Fat fat fatty fat fat!

 I was reading a blog this morning about a young woman who has dieted most of her life since puberty. It broke my heart when I read about her coming to the realization that she will never be 'a slender perky blonde'. A comment from her sister made me even more sad, and reminded me of the abuses I suffered because my half Italian/half German mother wanted to be Twiggy, and a fat child made her look bad.

 When I was 9 the diets began, and I was forced to share them. Weight Watchers during the fish and liver years, the banana-and-water diet, the cabbage soup diet, you name it, if it was out in the 70's, my mother forced it on me. When diets didn't work, she started trying to starve me which caused me to steal and hide food, and at 12 she took me to a doctor who gave me speed and vitamin injections. When an incompetent nurse put a shot into the nerve cluster in my lower back, it caused me such pain for weeks that I hysterically refused to go any more. Probably a good thing on my part, otherwise I probably would have stroked out from all the speed by the time I was 13. Being born with hypoglycemia, I was sick and miserable most of the time. It didn't help matters that a good friend of my mother was a tall thin woman who had tall thin blonde girls. The one who was my age was held up to me all through my youth as the epitome of ideal feminine beauty, she was thin, blonde and a cheerleader. This girl and her friends were allowed by the parents to bully and abuse me in the hope I would be fat shamed into becoming like her. After being beaten up by some of them, I stopped socializing pretty much at all, preferring my pets and books to having to deal with those little brat bastards. Their mantra all through elementary and jr high was the old standard, "Fatty Fatty 2 by 4, can't get through the bathroom door."

 Entering high school, I saw others beginning to date. As we were in a small town, my sister told me "Never date a boy from your school, if you sleep with them, you'll be called a slut, and even if you don't, he'll still tell all his friends you did." So I didn't date until I started driving, and through a friend met his cousin, a blond blue eyed Aryan boy from a 'good' family (Meaning they had money.) who lived in a larger community a few miles away. When I brought him home the first time, my mother turned to me and said "I don't know how you got such a good looking boyfriend, you're so fat!" Let me point out at this point, I was not fat, only about 20 pounds overweight. Lovely thing to say to your 16 yr old daughter.

 As I got older and entered college, the abuse didn't end there. Like many abused children, I had a perverse need to please my parents and spent way too much time trying to make them proud of me or even love me. I was an unwanted child to begin with, and such a huge disappointment. When I married at 19, I picked an abusive man, so it continued. I spent most of my young adulthood being told how I was lucky to have such a 'good man'. When I was 30, I finally cut off most of my family. I had moved to Austin, and found a community of like-minded people who didn't give a damn what I looked like, what I wore, what my hair looked like, what gods I worshiped, or anything else. I began to heal with help from friends who had been though similar abusive relationships.

 When the Internet when online, I began to meet more and more people who had similar experiences. In the early 2000's the Fat-O-Sphere came into being, and HAES, Health At Every Size. The bullshit BMI has taken a toll on even more people, causing them to harm or even kill themselves in search of the Myth of Thin. BMI was a formula written by an astrophysicist to measure the mass of planetary bodies in space. Not sure what idiot decided to could be applied to humans, and does not take into account that muscle weighs more than fat, making most athletes 'obese'.  I got rid of my abusive ex, and met a wonderful caring man online who later became my husband.

 I have since learned that I do matter, I'm not a failure, or any of the things my parents or the other kids used to call me. It was a long hard road. I do slip up sometimes and slide into that way of thinking, and have to remind myself that those people, like the blonde cheerleader and her fucked up friends, don't matter to me or my sense of self-worth. I am a happy person now with a satisfying social life and great friends, a fabulous career as a baker, a wonderful husband, and a son who could not make me any prouder. He too has had to overcome abuse from his biological father and severely mentally ill step siblings, but we have worked through it, and he is a happy well adjusted teenager fixing to graduate high school and head off to college. For those still living in the hell that is fat phobia and fat shaming, take hope, you are not alone.

Land, having it, sharing it, using it

 Anyone who has known me for any length of time knows I am a hippie at heart. I was born in the 60's, and mostly raised by my older siblings, since I was an unwanted pregnancy at the end of fertility. I went to places with my  much older beatnik and hippie siblings that most small children probably should not have been exposed to.  As I got older, and my siblings "grew up", I still stuck to wanting a more commune/rural existence. After getting married and being brainwashed that I was being 'childish', and should grow up and become an adult, I went to college, got a job in my field, and started down the long road to misery and depression.

 After getting rid of the husband and others who turned me into this unhappy person, I began to reexamine my life. I knew I wanted to return to a more rural community based lifestyle, but now due to joint custody and other considerations, I am stuck in the big city of Austin, right smack dab in the middle. (It was the north end when I moved here.) As I got older, my health issues began to catch up with me, and living out in the country became problematic. What to do, what to do?

 During this time, I started reading about urban agriculture, and how Cuba used urban agriculture to turn their food crisis around after the collapse of the Soviet Union (The main source of their daily food supplies.) left them without even basic foodstuffs. One family in California have even managed to produce thousands of pounds of food on their standard city lot, as well as brewing their own biofuel. They have an entire family however, working the small urban homestead.

 Owning a house in town on a standard city lot, I have tried with mixed success to raise a portion of our own food. My physical condition limits me, and I need some young strong backs to do the work. What I would like to do it build a tiny off grid house/yurt/tipi (Another interest of mine.) in the back for someone to live in while they work the 'citystead' full time. (Leaning heavily towards tipi on a foundation or deck.) In exchange for living space, the person(s) would help tend garden and small livestock, do handyman work around the place, and take a share of the food produced that they could consume or sell/barter. Any takers?

 

Let's get down, get Funky!

 Last week while ripping off and nibbling bits of warm sourdough she had just purchased from my basket, the Funkytonk Famer's Market manager lady asked me "So why aren't you selling here?" All the reasons ran through my head at that moment; I'm not ready, I can't make enough stuff to satisfy a large group, I can't do that much outlay at one time, etc. My answer? "I don't know, so why don't I?" She said just bring a table and set up, so I am this coming Saturday. Because I want my items to be fresh and not day old, I will be getting up 1 a.m.-ish on Saturday morning, to make the 9 a.m. opening time with fresh warm out of the oven goodies. The only thing I do beforehand is candy, so toffee will be made later this week.
 Come on down on Saturdays, pick up some fresh bread or brownies, and support local business. The veggies are great, there's lots of cool people to talk to, and there is also usually a flea market set up as well.

Long busy summer!

 I really suck at this blogging thing. I think of all kinds of cool things I could write about, rants about world issues, that kind of stuff, oh look, a squirrel! Having two small businesses, a child in his senior year, and the rest of life seems to take away any time I might have to write. With the new year fast approaching, I'll try to be better about it. (Hey, at least I remembered my password this time!)

 I do have to admit that Facebook takes up WAY too much of my time, like a lot of people. Why actually sit down and work out long and involved thoughts, when you can whip something off in short 2-3 line comments. (I don't use Twitter, but I hear the same thing about it.) As an Aspie, I love being able to interact with other people, yet still have the ability to keep my distance if things get too involved. That is one of my major faults, I get way too involved with others, to the point it affects my own life. It is a very difficult skill, to be able to be 'friends', yet not let someone else's life overwhelm your own. Add on top of that the Aspie thing, and there is a situation for disaster in the making if there ever was one.

 With discovering Etsy, I finally found a place to sell the various artsy stuff that I like to do in my non-existent free time. I'm restructuring my week to do the bakery half the week, and artsy stuff half the week. It has put a serious crimp in what little social life I have, which feeds back into the Facebook issue. I wish one or the other would take off, and I could concentrate on one, but so far things are not turning out that way. I'm considering returning to personal chef work to bring in some extra income.

 Another new thing that is totally wiping out my time is the CSA box we started getting 2 weeks ago. After shopping at the farmer's market for a while, we decided due to several factors that a dietary shift was in order. We had been succumbing to eating out as grocery costs climbed, and I got busier. With the drought and the demise of the flock, we had pretty much given up our daydream of growing enough food to feed us, plus some to sell. Enter the CSA.

 I had wanted to join a CSA from the first time I heard about them. Moving from a rural community with fresh food available year round to the big city was a huge shock. The quality of our food dropped off big time, and we fell into the eating out trap. When I cooked, I missed those flavors of truly fresh food. When the economy crashed and factory farm food became nearly expensive as organic locally grown, I started really checking out the local CSAs. Shelling out $300+ at one time was a bit scary though, so when  I saw that Johnson's Backyard Garden had a short term CSA box, I was willing to give it a try. I figured if it sucked, I was out $150, and 4 weeks worth of time. If the box worked out, then we would have no excuse and every reason for eating better.

 The first box came, and it had a ton of great veggies. However, the problem with this ton of fresh veggies is getting them dealt with before they go bad. Cooking from total scratch takes up a good half of my day, like it used to back in the homesteading days. I do have to say that the food is great, and we are all going to feel much better. We've already started losing weight, which had crept up during the eating out times. And combined with the organic meats we are getting, the meals are better than anything I've had eating out, and I've eaten out in some pretty swank places.

 All those things combined have pretty much sucked away any time I had to write down the random thoughts flitting around inside my head, and I've been missing it, so I will squeeze in some time to dash off things as I think of them. (I hope!) I foresee lots more coffee in my future!

A Life Apart

 This weekend was good, work on Friday and Saturday, and a bit of rest on Sunday. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing old friends, and newer friends, and the little ones. Watching little girls meet a bouncy little dog who loves children is always fun. I have more work lined up for next weekend as well, which is always a good thing.

 Working alone gives me much time to think about things. As both an Aspie and a Shaman, I am pretty much set apart from society as a whole. As an Aspie, it is hard for me to go into places with large groups of people, and interacting with new people is a HUGE strain. Since my filters are not the best, I do tend to say things that non-Aspies find anywhere from a bit 'off' to downright disturbing. It goes both ways as well, I can not deal with people who are too far left or right, while I support things in both camps, I'll never be all in with either. If I go out to an event, especially a scheduled event, it is something I REALLY want to do. Some of you know what a huge deal it was for me to go to the Steampunk gatherings. One thing that helped with that is it is held in my neighborhood, so I didn't have to drive any distance. Having someone I was supposed to meet helped as well, altho that poses its own anxiety issues.

 When I meet someone, I have an internal list of good and bad points. As I get to know them, I add things to each list. If the good points outweigh or balance the bad ones, that's good, but when the bad point side is longer, or there is something on my bad point side that I cannot deal with/agree with, then they have to go. It is simply a matter of non-compatibility. Sometimes this takes a long time, years in some cases. In the past, I would try to hang on to a bad match simply because I was lonely, and I had been told that I was 'supposed' to. As I grew older, I realized that it was horribly bad for me to try to hang on to relationships that made me upset on a regular basis. I learned to not get too involved with other people, to not get drawn into their BS and drama. Unfortunately other people don't, and tend to get attached, and I really do not want to hurt their feelings, I simply do not want to hang out with them any more. I don't want a big blow up, I just want to ease away, and if I run into them in public, I would like to be cordial and polite, and not have to avoid somewhere because they might be there and it would cause emotional turmoil I do not have the energy to deal with.

 On the religious side, I am set apart even more. Most Pagans, especially Wiccans, tend to be garrulous, extremely social, and very cliquish. Shamans, by our nature, tend to be solitary. We would rather be the only practitioner in any given group, unlike other Pagans who prefer to all be involved. Most Shamans only take students when there is dire need, and we would rather not be bothered with it at all. Shamans also attract people who span the range of 'not quite balanced' all the way to 'bat-shit crazy'. Shamans are grounded, and those who are not are drawn to us like moths to flame, maybe because they feel that we can help them. In some cases, we can. In most however, we are drawn into their maelstrom of drama, and extricating oneself is extremely painful for all parties involved.

 Being very different from most of the rest of society makes it extremely hard to find people that can understand and deal with the differences. Even some of my own siblings can't grasp it. This makes for a lonely existence. But I have learned that there are worse things than being lonely. I am lucky that I found a mate who not only understands, but loves me unconditionally, and knows that this is simply a part of who I am, and not something 'wrong' with me. That is a very rare thing, in any universe.

No saints here

 Being Pagan and a smidge Irish through my father's side, I had this awesome angry rant about how St. Patrick wasn't a saint, and how he did horrible things to the Irish Pagans, yada yada. (Can ya tell I'm not a fan of the day?)

 

 Then I read this article, which decided me that I really didn't have time for all that, lots to do today! So I'm going to let Claire from Pagancentric to explain how the majority of Pagans feel about this holiday.

 

 So I'm off to dig in the dirt and plant more of my spring garden.

 

 

Sláinte!

Blog Monday and Iggnernt people

 Good morning Monday! Yes, yes, I know, I have been really slacking and not writing like I should, but sometimes life gets in the way. We have spent the last 2 weeks building a wood fired hot tub, more on that in a detailed post. 

 More and more in the news are the reports coming in that Monsanto's GMO crops are actually the crap we thought them to be 20 years ago when they first started hawking them. I will not shed a single tear when they are gone, and we will hopefully be able to repair the horrible damage they are wrecking on the environment. The latest bee kill has been tied directly to the pesticide producing crops. These idiots have ignored the fact that BEES and other pollinators are insects as well.

 The GMO crops after 10 years not only have not produced better yields, in many cases they are worse, because the GMO plants use all their energy producing pesticide or herbicide, and not enough in actual production of an edible part. Now that they have been exposed for the money grubbing fraud corporation that they truly are, I find it hard to believe that some people still think GMO crops are a good idea. These people are what's known as "willfully ignorant". They refuse to believe that scientific long term studies actually show the true state of things.

 These are the same type of people that thought Agent Orange and Thalidomide were a good idea. They have no fucking clue what kind of long term (I'm talking generations) genetic damage exposure to these man-made monstrosities are going to cause. We have seen a massive rise in cancers and other diseases since the Industrial Revolution, due to toxins being poured into the water supply, or in some cases, directly onto the ground. They do not dissipate harmlessly, they are consumed by the microscopic creatures, and then the toxins move up the food chain, until they come back full circle to humans. Not that any of this will make the slightest impact on the nay-sayers, when confronted by actual research, they tend to stick their fingers in their ears and scream at the top of their lungs. One of my favorite and most used sayings is "Too often I find myself trying to describe the stars to blind men. I also occasionally play the lyre for deaf people." This describes these people to a T. After decades of trying to educate these iggnernt asshats, I have finally given up, and can only hope that they all die off quickly from their love of GMO and proccessed foods.

 I did make the mistake this morning of trying to educate a couple of them, and I can only imagine that they will have some bullshit to spout off. On Facebook, I have blocked several of these people, and cut even more off my friends list. I have limited time and energy, and none to waste any longer on these people. They are welcome to their opinion, but not on my social media. Likewise, you post a comment here that offends me, its gone, and no whining. You done landed on Mr. Gilmore's property now!