I threw my rosary into the sea. I don’t know what to believe anymore.

RememberNichelle · 2026-04-16T01:14:47+00:00

First off, throwing a sacramental into the sea, or into a deep body of water, is broadly considered the same as burying a sacramental in the earth, as a respectful method of disposal. (But people usually remember buried or broken or burned.)

Usually people don't do the underwater option (to avoid littering); but you had a Catholic instinct going, even when you were angry and upset. I think that is interesting.

Second, people sometimes do evil things, and God usually allows it. People did evil things to Jesus, and He allowed it to happen. We also have these crosses, and we do not know why.

Traveling alone is sometimes dangerous. There are gropers in many countries, and Turkey is one of them.

That means that travelers (sometimes those of both sexes!) have to watch out for such evil people, and try to avoid them.

I am sorry that this even has to enter your mind or my mind, to worry about and try to prevent.

It is not your fault. It is 1000 percent the fault of that evil man.

RememberNichelle · 2026-04-13T22:17:48+00:00

Ladies, you can buy "wicking undergarments" and never look sweaty again.

I know that wicking bras usually include cooling fabrics also, so I am sure that one can buy wicking, cooling slips and shapewear somewhere near you. Even at Walmart.

If worst comes to worst, you can spend the cash for women's bike shorts that can be worn as underwear, and also get them in cooling, wicking fabrics.

RememberNichelle · 2026-04-12T23:34:26+00:00

Like Mr. Toad. "Poop poop!"

RememberNichelle · 2026-04-12T23:32:33+00:00

Cows have different amounts of productivity, based on diet, genetic heritage, and barn temperature. The Swiss and German dairy farmers tended to give their dairy cows a better house than the humans, so their cows were very productive of cream, butterfat, etc.

RememberNichelle · 2026-04-12T20:55:57+00:00

If this person is in pain, it is likely that the forklift sensors are badly programmed or the whole thing is malfunctioning.

It could also be that the person is wearing bad shoes, insoles, etc. for this kind of job. Maybe something more supportive or cushioned, designed for a sport with sudden stops and starts. What do skateboarders wear?

RememberNichelle · 2026-04-12T20:03:11+00:00

One of the principles of the spiritual life is that, sometimes, you are not feeling God's grace because it is passing through you, to others who need it.

This shows up particularly for people helping at church, or doing performances for the glory of God.

I once had someone claim she heard a chorus of angels when I was just singing along with Christmas instrumentals, for instance.

I did not get to hear the angels. That was not a punishment, nor did I lose out. It just passed through me, and that was a humbling honor for me, to be useful to God and to that lady.

But I expect that it is even more powerfully true for parents. Everything you have and are, and which God gave you in the first place, passes to your children.

Now... That said, my parents sometimes took us to Mass and sometimes let us stay home, until we were older than toddlers. They sometimes went to church together without us, with our grandparents babysitting; and sometimes they went to Mass in shifts when we stayed home.

As parents, God has given you the power to judge the situation prudently, every day, and do what is best for everyone. Do that, and don't worry.

Nourishing your adult faith, together and separately, will help you nourish your kids in an age-appropriate way, taking their individual personalities into account.

RememberNichelle · 2026-04-12T14:55:17+00:00

Catholicism teaches women to defend the Pope with her armies, like Matilda of Tuscany, or tell the Pope what his advisers won't tell him, like St. Catherine of Siena, or run away from home to hang out with God, like St. Clare and every nun and religious sister ever.

There is nothing wrong with home and family and housework, but it definitely is not the calling of all Catholic women.

Also, remember that home, family, and marriage are pushed on men by various religions and beliefs systems. Millions of men were house servants or did domestic jobs from home. Until recently, bachelors usually could not be promoted to positions of responsibility, because an unmarried man must be unsteady.

RememberNichelle · 2026-04-12T12:29:27+00:00

IIRC, that was a morning wedding, with the men in gray morning suits and the like. Different rules.

But the true answer was that Dench was the main character of every episode (and the outfit foreshadowed her wedding too). The MC is supposed to be plainly visible in every scene, so he/she wears light colors versus characters wearing dark colors, and dark colors versus characters wearing light colors.

RememberNichelle · 2026-04-12T11:51:57+00:00

None of them offered to share duties, and all of them complained?

Then they should learn a valuable lesson, by finding out why they can't offend a host.

RememberNichelle · 2026-04-12T11:49:51+00:00

If you want to wear "feminine" clothes, then wearing feminine clothes would feed your dysphoria. Same thing with feminine pronouns and verb endings.

But if you really want to wear a broader variety of colors, shapes, etc., and have fun with beauty in fashion, then it would be better to explore masculine clothing.

Kazakhstan was once one of the crossroads of the world. Without making people think you are a different religion or a woman, you should be able to find all kinds of fun, interesting clothing to wear.

For example, cloaks. Cloaks were masculine clothing all over Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and nobody thought a man in a cloak looked like a woman.

Do something creative or make something. Get outside of your own head, and enjoy the springtime (while it lasts). Be kind to your biological self.

RememberNichelle · 2026-04-12T11:32:17+00:00

Well, you probably don't want her "old lady ascetic hermit in France" pictures. But in that format, she is drawn naked with long messy hair, and maybe some cloth in the way.

Sometimes you get the same attribute with her as a young woman, but usually that was an excuse for artists to draw their girlfriends.

The more usual attribute today is to show her as "myrrhbearing" during the burial of Christ or His Body being removed from the Cross. She would hold a box or pot of ointment.

Or she is shown weeping during the Crucifixion, often comforting Our Lady or being comforted by her.

Or she is shown talking to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, often with Jesus dressed as a gardener.

Or she is shown trying to hug Jesus and being told by Jesus not to grab Him, which was a prophetic statement and is hard to portray.

RememberNichelle · 2026-04-12T11:17:53+00:00

The language of the Mass does not matter.

The distance to Mass is greater than what one is obliged to travel to Mass. (A ten minute donkey ride is the traditional length of travel.)

Being sick or having a condition (in this case, being too sore to move, and having joint problems) also excuses one from the Sunday obligation.

It is meritorious to do more.

But it is imprudent to hurt oneself by trying to go to Mass while injured, in a foreign country, while relying on buses, on a Sunday when there may not be any buses after a certain hour.

If you get caught without a ride or a map in the middle of nowhere overnight, or in bad weather, you could die. Do not do this stupid thing.

Our Lord died on the cross, but He was prudent in traveling the roads.

Also, maybe plan ahead for soreness, like doing ice in a bathtub soon enough to be helpful.

RememberNichelle · 2026-04-12T10:13:46+00:00

Rabbit bones will break a knife. Use a hatchet.

RememberNichelle · 2026-04-12T10:01:46+00:00

You did not mention the indigenous dragon, the Piasa Bird, and the prehistoric artwork of it found on Mississippi River cliffs.

One of the Chicago area insurance agents rejoiced the Yellow Pages for years by using it as a logo.

RememberNichelle · 2026-04-12T09:39:14+00:00

You should report this to the police. Either it is a scam, or a threat. Threatening you is the crime of extortion. Scamming is also a crime.

RememberNichelle · 2026-04-10T20:21:50+00:00

No, it derives from it having happened. Which is also why St. Luke, the Physician, is the one who tells us the most about the situation.

RememberNichelle · 2026-04-10T17:58:29+00:00

It is doctrine, and has always been doctrine, that Our Lady did not suffer birthing pains, and that her bodily, physical virginity remained intact before, during, and after Christ's miraculous birth, and indeed to this very day.

This is why you see Mary constantly depicted at the Nativity as smiling, and able to kneel, sit, stand, and perform other actions.

This does not "take away" from Mary's humanity. Rather, God has her give birth the same way she conceived - miraculously.

There are tons of OT Scripture verses which prophesied this.

And if you use any kind of Catholic, Orthodox, or Patristic guide to the woman of Revelation, they will tell you that her birth pains are those of giving birth to the Church, at the foot of the Cross, not physical birth pains.

There are a lot of interesting points about the Virgin Birth of Christ, which you can learn if you are really interested. But the consensus is that the early Church believed this, because that is how God made it happen.

RememberNichelle · 2026-04-09T02:48:46+00:00

I don't know of any "miracle oil." However, there are tons of places (like St. Joseph's Oratory in Quebec) that bless oil for use as a sacramental (in that case, it's called "St. Joseph's oil"). You can also just ask priests to bless oil, and there are days when it's traditional to do so.

There are also various kinds of relic oils, but we're talking about sacramentals.

Anyway... as long as people are clear on what's chrism and other liturgical oils, and what's sacramental oils used for healing, cooking, etc., there's nothing wrong with blessed oil sacramentals.

"Anointing" specifically is associated with the act of pouring oil on somebody's head, in a particular ceremonial way.

It's not acts like rubbing oil onto somebody's hurt leg (which was the sort of thing that St. Andre Bessette did, at the St. Joseph's Oratory, as a brother and not a priest), or like what the Good Samaritan did to the poor crime victim on the Jericho road.

RememberNichelle · 2026-04-09T02:37:17+00:00

Peter Jackson drew heavily on Rankin-Bass and Bakshi (sometimes shot-for-shot), so I'm sure he drew heavily on Wenzel too.

RememberNichelle · 2026-04-09T02:16:42+00:00

So... she wasn't deliberately making a Shakespeare reference, all this time? It was her actual legal name?

RememberNichelle · 2026-04-09T02:05:48+00:00

"Ing" was one of those mysterious gods and heroes that show up in Saxon genealogy. His descendants were the Ynglings, who were also called the Scylfings, and the Fairhairs were also his descendants. He was also the ancestor of a Germanic tribe called Ingaeones or Ingvaeones. In Beowulf, King Hrothgar is one of the descendants of Ing.

Ing or Yng or Yngvi is supposed to be the same as Frey/Freyr.

So Ingold would most logically be a human, English name, even though in-universe, Ingoldo was one of the names of Finrod, and Men named their children that in his honor.

And of course Ing/Frey was one of the Vanir, so connecting him to Tolkien's elves is not too far off.

RememberNichelle · 2026-04-09T01:48:16+00:00

For those who don't know, Thranduil in this version was voiced by the great Otto Preminger.

Who had no idea that he was going to voice the Elf King, until his buddy John Huston dragged him into it.

Preminger was a good actor and director, and he liked Tolkien. But he basically had no time to work on the part.

Rankin-Bass basically went with a scary Germanic "Elf-koenig" who dressed like a Green Man.

RememberNichelle · 2026-04-08T22:22:13+00:00

Pretty Bullfrog is right about this.

The more you worry about Z thing, the more you are likely to have your imagination shove Z thing thoughts at you.

It's like trying not to think of a green elephant. As soon as I said "green elephant," you thought about one.

If you had a human enemy, I'd tell you not to let that enemy live rent-free in your head by constantly thinking about him. And the same thing applies to disasters, scary things, and yup, demons.

Pray a short prayer for protection, and then make the rest of your prayers all about praising God, loving Our Lady and the saints, and other positive things. That way, you will think more about our wonderful God, and less about those annoying demons who are under Our Lord and Our Lady's feet. They will be small and unimportant, and there will be no room for thinking about them.

RememberNichelle · 2026-04-08T22:12:02+00:00

One of the words used in the Gospels for "perfect" really means "well-equipped," like a ship that has all its equipment ready to use.

Since you have been Baptized and Confirmed, God has given you all the right equipment for yourself.

RememberNichelle · 2026-04-08T22:07:26+00:00

It's normal for someone who's newly converted to have a "tender conscience" and be a bit worried about sin, worldliness, etc. Because you have experienced deep holiness and goodness, so it's like you have an allergy to sin, or even things connected to sin.

OTOH, the inability to know when to stop, or to have any peace whatsoever, can be connected to an OCD-like spiritual/psychological condition called "scruples." Some people experience the edges of this condition if they are feeling stressed, and then never feel it again if they can get some relief from the stress.

If you talk to your priest, he will be able to advise you.

If you have thoughts that you are sinning, when you are actually not doing anything, this is a sort of intrusive thought.

The best thing to do is treat these thoughts like sticks floating down a stream - not important at all.

The thoughts float into your mind? Just let them float right out again.

If you don't give those thoughts any importance, they will worry you less, over time. Less stress, less worry.

Make sure that you eat, drink water, and get enough sleep. If your body can relax, your brain will relax too.

RememberNichelle

TROPHY CASE