… and everyone knows that the uterus is the seat of all creativity.

My favorite web comic is Natalie Dee. Even though I do not have a boyfriend right now (and the last guy I dated wouldn’t have been worth the effort, frankly) I couldn’t resist buying a Natalie Dee designed valentine’s cross stitch set.

They’re out of the heart-shaped canvases and have just the square and round ones with lace around the edges, but I like those better anyway.

So while on the Subersive Cross Stitch website I bought a couple other sets. One for my cubicle at work (which I will be forced to take down), and another to remind me to live a better life.

I haven’t cross-stitched in years, but I used to be pretty OK at it. One thing I haven’t tried since I was a child is needlepoint. My mom bought me a kit I wanted for Christmas back in 2006, but I have to do a practice kit first and just haven’t gotten around to it. It’s going to look great when I finally do it though. Nothing says class like a big framed version of Dogs Playing Poker, done in needlepoint.

Needlepoint is the new “art on black velvet”.

Who has time for this stuff anyway? I come home from a 10.5 hour day and I don’t have the energy for any of this.

I’ve been totally neglecting my first love, photography. Not that I ever took pictures of any importance like my friend Jack does. He’s really good! But I enjoy taking pictures.

A few months ago I bought a brand new camera - a Nikon D40x. I haven’t even gotten to use it yet! (Nor have I gotten to pay off my Amex from charging it yet!) It’s the same camera used by Lauren to take pics of her adorable dog Sam.

And I don’t even want to think about the last time I’ve gotten to scrapbook!

I’ve been scrapbooking since I was in the fifth grade. I’ve gotten better over the years. It’s a shame that we didn’t know about the importance of acid free papers and adhesives - even my scrapbooks from high school are ruined already, the cheap tape drying up and turning the pages and the photos yellow. I have to go back and re-glue the pictures properly, but that won’t erase the damage.

I haven’t been scrapbooking because my craft room is out of control! It looks like a paper shop and a photo lab vomited in there. I have to clean it first, then I can resume scrapbooking.

If you’d like to see my horridly cluttered craft room and some scrapbook page samples throughout time, click “read more”.

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Talking with a coworker at lunch today, religion came up. She was talking about how prayer to Jesus has helped her. Now, I respect her beliefs.

I used to be very Catholic, and even after I abandoned Catholicism (around the time that bishop was saying that if you don’t vote for George W Bush you are going to hell and the time where it was revealed that the Catholic church was protecting pedophiles and fucking over victims), I considered myself still Christian because it never OCCURRED to me that you can be a non-Christian and still believe in the God I was used to believing in. I was so conditioned by American society: “You have to believe in Jesus Christ to believe in God. You have to believe that the Bible is God’s word, to be taken literally line by line, to believe in God.”

Guess what, judgmental chicklets. Neither is true! Yes, you heard it here first, Americans!

I respect people’s beliefs for the most part (not you $cientology - fuck you, seriously, you murdering, robbing fucks). However, I can’t help but be put off when I get the reaction I got from my coworker today, and have gotten from good friends in the past. It’s always the same thing.

Person: I take great comfort in my belief in Jesus.

Me: That’s great!

Person: Come to church with me!

Me: Thank you for the invite, but I’m not Christian. I believe in God, but not Jesus Christ.

Person: I know there’s a God! * spouts evidence that there is a God *

Me: I never said I didn’t believe in God. I said I’m not a Christian.

Person: That’s so sad that you don’t have the comfort of believing in a higher power, blah blah…

Me: OK, you know the love you give to Jesus? I give that love directly to God. I cut out the middleman and pass the savings on to you, the consumer!

Person: How can you be an atheist?

Me: I wasn’t an atheist until this very conversation, because if there was a just and loving God, you wouldn’t be permitted to annoy me like you are!

People, the majority of the world that believes in God or a higher power does NOT believe in Jesus Christ. I know America (namely Republicans) has made it SEEM like a belief in God is synonymous with Christianity, but it most certainly is not. Christianity makes up about 33% of the world’s religion. Non-religious people and atheism is about 13%, leaving the majority of the world believing in a higher power that has nothing to do with Jesus.

I respect the right of people to believe in the Bible (I kind of believed in parts of it until I watched the documentaries on the History Channel) and to believe in Jesus. However, I resent those Christians who declare I can’t believe in a higher power without Jesus.

Every organized religion declares that they know The Answer. They know exactly what God thinks, what God wants us to believe, and how God wants us to live our lives. They have the market cornered on truth, and if you do their bidding (give your money and recruit others) you too can be let in on The Answer and be able to act superior and condescending to others for the remainder of your life.

I say that thinking “Only WE have figured out God!” is the epitome of conceit and arrogance, and I think people from just about any religion would agree that neither trait is desired in a Godly person.

For a country that was founded on the principle of Freedom of Religion, we have seriously SERIOUSLY lost our way.  Everyone needs to really re-think their attitudes about tolerating other beliefs, and about whether or not we want our government to be intertwined with religion, because that is where we are headed.  It is truly terrifying.

So stop judging me just because I put my crucifix away. And I promise not to judge you for believing in a book that says God is pro-slavery, anti-female, and has severe ego and anger issues.

For those that didn’t know, back in July both me and all my pets made the Cute with Chris show (new show every Monday, bitches!).

Chris calls me the Crazy Animal Lady of the Day in this show, but he had emailed me beforehand and let me know that he intended to make that joke and would I mind. I told him he was pretty perceptive and to go ahead and preach the truth.

In case you’d want to watch and see my furkids, here’s the vid:

I cannot afford the therapy that everyone who ever met me agrees I so desperately need. Instead I go to Cute Overload, Daily Puppy, and Cute with Chris every day.

What do I find on Cute Overload the other day but this pic (taken by KCzarzasty; uploaded on Flickr).

“While visiting the Goshen Agricultural Fair my wife brought this picture to my attention. So overwhelmed by everything going on I would have missed this picture of this young girl and her cow taking an afternoon nap. “

Being from Kansas, my first thought was, “Oh no! This cow is at the fair to be sold and made into my next steak! How could I? REPENT! REPENT!” The comments on Flickr assured us this is a Holstein and was being shown as a dairy cow. I know dairy cows are treated very well (upset cows don’t make as much milk). However, it could have just as easily been a meat cow.

I’m not ready to totally give up red meat, but this pic will give me a pretty good head start to motivate me.

And now it’s time for another installment of Random Crap From My Hard Drive.

My brother and Moose that I “Emoed Up” for a “Make your pets emo” thread on a message board I used to go to.

The most awesome button ever for sale. Wish I could remember who sold it.

Apparently, on my Diary-X blog from 2003 I told a story about Moose being afraid of the car wash (he’s not any more).

I made this to illustrate what I see in my mind when I hear this Tears for Fears song.

Probably got this from Something Awful; it still cracks me up every time.

I posted about what a shitty summer my dad had. He made a full recovery, but about three weeks after getting out of the hospital his job announced he was to be laid off (after 20 years working for the company as it passed through various owners and buyouts).

Yep, that is one sucky summer!

It turned out OK; my dad has a much better new job. But still, I wanted to do something special for him this Christmas.

Around the end of October, my co-worker Scott brought in these photos of the four puppies that needed homes.

The puppies were half Pekingese, half chihuahua. Two were brown, two were black. Two were long-haired, two were short-haired. I fell in love with the long-haired brown puppy, but knew I couldn’t handle any more animals myself. Besides, I’m a big-dog type of person. Then, like a message from baby Jesus, I was struck with an idea:

Maybe it was time for my parents to get a pet!

Our beloved German Shepherd Harley had to be put to sleep two years ago this December. She had lived to be 13, and was truly the best dog ever. But her bad hips finally did her in.

Harley, summer 2005, age 13. We miss you girl!

Since then, my parents (especially my mother, who doesn’t like animals much) said they traveled too much to have a dog again. However, I suspected that my father missed having a dog around. Not only did both of my parents love Harley, but my dad especially loved our mildly retarded pekingese/?? mix Buckwheat (aka Pepper). Buckwheat had passed away several years before.

Dad and Buckwheat, circa ~ 1991

So I called my mother and jokingly acted like I already bought a puppy, just to see her reaction. I said, “Guess what I got Dad for Christmas? A PUPPY!” Instead of being mad, she actually warmed to the idea very quickly and said it would be nice to have a dog around the house again. I about “fell out” from surprise, as they say on Jerry Springer. Next I called my dad, and surprisingly he didn’t like the puppy idea. He didn’t even believe me when I said that mom liked the idea.

By the next day he had warmed to the idea as well. I think they were both sold when the above puppy pictures of Sparky hit their inbox! I was told that if I met the puppy and liked him, that I could get it for my dad for Christmas. (I live in Colorado and they live 8 hours away in Kansas, so they couldn’t meet him themselves.)

Scott would not have snuck him into work for me to meet him, because that would be against the rules. So it didn’t happen. These pictures of him being held by a co-worker are obviously photoshopped.

I think my parents were even more in love with him when they got these photos. Arrangements were made; in a week, I’d pick up Sparky and keep him overnight, and would deliver him the next day to my parents at a rendezvous point in Kansas.

And now the whole family is so in love with Sparky that I even started a blog about him. (Yeah, I’m doing a bit of cross-posting here.) I try to post there every 24 - 48 hours with new pics of Sparky. I haven’t seen him since Christmas, when Moose and I went home to visit. I miss him lots. I don’t think Moose misses him though.

I can’t do this because I’m not a dude. But if you’re reading this and you have a penis (or at least had one before “the accident”,)  maybe you can do it?

First, you have to lead your entire life in goodness and purity. You also have to be sure you’re Catholic. It would probably also help if you obtained citizenship in a European country.

At the age of 14, be sure to start reporting miracles happening to you, like God sending you a message through your Alpha Bits cereal or something. But just report it to the church, not to anyone else or to the news media. You’ll need this evidence later.

Then, at the age of 17 enter the seminary and get your doctorate in Theology. Try not to let your cornhole be violated while you’re there. All the while, be perfect and display no vices.

Spend the next 40 years working your way up through the power layers of the church until you’re a cardinal in Rome. Then, all you have to do is be humble and pious and wait for the current Pope to kick off. Be patient; the Pope is God’s favorite person on earth, so God often lets him live unnaturally long, suffering horribly in the process.

Once the Pope dies, you will be a natural choice for his predecessor. Accept the honor humbly. Then, the second there is white smoke coming from the chimney…

Jump up and yell, “PUNKED, BITCHES! YOU’RE SOOOO PUNKED!” Name yourself “Pope Cuddlebumps the Fifth”. Take off your little cardinal dress to reveal a Hawaiian shirt and bermuda shorts. Open a can of beer, jump on the table, and gyrate your hips wildly while singing “Louie, Louie”.

Now obviously at this point all the cardinals in the room are planning your assassination. So you have very little time. Be sure you make all kinds of laws and doctrine ex cathedra so that they cannot be reversed later. Make it so that all Catholics have to eat crab stuffed mushrooms at Joe’s Crab Shack every Friday during Lent, and that all Catholic girls must be put on birth control so that they’re not tempted to have sex to make a baby. Let priests get married to either men or women. Really shape that dusty old institution up!

After you are assassinated, we will remember your work fondly and often chuckle when reflecting on your zany hijinks.

Yeah, that would be cool. You should totally do that.