OMGOBESITY epidemic - We're coming to eat your children!

Except... we're not. We're totally not. Fat people have no secret agenda to "make the rest of society fat". Those of us involved in the Fat Acceptance Movement don't have any hidden ulterior motive to try and assimilate you into FATNESS. Because it simply doesn't work that way. Scientists and dietitians and creators of weight loss and diet programs have not found a safe and effective way to permanently turn fat people into thin people. Alternately, there is no proven way to take a thin person and make them permanently fat. So don't lose sleep over it.

I know that for some of my readers, this post is going to come off eye-rollingly 101, but I don't touch on the subject of fatness and Health At Every Size all that often outside of my FATshion outfit posts, so I really would like to go there.

These truths we hold to be self evident:

• You cannot claim to know anything about my health just by looking at my size. No, I am not riding the fast train towards Diabetes, I do not have high blood pressure, my knees are doing just fine supporting my weight, and I have never once had a doctor express concern that I may develop any of those conditions. I don't have a family history of diabetes, and while, yes, there has been hypertension in my family history, I have personally found that avoiding stress and getting enough sleep and exercise has kept high BP at bay.

• You cannot tell anything about my diet or activity level just by looking at my fat body. I have known many thin people who are sedentary and many fat people who are avid joggers, swimmers, tennis enthusiasts, ultimate frisbee players, belly dancers, hikers, and yes, fitness instructors. Fat people don't inherently avoid exercise or stuff their faces full of twinkies all day. I have known fat vegans, vegetarians, locavores, omnivores, and eat whatever is around-vores. The same goes for people who happen to inhabit thinner bodies. Plainly put - people are unique and different from eachother. This includes our bodies.

• If you are a person who used to be fat and has lost a significant amount of weight and kept it off for over 5 years, congratulations - you are either a unique and special snowflake, or the higher weight you used to be was NOT your bodies natural set-point. Our bodies do have a natural weight-range that they settle into, based on many factors. These include, but are not limited to: genetics, environment, whether your body has birthed children or not, lifestyle and career, metabolism, access to fresh air and pure food, income and socioeconomic status... the list goes on. I have maintained the weight I am at for awhile now because that is the weight my body settled at. Sometimes I eat quite healthily, sometimes I forget to eat regularly, sometimes I eat large amounts of calorie-dense foods because they are delicious and pleasurable. My exercise level also fluctuates depending on my mood, the weather, my amount of free-time to participate in athletic activities, etc. Through all of those fluctuations, my weight remains steady between 225 and 230 lbs. I am between 5'2" and 5'3", this weight puts me into the "morbidly obese" category. Many people have certain connotations associated with the term "morbidly obese" and from what I have seen, they don't include a body like mine that enjoys physical activity, home-cooked meals and good health.
  

• Headless fatties who are portrayed in the media to illustrate the "obesity epidemic/crisis" are people. They DO have heads... and names and personalities and families and lives and are whole people. Please remember this when spouting off about "personal responsibility" and how all those OBESE people are costing YOU money because of their assumed ill-health and grossness. Thankyouverymuch.

• My health and my body is not public property. It is no one's business but my own. The fact that I put myself out there and publicly give details about my life is MY choice. I don't owe it to anyone to be the "good fatty" who does everything right and is still *gasp*... FAT. I don't owe it to anyone to be visible and upfront and honest about my health. It is MY choice.

• With that said - I do think that the governing body of our country has a responsibility to provide decent health care and resources for its citizens. I support universal health care and am 100% for whole foods being served in schools, people getting off the couch and out into the fresh air, advocating cooking at home with wholesome ingredients, fresh seasonal produce being available to people of all races, income-levels, and sizes. All too often I see these ideas trotted out under the guise of "fighting obesity", though, and that saddens me to no end. So many well-meaning people who truly want better health for all, whose hearts are very much in the right place are putting their focus on the wrong thing and/or are getting dangerously close to suggesting that a portion of the population is somehow "wrong" for existing the way they currently are. Those are some mighty dangerous waters we're swimming in. Michelle Obama, Jaime Oliver, Michael Pollan, Lenore Skenazy - please, please, please stop focusing on eradicating fat in our nations children (and everyone in general). It's not going to happen and it shouldn't be expected to happen. We're on the same page in so many ways, but when I see headlines that read "Is It OK to be Fat?" or "Obesity Killing Millions" it's hard not to get a little worked up and a little defensive... See what I'm saying?

• By eschewing the diet & weight-loss mentality I have not "given up" or chosen to just be FAT FAT FAT. I have simply decided to do what's best for my sanity and my health by leaving behind disordered eating practices and unrealistic "goals". I don't owe it to you or my mother or society at large to fit into some arbitrary little niche of what is acceptable. I'm listening to my internal voice and harnessing my power and strength to buck a system that IS NOT WORKING.

a little bit of related reading/viewing for you:

• But don't you realize fat is unhealthy?!
• IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE FUNNY: Death Fat contextualized
• The Fatty Commandments: What Do You Want?
• Eat food. Stuff you like. As much as you want.
  
• The fantasy of being THIN.
• On dressing femme, being a “bad fat”, and changing the FA blogosphere.
• Joy Nash's videos: A Fat Rant, Staircase Wit, et all.
• Embracing the morbid.
• a community of women challenging "fashion rules", wearing what they want, being unapologetically FAT, and supporting eachother!
  

pieces of a weekend

Saturday was 40% off day at Goodwill - much fabric was purchased. This whole stack cost me only $18. I've already traced and cut sachets out of the top 7 fabrics, the yellow blanket near the middle will be our summer top-layer bedding (gosh, I REALLY love yellow) and the bottom fabrics are folded away in the closet for later shop-related use.

Here is the second dress in action! I laid out both dresses on my bed last night and got all of my tights out of the drawer to see which colors matched what - 3 pairs match this dress, 2 pairs match the other, and 4 pairs match BOTH. I ended up with 2 or 3 pairs still in the drawer that didn't match either. I think that's pretty darn efficient.

I picked these daffodils down the street and put them in a vase I got at Ikea for $1. The white pots the cacti are in are also brand new from Ikea. I didn't have anything against the terra cotta pots, I just prefer those for outdoor use and something a little more polished for indoors.

Now I'll move on to the big reveal of our house color!!

Ta-da!! I know it's bright, and it's a bit polarizing; you're either going to love it or you're going to hate it. Obviously, I'm part of the "love it" club, or I wouldn't have picked this particular hue. It's called "Tomato Red" and we couldn't be more thrilled with it. The trim is painted white for now... we were originally planning on doing the trim in a dark slate grey, but seeing the contrast between the red/orange and the white in person, we're figuring we'll keep it the way it is.

Efficiency & being a horrible, wasteful American

A few nights ago I could hear Seth brushing his teeth from the next room over and the sound of the running water launched me into a vicious tirade about how much less water he could use if he was just a little bit more conscious of it - blah blah blah - you just turn it on for a sec to get the brush wet - blah blah blah - real quick bit of water to rinse - blah blah blah - a little spurt for sloshing and LOOK! Aren't we doing better at saving water!?

(cue manic face with twitching eye and undercurrents of pride & smugness)

But as I was "trying to help him be better" I realized that I am totally the pot and I'm all telling him he's a black kettle. There are so many ways we've been able to audit our life and find do-able solutions for using less water, power, money, resources, etc:

• 5 minute showers (I put the conditioner in first thing so that after I scrub my scalp, it can soak into my hair while I do EVERYTHING else).
• letting it mellow (you know what I mean).
• cloth toilet wipes.
• buying things second-hand and donating or repurposing items when we're done with them.
• buying in bulk whenever possible to reduce packaging that is brought into our house.
• hanging laundry on the line when the weather permits.
• homemade laundry soap & dryer sachets.
• opening blinds and curtains instead of turning on a light.
• going NO-POO.
• putting on socks or curling up in a blanket instead of turning on the heat.
• recycling.
• using cloth napkins instead of paper, keeping microfiber towels on the kitchen counter instead of paper towels.
• taking our reusable shopping bags to the store.

There's even more we plan to add into the mix once we're in the new house:

• installing a rainwater collection barrel.
• building a compost bin.
• building raised beds and using them to grow and harvest actual food!!
• Chickenz. Woot.

But this doesn't change the fact that I'm still a ginormous hypocrite... up until the other day, when this happened, I'd never made the connection between wasting water/power/money and one of my beloved evening rituals - bath taking. I wouldn't be so ashamed of myself if it was one of those things I did every great once in awhile, but I take 3 to 4 baths a week, more in the Winter. And it's not like I'm taking them for a practical purpose, like actually bathing myself; I take baths to warm up, relax, and have alone time for reading. The fact that I have that luxury as an option is pretty indulgent and fancy, in the grand scheme of the world, but I feel like the fact that I take advantage of it so often is problematic.

My friend Tara, over at The Organic Sister recently did a post about composting toilets/humanure and one of the things that stood out the most for me was her mention of how many people in the world don't have access to clean drinking water and we insanely indulgent westerners put our bodily waste into clean water and then flush it away. Where do we get off? I mean, really. If I think about it for too long I get all kinds of pissed off. I doubt I'll be talking Seth into shitting in a bucket anytime soon, but there are so many more ways we can reduce our wastefulness. I'm ready to take on the challenge of figuring as many of them out as possible.

the first of two new dresses.

This is my 5th grade school picture from 1992, one of my all-time favorite school pictures because of that outfit and the fact that we had cut my hair short for the first time in my life! My hair was so long when I was a kid that I routinely got it stuck in the back of my pants when getting dressed in the morning, so as you can imagine, this shoulder-length do felt REALLY short. Of course, that's about how long my hair is right now and I can't believe how LONG it has gotten. Ah, perspective, how you change. The thing I find most fascinating about this photo, though, is that I'm basically wearing the same thing. Granted, not a super styling turtle neck with a floral romper, but I'm wearing an eerily similar floral patterned dress and the tights I wore today are the same color as that shirt. Apparently 1992 called and they want their gaudy floral patterns and goofy color combos back.

Remember those dresses I mentioned yesterday? Here's the first one!

I wore it out and about yesterday and I honestly love it. Because it's reversible and has two layers in the skirt, I can wear it without a slip, which I cannot do with my jersey knit dress. I hate wearing a slip, so this is quite a nice break for me. The fabric of the skirt is this weird chiffon type stuff and each layer is fairly thin, but with the background being black and there being two layers, you can't see through it when it's on. I know this picture of it is all blurry and dusty-mirrored and stuff, but I wanted to show you what it looked like before throwing a vest and scarf over it. I simply sewed two items of clothing together that didn't each work on their own. That top has a really nice neckline, but never fit right around the middle and was kind of a thin tissue-esque fabric. The dress fits great, except that I SO don't do strapless. A snip here, some stitches there, and VOILA, one dress!

strapless tube dress & tissue top (altered into one item of clothing by me): Target
tights: WeLoveColors
vest: Etsy
scarf & purse: Forever21
bracelets: Icing
shoes: Steve Madden Brogues from Ross ($16!!)

Let me tell you how much I LOVE Ross... I had no idea! A few weekends ago I went down to the Aberdeen/Hoquiam area to visit some friends and attend their daughter's birthday party (rollerskating!!) and on our way home, the woman I rode with decided to stop off at the Ross store in Aberdeen. I'd never even been inside a Ross before and had no idea what to expect and I must say, I was smitten!! The shoe section just about did me in. I found the above pair of Steve Madden brogues, which I'd had my eye on for awhile, but could not justify the steep price. When I saw them on the shelf for only $16 bucks, I almost started crying with joy. So yes, I love Ross now.

I gots two different leggings looks!

top: Walmart
vest & booties: Target
leggings: OldNavy
tights: WeLoveColors
necklace: Forever21
bracelets: Icing & OldNavy

cardi & leggings: Target
scarf: Forever21
boots: Torrid
top: OldNavy

Coming soon: I totally bought these two dresses from Target (only $15.99 each!) and they arrived yesterday! I don't generally do the whole tube/strapless look, but the billow of the skirt looked right up my alley and no matter how I cut it, scrunchy tube-tops are pretty much the most comfortable items of clothing on the ol' rack-of-doom. I also bought them more for the print on the underneath side than the prints shown in the main pictures, so that's kind of humorous.

I had some ideas as to how to customize them to work for me and the second they showed up in the mail and had been officially tried on, I got to sewing! I LOVE the results and can't wait to wear both dresses and show you guys what I did. See what I meant about sewing projects that are actually doable and how much better they can make a crafty lady feel? I feel like I was totally hitting some nails on their heads with that statement.

second-hand paradise (plus bonus house progress)

So... we finally visited the Silverdale GoodWill store this weekend! That place - whoa. Amazing. It's HUGE! Square footage-wise, it's probably not any larger than our store in town or the one in PA, but there is such a wide selection and it's so well-organized that it feels ginormous. I found that round harvest gold colored pillow up there for 99 cents! At first, I just thought it was a cool, funky pillow, but when we got it home I was trying to kind of fluff it or something and I could feel something inside. I opened up the back zipper and it had some weird battery box and wires! Death trap! I don't know if it heated up or vibrated or what, but I yanked that stuff out and it was ready for the couch. The rectangular pillow behind it (same color, different fabric texture) is something I've had for 3 or 4 years and was also under $1. What can I say? I like a deal. The blanket thrown over the arm of the couch is actually a weird sleeping-bag-esque contraption with a zipper down the front (not the side) that only comes halfway up your body. So odd, but so comfy for cozying up on the couch. It was $3 or $4 at the GoodWill here in PT.

This table is something I found at a garage sale for $2 a couple of years ago. It's IKEA and the tabletop is a perfectly presentable shiny white finish, but I enjoy the splash of color from these two cloth napkins.

I know it's a bit odd to have a shoe on a bookshelf, but I'm a bit odd, in case you haven't noticed. This is 1/2 of a pair of purple suede pumps I bought in PA back in 03 or 04. They're barely big enough for my feet and I originally bought them to wear to an 80's themed party (because I'm white and this is what we do for fun). It's a little hard to see in the picture, but down in front of the pump is a large pencil with a Russian nesting doll on the top. This is one of my most prized possessions... I bought it from a very friendly fellow with a display table outside of Red Square in 1999. He only wanted $2 USD, how could I not go for it?

Blue hanging fruit/veggie baskets ($1 at the Hadlock Thrift Shoppe), sugar jar with the word SUGAR on it in a ridiculously charming old font ($2 from GoodWill in PT), sloth beanie baby ($1 in class-bucks from Silas' class store a few years ago), swirly yellow trivet (50 cents from Habitat For Humanity thrift store in PT), green candle holder (99 cents from GoodWill in PT), white cabinet (garage sale across the street last summer, $10).

And now... drumroll please!!

They're making even more progress on our house! For awhile there I felt like our end-of-May move-in date was unattainable, but now it's feeling like a reality. They will actually have it done by then.

They've got all the siding put up, it just has yet to be painted - I'm pretty sure that's the next step, since they have to get it painted before they can attach the gutters. I am SO looking forward to revealing our paint-color! It's a color that I've wanted for a long time, before we even had a clue what we were doing re: buying a house. It's quirky and a bit bizarre, but considering the colors of the other houses on the street, I have a feeling its quirkiness will fit right in.

When I first saw our property line I was lamenting the small backyard. I started to get discouraged and disheartened and felt like we wouldn't have the room to do any of the garden/landscaping stuff we want to do, but the more I walk around back there, the bigger it feels. It will be plenty of room!

We don't have any plans for planting any kind of lawn. There's just no point for us, it would be a waste of precious yard space, something we'd have to mow, blah blah blah... Food Not Lawns, man. This place will be a veritable oasis of ground cover and stepping stones, raised beds and flower pots, ferns (Seth's highest priority is doing some kind of fern garden along the side of the house)... We're not sure yet if the neighbors to the left of us are planning to build a fence or not, but we've got plans to do a basic frame fence with chicken wire attached to it, to let in as much light as possible, yet still provide a clear cut line of where our property ends and theirs begins. We plan to build it around the entire back perimeter of our lot. Maybe they'd be willing to go half-sies on the part that lines their property? Either way, it's going to look fantastic and be a really interesting learning experience. Heh.

knock, knock, knockin' on heavens door.

I got a question on Formspring about a month ago and hadn't known how to answer it... until now. "Can you talk more about your journey from evangelical christian to where you are today? Also, how do you handle the subject of religion/spirituality with Silas?"

For some reason it cut off the first 15-20 seconds of the video, so if it seems like I jumped straight in with no preface whatsoever, I totally prefaced... our camera is just possessed apparently.

In which I ramble about organized religion. from Jasie VanGesen on Vimeo.

Here's a bunch of relevant reading:


Why I Am Not a Christian by Bertrand Russell

Parenting Beyond Belief by Dale McGowan

Raising Freethinkers: A Practical Guide for Parenting Beyond Belief by Dale McGowan

Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres

Well slap me on the ass and call me Heather Armstrong.

I've got ailments - ailments galore. And now I shall chronicle them for your amusement. Go ahead, laugh at what a total and complete clod I am.

Firstly - I totally broke my toe. I can't go around bragging that I've never broken a bone anymore. I haven't had a doctor look at it or anything because... well, because they would tell me, "Yup, it's broken. Buddy tape it to the toe next to it and no, it doesn't hurt badly enough for me to prescribe you Percoset or Vicodin or anything fun at all." and I'd have paid some expert to tell me what I already know and wouldn't even get any fun drugs out of it. So no, I didn't bother. I've jimmied a pretty good buddy-taping system out of bandaids and I'm being careful to wear cushy socks and roomy shoes. I'll live.

How did I break my toe, you ask? By being amazing, that is how. I stub my toes on everything, everyday. I'm just one big stubbed toe, constantly. This time, I managed to stub my left pinky toe on the leg of one of the dining room chairs. I'm pretty sure the leg went between my toes instead of hitting the end head-on. I didn't hear a crack or anything, but my toe instantly hurt much more than it normally would in this situation. Usually when I stub my toe I wait a few minutes and curl all my toes under to make them pop, this usually releases any tension and alleviates any remaining stub-related pain. This time, no dice. When I curled them, not only did that one NOT MOVE, but it sent seriously sharp pains up my entire leg. So... yah. Ouch. Totally broken.

Secondly - This is where it gets hillarious... I went to the emergency room on Wednesday night (at 10pm, mind you - my regular bedtime) and not for the toe. I didn't even bother telling them about my toe. I've got a seriously swollen gland. This wouldn't be so alarming under normal circumstances, but I recently started a medication for my bi-polar disorder (yay for being pro-active and finally medicating) and swollen glands are at the top of the list of "early warning signs of an allergic reaction" to the medication. I obviously FREAKED out and went into frantic panic mode. An hour later I was out of the ER and on my way home after being told it was just a weird coincidence and that if the swollen gland were an allergic reaction, it would have happened on day 1 or 2 of the meds, not day 17. Heh. And that I'd be having more symptoms than just the lymph node thing, like rashes and sore throat and blurred vision. So atleast I'm not dying and I can continue taking the meds (which seem to be working really well for me, by the way) and still didn't get any fun painkillers. I'm all hopped up on the ibuprofen.

You can't see my massive lymph node, but you can see my fancy hospital bracelets.

Toe carnage. The swelling seems to have finally gone down, but it's still tender as all get out. Now I'm just waiting for some gnarly bruising to appear.

He hates everything... he likes it!

I don't want to get overly confident and end up jinxing us, but I'm pretty sure we're out of the woods regarding Silas hating food. He's still a little bit on the picky side, but it's nothing like what we were dealing with 3 or 4 months ago. He actually gets some of his dinner choked down each night, even when it's not his favorite thing on the menu. He no longer balks at the lunches and snacks I lay out before him, though he is still assertive in letting me know when he genuinely doesn't like something or is sick of a specific food (and rightfully so!).

I worry it sounds like I want him to hand over all autonomy and preference and blindly eat everything in front of him - I assure you, this is not the case. I simply don't want to see him act like he's being poisoned every time he's offered something to eat that he doesn't approve of 110%! Currently he's a little sick of cereal, dried fruit, and plain cheese slices. I'm ok with that and out of respect for his tastes I find alternatives to those foods. I'm just so glad he's eating in general.

Yesterday this boy ate the following: granola, a whole can of mandarin oranges, a bowl of cottage cheese, a handful of crackers, 2 bottles of water, 5 or 6 slices of lunch meat, 6 mozzarella balls, a bowl of rice and beans with tortilla chips, a fruit cup, a glass of milk, a small taco salad, some chocolate pocky sticks, and more granola. This is about twice the amount of food *I* ate yesterday.

thrifty bits

I love thrift shopping. It's how I get most of my knick-knacks, picture frames, bedspreads, and all of the fabric I sew with for my Etsy shop! I'm a ridiculously decorative person and am at my happiest when surrounded by quirky and pretty decor. This could get expensive if I did all the shopping through regular retail; I've found that thrifting is not only frugal, but incredibly rewarding. Giving new life to an otherwise discarded item brings me much joy and also makes my wallet very happy indeed.

I usually go to GoodWill here in town atleast two or three times a month as well as the thrift shop in Hadlock about once a month. I'm also a huge fan of the GoodWill and Value Village stores in East Bremerton, but generally only get out there a few times a year. I've heard the new GoodWill in Silverdale is pretty well-stocked, but have yet to see for myself. Soon and very soon.

The Eiffel Tower lamp was purchased many moons ago when I still lived in Port Angeles, sometime in 2002 or 2003. It had an ugly shade that got thrown away almost instantly. Up until 2006, I had put a boxy leopard print shade on it, then the shade that's on it now (which is plain off-white and dull). The scarf thrown over it was bought here in PT for 79 cents! The scarf on the top of the dresser was also bought here for about the same price. The red candle holder is a thrift find from 2006 or 2007 and was 25 cents if I remember correctly. The dresser was $20 at an estate sale in Cape George - I have a feeling I'll never need to buy another dresser for the rest of my life.

This tin lives in the bathroom and contains all of my hair clips, post earrings, and rings. I found in for 50 cents at the Olycap thrift shop in Port Hadlock. I love the fisherman, he looks so friendly.

This is the bookshelf I bought down in Portland and I fall more in love with it every day. I love that the paint job on it is all distressed and weathered. I just bought the hobnail vase last weekend at GoodWill for $1 and yanked some branches off a cherry tree on the way home from the store. This town has so many opportunities to get free wild flowers and things off the side of the road.

These microfiber towels are one of my most prized second hand finds! They were $2 total and I use them for everything from dusting bookshelves to wiping down the counters to drying off dishes to cleaning the computer monitor, the tv, mirrors, windows... they are pretty much perfect. They were the first kitchen towels I bought when I moved out here and every towel I've bought since has had to match or coordinate with these suckers to make the cut.

Fatshion: turn it to the left!

Clothes, clothes, clothes... Goodness gracious, I am officially obsessed. I swear, I don't own that many articles of clothing. The only people I know who have less stuff in their closets are my "jeans & t-shirt" friends. I don't have a very big budget and try to find pieces that can be mixed and matched and aren't stuck in just one outfit; I want to get lots of options out of each item. This top (actually a dress, but I've been wearing it as a long top) is one great example of versatility. It looks good with a variety of scarves and can be worn with my vests or my grandpa sweaters... Now if only I also had it in black, I could pair it with any of my leggings instead of just my black ones.

It's incredibly comfortable, which is a MUST for me. It's the whole reason I ditched jeans - I finally realized (last summer) after wearing them for my entire life, I had NEVER found jeans comfortable. It didn't matter if they had stretch or not or what the fit-style was, I had literally never owned a pair of jeans I felt comfortable in. Even as a thinner person, it just wasn't happening. I had been searching for the "perfect pair", assuming it was just me that had some kind of issue and I just wasn't looking hard enough - I finally realized that what I was looking for didn't exist. The closest thing I found was Lane Bryant's Right Fit jeans. The trouser style was incredibly cute, but the stretch wasn't enough to make them comfortable, while it was certainly enough to give me ass sag and waist gaping after a single wear. Bleh. Plus, those jeans are HOLY EXPENSIVE, Batman. POW!

For awhile it felt incredibly weird to ditch all my jeans and wear other stuff, but as with all things in life, I got used to it. Slowly but surely, I got used to it.

top and boots - Torrid
vest - Etsy
scarf - Forever21
earrings - Target
bracelets - Icing
leggings- OldNavy

Also of interest: Same basic outfit with a different scarf. This doesn't showcase the tops diversity as much as if I had changed the vest or worn a sweater, but still, you get the idea.

yes no maybe - check one

As far as my idea of making my own dresses goes, I was recently advised by a good friend (who also happens to be a proficient seamstress) to consider moving the fabric I bought (but not enough of) on to a different project. Not having purchased enough yardage to work off of my original basic pattern will only breed stress and frustration. I don't have the level of skill to alter the details very much if/when things don't turn out perfect on the first try. I'm not keen to enter into such a complicated endeavor when I know my limits and my chances of failure are high. I'm an easily discouraged crafter and only do well at new projects if I'm confident, ambitious, and willing to experiment - I just don't feel that confident in this specific thing. My beginner-level projects need to be things I can conceivably accomplish without shooting myself in the head or walking around muttering "stupid Jasie, stupid Jasie", ala George Michael Bluth. Someday I'd LOVE to make my own clothes, but for now my focus is on smaller, more do-able things that bring me some of that much-needed instant gratification us children of the 80's so desperately crave.

This same friend has also been inspiring my sewing lately, though I'm not sure if she's aware of it. She's done many recent posts detailing her trek through a particular sewing book (that claims itself to be "for beginners", but SO is not). I helped her cut out and organize the pattern pieces weekend before last and was SO FUCKING OVERWHELMED by their sheer impressiveness and mostly by her drive to CONQUER them. I mean, seriously, I've been around sewing all my life, and while I may not be any good with a machine, I'm fairly adept at hand-sewing and the things I do know - these garments are hard, people. Hard. With a capital H. And bolded. Hard. And that instant gratification stuff? You won't get any of that when making these pieces.

Even though I don't possess the "dive-in" attitude that these projects require (and that Kelly very much so seems to possess) , the attention to detail and pattern mixing really struck a chord with me and I felt compelled to incorporate some basic patchwork into the things I make.

This even led to a new section being added to the shop! So while I totally make sewing promises to myself that I'm not equipped to keep, it's all about the little things and successfully branching out where I can and rocking it.

this is how it works - you're young until you're not, you love until you don't, you try until you can't.

Some things about myself that I've finally fully accepted:

• I am not a dog person. I've never bonded with a dog, don't ever plan to own one, and am totally grossed out by dog hair. If this makes me a bad person, so be it. On the other hand, I LOVE cats. I've had seven cats in my lifetime and have loved five of them deeply as some of my best friends. The other two were passive aggressive assholes. Actually, all but one of them was an asshole, really... but I loved them and they loved me in their special (read: asshole-ish) way.

• I don't operate well on less than 8 hours of sleep. I know I'm spoiled and that most people don't have the opportunity and/or ability to get this much sleep in adulthood - I relish my spoiled-ness and roll around in it like a pig in mud. The times I have gotten less sleep than my body needs and I've tried to compensate with coffee have been... oh let's see... disastrous? That might be an exaggeration. Or not.

• I get anxious easily and it shows in every facet of my non-verbal communication. This is something I'd like to improve about myself, but since it's such an abstract thing, I really don't know how much success I'll have with that.

• I have a severe weakness for a specific "junk food" - Spaghettios & meatballs. I know it's technically disgusting, but it tastes how being 8 felt.
  

We used poisonous gasses (with traces of lead)

Space Station and FOTC from Jasie VanGesen on Vimeo.

in other news...

Our house has WALLS! and WINDOWS!

dreams are such strange things.

Usually my dreams play out like a movie I'm watching that has me in it. Last night was no exception. Here's the plotline of said movie:

- I was still with my lousy first husband, but Silas didn't exist. James was obnoxious and dumb and didn't deserve me, as per usual. He was doofy and unintelligent and had no common sense of how to do anything. Kind of like this, except more deliberately assy:

- I wasn't myself in the film - an actress was playing my part. Zooey Deschanel, in fact. That was a little bizarre, since sometimes her acting (or lack thereof) annoys me, but I have coveted her hair and quite enjoyed her singing voice for some time now.

that hair, good gosh.

- In the film I left James and had a VERY steamy and excellent affair with Colby from Survivor. He is not my type at all. He smiles all the time and wears a cowboy hat... so what the heck is going on? I don't know, but...

hello specimen!

- I also worked in some awesome bar that had a live band every night. The bands that played weren't real bands, it's like my brain made them up based on what it thought I'd like. I do remember one band having a keytarist. That was pretty awesome.

What the eff is Bronto and why did they lead people to my shop?

packaging, organizing, stocking - oh my!

I'm not exactly sure what happened, but my shop went from the normal 30 or 40 views a day to almost 900 on Saturday and over 350 on Sunday. I went from my normal one or two sales over the weekend to 11 sales in two days! Thankfully it didn't get too out of hand, or I wouldn't have had the inventory to support it. Seriously, though, what the heck happened? I didn't appear to be in a treasury or featured in a blog or anything...

According to Google Analytics, the majority of those visits were directed from an email service called Bronto. I've never heard of it and after looking it up, still can't figure out how this led people to my shop, specifically to my listing for The Rainbow Connection (the previous listing, which sold, had 1,396 views and 62 hearts, DUDE). I'm confused, but surprised and grateful. Sales are good. Exposure is good. Though, this means it's time to get sewing again. My back-stock of sachets was looking pretty well-rounded and well-stocked, so I took a couple of weeks off from creating anything new, now I've depleted that inventory a bit and have to sew up some specific patterns that I am now out of... c'est la vie.

Frankly, it's good to have something to do. I feel like everything in our life right now is just waiting for the house, that's when the real, solid, hard work will begin.

ETA Tuesday Morning: Mystery solved! Thanks to an anonymous commenter I got a lead that I was included in an Etsy Finds feature! I did some digging and tracked it down. Awesome. :)