*Disclaimer: This entry is not intended to criticize organized religion. It is not intended to convert others. Instead, I am writing to explain my religious preferences.

When I was really young and still living in California my parents never took us to church. They both subscribed to different forms of christianity but neither was an active participant in their congregation. I believe the first time I attended church was with one of my friends in California. Before moving to Wisconsin for the 5th grade, I think I had been to church just 4 or 5 times.

Living in a small town has its limitations. There was little to do for kids and teens around the area. In order to occupy time and explore who I was, my grandparents, siblings, and myself joined the lutheran church in the area. I remember really enjoying the lessons from Sunday school, summer bible study, and learning the catechism. It was not until I was in high school that I really began to question subscribing to Christianity. My uncle Robert really ignited the need to explore my faith further. He blatantly rejected Christianity and was interested in new age ideas. I did and do to this day look up to him for his outspoken-ness. I remember the first time I began to question the existence of God. My uncle handed me a little cartoon strip that asked about a key compenent of the book of Genesis. After Cain kills Able he is sent out of Eden and happens to come across other individuals. If it is true that Adam and Eve were the first humans in the world, how did these people outside of Eden suddenly come to be?

The doubt gathered steam and eventually I decided to abandon my beliefs in Christianity. The discrepencies in the Bible played only a small part. The larger part of what turned me off from Christianity was the way it made me feel. I remember feeling guilty and upset at myself whenever something would go wrong in life. If I got a bad grade, got into a fight with my siblings, was picked on by other people it made me feel great shame. It is a lot of responsibility that one places on themselves when they are trying to live the way they feel God would want them to. Every mistake seemed to implode and rather than rejoicing in faith, I felt bogged down. Not only was it a huge responsibility on myself but also a large burden on a higher power. I found it easier to blame myself for my wrongdoings and for the way others treated me rather than misplacing it toward God.

I would have harsh thoughts toward God particularly when my grandmother on my mom's side would emotionally, physically, and verbally abuse me and my younger sister. I would wonder why he would let my sweet grandmother on my father's side pass away when I was 4 but then later make me live by my other, meaner grandmother for 8 influential years of my life. Why would God have so many people reject me for who I was growing up when I was a nice person to just about everyone? It just didn't make sense for me to carry on in this way.

After rejecting Christianity, I explored wiccan. I liked the ideas of connecting with the world on a deep level but in time I decided that Wiccan was not a religion for me either. The last straw was when my cousin and I tried to make write a spell that would make my mean grandmother nicer to us. My cousin told my grandmother about it when she went back to my grandparent's house. My grandmother got really mad, misconstrued what had occurred (she thought I had tried to make her pregnant through the spell), and this in turned angered my mother greatly. I still think my grandmother is somewhat scared of me to this day.

After these two religions seemed to not fit, I decided it was best to be agnostic. If there is a higher power out there, great....if not, well that's okay too. In the end what it boils down to for me is that being agnostic has felt right to me. When situations go awry they do not seem to bring on as much guilt and shame as they did when I was a part of a religion. My choices are completely in my own hands and I think it is fair to say that I have a lot of morals which I abide by for myself.

Throughout the years I have really embraced being agnostic and go by the idea that what fits for me does not necessarily work for others. I have a great appreciation for other who choose to be a part of a religion, who choose to be agnostic, or who choose to be athiest. I think this comes back full circle to what I used to think when I was about 4 years old and from when I was in high school. My 4 year old self: Maybe when we die we go to whatever we believe heaven or hell is. Maybe there is more than just heaven and hell. Perhaps our vision of these places lies deep within our hearts and we know deep down that we will find this peace after we pass away. My High school self: Each religion has some truth to it, we just don't know what parts are the absolute truth and may never truly know.    

So here is something fun you guys can try....

Respond to this post with your answers...

1. Favorite Animal

2. 1st word to describe the animal

3. 2nd word to describe the animal

4. 3rd word to describe the animal

5. Favorite color

6. 1st word to describe the color

7. 2nd word to describe the color

8. 3rd word to describe the color

9. Favorite body of water

10. 1st word to describe it

11. 2nd word to describe it

12. 3rd word to describe it

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My answers are as follows:

Favorite animal: red panda...cute, soft, friendly

Favorite color: indigo...royal, mysterious, exotic

Favorite body of water: Ocean...vast, deep, harmonious.

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I'll post what each one means after so many responses....

Hey everyone,

I am going to hopefully, fingers crossed, be putting together ideas for a music video or two based off of the songs on my CD. I was just wondering if anyone would like to help me with this endeavor.

Here's the deal:

If you agree to help me, I will send you the audio files of the songs for free. All I ask is that you list the songs in order from the song with the most music video potential to the least. The ones that receive the highest rating out of the 10 will be the ones I will come up with music video ideas for.

So what do you say? Who is up for the task?

To get in on the challenge, just go to http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=255549d06253271baf924764f9977b1d95f96d80d87af3ecc95965eaa7bc68bc and download the files to the songs....post your thoughts back to this blog.

Also, I rarely ask for recommendations to my blog but I'd appreciate it if you could so that way more people can help out with this task.

 Hey all,

I am in good spirits today. This day marks exactly 1 year since I got married. We did not do much today due to me working but we did go out to one of our favorite indian restaraunts yesterday and exchanged gifts...he got me an Iphone and I got him a wireless keyboard/headset for his ps3. Overall it has been a relaxing celebration.

This past year has been great but trying at times. I have to say though I feel very positive about the direction we are headed in. Despite whatever disagreements we may have had or the stressors that we've had to overcome we have never stifled from our relationship. Instead I feel as though we have grown greatly.

I am glad to have Gordon around. Without him, I don't think I would have had such a smooth ride through graduate school. He's pushed me to keep moving forward in the experience even when it has felt like I was in over my head at times. He's one of the most supportive people I know and I wouldn't trade him for the world.

I hope that everyone else is doing well. The picture below is post-wedding at Chipotle in downtown Chicago...We kept the whole experience pretty casual but it was a lot of fun.

 I was absolutely excited on Thursday when I walked into the 7-11 near my school and perused the candy aisle. The reason was simple, something I'd always longed for had finally occurred....

The makers of starburst are geniouses...okay maybe not but their newest product certainly made my day.

After a long wait from my childhood, the makers of startburst have released the favereds...it's a collection of the most popular flavors in the different starburst lines...cherry, strawberry, watermelon, and fruit punch are the four flavors in the favered series...

This is what the theater size looks like:

....I know I've mentioned to my husband that it would be nice to just be able to buy the red starbursts...now that idea has come to fruition. It must have been a common thought in most consumers of Starbursts....

I just hope this new release is here to stay.

What are your thoughts on the new starburst product? What are other ideas you've had that you wished your favorite candy/food maker would try that would bode well for them?

Now I just have to patiently wait until Baskin Robbins releases a prepacked pint or quart size of their wild and reckless sherbert...it's my favorite ice cream.

A couple nights ago, I woke up in a start and couldn't get a poem I heard in a dream out of my head. I was basically somewhat medicated as I had been taking nyquil to help with the cold I am going through. I didn't want to forget the poem so I typed it out in my cell phone as saved drafts of text messages. Below is what I had written. I haven't given a title yet to the poem. Have you ever heard songs or poems in your dreams before that you just made up in your head? Do you ever write them down?

Oh the deepest cavern
which lies somewhere beneath
Bring about the strangest memories
Of things forgotten long before.

The visions of ghosts, goblins, and kings
Come to life within weary dreams,
So familiar but vague it seems.
Oh, how the mind does play!

Forbidden fruits in safe disguise
Hide behind mortal eyes
Escaping during darkest hour
Untouched by tainting world.

Riddling life and death we pine,
To calm the chills in our spine.
We undstand not what we see.
Oh how beautiful our inner lives!

The performances went really well. We had about the same amount of people for every show (Between 22-28 people showing up per performance). Overall a total of 76 individuals attended the three performances. We ended up making over $500 for the women in Congo and the Evanston Women Shelter.

I am currently uploading the Saturday performance onto Youtube. You can view the first 6 parts out of 12 at www.youtube.com/feaadler. Please feel free to watch the whole thing. I am in parts 1, 3, and 8.

For those of you who have never seen the Vagina Monologues I hope you enjoy! 

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I finished posting all of the parts. To go directly to my monologue click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkMNGNbZqBM

I hope you enjoy the performance. By the way, none of us are professional actors but there are certainly some powerful moments within the monologues.

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I was trying to look up a type of therapy that I will be learning in my family therapy class. I came across something called the Emotional Freedom Technique...It's supposed to help you learn to relax. There was a free workbook you could get in your email so I signed up for it. In the email, James Berry poses these three questions:

If you were on a cliff and could throw 3 things off of it that would disappear from your life what would they be?

If there was nothing holding you back from really being the person you always wanted to be who would you be- think big?

If you could skip over 3 moments in life completely avoiding the pain they left what would they be?

I'm still thinking about how I would answer these....I'll post mine soon once I figure out what I would say.

What would you answer?

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Update: I underwent my Oral Defense for my Clinical Qualifying Exam. It went well. I am happy to say that I'm 100% certain that I passed. The professor who I talked with basically told me that if I needed to do any revisions he would have mentioned what they were in the meeting. He had no suggestions as to rewrites/revisions so it's smooth sailing from here.

I even had tons of support from fellow classmates, professors, and my therapist. Those that I mentioned that I had my oral defense today had told me not to worry because I'd do well. My prof and my therapist both told me I was very intelligent and talented, of course I'd do well they said.

I'm also starting to slowly write more song lyrics. I'm going to try to keep my collaboration up with Kim who helped me with my first CD. We're going to collaborate long distance hopefully.

I also received my gift from Murisopsis. It was absolutely lovely and extremely creative. Both my husband and I loved it. Thanks so much! 

The world seems to have a cruel sense of humor these last couple weeks.

Not for me so much as for those I've known in my past. Within the past week I found out that two people I went to high school with passed away. One was 21 and was killed by a drunk driver this past weekend (March 8th I believe). The other I came across in the online website for Eagle River, WI's newspaper. I don't know the details of what happened but the other person who passed was 22 years of age (obit was posted the last week in February).

It makes me sad in my heart to hear that people younger than me (I'm only 23) are passing away. I wasn't very close with either of them but I know both were decent people at heart.

So many problems going on in this nation...this just adds to it.

My thoughts are with the family members and friends of those two who passed away. My thoughts are also with my former hometown of Eagle River as they are being hit somewhat by these hard times.