When the Lies get too Heavy

My daughter suggested I find a picture of myself when I was thin and hang it on the fridge to keep my weight loss goals on target. Just thinking of the skinny me makes me crave chocolate cake and glass after glass of milk.  

Skinny me. Sad me.  She didn’t lose weight to get thin. She stopped eating to get noticed. She might’ve taken to cutting if she hadn’t been so squeamish. Skinny me needed people to recognize that something was wrong, something so horrible, she lacked both the courage and vocabulary to describe it.

I didn’t give myself full permission to eat until years later when I became pregnant. Like anyone with a true love for sugar and fat, I packed on the pounds quite easily. Low and behold, there were benefits to being chubby, as least that’s what I told myself.  No one could pick me up off the street and stuff me in the trunk if I was heavy. Just being overweight would make me less attractive, and therefore less likely to be victimized, right? Wrong. Rapists target everyone from babies in diapers to elderly women confined to their beds. Rape isn’t about the short skirt I’d been wearing. It wasn’t about me “accidently” sending signals.

So how do I pull myself out of this false security of fat? How do I stop self-medicating with food?  I don’t have a clue. Sorry if I’ve disappointed you. My best guess is to stop buying into all the lies and propaganda. Fat shaming. Slut shaming. How can these possibly lead to anything healthy?  I’m thinking true weight loss has to stem from self love. What a challenge though, when even strangers are critical. I think the trick is to stop measuring success in pounds in inches. My new benchmark should be how good I feel in my own skin. I think today will be cake free! And I'm not even craving a soda. 

What's she up today? Back to the dollhouse

I asked my husband for a house last Christmas. And this is what he got me. Thank goodness I wasn't hinting about wanting a real house. Just in case he didn't catch on, I dragged him to the hobby store and pointed out the dollhouse I wanted and then handed him the 40% off coupon.

The dollhouse to the left is what you get if you follow the directions. The instructions weren't the easiest to follow (no pictures or diagrams *gasp*). So I gave up on following the directions and had some fun in the process.

This is what it looks like after you punch out all the pieces. Word of advice. Label everything.
Oh! And don't through anything out either. I ran out of shingles because I placed them too close together. Ooops. I was able to cut extra shingles from the leftover roofing material.

Not too shabby. I'm particularly please with the bricks and grass. The bricks were cut from paper egg cartons, painted, and spackled to the house and yard. There are plenty of how to's on Pinterest. This was not my first adventure in paper brick making, so it went fast. I really wanted a yard and wasn't overly impressed with the ready to purchase grass at the hobby store, so I searched for some alternatives. Painting a towel sounded silly at first, but given that I could purchase one at the dollar store, I gave it a try. The towel worked great, though it did take take to get the texture right and to apply enough color to keep it from appearing too flat.

 The towel worked great for creating dirt as well. My garden isn't quite done, but here's an idea of how the dirt came out.




The outside's looking pretty nice. Time to get to work on the inside.

 

Taking it One Stitch at a Time

In times of stress I dream of whirlwinds. Winds that tear the walls off my house and shake the floors. Last night I dreamt I saw the tornado coming. I rushed home and crocheted my family members to the pipes, the bathtub, anything heavy. Like Spiderman spitting out web, I was spitting yarn, and in such pretty patterns.

I shared the dream with my teenage son. He rolled his eyes. "I think you have an addiction." He might be onto something. I have small tidy projects that I pull out in waiting room. There are beefier projects that keep me company on car trips. Every room in my house seems to have some sort of projects slowly nearing its way to completion.

In truth, I'm rather proud of my Spidey crocheting dream. Instead of panicking I was able to think outside the box. Each of us are collection of such unique skills. We need to remember to celebrate that.