Speaking of hair... (I swear, I'll stop talking about hair for awhile after this)

I have FINALLY found a conditioner that is hardcore enough to convince me to abandon all of my leave-in products. For real.

The last time I talked about my no-poo routine, I gave a detailed list of the various leave-in conditioners and smoothers and serums that I use. I even gave a little bit of an apology for it seeming like so many products and justified them by mentioning how little each one cost. Silly me, I didn't need any of them, really.

This deep conditioner is seriously the best conditioner I've EVER used. It smells like bananas. It's thick and creamy and immediately makes my hair feel like silk. I use it straight 2 or 3 days a week and the rest of the time I mix a little dab of it in with my usual conditioner. It has completely eliminated my urge to run a bunch of products through my hair after I get out of the shower. I still don't like how my hair looks when left natural and rely far too much on my flat iron, but my hair dries faster without all that gunk in it, and lays smooth and soft even after being straightened... I can dig that.

this is the dawning of the age of aquarius.

My son has the most beautiful hair I've ever seen. It's thick and golden and a little bit wavy... he's had it semi-short most of his life, but he started growing it longer late last year. It started out with him refusing a trim and me backing off, then slowly it turned into him loving his long hair. I felt like it was helping facilitate the process of him coming into his own. I felt proud of how secure he was with it, proud of how handsome he looked, proud of how he shook it around when he was "rocking out".

I got a text from his dad over the weekend, asking if they could take him to get his hair cut. I wrote back with a simple, "no". If anyone was going to cut his hair, it was going to be me. I may not be the most proficient stylist, but I've always cut his hair (in his 9 years on this earth, only 2 cuts have been done professionally). I trim Seth's hair, as well, and he's always been pleased with how it's turned out. I decided to wait until he got home from visiting his dad, then I'd ask him what his actual opinion on the matter was. I wasn't prepared for what I heard.

He told me that when he's at his dad's, he gets teased by the neighbor kids and kids at church for looking like a girl. He said that the boys who don't tease him just kind of ignore him because they don't realize he's a boy. He said that he's tried to tell those kids that he's not a girl, but if he was, there's nothing wrong with that, but that they won't stop being mean about it. Now, this disturbs me immensely, that the boys think there's something inherently wrong with being/doing anything considered "girly". That pisses me off. I know it's how many kids his age think and feel. He never has, so it makes me sad to know that he's getting that viewpoint drilled into his head and that it's starting to hurt his feelings and make him feel insecure.

I tried to talk to him about whether he wanted his hair cut short for him or because of what other people thought... what I got was that it was a little of both. It was a hard pill for me to swallow, but I slept on it and decided I needed to respect his wishes, even if I disagreed with the reasons. Goodness knows I've done a lot of stupid things in my life, simply because of other people.

So now my son has shorter hair. It's still not short, by any means, but he LOVES it.

I hate it right now.

I hate that he was made fun of and that it affected his opinion of himself. I hate that after he saw his new hair he said, "Maybe now girls will like me more and those boys won't make fun of me!". I hate that I grew so attached to something that belongs to him, not me. I hate that I didn't do a better job on cutting it (his hair is just so damn thick). I hate that I'm so grumpy about all of it.

added 6 hours later: Ok... so I'm still not a big fan of the way this went down. I wish his hair was still long and I wish jerks weren't teasing him about it. Jerks! But... I went at it one more time with the scissors and touched up the bits that needed it, took a little off the sides, made things a little more even. I'm over it now. It didn't turn out too badly. In fact, once I touched it up, he kinda ended up looking like a blonde-ish version of Paul McCartney in the Hey Jude era. And since he was the most legitimately good looking Beatle, I can deal with that.

yard gone WILD!

It feels beyond impossible, but tomorrow marks 9 weeks in the new house. Our last 9 weeks in the old apartment positively CRAWLED by... it felt like it would never end. Now that we're here, that chunk of time seems like nothing. It feels like we moved in last week, but it also feels like we've been here since time began. I know I'm not saying anything earth shattering - this is how it is when you move into a new place, start a new job, get older, watch your kids grow... whatever you may be doing in your life, it will alternately seem like forever and no time at all. It makes me feel safe and secure to spout such clichés; the human condition is universal, or something.

Considering we'd never had a yard until now and neither of us were particularly manual-labor-minded, we've made seriously good use of the past 2 months. Raking and shoveling and cutting and planting and building... oh my! It's been eye-opening, as well as highly liberating. I'm not sure if I've ever sweat as much in my entire life as I have since moving in. At first, it was the obvious work of filling dips in the yard, spreading the extra dirt to make things more level, planting a couple of simple, rounded flower beds, clearing brush, picking up rocks, etc. Now we're starting to put together a vision. Seth's mom lent me a book that has inspired that vision on every level possible, Front Yard Gardens. We knew from the get-go that we had no interest in planting anything resembling a lawn, but flipping through this book has taken that to another level. Originally, I had put one large curved flower bed next to the front porch and then assumed I'd plant the rest of the front yard with micro-clover (an excellent grass alternative that we decided on after Seth did a bunch of research on the subject), and wouldn't do much else... that's not the plan anymore.

I already had a rock border around the flower bed that I was quite happy with and the more I looked at it, the more I found myself picturing the same kind of rock border a few feet further out, forming the edges of a pathway. On the other side of the pathway I started to see the possibilities of tall growing flowers and shrubs and general wildness.

Behind that wheelbarrow is a cinder-block laying flat on the ground - this is marking our property line, which cuts diagonally through the trees. In other pictures you can probably see the twine that we strung to mark it. Yah, it's not a huge bit of land between the edge of the pathway and the neighboring lot, but it's enough to play with.

I've set up the pathway to be wider at this end so that it can fork into two separate pathways, one going into the small clearing under our Madrona tree, and the other going alongside the house. I decided to stick three cinder-blocks in the actual border just for the heck of it. I took this picture before I was completely done and have since filled the holes in the blocks with dirt about an inch from the top, then layered some of the prettier rocks I've collected from the yard on the top. I figure it adds a tiny bit more visual interest as well as being sturdier than just doing rocks the entire way across.

I'm figuring we'll put stepping stones in this pathway (probably square ones, since the round ones aren't my favorite) and we'll plant more micro clover in the spaces around the stones. We already planted some clover, but because it was planted in a high traffic area, it hasn't grown all that well. Once we get stepping stones in, we won't be walking on the bare ground much and it can have a chance to really take off.

I've been flipping through all of my gardening books, trying to decide which flowers and shrubs and ornamental grasses to plant in this front area. For someone who had never gardened before, I sure invested in a lot of books on the subject. My Grandma Dorothy was a prolific gardener who grew most of her own vegetables, as well as many flowers and decorative plants. She had a small patch of immaculately manicured lawn in the front of her house and one in the back. The total size of lawn space on her property couldn't have been more than 200 square feet. Growing up in the depression, she knew the value of using every bit of space possible for growing food and growing plants that brought her joy and made her yard a place she wanted to be. I have fond memories of picking flowers to put in the vases on the kitchen windowsill, eating cherry tomatoes straight off the vine, watering the hanging fuchsias... although I never honed my own green thumb until now, I've always felt happy and alive in the garden. I can't wait to make that happen here on my own little piece of land.

variations on a theme - uniform building

A few days ago I wrote about how I build my wardrobe around neutrals and interchangeable pieces to create a uniform of sorts - here's a few examples of the variations I get by switching out a vest or a pair of flats or a bracelet...

top & leggings - OldNavy
vest - Etsy
shoes - Ross
vintage chain bracelet - Wandering Wardrobe, PT, WA

tube dress/top (sewn together into one proper dress by moi) - Target
crochet strap vest & boots - Torrid
teal tights that you can't see - WeLoveColors
vintage chain bracelet - Wandering Wardrobe, PT, WA

top - alight.com
cardigan, leather cuff & booties - Target
leggings - OldNavy
necklace - Icing

top - alight.com
vest - Target
leggings & shoes - OldNavy
necklace - Forever21 (extended in length w/3 elastic hair-ties)

The best part? The most expensive item here is that pair of over-the-knee microsuede boots, which were $68. The brown cardigan was only $30, the two tank tops from alight.com were on sale for $20 each, the strappy flats from Ross were $12. Building a versatile wardrobe doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg.

I have a few personal rules that tend to keep the costs down: I usually won't buy a vest for more than $20 unless it calls out to me. I will only wear black leggings purchased from OldNavy because I know that they fit me right, they're inexpensive ($20ish) and they last a really long time. I've talked about this one before, but it's indispensable - if you find something you LOVE, buy it in multiple colors. That way the different pieces will divide up how much wear you put on them, making them last longer. Also, when you do inevitably wear one of the items to the point of holes, your only option won't be going back to the store and crying that they don't carry that particular top or sweater anymore - you'll have others! I have several tops that I wish I'd done this with, and the few that I have done this with, I thank my lucky stars that I did.

I know that not everyone is obsessed with having a "look" like I am. I also know that not everyone has $68 to spend on a pair of boots... but I do want to illustrate that you also don't have to be rolling in copious amounts of dough to cultivate your personal style. Many of my pieces have been repaired and/or altered by me so that I can extend their life and not have to replace them. Much of my stuff was bought on clearance. It IS possible.

it's boring, but it's my life.

My ex-husband and I in the winter of our discontent... I mean, the winter of 2000. We had just found out I was pregnant with Silas, who was born 4 days before our 1 year anniversary.

Lexi and I, the day I found "the dress".

ah... cultivating personal style. It's hard, but it's worth it.

I've collected a decent amount of clothes in the last year or so. My closet is pretty much a sea of interchangeable pieces: vests, knit tunic length tops, dresses that hit just above the knee, grandpa sweaters, leggings, boots... most of these items are black, brown, or grey. There are bits of color here and there that can be added to an otherwise neutral outfit, most of which are scarves and tights. Some people may consider this a rut... Many of my favorite stylish bloggers thrive on variety. Sure, they've got a signature "look", but they bravely play around with shapes and patterns and are daring enough to mix it up. I love that they do that, but it's just not my thing.

Personally, being a fat woman complicates things. It's harder to find my size and it's harder to find clothes that are both comfortable and fit me the way I like. So when I do find something that fits my body AND my style, I tend to stock up on it. I have many different pieces that I bought multiple colors of. I quite like the flexibility this gives me. It's also comforting to know that on any given day, I will be able to find something that I want to wear, something I like to wear. It's a uniform, of sorts.

In the online community, it's not at all uncommon to stumble upon fat chicks dressed in leggings. The fatshionista photo pool on Flickr is rife with variations on that particular look. In my small, rural town that's surrounded by water on three sides... it's downright revolutionary. I enjoy that I can just throw something on without much stress and run to the store looking quintessentially ME. I'm instantly recognizable as that girl. For me, having my own personal style means a lot of things: I'm expressing myself through my clothes, I'm making a statement by making it impossible for people to ignore my fat, I'm choosing to stand out rather than be invisible... and of course, I get to enjoy the benefits of ALWAYS looking put together. I don't do the whole going-out-in-public-in-my-pajama-pants thing.

Hello world. This is my uniform, this is my weapon, this is my statement. This is me.

top & leggings - Old Navy

vest - Target

boots - Torrid

it's totally OK to say you "don't like kids", but the second you tell people you "don't like mexicans" or "don't like women" you're labelled a bigot.

And by "totally OK", I mean... not ok at all.

Kids just happen to be people, in case there was any confusion. They aren't on this earth solely to bend to the whim of adults, especially adults who are annoyed simply by their presence and/or existence. Declaring an entire class of citizens an annoyance/bother/intrusion/whatever is really assy. Those damn poor people, always being poor. Those lazy fatties, stuffing their faces with two whole cakes. Those immigrants, don't even get me started! Women too, they whine about everything. Wah.

Yah. Downright assy.

Something to chew on...

also, more reading:

- Dancing between the tables: on the personhood of children

- The Adult Privilege Checklist (in case you missed it last time)

Claire likes to say "You can be part of the problem, or part of the solution." But I happen to believe you can be both

I'm feeling conflicted, yo.

Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed a few things happening in the last couple of weeks:

1. I haven't been posting all that much. Part of this is because of us being busier since moving into the house. Mostly... it's because I've been spending copious amounts of time in my own head. There's also been drama, which I'll get to later in the post. Bear with me.
2. There is no longer a link in the top right hand corner that points to the info page for the PT Life Learners Group. The post is still there and viewable, just not being advertised the second you come to the site.
3. I also removed the "pt life learners" tag from the 10 or 15 posts that were under it. Once again, those posts are still there, just without that categorization. Some pictures have also *mysteriously* disappeared from certain posts

I know what you're thinking - Jasie can has hax0rz? Ha! No.


Let's just say that when it comes to the group, I’m afraid I prematurely shot my wad on what was supposed to be a dry run if you will, so I’m afraid I have something of a mess on my hands. I felt so excluded from the preexisting homeschooling groups in the area (some of which did, in fact, include some unschooling families) and the clique-y vibes they gave off, that I created my own clique. I mean club! Dammit. I mean GROUP! See the conflict? You will become that which you despise, or some such thing... I was creating the exact kind of thing I wanted to avoid, regardless of my actual intentions. And on top of that, pile on some good old fashioned laydee-drama and you've got yourself one giant mixed bag of emotions. Thankfully the drama was contained within the cell created by the group, so when it was purged, it didn't create a ripple effect. It just kind of sputtered and dissolved and then disappeared. The whole experience showed me, though, that I don't want this to be some exclusive "group". If some more cool families pop up locally and want to get together, I check my email (jasievangesen AT gmail DOT com) often! I don't bite, I just nibble.

Exhale. Return to center. Every little thing is gonna be alright.

Promoting the "group" like it was some kind of contrived organization on a rotating schedule (with snacks!) was just starting to feel forced and silly. The part of my life where we hang out with Whitney and her family doesn't need to fit nicely in the little squares on the calendar. It's possible to meet and connect with people in a natural and organic way. Not everything has to be all official and scheduled to be "real". I know that I'm a planner and an organizer by nature, but I can put those skills to MUCH better use than trying to make myself some friends.

So... there is no more official life learners group, there isn't a need for one. People can get together and bond without all the extra stuff, we just have to be open to the possibilities.

my cats breath smells like cat food

Our family has a new member - Miss Charlotte Charles, aka Chuck. She's 2 years old, has medium length black fur, lovely golden saucer eyes, and enjoys long sits on the windowsill and cat food. I went to the shelter earlier today to find us a friendly and felicitous feline. I'd been there no more than 3 minutes and this petite lady rubbed up against my leg and threw herself at my feet, belly up. How was I supposed to ignore such an outright call for love and attention!? There was no way. She had me at "purr".

Silas was having a pretty mellow day and when I told him I needed to run out real quick to run an errand, he opted to stay home. It was originally just a trip to the store to pick up a loaf of sourdough to make garlic bread with dinner, but as I backed out of our driveway, the idea of taking advantage of the element of surprise nagged at me. I HAD to get a cat, right that second. We had been planning to do so for a very long time, but were waiting until we were settled into the house. No excuses... we've been settled for awhile. I wasn't sure how picky the local humane society was about potential adopting families, since there are places that will reject you for a pet based on a series of questions. Answer one of them "wrong" and NO CAT FOR YOU! Turns out, all you need at the humane society is a valid address, some cash, and the ability to sign your name. The fact that I brought my own carrier was just icing.

I have discovered that she isn't very talkative and only mews when in distress (the carrier ride home was kind of sad and loud), or when she is feeling lonely (how dare we be in the other room, the nerve).

All in all, I'm smitten.

on escaping life

I once drove from Port Angeles to Shelton, just because. I needed to get out of my own head, so I went. I was escaping a bad day, a bad mood, a bad marriage... only to get to my turn around point and drive back to the very thing I was mentally trying to forget for a day. I wanted to be happy, and getting any kind of happiness seemed insurmountable. Then I somehow managed to get out of that life, grow, move on, and eventually I was able to build a new life that doesn't need to be escaped from.

I still enjoy driving and being in the car in general. It gives me the mental room to work things out internally, to think think think, to feel inspired and motivated. I'll take pretty much any excuse to go to Ikea or to drive down to PDX to visit a friend, to make a last minute trip to the zoo in the north end of Seattle, to zoom out to my hometown (45 miles away) simply because the town I now live in has literally NO good chinese restaurants! It really doesn't take much to get me in the car, especially if I'm going to be the one driving. Yesterday was such a day. Silas' weekend at his dad's house had been shifted from Friday night through Sunday night to Saturday afternoon through Monday night because of his birthday festivities. It's not often that I have a random weekday completely to myself. I felt overwhelmed and claustrophobic and lonely just thinking about it. I sprinted around, finishing the most important bits of housework in record time and decided that hopping in the car was my only option if I wanted to avoid climbing the walls.

I expected it would bring me those old feelings of comfort and peace and escapism, except that now, in my current life, all I needed to escape from was spending an afternoon in an empty house. That's a bit less weighty than trying to escape a wholly unsatisfying life. My motives for driving around aimlessly were just so... trivial. I came back to the empty house feeling every bit as grumpy as I did when I left. It may have just been an off day and I'm reading too much into it (like I EVER do that?), or perhaps it really does make sense that because my goal was different and my circumstances were different, that trying the same old methods just didn't cut it...?

I think that from now on, I'll be saving the road-trips for the times when I am going to a specific place for a specific purpose. I don't dream of running away anymore. I don't make elaborate plans of how to escape anymore. It feels so foreign and unfamiliar to truly like my life. I'm going to have to learn how to get used to that.

Coconut Oatmeal Chewies

I absolutely adore the flavor of coconut... adore it. The texture, however, makes me gag. I once had shaved coconut that was in large pieces and was crispy, which was great, but that's not usually what you come across when you eat shaved coconut. Usually it's gritty and chewy and just... odd. I know that some people really truly love the texture of it, maybe even more than the flavor, but I am most certainly not one of them. This can make it hard when looking for cookie recipes, except that I've recently been introduced to the wonder that is coconut butter and holy good gosh, is it yummy! I first had it spread on a plain bagel, which was pretty much TO DIE FOR. So I went ahead and bought some for myself. As I was reading the label I was pleasantly surprised that it can easily be used in baking in place of butter! Suddenly a whole world of coconuty recipes were available to me in a way I could actually enjoy them! So I set off to try making a new variety of cookie and this is what I ended up with. It's basically the most delicious oatmeal cookie on the planet.

Coconut Oatmeal Chewies

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar, packed

(you can use agave nectar to substitute some of the sugar, but I wouldn't recommend more than a couple of tbsp, or else your dough will be too wet)

• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 sticks of butter, softened
• 1/4 cup coconut butter, warmed until smooth
• 2 tsp vanilla extract OR 1 tsp each of vanilla extract & coconut extract
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 1/2 cups unbleached white flour
• 1 1/2 cups oats
• 4 tbsp flax seed meal

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl cream together the sugars and butters. Add in the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla (or vanilla & coconut) extract. Mix together until creamy and smooth. In a separate bowl mix together flour, baking soda & baking powder. Sift into wet mixture 1/2 - 3/4 cup at a time, mixing thoroughly. Add in flax seed meal and mix until combined. Now put away your mixer and pour in the oats. Work them into the dough with a large stirring spoon (the mixer breaks up the oats more than I'm cool with). Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and drop dough by the spoonful. Cook for about 10-12 minutes, longer if a crunchier cookie is what you're looking for.

This cookie is SO joining my regular baking repertoire! Seth has been aching for oatmeal cookies for a very long time and my previous attempts were more akin to southern style lace oatmeal cookies and they never quite turned out right. This version is chewy and flavorful and all around yummy.

Yellow truly is the cheeriest of all colors... and I sure do have a lot of it in my life.

Astonishingly random. Also, LINK DUMP!

It's been a long week. I don't have the gumption to write about the how or why of it being such a long week... it just was. And now on top of it I'm stricken with an odd backache, higher in my back than usual. It hurts when I try to move around, it hurts when I sit, it hurts when I lay down, so it basically hurts all the time. Fun!

And on top of all this, it's really fucking hot all of a sudden. A little over a week ago, I actually turned on the heat in the house. I felt like some kind of horrible person, but it was COLD for the end of June. Seriously cold. Now - We are keeping the curtains closed and the windows open, sleeping with only the sheets draped over us, running the box fan, and generally sweating up a storm. I'm cool with heat when we gradually move into it. I quite enjoy temps in the 80s and 90s, so long as the humidity stays relatively low, but this just came out of nowhere. They say that Western Washington summers don't officially start until after the 4th of July. It's true... but when it goes from 50 degrees to 85 degrees in the matter of a couple of days, that's kind of ridiculous.

So yes... life is good, but tiring. The temps are rising and while I'm loving it, it's sapping my creative energy. Hell, my energy in general. I feel lazy. When I'm feeling lazy seems like a good time to provide my darling readers with links. And how.

• The Adult Privilege Checklist - a really fantastic child advocacy piece.
• Second Verse, Same as the First; Fat Acceptance is for Everyone - a great little reminder from Marianne over at The Rotund that FA isn't just for us fatties, it's for anyone with a body.
• IKEA Heights - A deliciously campy and low-budge web series filmed entirely in the Burbank IKEA, without the knowledge of the staff.
• things are looking grim in “the most widely viewed children’s television show in the world” - You really know how to cut to the core of me, Kelly. This is an excellent piece about the changes in Sesame Street and why they suck.
• Tom Selleck Waterfall Sandwich - This is a link I've seen floating around a ton and it's alternately frightening, arousing, and hunger inducing. What a combo.

And lastly... This is a picture of Seth standing next to a big cart full of ferns. How is this relevant? It's not.