This can still be my year.

OK, I've managed to swear each day, accidently mind you, since Wednesday. But I'm not giving up. I spelled b-a-s-t-a-r-d in the car on Wednesday instead of saying it, but my husband said it didn't count because the only reason I spelled it was because our daughter was in the car. I said a couple of bad words yesterday. I just do it automatically, but I can beat this thing. I am not a slave to my vulgar language.

Can I tell you what a bunch of losers go to my church? They're the most inactive parishioners on the planet. We couldn't plan our normal Valentine's dance this year because Lent started so early and we're not allowed to plan "festive" events at church during Lent. Anyway, one of the other members on the social committee made all these arrangements for us to basically get a group rate at a really nice restaurant in town so that we could still give people the opportunity to do something nice for Valentine's, just not at church. There was space for 26 couples. Anyway, the only people going are social life people. That's six couples. Nobody responded. This is a problem we face with any event we try to put together. Can you tell me why people don't want to have fun? Quite frankly, I think our pastor does a lot to not foster a sense of community at our church and this is how it manifests. People don't feel connected to anything, so they don't participate. For instance, I've mentioned how our deacon is undergoing treatment for brain cancer in Texas. Well, I wanted to put up a money jar in the front office of the school so that we could try to get together money to buy him a portable DVD player that he could take with him while he was gettiing chemo. You know, something to just help him pass the time. Anyway, you have to ask our pastor permission to do anything because he's some kind of control freak and obviously thinks if we do things on our own, we'll end up conducting pagan sacrifice rituals at the church altar. So, I called to make sure there were no problems with us putting out the money jar and he calls me back to tell me that he called Deacon Andy (which made me mad because it's not as if we weren't trying to make the gift a surprise or anything) and said that Deacon Andy told him he didn't need anything like that because there are TV's at the hospital, blah, blah, blah. And the pastor just didn't think this was a good time to do something like that. And I explained, well, he means a lot to the school kids and it might be good for them to feel like they can make him a little more comfortable by just donating a dollar or whatever and he said, "Oh no. We've been asking for quite a bit of donations lately and the classes have projects and I don't want to pressure them into feeling like they need to donate anything else." This guy is constantly asking us for money at the drop of a hat. I don't know what he's going to split hairs now that we want to do something like this. Anyway, you get what I'm trying to say. I don't think he much cares if the parish feels connected. He just wants the money. So, we end up with low participation at church-sponsored events.

I'm tired of complaining.