Are You Empty and Weary?

“The conclusion, when all is heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person.” - Ecclesiastes 12:13

Do you ever feel like you’ve done it all? Success, wealth, pleasure, thrills and yet you feel empty inside? 

Solomon, the ancient king of Israel, was such a man. He had extraordinary success and wealth, incredible intellect, more women and sex than Wilt Chamberlain, and yet it all became meaningless to him. He felt so empty inside because he turned his back on God to pursue all that he wanted for himself. He was a classic example of a good man who started strong, but turned wrong and wound up empty.

Why Do Women Feel Bad About Doing Things That Feel Good?

Women feel greater guilt about looking at porn than do men. Why are they primed to feel bad about pleasure?

AlterNet / By Liz Langley

The first time I rented porn alone I wasn’t really alone. There were other customers in the store, a small chain, popular in the days before Blockbuster had swallowed and sanitized most neighborhood VHS rental outlets. Back then most video stores had a back room where you could find adult films, typically separated from God’s wholesome sunlit earth by a set of white, swinging saloon doors, so that you'd feel like a big sex outlaw just by swaggering in. 

Which you never did. You skulked casually past a few times before sidling into the pervert annex and getting knocked in the face with an array of filth beyond your wildest dreams.

I was not always the only woman behind the swinging doors but I was almost always the only one who was alone.
It was a little discomfiting but it was also exciting. I was young, curious and not about to let a embarrassment stand between me titles like “The Czech is in the Male.”

How Kinky Can You Get?

Today's Q&A is a grouping of three short questions, which ultimately hit at how kinky can you get in the bedroom? 

You want to do WHAT?!
photo from Microsoft
Word Clip Art

Warning: This post will not be gratuitously graphic, but I will explain some possibly uncomfortable sex acts. Just so you know.

All three questions were submitted by anonymous readers. I'll take them in turn.

1. J, do you have an advice or opinions on rim jobs? Hubby wants to give me one but I'm unsure.

WHY IS GOD SO MUCH AGAINST SEX BEFORE MARRIAGE?

by: Serge Roux-Levrat

It is undeniable that a multitude of scriptures condemn sexual immorality and impurity. One of them is 1 Corinthians 6:18: "Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body." Other verses are: 1 Corinthians 6:9,13; 10:8; Galatians 5:19-21; Ephesians 5:3; Colossians 3:5 and 1 Thessalonians 4:3. What we see in these scriptures is that God considers sex outside of marriage sexual immorality and that He has reserved sex for heterosexual couples; and not just for procreation purposes, but also for pleasure.

Do You Feel Sexually Discarded?

You can get your sexuality out of the trash can!

by Pamela Madsen in Shameless Woman

Once upon a time, I felt sexually discarded. I didn't feel like anyone noticed me anymore as a sexual being. I was a lot of things, a wife, mother, worker-bee, daughter, sister and general good doer! But a sexually being? A hottie? A Head turner? Not so much! And I once was! What happened?

Maybe it was the baby weight - or my life obligations, or monogamy. I didn't know - but I had stopped looking in the mirror and I didn't see myself reflected back in the eyes of men anymore. I felt like nobody saw me as a sexual being anymore - and I think that perhaps that is because I stopped seeing myself as a sexual being. The fact is that I was not unattractive. I was perhaps a little too plump by societies standards, but I was not un-kempt or unattractive. But I had lost the swing to my hips.

Sex: The More You Have - The More You Want?

The word "insatiable" goes so well with the word "desire"?

by Pamela Madsen in Shameless Woman


"If you don't use it...you lose it".

Have you ever heard that phrase? How about "The more you get - the more you want?" Have you noticed that the word "insatiable" goes so well with the word "desire"? Almost like peanut butter and jelly!

There have been times in my own sexual awakening that I started to feel that exploring my sexuality is like that old saying about eating Chinese food. You can have a delicious meal and twenty minutes later you are hungry again!

Maybe I am exaggerating just a little, but I do think that if you do not stir the pot of your sexual being - you can become dormant just like a hibernating bear. Have you ever seen a hibernating bear on one of those nature shows after he wakes up? Just like the bear - once you wake up and begin to feed yourself - you can find that your hunger is extraordinary. And that hunger can be quite unsettling. How do we manage our hunger?

What Happy People Know About Money

By Kimberly Palmer | U.S.News & World Report LP

In Laura Vanderkam's new book, All the Money in the World: What the Happiest People Know About Getting and Spending, she argues that many of us need to shift the way we think about money. Instead of focusing on budgets and how we're doing relative to our friends, she suggests thinking of money as a valuable tool. She says that her research reveals people who are "happiest about money" feel like they have enough (even if they aren't wealthy), could get more if they needed it, and that they have full control over how to earn and spend their cash.

[50 Ways to Improve Your Finances in 2012]

We asked Vanderkam more about her insights into money and happiness, including why she decided to start buying more fresh flowers. Excerpts:

Your last book, 168 Hours, focused on time management. Why did you decide to tackle money next?

Time and money are related variables that are always pulling in opposite directions. You can spend money to save time or spend time to save money. Money issues came up frequently when I was writing 168 Hours, so I decided, with All the Money in the World, to do for money what 168 Hoursdid for time: re-examine some conventional wisdom, look at how people are spending this scarce resource, and see what the research says about how we can spend it better.

As you point out in the book, sometimes we waste money on expensive purchases, such as engagement rings, just because we think we should, and not because it actually improves our happiness. What are some splurge-worthy investments in happiness?

Travel is almost always worth the splurge. You'll anticipate the experience beforehand, live through the adventure, and then savor the memory afterwards. So even if travel is expensive, you get a triple happiness whammy for every dollar spent. Taking a class in a subject that intrigues you is another good use for cash. Challenging our brains is enjoyable, and many of us don't make a habit of learning new things after school. We should.

How did writing this book change your own money habits?

I've learned to sweat the big stuff and splurge on little things. For years I would walk past a flower shop in New York, where I used to live, and I'd want to bring a bouquet home, but I'd never buy one. I felt it was wasting money. In the course of writing the book, I learned to spend more on flowers, and on fun groceries like produce and cheese that looks appealing. But we also moved from New York City to Pennsylvania, in part for the lower cost of living. You can buy a lot of flowers for the difference in tax rates between the two places.

[The Secret to a Long and Happy Life]

You recommend thinking of money as a tool to make us happy. How can we start doing that?

Using money wisely involves being mindful of what makes you happy, and what does not. Look over your bills and receipts, and see which give you pleasure to pay, and which feel like pulling teeth. Over time, can you allocate a higher percentage of your income to things that are pleasurable or meaningful for you and the people you care about?

Another way to get at the idea of what you enjoy is to ask what I call "The $10,000 Question." Say you got a $50,000 windfall. You put the first $40,000 toward savings, retiring any debts, and your usual charitable commitments. Ten thousand dollars is for fun money. The only ground rule is that, looking back on your life, you'd think you spent it in a memorable way. What would you do with it?

Spend some time thinking this through, because there are probably some insights into other things that can become financial goals in your answer. In general, people use money best when they spend on experiences, spend to nurture their social networks, and spend to buy time--a more absolutely limited resource than money. Since I know this, I always make time to meet friends for lunch, and I try to err on the side of having adventures. It's always easier (and cheaper) not to try something new. But afterwards, I'm glad I did.

Twitter: @alphaconsumer

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/happy-people-know-money-165915618.html;_ylt=As2MyNcoBf0UkCLc.le3ISjE34dG;_ylu=X3oDMTIzcmlwc2c1BG1pdANGaW5hbmNlIEluZmluaXRlIEJyb3dzZSBTcGxpdARwb3MDOQRzZWMDTWVkaWFJbmZpbml0ZUJyb3dzZUxpc3Q-;_ylg=X3oDMTNvamc0cW9oBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDODA5ZDFlNjMtMmQ3Ni0zMDQ4LTgwNDctNmFhYjY5ZmMyZjM3BHBzdGNhdANwZXJzb25hbGZpbmFuY2V8c2F2aW5nLXNwZW5kaW5nBHB0A3N0b3J5cGFnZQR0ZXN0Aw--;_ylv=3

How to Get Rich Quick The Right Way

By braniac

Learn how to build real wealth

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• A plan
• Common sense

1. • 1
     You need to stop chasing get rich quick plans. The best way to get rich quick is to get rich slow.
   • 2
     Your income is what will get you there. You have to commit to living below your means. That means not changing your lifestyle just because you get a boost in income. You must stay away from debt. Just think of what you could do with your income if you were not giving it to credit card companies and banks your whole life. When you spend your hard earned cash use cash. It hurts when you count it out. That pain will help to keep you from over spending.
   • 3
     Live on a budget. You need to spend everything you make on paper every month. When you know where your money is going it is real easy to whip it in to shape. You need to make time for this. Once you see where all your money is going you can cut out the extra spending. Loose spending is the best way to stay broke. There are people out there making 100k a year who are broke. All because they don't tell their money what to do.
   • 4
     If your are in debt now stop borrowing money! You need to work your way out of debt. We all need to learn how to delay pleasure. Right now we live in an I want it now I'll pay for it later society. We have to break that cycle if we ever want to prosper. One way to get your debts payed off is to list your debts smallest to largest pay the minimums on all but the smallest then send everything you can to the smallest one until it is gone. Once that one is gone take all you were sending on it and start paying it down on your next debt etc. etc. As you move up the latter of your debt you will have a bigger axe to chop it down.
   • 5
     Once you are out of debt. All that money you earn is yours to save and invest for the rest of your life. Once you are ready to invest talk to a good financial advisor to help you make your money work for you.

     http://www.ehow.com/how_4612164_rich-quick-right-way.html