BOO! Happy Halloween!!

It's Halloween! Our pumpkins are carved and our halloween candy is half eaten. I had planned for our gluttony though, I bought probably more than double the amount of sweet poison we'll need. I'm not 100% sure how many halloweenies we'll get, because last year we avoided being home... so this is our first halloween in our new house. Steph went to work as a disgruntled clown (just wearing the multicolored afro completes his look), and I came to work as cranky sick, sore and tired Nancy. Although my day is getting better and more productive the more halloween treats I eat.

I'm kind of disturbed though because this morning on our way to work on our favorite morning show they said that apparently if you see a spider on Halloween day, that it's actually one of your dead relatives coming to see you or what not. Coincidentally, this morning when closing the front door, Steph pointed out a spider. I said "Where?" and saw it too. Then he seemed to overly enjoy smashing it with his foot. OH NO! HE SQUISHED ONE OF MY DEAD REALITIVES ?!?!?!

Do you believe in signs ? I feel like sometimes 'someone'... or should I say 'Someone' is trying to get his point across. It's always so much easier to dismiss the signs than to try to understand and develop and grow accordingly. I have been struggling with my faith/religion for years. I grew up 'being told' that I was Catholic. I was baptized, I participated in church-school events like first communion, confirmation etc. But my family never went to church regularly. Exept for the time I was in the school and church choir, but mom made me drop out after 1 year because it was such an inconvenience for her to be home to take me to church. Or she would bring me late. There was also a bout of time where my father began attending church pretty regularly for a while... mom said she didn't have time to attend church because she had to cook our Sunday lunch. (Since my father was gone all week trucking, and my mom was a work/bowling/bingo/other committees-a-holic, sunday lunch was the only big meal at our house, and we would eat the leftovers for supper. During the rest of the week Wednesday was 2 for 1 chicken snacks at Dixie 2000, Fridays were 2 for 1 poutines, we would often order in saturday when my dad was there and the rest of the week we ate kraft dinner, canned soup, sandwiches, and lots of junk) I lived for Sunday's meal. YUM! Fried hamburg mixed with potatoes and cornstarch, baloney stew, BBQ chicken, baloney and potatoes, Corned beef and potatoes and beef-canned tomatoes-potatoes aka 'red potatoes' is our familys favorite. My brother and I have tried to replicate mom's dishes many times to no avail. Only mom can make them with enough love apparently.

I grew up thinking that people who publically announced their faith in God were corny, geeky, annoying people I wanted to avoid. In my teens and early adulthood I began publically declaring my absence of any faith, my atheism. My mother would not hear any of it. She would tell me : " Nancy, I KNOW you believe in God. We didn't raise you to think like this." Me : " You don't even go to church!" Her : " Nancy, it's not because I don't go to church that I am not religious. My faith is stronger than probably most of the people sitting in church on Sundays. And I watch the mass on tv." I truly believed that surely if there was a God, he would NOT be this mean. Why would he make me live this miserable life ? Didn't he care about me ? What did I do to merit this ?

I seemed to have forgotten or not cared about my faith/religion for a couple of years and then about 2-3 years ago I began feeling such a void that I felt only religion could fill. I don't remember why or how, but I somehow was convinced that I was meant to be Pagan. I read "Paganism for Dummies", and I thought their beliefs and lack of dogma were beautiful. I've always been a nature lover and a lot of their theories made sense to me. I went on Ebay and bought pentacle things and incense burners and an altar cloth and when I got it all in the mail it felt all so ridiculous. I still use the incense burner because I do love incense, I don't know what happened to the pentacle pendants but the altar cloth is sitting in a drawer waiting to return onto ebay.

Fast forward to present time, and I'm struggling harder than ever to find my religion/faith along with a lot of other important pieces of me. I guess I'm really stubborn. I didn't believe 'them' when 'they' said that your 20's is a time of soul searching, finding who you are and all that crap. CRAP! Not that I would have lived my life any different if I had believed them... but maybe I would have started the searching earlier and be done with the identity crisis ? Maybe those fake Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior bags wouldn't be sitting in my closet reminding me of when I let corporate america brainwash me that 'fake' looks are everything ? Who cares about designer stuff really ? I'm happier now in my payless mary janes and my hair in my signature hairdo - ponytail of course. I say that now... but I'll probably change my mind about 'image' a million other times. Besides, the bags ARE really cute! Did I say fake ? er...

Perhaps one reason (or excuse?) for my struggling so much is that my husband is a very opiniated atheist who believes that anyone who attends church or references to God in any way is a "Bible Thumper". I despise that term. He's mostly stopped saying it in front of me because I've asked him to. But what if I discover that I actually enjoy giving into my faith and attending church, praying and all that jazz ? Would he still love and respect me ? Would he trivialize my values ? I have successfully convinced him to attend church with me a handful of times - if you count our wedding day. After many tears of frustration, trying to explain to him why I felt the need to attend church.. when I wasnt/am not even convinced 'why' myself, I gave up trying to drag him to church when I saw how miserable he was (or acted) about it. Why don't I go alone then ? Well part of it is what Jess said in her blog.... seing all the happy families together and hand-holding couples... another part of it I'm not too sure how to explain, but I'll compare it to seeing a movie alone, with no one to share your experience with or analyze, criticize, chat about etc...

Another aspect of my religion I'm struggling with is the church itself, or denomination. I often feel like Catholic masses are too formal. The music is not always inspiring to me. And the biggest thing is I have never attended a catholic church that actively promoted socializing between catholics. I'm always very intrigued when Tina talks about her Baptist church and all the fun activities they do and spiritual growth and development activities. It sounds like such a nice community to belong to. I have wanted to attend a service there for a long time, but I feel conflicted. I feel guilty for 'betraying' my Catholic religion. I feel guilty because my parents have always hammered into my head that all religions beside catholicism are wrong. That only druggies, alcoholics or fucked up people 'need' any religion besides Catholicism. I KNOW how wrong that is, but it's just my struggling with how it would impact their opinion of their fat little girl.

Why are there no pews in Tina's church ? Do I need pews to be happy ? Why do they not have any other instrument other than an organ at 'my' church ? Would I be happier if my religious service had a myriad of other musical instruments ? Would I be uncool if I gave in to my faith ? Would my husband still value me for who I am if I found out I did want a relationship with God ? If there IS no God, what have I got to lose by being religious ? (bad values?) Is there a heaven ? If so is everybody thin in heaven ? What would my parents possibly think of me if I decided to convert to a Baptist church ? What percentage of the population are which religion and should I just join the higher percentage's religion of choice so that I don't fear being an outcast ? (No I am not kidding I think about this all the time). If there IS a God anyways, he will love me no matter which religion or church I chose right ? Will my meaningless life gain meaning if I open up to religion ?

Why haven't I eaten yet with 10 minutes left of lunch hour ? Why did I chose to have such a 'big' blog subject on Halloween day ? Will people think of me differently once they read all this ?

Am I just on a sugar high ?

o_O ?

P.S. To change the mood back to Light-heartedness, here are some crappy ass quality pictures (my digital cam is broken) of the pumpkins we carved yesterday, and a pic of our pumpkins butts who ironically look EXACTLY like our own butts.... Well Steph's anyways looks totally as flat as his pumpkin's ass. And finally a picture of a disgruntled clown (Steph) and an exhausted dragon (Loki). ... Which I will just friggin post in a new post since blogger is not cooperating with hungry me.