Girl Scouts kicked out of Church

I have never been a big fan of scouts.  The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) with their disdain for the LGBT community and total shunning of the non-religious, puts them in my eyes as a hate-filled organization.  No, not the boys, but the leaders.  On the contrary, there are the Girls Scouts of America (GSA), who appear to accept the LGBT community and in fact all member of society, regardless of religion (lack of).  My wonderful daughter, the Madster, had some great times with her troops, and I am glad for that.  I still had in my mind that they were still a little to right wing for my tastes, overall, I never saw any animosity towards any part of society.

This brings me to the topic of this discussion, a Catholic church in Arlington, Virgina, just a dog-sled ride across the Potomac River, felt it was necessary to kick the local girl scout troop out of their building.  You can read about it here. The reason? 

In recent years, the Girls Scouts have accepted gay and transgender children into its ranks. They have also provided age appropriate sexual education sometimes in conjunction with Planned Parenthood.

Really?  What are the Catholics afraid of?  Some young girl might use contraception before marriage?  Oh for the love of the flying spaghetti monster.  They are teaching the girls about being safe.  About being responsible? Would we rather have teenage girls running around getting pregnant, getting STDs?  And do not think that Catholic teenage girls are chaste, the Catholic School girls when I was growing up were always great (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).  My virtual blogger friend J.T. Eberhard, sums it up quite nicely.  “Want to know the fastest way to get kicked out of a church of the most loving religion?  By failing to discriminate”

What I would like to see are my religious friends in this area talk to their church leaders and ask them to denounce the message of the Catholic Church.  Usually, I just say it is their wacky religion, but in this case, they are harming children…knowingly.  And I refuse to not say anything about it.

-SB

Healthy Lifestyle 3.0

It was inevitable…it has happened in the past and will probably happen again.  My Healthy Lifestyle 2.0 came to a crashing halt around the end of December.  Binging became the norm.  Daily calorie intake of up to 10000 was happening.  Eating Binging had become the norm.  Same thing that had happened in the past, happened again.  I even stopped biking to work every day, was more like twice a week.  In addition, I was going through a period of no sleep, for over a month, I would only have 2 hours of sleep at most, yes, I was in bed, but no sleep.  I was depressed!  I would start crying for no reason.  I wasn’t sure what was wrong with me.  Perhaps the eating habits had screwed me up, who knows? 

I did research, because that is what I do.  Was I having mental issues?  It sure seemed that way.  First thing, off to the doctor for a physical.  Heart rate - 58, freaking awesome (I think doc was surprised), blood pressure – perfect, weight (well, I knew the answer to that), he said “you have to lose a lot of weight”.  I said “no shit!”.  Blood tests, all good except triglycerides a little high, I figured it was the 10k of shitty calories/day that was causing that.  So, it was definitely nothing physical causing the depression.

Next step…and this was the difficult one, I had to talk to a psychiatrist.  Ugh, one of the most difficult things I have ever done.  After an hour of talk, he suggests that I may be clinically depressed (I’m thinking…no shit!), what can I do?  I have not made a second appointment.  I feel I should, but it is so subjective and not objective.  Why can’t there be a blood test? Give me a shot and boom it is gone.

In any case, today I have started Healthy Lifestyle 3.0.  I hope to get back with Team Awesome and continue a good physical routine as the weather starts to get nicer. I need the support of everyone as this continues, please help me.  It is not like me to ask for help, but with this, I truly need help!

To my friends, family, coworkers, I am so sorry for being the prick I was during my depression.  I just could not come out of it.  I feel terrible.  But you are my friends; I will do anything for you and hope that you will help me as I struggle with this.

-SB