I want to start having children! Well... of course I'd like to be married first. I'm really getting behind our family friends who have already had a few kids, and I wouldn't want my kids to be that much younger than their's. Gotta make sure they have other kids their age to play with :)

Friday Five

1. What brand of toothpaste do you use?
Crest and/or Mentadent

2. What brand of toilet paper do you prefer?
Charmin

3. What brand(s) of shoes do you wear?
Varies... Skechers though.. when it comes to street shoes.

4. What brand of soda do you drink?
I don't really drink soda... but if anything, a Coca-Cola product.

5. What brand of gum do you chew?
Orbit

w00t!!!!!!!!!!!

Don't Ask

Masturbation: A Threat to One's Marriage?

What if God lovingly entrusted you with the precious gift of sex, intending for it to draw you closer to your marriage partner, and you kept distorting God�s delicate gift until it became something that has the very opposite effect, making you feel like withdrawing from your partner and squandering your sexual powers on yourself?

Auto-eroticism carries the grave danger of producing cravings for types of sexual stimulation that no marriage partner could ever give. Self stimulation � even the mere memory of it � thus has the potential to weaken the marriage bond, undermining (would it be accurate to say perverting?) the very reason why God gave us sexual pleasure.

Just as nicotine patches can at best lower, but not stop, a smoker�s craving for cigarettes, so having the best lover in the world, is unlikely to stop a masturbator from sometimes craving sensations that only masturbation can create. What human, for example, could produce in a partner the exact sensations of a vibrator? And even if it were possible for a partner to mimic the sensations a masturbator experiences, that type of sex is most unlikely to be anywhere nearly as pleasurable for the giver as for the receiver. Not only will this make it less of a shared experience, the giver will find it impossible to be as motivated as a masturbator would be to continue this type of sex for sessions as long and as frequent as the masturbator has come to expect. And no partner can receive the constant, instant feedback available to the masturbator in order to know the exact moment-by-moment adjustments needed to maximize the receiver�s pleasure. So, for several practical reasons, a masturbator will probably develop a taste for, or even an addiction to, feelings no partner can reproduce.

Emotionally, solitary sex will end in a haunting emptiness that will hound its victim like a nagging fear. Nevertheless, sex with oneself is likely to produce raw sexual feelings more intense than sex with anyone else. Moreover, masturbation and mental or visual adultery feed off each other, such that combining masturbation with either fantasy or pornography multiplies the pleasure many times over. Adding to this is the fact that reality rarely matches fantasy, nor equals the never-aging, airbrushed fakes of flesh magazines or computer images. In terms of sheer animal pleasure, the mix of masturbation with unreality therefore intensifies the likelihood of producing a greater sexual high than intimacy with a real person, no matter how skilled and attractive that person is. This could foul one�s marriage (or future marriage if one is single) so deeply that it could prove even more disastrous than the damage caused by physical adultery. I wonder how many marriages are haunted by the ghost of solo-sex. How many people are forced to compete in bed with the elusive highs of their partners� previous love affair with a vibrator?

Many marrieds consider themselves heterosexual and yet for sheer sensual enjoyment prefer solo-sex over heterosexual relations. Still others are, as it were, bisexual in their preferences � divided in their loyalty to heterosexual relations and to sex with themselves or with a machine. And although they are tempted to blame their partners for their divided loyalties, the biggest cause is usually premarital sex with themselves.

Even if you were to end up fortunate enough to prefer your partner over masturbation as your main source of sexual pleasure, and even if you never used a vibrator, masturbation is still likely to produce sensations that your partner cannot exactly duplicate, and so relating to your partner cannot be expected to satisfy some of the desires your past indulgence has cultivated. It�s like eating meat for years and then changing to eating nothing but fish. Even if you enjoy fish and it can always satisfy your hunger, the availability of fish does not mean you will never again crave meat, once you have developed a taste for it. Especially when it gets a grip on us, any high � be it chemical or sexual � affects us so profoundly that even decades after breaking the habit, a person is likely to suffer the occasional flash of craving for their former source of pleasure.

The tragedy is that if you have masturbated, you have not just had previous sexual experience, you have been sexually spoilt. You have been sexually pleasured � probably more times than you can count � by the one person who for each split second knows exactly how and where you most want to be stimulated. Since each moment is unique, and no one on this planet has access to the precise, instant feedback that you have when you masturbate, no one outside your brain can have this degree of skill in maximizing your pleasure. So when you marry, you do so with the memory of having received sexual pleasure from someone who, at least in some highly significant respects, your partner can never equal. And since that person who gave you such exquisite sexual pleasure is yourself, your partner has to contend with something far worse than if you had once had a uniquely skilled lover. After you marry, your partner would not let you sleep in the same bed with your former lover every night. When, however, you yourself are the person you are tempted to turn to for sexual thrills, your partner has no choice but let you sleep with his/her sexual rival. Twenty four hours a day, you are with the rival to your partner�s sexual advances, and at almost any instant that you have the urge to do so, you can be alone with yourself � alone with the person who once gave you unique sexual pleasure. No other threat to your partner�s claim to exclusive sexual rights to your body is remotely like as physically close to you as often. This is not only more than you would be with a potential adulterer, the opportunities for sexual intimacy are far greater than with your own partner. And what makes the temptation even more alarming is that if you are like most masturbators, you have already surrendered to your own seductive wiles countless times before.

Even if you think of yourself as a virgin when you marry, the fact remains that if you have masturbated, your marriage partner will not be the only person with whom you have experienced sexual pleasure. You will never be able to change this sad fact. The most you could do is decide to never again masturbate. That way the memory, though indelible, will in time not be so fresh in your mind, and the temptation to keep turning to someone other than your partner � yourself � will slowly begin to fade. The less you have masturbated and the longer ago it was, the less a threat it will be to sexual exclusivity in marriage.

source

Random Shiznit

I like it when people say "I think you'll appreciate this..."

I don't know why... but I found this article about Spiritual Adultery quite interesting. I never knew there was an actual phrase or definition for it. It kinda veered off into a jealousy thing... but wrapped it up at the end to say that our God is a jealous God...

Friday Five

1. What drinking water do you prefer -- tap, bottle, purifier, etc.?
Bottled: Dasani, Deja Blue, Aquafina, Ozarka Spring Water

2. What are your favorite flavor of chips?
Plain or Sour Cream and Onion

3. Of all the things you can cook, what dish do you like the most?
Lasagna

4. How do you have your eggs?
Varies

5. Who was the last person who cooked you a meal? How did it turn out?
My boyfriend... it turned out great of course! He's surely a better cook than I!

PMS sucks. My emotions get on a major roller coaster ride, and I could cry about the silliest things.. like stepping on an ant... and most of the time I can't control it. For some reason, this time, I am able to withhold it more, but I totally feel it trying to come out of me... so I almost feel sick. I wonder if that Sarafem stuff really works... course it's just an anti-depressant really... *shrug*

Friday Five

1. Would you consider yourself an organized person? Why or why not?
Only when it comes to certain things. Unfortunately, my mind works in mysterious ways.

2. Do you keep some type of planner, organizer, calendar, etc. with you, and do you use it regularly?
Calendar on my cellphone... that I use somewhat regularly.

3. Would you say that your desk is organized right now?
What desk?

4. Do you alphabetize CDs, books, and DVDs, or does it not matter?
Only when I'm feeling obsessive-compulsive, and have the time. I tend to organize colored candies more often than alphabetize things.

5. What's the hardest thing you've ever had to organize?
My (town)housewarming? *shrug*

Friday Five

1. Name one song you hate to admit you like.
Nights in White Satin by the Moody Blues
Which is tied with Clocks by Coldplay

2. Name two songs that always make you cry.
The theme to Somewhere in Time
Nothing This Beautiful - Pleasant Grove

3. Name three songs that turn you on.
Wet Dream - Lords of Acid
Sexy Boy - Air
Never Gonna Stop - White Zombie
4. Name four songs that always make you feel good.
Under the Milky Way - Seven Nations version
After the Battle of Aughrim
Blow Out - Radiohead
Sweet Surrender - Sarah Maclachlan

5. Name five songs you couldn't ever do without.
Always & Forever - Luther Vandross
Can You Stop the Rain - Peabo Bryson
Somewhere in Time Theme
Scarborough Fair
After the Battle of Aughrim

Awww :( so sad about the Stars... what am I gonna do till next season?

BTW... Spirited Away is a VERY well done movie. I really enjoyed watching it and would definitely see it again.

WOO...!!! I finally got to see the Stars win this past Saturday!!! OMFG they have to win tonight's game.

Holy Friggin Crap! Who would have guessed there was that much of a Legolas/Orlando Bloom following. This thread alone is 89 dang pages LONG to date!