freakin' awesome! Thanks a million maddielee! I needed that one.

I finally got this thread to load and it has left me absolutely floored! Everyone is SO talented! MrsMarv and Whitdobe, I'm thinking about making a couple of ottoman. Dealing with the bunching of fabric at the corners scares me a little so two might be getting some questions! Great projects! Cloe, love the shades. They turned out really well. AJ's, talk about whipping out the projects! I really need to get after things and cross stuff off my list. Your pictures are very inspiring. Iggy- that photo of the three bolts against the wall is beautiful. Your house looks wonderful even empty. Aktillery, I would hang that in my house in an instant! Do you do all of your art? ---- LOL, I just noticed. Is this happening on everyone else's monitor? Above each post, the title of the thread isn't quite how I intended! :OD

Agreeing with bill, sweeby, lowspark, sue, and logic. From the outside looking in, anything NOW associated with a Christian holiday is Christian. Let's face it, Hindus do not display Easter eggs. That said, I think few people of any persuasion would be distracted by a few eggs or rabbit decorations on display. Disagreeing with calliope, who is pulling out that old chestnut of dismissivenes, "offensive." "Offensive" is not the issue. Some items from some religions would be off-putting and distracting to people of other traditions. Many Protestants and other non-Catholics, for example, are very put off by a full crucifix--doesn't mean they are "offended," or don't respect the symbol, they just find it disturbing. So many things, conscious and unconscious, affect the way we feel about something like a house that it makes sense to be cautious, when selling, about items that might cast a less-than-positive feeling. On Jefferson, I do not believe the pp meant personal expressions of religion within private homes. I believe she was correct, in that Jefferson would disagree--freedom from religion is freedom of religion. I am pretty sure Jefferson would have seen it that way as he was a deist and a unitarian with a lower case "u" but also friend to Joseph Priestly, other upper case Unitarians, and several of the transcendentalists, etc. of the time. He published a Bible in which he deleted the deification of Jesus. As a liberal religious thinker, I believe he would have supported freedom from religion as (sorry) religiously as freedom of religion. As for the egg, not to hijack too much, but, the egg is not a symbol of the resurrection unless the Church has really stretched the point to justify assimilation of these traditions. It is a symbol of fertility and originates with rites of spring from pagan traditions. The word "Easter" itself is from Eostre and Ostara, the pagan goddess of dawn--shining light--and thus, spring, specifically for obvious reasons, the spring equinox. I find it oddly coincidental to the Latin roots estrus...perhaps there is some linguistic linkage there also, IDK. Christian Easter falls neatly into this tradition, symbolizing as it does renewal and rebirth while coinciding with spring. The Easter bunny was an injured bird Eostre healed by turning into a rabbit. The creature was so grateful that she laid the world's most beautiful eggs for the goddess. As to offensivess--we had a showing yesterday and I could not get dd's Rocky Horror Picture Show poster off the wall! Now, I am quite sure that would offend some people! (Going to have to get her to get that thing down....)

Thank you, again everyone. An afternoon of fresh air and picking up an early b-day pressie for DH perked my mood up. And coming home after just breathing has helped. Your continued support means the world to me. I am trying to be a better person. I can't right every wrong but I can make my actions now be more positive. Besides, if I don't treat her with respect, how could I ever ask for it back? LOL to all of you. Thank you for holding my hand. Peggy Oh yea, on the other challenge, after the emails I told DH I really felt like a beer so it was time to go do something. I got a wee bit upset letting it get to me like that so the walk did me good in that aspect and admitting to DH how I felt was another step forward.