Blog Promos (i.e. Lazy Day)

It's Friday where I live, and time to do a little promotions of the blogs I love to read.

The Clumsy Juggler
This one's actually written by a friend of mine from college. She's currently in grad school for Master's in English, and was very recently diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. She writes about it on the site, and it is entertaining, thought-provoking, and educational all at the same time. It's also made me very thankful for my own health.

Children of the Nineties
For a child of the 90s such as myself, this blog just oozes nostalgia. Right now the updates are sporadic, and the last one was in May of this year, but check it out anyway. The archives are amazing.

Fourth Grade Nothing
Much like Children of the Nineties, this blog is a trip back into the childhood of a whole generation, the kids and teens of the 1980s. I'm currently obsessed with that decade, so I really love this blog.

Weirdly Awesome NC
Though I'm quite prone to scaring myself with ghost stories, I do very much enjoy weird tales and local legends, as well as alternate theories for historical events (Ancient Aliens, anyone?) This site has both, focused mainly in North Carolina, but also branches out into the "weirder" corners of the Earth. The author's ideas are pretty interesting as to why certain things occur, so be sure you don't miss the theme running through every post.

The Laconic Inkdrop
Another blog by a friend, this is focused mainly on the issues that us recentish college grads are having with employment, paying back loans, and basically facing a world that will soon belong to us. Her other blog is Ever Just Curious, which has a more literary focus.

Rediscovering His Grace
What can I say, I'm one amongst all my blogger friends. It's hard to keep one's faith these days, but sometimes things that happened in the past made it harder. I find this a refreshing glance at a faith that is too often riddled with trite sayings instead of the blunt truth.


That's it for the promos this week. I hope you find all these sites as enjoyable as I do.

For Reals?

A few weeks ago, and I really don't know how long it was, a link to an article showed up in my Facebook feed. The article was a story on how a Washington state (I think?) school principal had gone into some rather, well, unnecessary and far too mature details during a sex ed class for fifth graders. The person who posted the link, who was a friend of mine, commented that it was a great reason to home school your kids. My comment was that the situation was disheartening and didn't bode well for those of us who didn't want to deal with stupid people and who probably would not be able to afford private education or home school. (NC schools are really bad. Suckishly bad. Like kids can't read bad.) Much later, after I'd forgotten about the article, some older lady replied to my comment that oh yes, I could afford home schooling and blah blah blah. I then decided to divulge the whole truth, because I'm an idiot, and just say that I had chosen, for many reasons, not to home school my future children, and that my reasons were personal. The woman who had originally posted the article said, "I can't think of any good reasons not to home-school." I kindly said my reasons were personal, and someone I don't even know backed me up (probably sensing the "righteous" rage building in the original poster), saying that as fellow Christians, we should all support each other in the faith, regardless of what method of schooling we choose. My friend decided that the conversation "sucked" (presumably because we were not in 100% agreement with her views) deleted most of it, and then, I learned later, proceeded to block me. I did do some vaguebooking, granted, only to say, basically, that my children, my choice, and I was a frequenter of the Do Right BJU Facebook page. This person was actually a good friend of mine in college, a fellow Christian, and someone who held roughly the same political beliefs.

I typed this whole occurrence so you could see how stupid some humans can be.

Now you've often read the phrase "that really pissed/pisses me off" if you've ever read one of my rants, though not always in so many words. This situation didn't do that. I mean, I was a little mad, but mostly it made me very, very sad. I have now lost a friend basically because I don't 100% agree with everything she says. I didn't see it coming, but another part of me isn't shocked. This individual is a staunch fundamental Baptist, which wouldn't normally be of any interest, except she was an exceptionally angry fundy with a lot of pride and a lot of dislike for others and seemingly, very little empathy, especially if there was disagreement at all.

Cutting off a friend so immaturely, especially if they share your faith, supposes many things. Perhaps she assumes that only home schoolers go to heaven, and that my decision to send my kids to public school (or private, if I can afford it) is somehow a mortal sin, so don't worry about it. I am pro-life, just like her family. Perhaps supporting Do Right BJU (which formed to support victims of abuse in fundamentalist churches) is just the first step on the path to much worse things. I don't know or understand the mental process behind why a good friend decided to cut me out of her life. Let us suppose for a moment that our beliefs hadn't been similar.

Is rudeness, pride, anger, and just plain meanness really the way to convince someone that you're right?

The saddest thing is, I was going to invite this friend, her husband, and their two kids to my wedding. Her oldest is only a few months younger than my cousin's little girl, and they might have had fun. Plus, any chance to see old friends is awesome, as being Twentysomethings has us all busy paying the bills and such, and I don't often get to just hang out.

Oh well. They probably would have been disgusted by the drum set at my church anyway.