Head Down, Blinders On, Antennae Up – Multi Topic Update

My blogging friend, Dianna, often uses the phrase “Head down, blinders on” to encourage us to focus on what we have set out to do. I’ve been dutifully applying it this month. If you look at what I’ve posted in June, you’ll see it hasn’t been much. I have been adding content to the forum from time to time. I’ve also kept up with obligations I had for reviews and such. But other than that it’s all been behind the scenes until yesterday when I republished the Prudent & Prepared Homemaker Series. I’ve also been very bad about replying to comments and I apologize for that.

From Cozy to Simple

Part of the work was changing most of the “cozy living” language on my site to “simple living.” Why? It’s just easier to use the term simple living. People can immediately connect with it when they arrive here. I’m still going to talk about cozy living, but using it as a key phrase to build content around wasn’t working. It was making things way more complicated than I wanted them to be moving forward. My desire is to help women improve their life so if I can remove a clunky layer that needs to be explained when they come to my site for the first time, then that’s a good thing.

So this has necessitated redoing a lot of products and posts. You’ll see in the shop I have renamed Creating a Cozy Life Planner & Guidebook to A Quiet Simple Life Planner & Guidebook. It is the same product and if you purchased it under the first name I will automatically provide you with the new version. (You’ll be receiving an email from me with a code to use in the shop to “purchase” it for free. That way you can easily download all future additions and updates.) I’ve updated the entire A Quiet Simple Life Series as well. (If you log into your account via the header menu you can download the updated versions.) Things in the Christian Faith section have been updated as well.

Learning Printables

We’re also still in the process of updating all of my learning printables. Many haven’t been updated in three years which is a long time in printable land. If you’ve purchased things in my shop, be sure to see if they have been updated so you can get the fresh new version. You’ll be able to tell because it will have the stitched ribbon band and logo along the bottom of the cover.

So, for example, if you go to the Reading and Writing section of the shop, you can tell that (at the present moment) Apples, Pumpkins, America, December, Spring, Picnic, etc. have been updated but others we’re still working on. I hope you’ll download the new versions because they really are much improved.

 

New Website Design

You can see that we’ve installed a completely new WordPress theme. It has streamlined everything behind the scenes and is amazingly simple to use.

I’ve gone around and around on the layout of my site in recent years. What I have always wanted was a magazine type theme because I’ve wanted to build a magazine type site with multiple in-depth categories. However, we could never find a magazine theme that was beautiful and didn’t look overwhelming. There was one blog I found who had something very close to what I wanted, but it had some deal breakers so I kept looking.

I then happened across someone using this theme and That. Was. It. Not only did I like the theme, I liked the way she used it. I’ve looked at many other websites that used the same theme and didn’t like them nearly as well. So we bought the theme and set about to making it my own through some customizing details. I still have quite a few things to clean up, but my goal is July 7 to be all caught up so I can do NEW THINGS. WOO HOO!

Antennae Up

At the same time I’ve been head down, blinkers on I’ve also been (in typical Sallie fashion) what I’m going to call “antennae up”

There were probably fifty posts I could have written this month. So much has been happening in the church and in the world and I’ve been trying to keep up with it all and determine how it all fits together. I’ve gone looking for information and found new podcasts with helpful people. Since a lot of the website and product work I had to do behind the scenes was rather mindless, I could stream podcasts while working. I’ve been sharing some in the forums and will share more below and in the days ahead.

Here are some post topics I could have written (in random order but kind of grouped by big themes). In fact, some of these will still be coming. Some of these are related to current events as well as other topics. There is simply no way to avoid talking about what’s going on in my own life without discussing how it is being impacted by the culture. So I’ll mention them here, but the links will be in the forum because the discussions should take place in there.

Here are the things I’m thinking…

Faith Related

Some Christians believe the Bible teaches women are more easily deceived. The events of the past month (driven overwhelmingly by hysterical and/or uninformed women, especially young white women) have made me pause and wonder if there really is something to this. I’m not joking. I’m dead serious about this.

The Southern Baptist Convention is in serious trouble on many fronts. (I’m Baptist, but have never been SBC so I’m looking at this as an outsider.) They aren’t just headed down the slippery slope. The leadership seems like they are greasing the slip-and-slide to make it move faster than ever. I’ve shared some videos about this in the forum and have more to share. Check out Downgrade at Southern Seminary and Wokeness Is The Trojan Horse Sent to Destroy Protestant Christianity.

It has been stunning even to me how many Big Name Evangelicals have raced to embrace ideas that are clearly in contradiction to the historic Christian faith. The term “faithful remnant” is starting to become more and more real to me.

I never looked into Progressive Christianity in any depth because it was just so obviously wrong. With all that has developed this month, I did a lot of reading and listening to podcasts to get to the bottom of it. Good grief. It’s flat out a different religion. Progressive Christianity and Wokeness are not the historical Christian faith. I have videos about that in the forum, too.

I am sickened by the Big Name “Christian” Women who are leading so many astray. Links to come in forum. The stuff coming out from people who claim to follow Christ is just unbelievably wrong. Like opposite of truth wrong.

Vision Forum and others who ran in those circles got some things wrong, but they were so right about some of them. They constantly hammered on the Marxism and Feminism connection. They were absolutely right. It is so unfortunate that their sounding the alarm about something absolutely true was discredited because of other things that happened. They took some of the things they taught a step too far which ultimately undermined their message. But they were sounding the alarm fifteen years ago and now we are in exactly what they said would happen.

I explained at length why I’m not a Christian feminist. Over the past month I’ve felt nudged and pushed more toward the complementarian side of things. There were a couple of things that stood out to me. One, was a comment by a woman from Sheologians on a video. The other was a comment from Alisa Childers. This is usually how it happens. I am immersed in some subject and then one comment – often a bit of a throwaway in the scheme of things – makes things more clear. I’ll find the segments and add them to the forum.

The biggest hindrance to complementarianism today is the people who are promoting it. I know that’s a big statement to drop and not back up, but time limits me.

I have never understood the fascination with Beth Moore. Honestly. I did a couple of her studies because the church I was attending had them for the women and I just didn’t get the fawning love. So I found this post quite interesting: What’s My Beef With Beth? One, it really fit my own experience with Campus Crusade during roughly the same time period. I have ZERO problems believing this story. Two, there were a couple of comments after the post that really zeroed in for me on what has always concerned me about Beth Moore, but I never took the time to analyze in depth. When I read them I was like,”Yes! That’s it!”

Her “ministry” appeals to the women who have a need to “belong”.

Well, that explained that. I’ve never been a “gotta be part of the popular girls club.”

Twitter has definitely illuminated the snarky, rebellious, elitist side of her. What many women do not realize is that Beth isn’t promoting a relationship with God, she’s promoting HER relationship with God. She needs to feel special. To feel she has a relationship with God everyone wants. And she’ll let you into her and God’s club if you’ll admire her.

Tragically, I think many of the women who follow her believe that lie without realizing it.

I think those observations are spot on and insightful.

THIS THIS THIS: “When we start shifting our words to something worldly, something happens inside of us”

Social Media Related

I deleted my Instagram account. I never used it and I’m only one person, but I’m doing what I can to continue to fight Big Tech and censorship.

I try to avoid using CensorTube as much as possible and will watch people on their website or Bitchute if they are on there. I only use Twitter when I need to find a tweet to embed in the forum or a post. I wish more people would quit Facebook, Twitter, etc. and help take them down.

I’m on Parler. I’ve been on there for a year, but didn’t do much. The massive influx of people in the past week leads me to believe that this might be the tipping point. (I wrote about this in the forum.) If you want to be on a social media platform where there is no algorithm blocking what you can see and free speech is allowed, please join. If you believe in the First Amendment, make an account. Make your voice heard even in a small way by supporting something like Parler.

Events in America

My policy of almost never commenting publicly on developing stories has been proven correct multiple times just in this month alone. The first parts are almost always false. Convington, anyone? Smollet, anyone? Now even more of them.

Sororities in the National Panhellenic Conference are now in the process of purging their rituals of “white ideals and perspectives” which is coded critical race theory language for Christian content (Scripture passages, references to Christ, etc.). They have gone full woke and it won’t end well. I got into a lengthy discussion online regarding this and pointed out the slippery slope this opens up. I’ve half written a post about this and am even more convinced of what I said after watching my own Tri Delta initiation ritual this weekend online when they did a virtual initiation. I knew exactly which part they would remove and they did. It emptied the ritual of the most beautiful and meaningful imagery. Most sorority alumnae have no idea their ritual is being dismantled in the name of purging “white ideals and perspectives” as Delta Gamma phrased it. (Post now here: Breaking Our Bonds: Wokeness Will Destroy National Panhellenic Conference Sororities)

A few months ago, Tim Pool did series of videos about millennial women and feminists who are upset that men don’t want to date them, marry them, who feel unfulfilled, etc. I wanted to write a post about it but never got around to it. What we are seeing right now is the result of telling women that they are only fulfilled if they are basically men, if they sleep around, if they buy that sex has no meaning, don’t get married, children are a burden, abortion solves all your problems, etc. We are seeing women who are born with the God-given propensity to nurture who have turned that natural impulse into self-loathing and empathy that is destructive not only to themselves but our entire culture.

Okay, I have to stop and post this. I know it’s kind of all over the place and haphazard but I wanted to connect with everyone today. I could be at this all day with all I’ve been contemplating the past month. LOL!

Lots of work still to do.

Back again soon.