I was going to skip my shameless skulk…I’m getting married one week from today and life is busy! I have a shower to attend in a few hours and a house to clean as well. But my first stop of the day was too good to not share and I decided, well, why the heck not? Let’s skulk about a bit! (It’s really easy for me to find an excuse to go blog-hopping!)

Bill from Out of the Bloo has a short but sweet post on encouragement.

Encouragement – when spoken out of truth and not flattery – is golden.

So, go encourage someone! They will need it. We all do.

At Wittingshire Amanda quotes from the great G.K. Chesterton on neighbors.

We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next-door neighbour.

Lucky for me I have the world’s greatest neighbors! But I do recall neighbor meaning a bit more than the person who has a yard joined with yours….

She also has a cute converstaion post that took place between her and her sons…

And as always, lovely pictures. I wonder if she takes all these pictures herself. They are amazing!

And on one of my favorite preacher blogs, Rev-Ed discusses whether or not you should advertise your faith.

But the assumption is that a person wearing a cross must have some connection to Jesus. If that person doesn’t act like Jesus would have us act, the world cries, “Hypocrite!”

Read his post and tell me what you think!

And Blest With Sons is back! Yay!

And I have just recently found Job’s Tale. Check out the site…all of it. And pray for him and his family.

Kinda short, but good stuff! That is all I have time for this weekend! I have a wedding shower to attend in a few hours!

There shall be showers of blessing:
This is the promise of love;
There shall be seasons refreshing,
Sent from the Savior above.

I haven’t done a Shamelessly Skulking post since before Katrina due to lots and lots of computer issues. First, of course, I didn’t even have electricity for two weeks. Then, Cable One, was not exactly quick at hooking my internet back up. Well, about the time my internet gets hooked up, my site gets hacked….and so on and so on.

But I’m back to skulking around…and there’s lots of great posts I want to share. Some are rather old now…as I read them when I was unable to post but still want to share them.

Learning the Glad Surrender is a blog I discovered after the storm. I linked to an article Bonnie posted about Hurricane Katrina becaue I liked it. Since then I’ve dug through the archives of this blog and have found several posts of interest.

First, Bonnie frequently posts humorous things that will have you rolling on the floor laughing like this post about the worst first date ever .

It was midwinter and snowing…quite cold…and her date had taken her skiing in the mountains outside Salt Lake City, Utah. It was a day trip, and they had actually never met before and were essentially strangers. So as such–there would be no overnight stays. The outing was fun but relatively uneventful until they headed home late that afternoon. They were driving back down the mountain when she gradually began to realize that her extra grande-non-fat-decaf-latte-with-2-Splenda-hold-the-whip wasn’t such a great idea. They were about an hour away from civilization, much less a rest area, with no signs of life in sight.

Check it out to find out what happens….

And this post about how to be romantic.

Some things are inherently romantic, like hearts. This is useful, but the trick is to figure out what is romantic and what isn’t. Basic rule of thumb: if it’s cool, it’s not romantic. High powered rifles are not romantic. DVD players are not romantic unless playing Sleepless In Seattle.

Content Warning:

But although Bonnie’s blog is quite humorous she also has some really thought provoking posts. One post about how pornography ruins lives really makes you stop and think about the depravity of our culture by sharing the thoughts of a man whose expectations have been completely changed by pornography.

He writes-

If you’re female and you don’t possess prodigal, Einsteinian caliber intelligence that would propel the cause of humanity forward, and, if you don’t relish the idea of being alone, then . . .

throw every last dollar you have at your physical appearance.

I’m serious. Personal trainer. Porcelain veneers. High-end boob job. Get scared and get it done.
Do not extend my gender any credit. Do not hope that a guy will be in awe of your cello playing, your VP title, or your cute apartment.

I promise you he won’t care. Don’t kid yourself into thinking he will. Men are programmed to respond to the visual.

Look good or you’re alone.

And a pastor comments on what he has to say-

As a pastor, I have heard this post told dozens of times in slightly different ways by men and women whose vision and values of sex and relationships have been shattered by the pervasive culture of pornography that surrounds us.

The struggle continues, even in the church. Women feel pressured to look like the seductive, air-brushed, perfect images that pervade our society, and men feel guilty for secretly desiring such perfection from their women and being disappointed when it doesn’t happen. Then that leaves us women striving all the more to find our identities and self-worth in the size of our jeans or the perfection of our appearance. In both cases, we forget we are both created in the image of God to reflect His glory. We both exchange the pursuit of that glory for far less, and this is the downward spiral that ensues.

So anyway…check her site out!

And my favorite e-pal has just moved to Texas. So she’s been recycling old posts. But before she left she posted on how boys will become men. I actually thought about posting on something similar but it was during my blogless days and she did such a good job I think I’ll just share some of what she had to say.

I want my boys to have a firm and noble vision of what it means to be a man…God’s man. I want them to be ready to defend their faith, their families, and their country. And it is hard to do that in a world that wants to make boys out of sugar and spice instead of snips and snails.

and…

Look. I’m not saying that boys can’t be or shouldn’t be sensitive. I’m not saying they can’t cry. I’m not saying that we should raise them to go around clocking people in the head. But what I am saying is that coddling and babying are the treatment for hot house flowers – not future men.

And if you like the graphic on that post, she is selling t-shirts with it. I bought one! It’s cool. Find out more here.

And it’s that time of year again…the Christmas season is upon us. Sometimes faster than I like. (I prefer Christmas to wait until after Thanksgiving!) Rev-ed at Attention Span brings up the topic of our politically correct culture and the discouragement of the phrase “Merry Christmas!”

After all, stores like Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Sears and Kohls makes a few boatloads of dollars on — dare I say it? — Christmas. Hannukuh and the new addition to the holiday sweepstakes, Kwanzaa don’t even do a fraction of the sales figures that Christmas does. If anything, I’d expect these stores to go out of their way to promote Christmas. The bottom line rules in retail. And after all, it’s hardly a religious holiday anymore.

Attention Span is also the blog where I found Chris Rice’s blog. Cool. Check out this post (that I’ve already linked to once but liked it well enough to link to it again) on how we communicate with non-Christians.

I have a friend who serves tables at a local restaurant. She’s really honest. We don’t believe the same things, and we talk about it. We have great conversations. There are often some four-letter words mixed in.

She hates serving the Sunday “after church” tables. They leave the biggest “%$#&” messes. They leave the smallest tips. And they always have a cute phrase like “Have a blessed day!” for her when they’re walking out. Sometimes they leave her a tract. You know, one of those fake $20 bills that have the “gospel message” on the other side.

Clever? Witness? No, just alienating.

“Blessed?” She says. “If they wanted me to be ‘blessed’ (whatever that means), wouldn’t they have a genuine conversation as if I’m a real person, or compliment me without that fake Christian smile, and leave me a tip that means something? I don’t think THEY even know what ‘blessed’ means.”

Interesting.

And if you are in the mood for a good laugh read this at All Things 2 All. Sounds like Catez is having fun!

The end of the world: Once I attended a series of talks by a preacher who was an expert on the end times. He said we are all going to have bar codes in the middle of our foreheads. I decided to grow a fringe. That same month a guy came up to me when I was out shopping and started telling me about the end times and the rapture (that’s not the song by Madonna). He showed me his bankcard. It had the letter b in 3 different colours. He got real close up and told me this was the mark of the beast. bbb=666. I was so relieved I was with another bank and had a cute picture of a horse on my bankcard. Then I remembered the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. I give up. I should just build a bomb shelter.

Why do we blog? That’s a question I’m sure each blogger has thought about before. I know we bloggers tend to have a bit of a, um…addiction? to this blogging lifestyle. I often hear something said and think about how I can incorportate it into a post…or something funny happens and I can’t wait to get home and blog about it. Also, when something I feel deeply about comes up I have a means of sharing it…

Vashti of Sing for Your Supper discusses reasons she blogs and why she thinks others are so addicted to blogging! Check out what she has to say.

There is an extensive community that exists among bloggers. Mine is still a small circle but mainly the same people remain in my circle. This led me to the question of “why do people blog?”

…and on the community she’s found within the blogosphere…

Other than that, I get the privilege to share and to learn random, funny, sad, deep, and sometimes fluffy facts in this new community I have found. It has become important to “check-in” on my new virtual friends. I find myself thinking about trials they have written about and wondering if things are smoothing out. I have found myself giggling out loud as I think of particularly funny posts. At times, my brain is challenged for hours or days by interesting thoughts shared for me to contemplate. I have found people on similar roads in their journey and people with completely different lives. All have been interesting.

I had other blogs I was going to link to but my computer is acting up tremendously…so maybe next weekend I’ll add those! Anyway, enjoy!