years. Last night was such a weird experience for me. I had to actually confess that even though there are things about most of my body that I don't like, there is one part that, well, darn-it, turned out CUTE! And, now that I have my head screwed on straight regarding God and men, that's NOT a terrible thing. And, lol, I think my husband will LOVE it :) But it's not about him or his opinion. It's about me and my opinion, and deeper still, it's about God's opinion. Words can also help and heal. What God tells me, and what I tell myself, are the keys to dealing with this issue.

I'm glad that for you, for so many years, dieting wasn't an issue. I remember you as being just an average, regular kid, as far as your weight was concerned (NOT at all as far as your mind/heart were concerned though - in all honesty, you have ALWAYS been so deep, caring, insightful...) I didn't think of you as fat. I DO remember seeing you for the first time in years, back in 2000, and thinking "Oh my God! Men - look out, here comes LAURA!" You had lost some weight, grown a few inches, cut your hair, and generally had changed from a girl into a woman. In truth, I WAS scared for you, that some guy would try to take advantage of you (not that you couldn't have handled that, but still...) I'm glad Leslie came along, in the way that he did - looks just weren't an issue in his falling for you in the beginning. He fell for the God within your Heart and Mind. That's what's most important. Still, I'm glad he finds you attractive! It must be so awsome to be married to someone like him :D

I've come to realize something about people and my relationship to them. Those who are unloving are the ones who have the problem. Those who are loving are the ones who God uses. Neither is a reflection on me. Which kind of person do I want to be? Which kind is God Making me into Himself (sometimes quite painfully)? I do know that He wants me to be more sensative to the hidden kindnesses of others. And He wants me to be more Loving to others, and just let them be who they are, even if I don't agree with them or like something they've said. They shouldn't have to earn my treating them right. Instead, it should come from God. "Lord, help us all."

Anyway, Laura, you really ARE beautiful, inside and out :D :D :D Deal with it ;)

This saga continued in On Guard II: Who I Am Not

Never Judge a Woman by Her CoverGirl

Ok, folks... GET THIS!!!!!!!!! God Married a Fat Woman ;) (Nope - those pics aren't PhotoShopped (except 1 where I removed a zit and smoothed some compression errors). That's just the wacko way MSN is showing my pics. I guess it's using the "stretch" feature or something. Ik. I hate that.)

Now, on to my reaction to Demo.fb.se. I guess really I just have a question for all the men of God who read this blog:

If God gave you the choice between two women, both of whom had great personalities, knowledge of your interests, lives of their own, etc... But one had a "media-perfect" body and the other looked like anything but "media-perfect", and He told you that either one was alright with Him for you to Love, which would it be and why?

Gasp!/Trouble with Purity, Part II

Ok, so in Gasp! Part I, I mentioned how I was learning that sex is a metaphore for the relationship that God has with His Beloveds... And in The Trouble with Purity, I touched a lot on the fact that good outward behaviors/appearances don't cleans the soul and how living from one's HEART is better by far for one's spirit than merely living out a dry, rule based existance where love is squelched in the face of long hours of free child-labor on a family farm.

More recently, I've been faced with the reality that sooner or later, I WILL be having sex with the man I'll wed. I've always known this, yet somehow certain realities about "the deed" hadn't really hit me until about a week ago. I decided to go get some real "sex ed" from OSU's "Spot" site, and though I'm GLAD I did that, um, well, I think I'll just go be a nun now ;)

This morning, I felt that my Avatar for my Instant Messanger, an enamel heart, wasn't what I wanted at the moment to express how God has my heart, so I Googled "Love" and went to the images area. I found a really cool picture that's the cover of a Catholic book on chastity, Pure Love. I may or may not use it. Anyway, the point is that it's target audiance IS someone like who I used to be up until the Purity Movement came into my life (this was just one step in the right direction though). When I finally understood that even having kissed a man who I didn't wind up married to WAS a form of adultery (what difference does a ring make? It was STILL being romantically involved with men who aren't my husband, which is the real point here), I decided that I wouldn't kiss anyone again until my wedding day. What's the reasoning behind this? Last time I tried saving the whole package deal for my husband, I wound up giving most of it away after getting engaged to the wrong man!

That's where I've lived for several years now - afraid to kiss anyone for fear that it wouldn't be the right man. Well, that and how kissing really DOES make me want to pretty much do EVERYTHING -- it doesn't exactly encourage me to save my virginity for marriage (though that above mentioned "sex ed" certainly does)! I recently wrote an email about the woes of everyone treating romantic kissing lightly in our society, and the reply I got hit me over the head with something I'd not really come across before, "I believe there are two kinds of kissing between two lovers. One that leads to cuddling, the other that leads to sex." In my past experiences, ALL kissing had led me to want to push the limits. Still, this gave me something to contemplate.

None of this had dealt with the issue of my heart though. My heart - certainly it IS more important than my lips, correct??? Who cares if I've kissed this man or that - what's important is who owns my heart. I used to think that I was meant to give my heart to only one man, my future husband. I had NO idea that God IS my Real and Great Husband, and that I was made for HIM, not for some puny little human being who might have a great and Godly charictor, but who also is merely human. So, how does God fit into my Love Life? First of all, He IS my Love Life! Secondly, He'll TELL me who my human husband is when it's time for me to know that (so the question of who I'll wed and who I won't will be off the table), and thirdly, He'll Live inside the man He's chosen for me to wed, and so I know that neither I or that man will WANT to do anything that God Himself doesn't desire us to do! And that includes emotionally, not just physically.

But is courtship with my human husband, who is God's choice for me AND has God Living in his heart, supposed to be all about what we DON'T do/feel? Honestly, how much sense to does that make? I've learned something in the last year: IT'S OK TO *LOVE someone of the opposite sex who you aren't married to, and in this case, aren't going to marry at all. Why is that ok? Because God = Love. It's ok to "God" someone ;p Meaning, it's OK to feel a connection with a fellow Christian that goes deeper than mere fellowship, to be the Gospel to them when God works through you for that purpose, to point them to Him as the only One they can Rely on... It's OK to want what's best for them and their happiness. It's OK to celebrate the commited Love that the both of you share because it was GIVEN to you by God. Gasp! It's even OK to hug with them! And that's all just in the name of God given friendship between members of the opposite sex!

Shouldn't romance between a man and woman who God has brought together for the purpose of forming a Complete Picture of who He is, be deeper than that? On the emotional level, and the Spiritual level, it's about one half of God's heart being shared with the other half. From the moment that I know who my human husband is onward, I know that there WILL be a certain "knowing" between him and myself about the purpose that God has had in bringing him and myself together. And that purpose WILL BE LOVE. So, well, there goes the "emotional purity" thing, right? Yet how is it "impure" for God to look through one heart, see Himself in another heart, and bring both hearts to a new state of Love for each other that each had drempt of but neither had known until that point in time? And so, in fact, the DENIAL of such Love, because it is Godly Love, would be IMPURE! So, yes, there SHOULD be real, romantic, cherishing Love between a man and woman who God has explicitely brought together for THE PURPOSE of marriage.

Oh, I forgot to mention: I won't "date" or "court" anyone again until God tells me it's time (and who, etc.). And when He does this, I won't have to worry about trying to make sure that "Joe X" has a great charictor, is from a nice home, is from a particular religion, is a virgin, hates football and can cook... All that "stuff" that mommy and daddy tought us all to worry about, right along with looking both ways before crossing an empty street... Why won't I worry about these things? Because GOD SAID SO is good enough for me (though I've come to learn that this isn't the only reason for marriage, and CAN be easily misunderstood, yet even that works out to His Glory in the end). Who am I to question God's purposes? If God made it more than abundantly clear that this was His will, I'd marry ANYONE He chose for me and told me to marry, regardless of how stupid it might look to others who love me but don't understand that God's Love is above their own, and His ways are not their ways.

Even if it seemed completely wrong to them, I'd hold Abraham up as an example. Is attempted murder a sin? (OT) Is hating a sin? (NT). I know Abraham didn't hate Issaac, but I'm making a point here. Some would say "Abraham didn't actually go through with it, so it wasn't sin." That's splitting hairs, so let's split them where their really weak: hatred is as bad as actually killing someone. So yes, attempted murder MUST be a sin, because that's considered to be a worse sin than merely having hateful feelings for someone, right? So, without the "inside story" I'm sure that Abraham knew that even attempting to kill his son (and he WAS planning to go through with it, in Faith that God could bring Issaac back to life if needbe) was something that would be considered sinful. Yet, did Abraham sin in doing this? No. Why? Because God TOLD him to. Who's the Creator of all Laws, anyway? The Bible translators? Moses who wrote about Abraham? Abraham himself? No. God. If God makes the rules, He can do what He wants to with them, and He's STILL God!

Now, as for the physical. That is a tricky subject, and I by no means wish to set a rule here. I will touch on three things though:

1. Though I'm contemplating the concept of "kissing that leads to cuddling" I'm still not comfortable with it because I don't beleive that I'd be comfortable with the idea of being THAT close to someone who has not yet actually and legally married me. I think I would be very tempted to go down paths I should not go down. Why shouldn't I go down those paths? Not because they would be "sinful" paths (see below) but because, if sex did take place (though I do doubt it would happen (see the Spot above)), it would be something that would both risk pregnancy at a time when that would be devistating, and it also would cause us both to wish we had waited for our honeymoon. Why's that? Simply put, I know I've dreampt of having a certain kind of honeymoon all of my life, and I can't help but think that God has a man in mind for me who genuinely DOES want the same thing and who would prefer not to do anything that would cause either of us to be tempted to risk loosing out on that opportunity. That man will be "Jesus to me" because Jesus will be Living in His heart. He'll geniunely LOVE ME.
   
2. God WILL lead me to the right man who will have HIM in his heart, and so regardless of what happens or doesn't (emotionally or physically) there will be no sin, nor will there be pain involved, because God doesn't lead people to cause each other pain (the wrong kind, that is). Everything God DOES cause leads people to Him, and a greater understanding of His Love for them.
   
3. God WILL lead me to the right man who will have HIM in his heart, and I already have HIM in my heart, and so neither of us will be driven in our hearts to do anything that's wrong, and in fact, our hearts (God's home) will not ALLOW us to do anything that's wrong.

So, as Erik likes to remind me, THERE IS NO LAW. God IS "the law"! God is Love. Love is the Law. Love is "The One" who Lives in the hearts of those who Know Him. It's HIS thing to deal with, not mine ;)

*Note that in this case, Love is written about platonically, not romantically. Sheese - it's sad when you live in a society where you actually HAVE to explain that one.

Someday...

You know, it's really hilarious... Here I am, really learning who I am as a woman and enjoying the single life (that's enjoying living single, not enjoying the "singles scene" where everyone's looking to get laid), and becoming even more One with God than before... And what does He do? He turns around and tells me that it's now OK to start thinking about what kind of human husband I'd like, what kind of wedding and marriage I'd be most happy with, etc. No, it's not ok to go out and start looking the men over... That's so not the point. This is a very healing thing for me. Over the years, I lost heart, lost my dreams, and in the end gave up on it all. God's made it clear that it's now alright to rebuild those dreams - with Him at the center of everything. This time, He'll be the One to make these dreams come true, because they are His Dreams for me, His Beloved one. My heart will always be His alone, and His heart has plans for me. My dreams are His dreams, and really, they are about Him - yet it is His desire that they be lived out in marriage between myself and a man who's heart also belongs to Him.

So, of course, the first "stop" on my journey towards those dreams is at the bridal shops, heh. I've been tempted to just get married in the Wedding dress I was Baptised in. I may still do that. But it's fun to look around and see what's out there. I have old bridal catalogues from years past sitting on my bookshelf, and those are fun too, but, well, this is the age of the Internet, so LOL, www.bridalsitesgalore.com, here I come ;) And you, dear reader, get to join me on my adventure :D

My first 2 stops are at David's Bridal and Alfred Angelo's sites. I'll admit, I'm a "sleeves" woman and don't see a lot here that really makes me say "Yes! This is my dress!" But I'll pick out a few from each site that I like for one reason or another and put the links here.

Note: If any of these have color in the dresses, please understand that my dress will be pure white. I can't help what the dressmakers did in choosing colored fabrics/decorations for the dresses in any of these pictures.

Note2: If you are planning to actually view a large number of these, and aren't using FireFox, I guess in all seriousness, I have to "pop the question"... WWHHHYYYYY???????? Here, have a glass of refreshing FF to ease your IE pain! Oh, and for all those links below, you might want to use the Tabbed Browsing feature of FireFox by right clicking on each of the links below and choosing "Open Link in New Tab". Still don't want Fire Fox on your system (ANY platform!!!)??? Then please read my plea for your sanity at the bottom of this page, ok?

Note3: This is just a list of my personal favorites from each site. For a complete list, click here.

David's Bridal (Wedding Stories)
Style V8757
Style CQ102 (Includes a video!)
Style T8778 (I'd want the sashe to be white, with lace and a diamond edge)
Style 9T8274 (This dress is too big even for me! But I like the ideas implemented in it.)
Style V8518
Style T8619 (Same notes on the "sashe" as above)
Style CQ162
Style T8274
Style 2681
Style T8077
Style E8561 (Love the veil too :D)

Alfred Angelo's (Advanced Search Tool)
Style 1239
Style 1163
Style 1482
Style 1505

Hmm... I seriousely need to loose some weight. I'm glad I have time to do that ;)

Ok, I just checked out Bride Couture and JC Penneys Bridal Shop, and I don't suggest either one if you are looking for a wedding dress. The dresses at Bride Couture are just horrible in my estimation, and Penneys doesn't have any wedding dresses posted online for some wacko, unimaginable reason. Oh lands. I forgot. If you want to view wedding dresses at The Knot, you have to join them, and they INSIST that you give them a wedding date! Oker-dokers, I'll go dream elsewhere... Oh, this is cool - NetBride.com has this list of sites I can go to and view their wedding gowns! Yay! That's a bit easier than Googling for the perfect wedding gown ;p

Bonnie.com - Wow. At first I thought these were all Plus sized models. Then I realized... They are all women who have A-typical body shapes in general, i.e., they are just normal women who aren't Barbie-dolls. Um, well, the "Unforgetable" section of this site does seem to be Hitlers Paradise - the majority of the models are blonde, heh.

-- Unforgetable Collection
Style 1511
Style 1614
Style 1501 (Love the sleeves.)

-- Bonnie Collection
Style 507
Style 514
Style 533 (Um, I think I may just shop here after I've gotten engaged...)

You know, Bonnie style 533 really is "me" more than all the other ones on this page, though I obviousely do like others as well. But this one... Ah, BEAUTIFUL!!!!!! In fact, I think I've found my dress ;)

Hmm... Now, as for the other stuff, I don't know. I'm a bit hesitant to get into the whole cake, party favors, etc. thing. I think I'd like my grooms input on that. Yes, God's opinion matters to me too. The thing is that my human husband doesn't get a choice in what I wear on my wedding day (sorry hon, when you wind up reading this ;p). Thats ME in there, and my dress is going to be an expression of who I am and what he's going to be living with for the rest of his days. He can't touch that - heh, well, not before the honeymoon anyhow :p So anyway, as far as the cake and stuff goes, that'll have to wait until I've gotten engaged and my future husband has a chance to say what he wants for those things. Yes, I do believe in the groom actually giving some input for his OWN wedding day! LOL - weddings might "be about the bride" in most cases, but in this case, I want that day to be about us BOTH ;)

As for what I want my husband to be like... I think I'll keep that part of the blog saved as a draft, and then after he's proposed, I'll "unveil the list" so we can all poke fun at how he did/didn't "match up" *snickers and sqeals in delight*!

Note to all those who still think FireFox is a bad idea:

Awwe, come on - it's EASY! You're going to love it! And believe me, FF will more than forgive you for losing your browsing-virginity to IE... It'll even ask you to copy over your Favorite Places to it's (much better) Bookmarks feature. That's right, there's a new love in your life, and BELIEVE ME, you'll NEVER want to go back, except for an occasional sip of Java (which you can download from Sun if you have a high-speed connection - that will save you from EVER going back to IE again).

With FF, you've won the lottery - it even has all these really cool features you can add-on for free, such as photo-zooming, ad-blocking, web-developer tools (a MUST HAVE in today's day and age), and more. It'll even have fewer bugs when showing you web sites that use a technology called .CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). That's really super important if you ever decide to make your own web site. With IE (BOOO!!!) you have to stick in all these extra bug-fixes, or else put extra files on your server, blah blah... What a pain. FireFox doesn't need all those bug-fixes! It just gets it right the first time.

Still not convinced? Try this on for size - security issues. That's right - don't think your IE browser is a safe place to store passwords, especially to banking institutions or web sites that hold a lot of personally identifying information for you and your kids. IE has a bad rep for leaking that private info to third parties who hack it all the time. It's just NOT as safe. Why is FireFox safe? Simple - everyone else on the planet but apparently you LOVES FireFox, and the first person to sucessfully attack FireFox (not going to happen) will be given the Klingon discommendation routine by the world at large!

Please at least try it for a week, and if you are fool enough after that not to like it, then go back to your silly IE! FF will always be there for you when you come to your senses and come crawling back to it on your hands and knees, begging for a second chance. FireFox is just really awsome like that - it has a soft heart, a light touch, and will kiss your cares goodbye forever :D

Someday Part II (All Dress Links)

David's Bridal (Wedding Stories)
Personal Favorites:
Style V8757
Style CQ102 (Includes a video!)
Style T8778 (I'd want the sashe to be white, with lace and a diamond edge)
Style 9T8274 (This dress is too big even for me! But I like the ideas implemented in it.)
Style V8518
Style T8619 (Same notes on the "sashe" as above)
Style CQ162
Style T8274
Style 2681
Style T8077
Style E8561 (Love the veil too :D)

Dresses I Like but am not attached to:
Style T8745
Style M8824
Style T8792
Style V8835
Style T8580
Style B8669
Style V8592
Style T8612
Style T8607 (I couldn't exactly dance in it, but it's really pretty anyway. Perhaps I'll do what brides used to do, and have one dress for the wedding and another for the reception and traveling afterwards. Hmm...)
Veil (Though I like the veil from my Spiritual Wedding too.)
Style 5438
Style L8559
Style 5268
Style V8294
Style 4186 (Penny's used to sell this for half the price. I think I'll have a look at them later.)

Alfred Angelo's (Advanced Search Tool)
Personal Favorites:
Style 1239
Style 1163
Style 1482
Style 1505

Dresses I like but am not attached to:
Style 1489
Style 1488
Style 1816
Style 1774NT
Style 1774
Style 1755
Style 1205
Style 1724
Style 1231
Style 1425
Style 1422
Style 1109
Style 1575LS *Similar to mom's dress
Style 1575
Style 1108
Style 1429

Hmm... I seriousely need to loose some weight. I'm glad I have time to do that ;)

Ok, I just checked out Bride Couture and JC Penneys Bridal Shop, and I don't suggest either one if you are looking for a wedding dress. The dresses at Bride Couture are just horrible in my estimation, and Penneys doesn't have any wedding dresses posted online for some wacko, unimaginable reason. Oh lands. I forgot. If you want to view wedding dresses at The Knot, you have to join them, and they INSIST that you give them a wedding date! Oker-dokers, I'll go dream elsewhere... Oh, this is cool - NetBride.com has this list of sites I can go to and view their wedding gowns! Yay! That's a bit easier than Googling for the perfect wedding gown ;p

Bonnie.com - Wow. At first I thought these were all Plus sized models. Then I realized... They are all women who have A-typical body shapes in general, i.e., they are just normal women who aren't Barbie-dolls. Um, well, the "Unforgetable" section of this site does seem to be Hitlers Paradise - the majority of the models are blonde, heh.

-- Unforgetable Collection
Personal Favorites:
Style 1511
Style 1614

Dresses I like but am not attached to:
Style 1501 (Love the sleeves.)
Style 1600
Style 1609

-- Bonnie Collection
Personal Favorites:
Style 507
Style 514
Style 533 (Um, I think I may just shop here after I've gotten engaged...)

Dresses I like but am not attached to:
Style 510
Style 516 (Ok, imagine if that black were white covered with austrian crystal ;D)
Style 415

You know, Bonnie style 533 really is "me" more than all the other ones on this page, though I obviousely do like others as well. But this one... Ah, BEAUTIFUL!!!!!! In fact, I think I've found my dress ;)

The Trouble with Purity ;)

Heh - I just can't help commenting on this week's "Wife Swap." I'm writing this as I watch the show, so please bear that in mind...

One wife is from a "good Christian" family where they have so many rules about perfection, rules, and purity that most "good SDAs" would weep in adoration. Her family even wears uniforms in order to be sure they are all modest, etc. The other mom... She's from the inner city, spends hours a week on her makeup alone, spends many hours dancing with her 16 year old daughter in night club type environments, and has no rules of any kind at home for her kids. She's a "diva" according to the other mom. The comment the homely wife's son made about purity and modest clothing really got me to thinking. What IS IT about sex that we Christians are so afraid of, and WHY on the world do we focus on the outward appearance as being some kind of driving force behind sex? Because the world has told us that this is the way it is: look like a slut, get treated like one.

But I beg, from a Godly perspective, to differ. Sex ought to be the outward expression of what's already going on in the heart, and the heart only speaks a LOVE language. I'm willing to bank that even if the homely son falsl into LUST with the "skanky" wife because of her drop-dead GORDIOUS body, face, and hair, it will only be a superficial fling with his eyes and his plumbing... His HEART will have nothing to do with it, other than the major guilt trips he'll experience because of all the negative messages he's recieved all his life about being attracted to beautiful women who are married, or who at any rate, he's not married to. But he won't LOVE her -- unless he falls for the heart that beats within her.

So, right now, my question is this: why don't we teach our boys to look at the hearts of the women in their lives, to treat those hearts with love and respect at the same time, etc? Why do we teach our boys to be so hyperfocussed on what a woman looks like, whether she's dressed like a hoar, an average working woman, or a prissy little girl? And why do we teach our girls to be so afraid to show off what God gave them without fear of our boys misusing them? If our boys were trained to look at the heart first and formost, our girls would have nothing to fear in being truly the beauties that they are, at least when around our boys. Obviousely, the men of the world will treat a slut as if she were a slut, and our girls will save themselves a lot of abuse by not dressing too beautifully when going into town, but seriousely - our girls shouldn't have to be afraid to be who they really are, inside and out, when they are only being exposed to our boys. Our boys should be better trained.

Yes, this is lofty thinking on some part. But it's also something to take into consideration for parents and educators in our SDA system.

I'm watching the second segment of the show, and so far, the smutty wife is wearing normal farm clothes, and other than the fact that she's obviousely not fat, you can't really tell that she has boobs - her shirt is just too baggy for that. She's nice, kind, yet smart. The kids are not worldly at all, yet the daughter wants to have fun. The homely mom is having to live a very worldly life, and well, I think that like it or not, she's going to have fun -- what's that? A smile? Hehe ;) I think it's great that she gets a vacation from the normal farm life she lives, and I think it's something she'll miss when she gets back home.

Hehe - the smutty wife's husband does all the work!!! I LOVE IT ;) Uh, oh, the homely wife just sinned by going clubbing! It's not like she participated and had any fun or anything. But, she must repent for hanging out with the sinners, of course... Never mind that this is what JESUS did every day, and never mind that dancing in it's self does NOT make one a sinner. I don't like saying this, but um, she reminds me of my mom. Would I go to a club? If I knew they had virgin (non-alchoholic) drinks (I love virgin strawberry dackories, sp), and if I were already married, I would go with my husband. I wouldn't go as a single woman though, as I'd be tempted to let guys hit on me if I weren't married and with him and so forth, and I do have a problem with dancing like a slut for the public to see. I don't have a problem with having fun dancing with my husband - I just wouldn't do belly dancing types of dancing.

Hmm. Ok, the swapped wives are going to change the rules in their new homes. This should be interesting. Hehe - lammas for the smutty wife's kids, and no lammas for the homely wife's kids. That should be interesting. The smutty wife's dog is going to get trained, and the homely wife's husband has to cook the smutty wife a romantic dinner... That's a bit rediculous. The thing with making the smutty wife's kids dress every day like their going to church and then MAKING them go to church!!! I'm totally against that for the sake of freedom of concience, as well as what I said above about outward appearances. The homely wife's daughter is finally going to be VALIDATED as a girl (instead of just a no-gender farm worker who's main purpose is to work) by being taken into a big city and being pampered! Yay!!! Hmm - I need to do that one day when I have the mula for it ;) I think I'll learn a LOT from that trip - I need to pay close attention to it.

Yikes! The homely wife sprayed the kids in the face at dawn to wake them up for farm duty!!! That's so inappropriate - what's next, pepper spray as a punishment??? She is forcing labor on them, and she thinks their having fun, but they aren't. Perhaps they ought to cry to prove that to her. Now she's yelling at the kids who don't want to do forced labor??? Um, that's CHILD ABUSE!!!!!!!!!! She's immature, and needs to take a STEP BACK and calm down. And she needs to give them an INCENTIVE (like feeling like part of the family) to do the work. Some allowance wouldn't hurt these city kids either. They need the mon to have the fun ;) Oh, now it's time for church, eh? Folks, this part's so funny and sad at the same time -- I hope you are just watching it for yourselves - it's too rediculous to comment on. Bad idea, that's all I know. An angry Christian who couldn't force their religion onto others is a bad example of Godliness, that's all I want to say now that the segment's over.

Man, why does that poor homely boy think that good looking clothes aren't for him? What about those clothes makes him impure? They don't change the way HE looks - they are just different threads. I noticed that he doesn't have teen girls clamouring all over him... Perhaps because he's stuck out in hicksville on a farm that's 10 miles or something away from the nearest road? The girls can't even see him, outwardly OR inwardly. What does his "good work" of "modesty" prove, anyway? Shouldn't who he is inside be what counts? Shouldn't THAT be his focus, between inward and outward looks?

I've just decided something - my kids are going to wear what they want.

Um, this church youth group thing is a BAD idea. These kids don't even know what the gospel is, nor Salvation, and certainly NOT grace, from a Christian perspective. Until a PERSON knows about those things, making them sing and dance about it is FRUITLESS and EMPTY. Worldly dancing is preferable to THAT! At least worldly dancing has a real PURPOSE for those who participate.

Ok, the homely daughter is getting pampered. I LOVE IT and so does she ;) ;) ;) The smutty wife's husband is sitting back and doing nothing (ugh - I'd never want to be married to a non-participating man). You know, I think I've already decided - I like the smutty mom and can't stand the homely one. They both love their families, but love expressed inapropriately by being a massive control freak, as I've learned in the past, isn't real love at all. In fact, it's the most self-centered and self-focussed kind ever, because it "vaunteth onesself." It holds ones self up as the standard. God doesn't want us to do that to anyone.

I'm gonna just sit back and watch the rest of the show now :D

On the other hand...

I just Googled "Body Image" to see what I'd find on the internet about it. I realized some interesting things which I've suspected were true for a long time.

1. It's assumed that women are supposed to worry about their outward appearance. Men are hardly at all included in this assumption.
2. It's assumed that anyone interested in "body image" is someone who MUST of course be suffering from some dire eating dissorder that needs IMMEDIATE desperate attention.
3. The ADA didn't seem to have anything to say about it that showed up on the Google search.
4. Nothing was mentioned about how such things as clothes, hair, and even make up can alter a person's appearance signifigantly to either add or remove a few pounds. Some women haven't seen their full length body image with or without makeup, a different style of clothes, or a different hair style in so many years that they don't realize what they really look like with different styles.
5. Nothing was mentioned about how it's important to work on one's inner issues and beauty before worrying about what they look like in the first place, either to themselves or others.
6. God had nothing to do with anything that came up in the Google search. Um, don't the world religions care about (women) who deal with these issues daily because they are told that they are supposed to deal with them?
7. It's assumed that men only want Barbie-dolls for one night stands and only want "homely" types of women as wives.
8. I've personally noted that in our society, it's usually assumed that every woman should want to get married and yet be a Barbie-doll type who happens to want to bear children, dress like a man for work, drive a mini-van and spend the majority of her time shopping or eating out in resteraunts that serve high-cal foods in over-sized proportions... How does that match up with the last observation from the Google search I just ran? And, um, how is this supposed to make sense again???

I am a woman. I'm not superwoman. I'm 5' 2" and 184 lbs. I want to marry and have kids some day, and would like to have a career as well, and I AM more comfortable in pants than in a dress or skirt! But I'm also single and learning to ENJOY this time in my life. No, I'm NOT willing to stress myself out by trying to bend over backwards for some church organization who wants to torture me into doing all their manual labor in the children's department somewhere because I don't have kids of my own, as if I'm supposed to always have something to do with kids merely because I'm female. NO, I don't hate kids. I want kids - someday. But honestly, I'm learning that there IS life outside of the "kids and kaboodle" lifestyle that both men and women in this world assume that I should want to have right now.

Recently, I've been winding down a bit, taking personal time to rest and reflect on my life (for the last couple days or so), and deal with some old pain that needed to be dealt with away from everyone else. So, the last couple of days have not been so enjoyable, though I've gotten through them rather well, all things considered. But in the last oh, week or two, I've really ENJOYED not being tied down to any man or kid(s) or whatnot. I can do what I like, I don't have to worry about revolving my whole life around a future husband who has not showed up in my life yet. At my age, it's rediculous to worry about such things. In my early 20s, it was more reasonable as it was more likely to happen back then (as far as I knew at the time). Now, it just really doesn't matter - for all I know, I may not meet him for 30 more years! That's an extreme and hopefully at least a slight exageration, but it makes my point. Should I worry about him for the next x number of years while he runs around with God knows who living God knows what kind of life?

Screw it. There's really no point or purpose in that. My life is NOT on hold for him. Put another way - he had his chance before to show up in my life, and God has not chosen to allow that to happen, so there's no point in waiting around. I'm not talking sexually here! I'm talking about living my life the way I want to without worrying about how it will or won't affect, oh say, the finances, or what kind of abode I choose to live in, or whatever. The last decision I made that included "him" was what kind of bed to buy because my old twin bed was worn out after 17 years of use. That's it. That man, whoever he is, is CUT OUT OF THE DEAL on all other decisions I make until I meet him. Mom must be boo-hooing by now, lol! I no longer live within the parameters of the figment of her imagination about how my life was supposed to be lived, as if I screwed up somehow just because my life didn't turn out that way. I'm tired of crying over a life she wishes I'd had, and that she superimposed onto me, making me wish that I had had. That's not my life - not right now anyway. It's time I accepted the way my life is and just moved on. I would rather just enjoy my life as it is and live it to the fullest extent possible. I don't say this out of reacting to my life in pain or anger! The whole point is that I'm focussed on learning to not be upset just because my life didn't turn out this way or that! That's not to say that I think I won't wed someday. It just means that I've been put through FAR TOO MUCH regarding men, romance, marriage, etc, to honestly give a damn about any of it anymore. It'll happen when it happens, and until it does, I really just don't care anymore. Perhaps that doesn't sound terribly romantic of me. Oh well. I think my husband will understand, and will probably agree with my decision and my reasons for it. Why in the WORLD would he want me to continue being tortured by comparing my life to what it "could have been"? That's not Loving. So, hubby, whereever you are, screw you until I meet and later marry you -- and then I will ;)