It is nearly midnight.
As I wander about the house, preparing for a too-early morning, my legs wobble and nearly give out on me - but this is to be expected. Tomorrow, they will be worse. Much worse. But their reaction tonight does not surprise me at all.
I just spent two hours at the gym. Two hours where I achieved a few new things and set a few new goals for myself. About 650 calories burned in those two hours, and some weight training done that adds in even more for a person of my size, and tomorrow's IndoRow session at 5:30 AM will burn another 900 or so.
I weigh 384 lbs.
At some point, I forced myself to admit that the only way I was going to follow through with any form of weight loss - no, healthy lifestyle changes - was to commit financially in some small form. One $25/month gym membership and unlimited $10/class IndoRow sessions later, I am finding myself slowly setting and achieving goals. They're ones that would make other people roll their eyes.
Walk 10 minutes on a treadmill at 2.8 mph.
Cycle 20 minutes at 15.5 mph.
Do 100 shoulder lifts at 35 lbs.
Do 60 crunches with 32 lbs of weight.
But they're things that seemed impossible to me until I began pushing my limits.
The shower was hard. I snuck into the house with all the stealth of a drunken co-ed, thanks to my exhausted muscles. Unfortunately, they have yet to meet up with the adrenaline still pumping through my blood; my body is done but my mind is convinced I can go a little further if I just TRY. I stumbled around, tried to keep the noise down, and eventually showered. I left the main light off; thanks to the motion detector light in the bathroom, though, I was left waiving my arms around wildly every minute or so when it threatened to turn off and leave me shrouded in nothing but blackness with the comfort of hot water pouring onto me. I bathed, and as I was drying off I struggled: I'm hungry. Do I snack? No, I eat a gummy vitamin. Do I use the self-tanning lotion I bought? No.. Not tonight, it just isn't worth the hassle. I go through the next few hours in my head, trying to make sure everything is ready.
Alarm is set for 5 AM. Coffee is ready to be brewed. Clothes are ready. My brain, not so much. I'm one of those people that functions best on 8+ hours of sleep, so tonight's decision to go work out before tomorrow's vigorous rowing class was not made lightly.
(Okay, I lied, it took me like two minutes to decide to go.)
Unfortunately, I can tell that the walking pneumonia we all recently caught is sneaking up on me. Despite days of antibiotics and no longer being contagious, my lungs bubble again when I breathe. I sigh. And cough. Figures.
Still. Everything is ready. Now, I sleep.
When we know better, we do better.
Friday, June 8, 2012
Monday, May 28, 2012
On Being "Mom Enough"
This windstorm happened a while back, and by now it's easily old news, but it's also something I sincerely meant to write about and share my thoughts on when it was still fresh and interesting. By now, everybody has gotten the point - that being "Mom enough" doesn't necessarily mean doing the ultimate best ever, but doing the best you can with what you've got - but I still have the urge to weigh in on this concept on this cloudy, stormy Memorial Day.
There are plenty of abusive, insincere, angry parents out there who are nowhere near "Mom enough" to parent their children. They are current hard drug abusers, angry alcoholics, emotionally and mentally unstable. They hurt their babies or even take the lives of their children and they are unquestionably not "Mom enough", and I don't think anybody would argue that. Those who need help and don't seek it, or ignore the problem, or take their issues out on their offspring have problems that need to be taken care of before they can sincerely stand up and say they are the best mother that they are capable of being.
But that doesn't qualify the rest of us - those of us who were former drug users, former alcoholics, who are clean and sober, or who were booby trapped and robbed of a healthy breastfeeding relationship by unsupportive family or pushy medical personnel, or who didn't know enough about circumcision or vaccination or whole foods or healthy living to make an honest, educated decision about it, they just went along with what they were told was right and spanked their kids or yelled at them or did something that in general most of us know better than to do, or know how to do it safely (if such is possible). We are parents who have busted our asses to do the best we can do, and be the best we can be, and set the best example for our kids as possible. Maybe we formula fed our kids, and used disposable diapers, and pushed potty training, and vaccinated and circumcised and ate what is honestly pretty awful fast food, maybe we put our kids in separate rooms far from our's and spanked and did all kinds of things. But the problem with judging other mothers based on what you see or hear them doing is that, honestly, you have no idea how much they know.
Maybe that mom was raised thinking spanking her children was the only and most correct form of discipline. Maybe her friends convinced her breastfeeding was disgusting, maybe her husband or boyfriend convinced her that circumcision was the only option. Maybe she thinks that co-sleeping will turn her baby into a clinging, dependent child. Maybe she thinks that cloth diapers are a hassle, and that fast food isn't all THAT bad, and that organic foods aren't worth the money. Maybe she was told one time to never question shots that our children are given and that they're all completely 100% safe for every child and adult. Maybe, just maybe, she is like the majority of other parents, who think that if they are being told something by friends or family or a doctor or nurse that the advice they're given is true, effective, and honest. And really, if you step back and think about it, even if something goes against instinct, why is that really such a harmful state of mind? It shouldn't be. And that seems to be the problem, that instead of trying to correct the problems - uninformed medical staff, friends and family who don't really understand - we make the mom feel bad. We make her feel like she isn't "Mom enough" to her children, that she doesn't do enough or try hard enough. We call her names and jump on her and force her to eventually submit not to the idea that she didn't know better and was misled, but to the concept that she messed up and should take responsibility for her actions. Actions that, a lot of the time, I honestly don't think that these moms should be held accountable for.
The TIME article that instigated this entire thing - about extended breastfeeding - has caused a lot of problems for a lot of people. Subtly inflammatory, it suggests that the only women who have earned the right to call themselves "Mom enough" to their children are those who have gone above and beyond even their own comfort level, potentially driving themselves to discomfort and leaving them resenting their children because they feel as though they absolutely must do or say something in order to be a real mother. By this logic, I am anything but; I did not breastfeed either child past six months (the first was only breastfed a mere four days!), I only occasionally used cloth, I turned my first child forward facing at 13 months old. I have done things that many would consider to be nowhere near "Mom enough" because they are all I knew - and although none involved so-called "extremes" to parent my children to try to win that coveted "award", they are all things that I did because I was misled or uneducated or lacked experience. They are things I did that many would consider to make me not "Mom enough". (And on that note, I ask you this: how are mothers who have pushed themselves to a level even they are not comfortable with being the best moms they can be if they are in a constant state of wishing they HADN'T gone that far, all for the sake of trying to do what they think they have to be "Mom enough" to do? A woman not comfortable breastfeeding a three year old in public or otherwise - because she chooses not to leave herself resenting her child and her decisions and chooses to wean before then, does that mean she isn't "Mom enough"? Hell no! It means she wants to be the best mother she can be, and she knows that part of that is being comfortable and secure in her relationship with her child!)
The one thing that we moms will always have in common is the ability to teach each other. We have all been in similar situations, whether or not we carry our children with us in our arms or they are gone now - we carried them a length of time, we loved them, maybe we were blessed enough to birth them and raise them. We are a group who have experienced things that others never will. We share a bond because we have loved someone more than we ever knew we could love another being. We have helped create life, and that is perhaps the most amazing thing of all. The last thing we ought to do is be tearing one another down and suggesting that there is some potentially unattainable perfection that we should all be shooting for instead of simply trying to be the best we can in our own situations for our own children. That impossible perfection is exactly what ends up dividing us, causing huge rifts in what should be a community of moms supporting one another and teaching each other how to raise children. We should gently teach, give suggestions, offer help when it is needed. We should reach out to help each other and give support in difficult situations, not throw out halfassed judgement because it's convenient and makes us feel, by proxy, "more Mom" than someone else is.
So who is "Mom enough"? Everyone. Every mother who has learned, and grown, and educated herself. Every mother who wanted to do more and try harder and fix problems and change things for the better. Every mother who has stood up and said that she isn't sure this is the ultimate best, but that it's the best that SHE can do and the best that SHE knows how to do - these women are "Mom enough". All of us are, and that is sincerely and honestly what counts the most, and no matter what we think of how another mother is doing when it comes to raising her children, the one thing none of us EVER have ANY right to say is that we don't think she is "Mom enough".
There are plenty of abusive, insincere, angry parents out there who are nowhere near "Mom enough" to parent their children. They are current hard drug abusers, angry alcoholics, emotionally and mentally unstable. They hurt their babies or even take the lives of their children and they are unquestionably not "Mom enough", and I don't think anybody would argue that. Those who need help and don't seek it, or ignore the problem, or take their issues out on their offspring have problems that need to be taken care of before they can sincerely stand up and say they are the best mother that they are capable of being.
But that doesn't qualify the rest of us - those of us who were former drug users, former alcoholics, who are clean and sober, or who were booby trapped and robbed of a healthy breastfeeding relationship by unsupportive family or pushy medical personnel, or who didn't know enough about circumcision or vaccination or whole foods or healthy living to make an honest, educated decision about it, they just went along with what they were told was right and spanked their kids or yelled at them or did something that in general most of us know better than to do, or know how to do it safely (if such is possible). We are parents who have busted our asses to do the best we can do, and be the best we can be, and set the best example for our kids as possible. Maybe we formula fed our kids, and used disposable diapers, and pushed potty training, and vaccinated and circumcised and ate what is honestly pretty awful fast food, maybe we put our kids in separate rooms far from our's and spanked and did all kinds of things. But the problem with judging other mothers based on what you see or hear them doing is that, honestly, you have no idea how much they know.
Maybe that mom was raised thinking spanking her children was the only and most correct form of discipline. Maybe her friends convinced her breastfeeding was disgusting, maybe her husband or boyfriend convinced her that circumcision was the only option. Maybe she thinks that co-sleeping will turn her baby into a clinging, dependent child. Maybe she thinks that cloth diapers are a hassle, and that fast food isn't all THAT bad, and that organic foods aren't worth the money. Maybe she was told one time to never question shots that our children are given and that they're all completely 100% safe for every child and adult. Maybe, just maybe, she is like the majority of other parents, who think that if they are being told something by friends or family or a doctor or nurse that the advice they're given is true, effective, and honest. And really, if you step back and think about it, even if something goes against instinct, why is that really such a harmful state of mind? It shouldn't be. And that seems to be the problem, that instead of trying to correct the problems - uninformed medical staff, friends and family who don't really understand - we make the mom feel bad. We make her feel like she isn't "Mom enough" to her children, that she doesn't do enough or try hard enough. We call her names and jump on her and force her to eventually submit not to the idea that she didn't know better and was misled, but to the concept that she messed up and should take responsibility for her actions. Actions that, a lot of the time, I honestly don't think that these moms should be held accountable for.
The TIME article that instigated this entire thing - about extended breastfeeding - has caused a lot of problems for a lot of people. Subtly inflammatory, it suggests that the only women who have earned the right to call themselves "Mom enough" to their children are those who have gone above and beyond even their own comfort level, potentially driving themselves to discomfort and leaving them resenting their children because they feel as though they absolutely must do or say something in order to be a real mother. By this logic, I am anything but; I did not breastfeed either child past six months (the first was only breastfed a mere four days!), I only occasionally used cloth, I turned my first child forward facing at 13 months old. I have done things that many would consider to be nowhere near "Mom enough" because they are all I knew - and although none involved so-called "extremes" to parent my children to try to win that coveted "award", they are all things that I did because I was misled or uneducated or lacked experience. They are things I did that many would consider to make me not "Mom enough". (And on that note, I ask you this: how are mothers who have pushed themselves to a level even they are not comfortable with being the best moms they can be if they are in a constant state of wishing they HADN'T gone that far, all for the sake of trying to do what they think they have to be "Mom enough" to do? A woman not comfortable breastfeeding a three year old in public or otherwise - because she chooses not to leave herself resenting her child and her decisions and chooses to wean before then, does that mean she isn't "Mom enough"? Hell no! It means she wants to be the best mother she can be, and she knows that part of that is being comfortable and secure in her relationship with her child!)
The one thing that we moms will always have in common is the ability to teach each other. We have all been in similar situations, whether or not we carry our children with us in our arms or they are gone now - we carried them a length of time, we loved them, maybe we were blessed enough to birth them and raise them. We are a group who have experienced things that others never will. We share a bond because we have loved someone more than we ever knew we could love another being. We have helped create life, and that is perhaps the most amazing thing of all. The last thing we ought to do is be tearing one another down and suggesting that there is some potentially unattainable perfection that we should all be shooting for instead of simply trying to be the best we can in our own situations for our own children. That impossible perfection is exactly what ends up dividing us, causing huge rifts in what should be a community of moms supporting one another and teaching each other how to raise children. We should gently teach, give suggestions, offer help when it is needed. We should reach out to help each other and give support in difficult situations, not throw out halfassed judgement because it's convenient and makes us feel, by proxy, "more Mom" than someone else is.
So who is "Mom enough"? Everyone. Every mother who has learned, and grown, and educated herself. Every mother who wanted to do more and try harder and fix problems and change things for the better. Every mother who has stood up and said that she isn't sure this is the ultimate best, but that it's the best that SHE can do and the best that SHE knows how to do - these women are "Mom enough". All of us are, and that is sincerely and honestly what counts the most, and no matter what we think of how another mother is doing when it comes to raising her children, the one thing none of us EVER have ANY right to say is that we don't think she is "Mom enough".
Sunday, May 27, 2012
On Entitlement.
First of all, damn.
It has been over a month since I posted last, and in that month surprisingly enough not a lot has happened. I've moved up slowly at work, inching out of training and into the position of a full-fledged employee who might actually know what's going on. School for G has ended for the year and he doesn't seem to notice the difference; he spends his days with A at daycare having a lovely time with Miss J and her amazing three girls. They love it there, and while I know it's never as good as being home with me or Daddy, it's about as close as I'm going to get.
But that isn't what this is about.
This is about something that Hubby and I were discussing earlier, something that I - like most people - need desperately to work on. Something I don't often think about, and that one thing is pretty big for all of us: entitlement.
You see, no matter what you believe - that we die and that's the end, or that there's a Great Beyond, or that we go on to live many more lives - the one thing that none of us can argue with is that we only get to have THIS life one single time. Once. No matter how many times you believe we will or won't come back, you can't argue that much, and that's kind of a daunting fact sometimes. So much so that some of us - myself included - manage to con ourselves into believing that what we do in this life isn't really all that important; that we won't really make a dent in someone's memory or mind, that we won't somehow make a huge difference in anybody else's life. And that's what it is, really, a con. We con ourselves into thinking that we don't matter, or won't matter - maybe because we're depressed or sad or tired or even just want to think that nobody's watching or listening because being the person we want to be all the time seems so impossible, or so difficult - but the fact of the matter is that when we tell ourselves those things we're lying to ourselves and everybody around us. We're lying to our husbands, our wives, our boyfriends and girlfriends, our parents and children and friends and relatives and pretty much everybody. Sometimes some of us push that lie so far that even we start to believe it, and it goes from a very bad habit to a lifestyle. We make it a way of being, but in the end we're really only doing that - BEING, but not LIVING.
Right now, I am being. I'm here, and present, and scared of death and storms and wasps and am morbidly obese and unhappy and depressed and I tend to rely on food to make me feel better about myself. But I've conned myself into that line of thought, that in the end I'm not really important. And I forget my big ideas - the ChaserBox (which you don't know anything about) and my charity, Helping Hands Healing Homes (go like them on Facebook), and I forget about the fact that my kids are learning by example and they are expecting me to show them how to be a halfway decent human being, and I am showing them how to to do anything but.
Not to throw off anyone, but I believe in Fate, and I believe that she consistently works in mysterious ways. I believe that we are given opportunities - often to make ourselves better people - and it's up to us to see them and take advantage of them before they're gone. Sometimes they're positive, sometimes neutral, sometimes negative, and we have to choose (often quickly) how they will affect our lives. I believe that new doors open all the time, and that when one opens (like when the lovely Kitchen Witch's husband was offered an amazing job, simply by chance, and he took it) it is up to us to help or hinder the process that Fate begins. I have been hindering. I have been hindering on a huge level, one I am not proud of. I have been shown time and time again how my negativity and weight are affecting my life and one another. I have been shown their effects on my body and relationships and I have been told in no uncertain terms what will become of me if I can't remind myself what my purpose in life is.
The problem, of course, has been going back to that idea of meaning something, of living. I've been doing a lovely job of being but not a very good job of living, and it shows. It shows in the attitudes of my children and my actions and words toward them. It shows in my attitude in the morning, it shows in how I conduct myself and act. It shows in how I treat myself and my body, and how I constantly abuse my mentality and soul because today is just another day, and in my head I am immortal and there will be a million more days just like today where I can get that second or third or billionth chance because I messed today up too much by deciding it was easier and more convenient to simply BE instead of to LIVE.
I want to remind you, right here and now, that we have exactly ONE chance to get this life the way we want it. Mind you, I'm not by any means saying that if you push yourself to every imaginable limit you will be guaranteed to attain every single thing you've ever wanted and then some. But you can and will be happier, at least, which is a huge step in the right direction for a lot of us. Myself included. This is the only life where I get to be who I am right now, who I was born as. This is the only life where I will see the things I see every day, where I will know these people as they are right now. This is the only time I will get to be wife of Hubby and daughter of my mother and Mama to G and A and whatever other children we may have. This is the only time I will know these people as they stand right now, and either I can make sure I have made a positive lasting mark on them and their memories by living life and making it as amazing as possible, or make an awful negative mark by showing them that if you let things get you down far enough, you will spend the rest of your life in the valley wishing you were strong enough to climb that mountain.
Right now, I am climbing. I am climbing arm in arm with some amazing, beautiful people who make my life a million times more beautiful by being part of it. It's incredibly difficult and there are days I want to do nothing more than rest, but I know that if I rest one day I will convince myself I can rest for two, and I will go back to being and not living. I never want to just BE again.
I want to live. And I want you to live with me.
It has been over a month since I posted last, and in that month surprisingly enough not a lot has happened. I've moved up slowly at work, inching out of training and into the position of a full-fledged employee who might actually know what's going on. School for G has ended for the year and he doesn't seem to notice the difference; he spends his days with A at daycare having a lovely time with Miss J and her amazing three girls. They love it there, and while I know it's never as good as being home with me or Daddy, it's about as close as I'm going to get.
But that isn't what this is about.
This is about something that Hubby and I were discussing earlier, something that I - like most people - need desperately to work on. Something I don't often think about, and that one thing is pretty big for all of us: entitlement.
You see, no matter what you believe - that we die and that's the end, or that there's a Great Beyond, or that we go on to live many more lives - the one thing that none of us can argue with is that we only get to have THIS life one single time. Once. No matter how many times you believe we will or won't come back, you can't argue that much, and that's kind of a daunting fact sometimes. So much so that some of us - myself included - manage to con ourselves into believing that what we do in this life isn't really all that important; that we won't really make a dent in someone's memory or mind, that we won't somehow make a huge difference in anybody else's life. And that's what it is, really, a con. We con ourselves into thinking that we don't matter, or won't matter - maybe because we're depressed or sad or tired or even just want to think that nobody's watching or listening because being the person we want to be all the time seems so impossible, or so difficult - but the fact of the matter is that when we tell ourselves those things we're lying to ourselves and everybody around us. We're lying to our husbands, our wives, our boyfriends and girlfriends, our parents and children and friends and relatives and pretty much everybody. Sometimes some of us push that lie so far that even we start to believe it, and it goes from a very bad habit to a lifestyle. We make it a way of being, but in the end we're really only doing that - BEING, but not LIVING.
Right now, I am being. I'm here, and present, and scared of death and storms and wasps and am morbidly obese and unhappy and depressed and I tend to rely on food to make me feel better about myself. But I've conned myself into that line of thought, that in the end I'm not really important. And I forget my big ideas - the ChaserBox (which you don't know anything about) and my charity, Helping Hands Healing Homes (go like them on Facebook), and I forget about the fact that my kids are learning by example and they are expecting me to show them how to be a halfway decent human being, and I am showing them how to to do anything but.
Not to throw off anyone, but I believe in Fate, and I believe that she consistently works in mysterious ways. I believe that we are given opportunities - often to make ourselves better people - and it's up to us to see them and take advantage of them before they're gone. Sometimes they're positive, sometimes neutral, sometimes negative, and we have to choose (often quickly) how they will affect our lives. I believe that new doors open all the time, and that when one opens (like when the lovely Kitchen Witch's husband was offered an amazing job, simply by chance, and he took it) it is up to us to help or hinder the process that Fate begins. I have been hindering. I have been hindering on a huge level, one I am not proud of. I have been shown time and time again how my negativity and weight are affecting my life and one another. I have been shown their effects on my body and relationships and I have been told in no uncertain terms what will become of me if I can't remind myself what my purpose in life is.
The problem, of course, has been going back to that idea of meaning something, of living. I've been doing a lovely job of being but not a very good job of living, and it shows. It shows in the attitudes of my children and my actions and words toward them. It shows in my attitude in the morning, it shows in how I conduct myself and act. It shows in how I treat myself and my body, and how I constantly abuse my mentality and soul because today is just another day, and in my head I am immortal and there will be a million more days just like today where I can get that second or third or billionth chance because I messed today up too much by deciding it was easier and more convenient to simply BE instead of to LIVE.
I want to remind you, right here and now, that we have exactly ONE chance to get this life the way we want it. Mind you, I'm not by any means saying that if you push yourself to every imaginable limit you will be guaranteed to attain every single thing you've ever wanted and then some. But you can and will be happier, at least, which is a huge step in the right direction for a lot of us. Myself included. This is the only life where I get to be who I am right now, who I was born as. This is the only life where I will see the things I see every day, where I will know these people as they are right now. This is the only time I will get to be wife of Hubby and daughter of my mother and Mama to G and A and whatever other children we may have. This is the only time I will know these people as they stand right now, and either I can make sure I have made a positive lasting mark on them and their memories by living life and making it as amazing as possible, or make an awful negative mark by showing them that if you let things get you down far enough, you will spend the rest of your life in the valley wishing you were strong enough to climb that mountain.
Right now, I am climbing. I am climbing arm in arm with some amazing, beautiful people who make my life a million times more beautiful by being part of it. It's incredibly difficult and there are days I want to do nothing more than rest, but I know that if I rest one day I will convince myself I can rest for two, and I will go back to being and not living. I never want to just BE again.
I want to live. And I want you to live with me.
Monday, April 9, 2012
On Stepping Away
It has been a while.
You don't need me to tell you that; we're all intelligent people here, capable of coming to our own conclusions, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to notice that I went AWOL at some point and just kind of disappeared into oblivion. There's a relatively good chance that in all honesty I could have stepped away from this blog and probably never have noticed - that isn't really a statement as to how I feel about any of YOU, just how I feel about life right now. It's frustrating at the moment, and there are days - oh, there are days - when I'm fairly sure it would have been more productive to curl back up in bed and forget about participating in my day-to-day activities.
First off, G turned five.
That's something I'm still working on wrapping my head around; for me, his birth and the time in our lives leading up to it was really traumatic and I didn't handle his arrival well. We never really bonded, and we're still working on repairing the damage done to our relationship from day one. Getting along and functioning together have always been a problem for he and I, and I have the sneaking suspicion that it will be this way for the rest of our lives, to some degree. It's hard to accept that, as I get to know him better every day and work harder on functioning in his life and his realm of existence (which is often so very different from everybody else's), I will probably never really "get" him and feel as close to him as some people do. I have a lot of guilt surrounding how he and I work together, a LOT of it.
Hubby has been struggling with some inner problems that have been doing a really unpleasant number on his digestive system. He's been having chronic and confusing issues that have been pointing in every odd direction and end in the same place: Eat better, dude. So that, of course, is another aspect of our lives that has been difficult to deal with, as our jobs have left us getting home relatively late with little time between pulling into the driveway and putting the boys to bed.
There are, of course, other problems we've faced but in all honesty they're not really anything different or worth sharing. We struggle like anybody else does, only sometimes in different ways or directions, and in the long run it's really nothing to constantly talk about.
In other news, we finally got some planting done here at my mother's house. Because of the dogs, and of the time and effort necessary to maintain an in-ground garden, we've gone to container planting. We're now up three strawberry plants, a red pepper, sweet basil, onion chives, Italian parsley, tomato, seven broccoli plants, and a blueberry bush, with green beans and butter leaf lettuce in sprout mode as we speak, and plans to appropriate a raspberry bush as well. So far everything is doing fairly well, but we did admittedly learn something from our planting endeavors last year: we bought a LOT of plants that were already sprouted. Probably not as kosher as it could be, but the fact of the matter remains that we've proven on numerous occasions that we're really no good at growing from seed, and it's in our best interests to start with something that someone else has already started. We're hoping for better results this year and thus far have definitely been granted them!
Other than that there is honestly little to report. We're still desperately searching for our own place, but are nowhere near prepared for it. Life in my mother's house is often frustrating and grates on our nerves to no end, but it is by far better than homelessness and we're thankful on a constant basis that we're somewhere we aren't being asked to pay for bills, so we're able to better catch up with our debts. The job I started on February 13th has made this significantly easier, but sadly we're still in that "oh my god we have money" stage of development and are slowly easing ourselves into the idea that we will be paying off our debts on a regular basis from now on.
I wish you all the best, and brightest blessings as life awakens again in the Northern Hemisphere! I'm going to try to post more often.
You don't need me to tell you that; we're all intelligent people here, capable of coming to our own conclusions, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to notice that I went AWOL at some point and just kind of disappeared into oblivion. There's a relatively good chance that in all honesty I could have stepped away from this blog and probably never have noticed - that isn't really a statement as to how I feel about any of YOU, just how I feel about life right now. It's frustrating at the moment, and there are days - oh, there are days - when I'm fairly sure it would have been more productive to curl back up in bed and forget about participating in my day-to-day activities.
First off, G turned five.
That's something I'm still working on wrapping my head around; for me, his birth and the time in our lives leading up to it was really traumatic and I didn't handle his arrival well. We never really bonded, and we're still working on repairing the damage done to our relationship from day one. Getting along and functioning together have always been a problem for he and I, and I have the sneaking suspicion that it will be this way for the rest of our lives, to some degree. It's hard to accept that, as I get to know him better every day and work harder on functioning in his life and his realm of existence (which is often so very different from everybody else's), I will probably never really "get" him and feel as close to him as some people do. I have a lot of guilt surrounding how he and I work together, a LOT of it.
Hubby has been struggling with some inner problems that have been doing a really unpleasant number on his digestive system. He's been having chronic and confusing issues that have been pointing in every odd direction and end in the same place: Eat better, dude. So that, of course, is another aspect of our lives that has been difficult to deal with, as our jobs have left us getting home relatively late with little time between pulling into the driveway and putting the boys to bed.
There are, of course, other problems we've faced but in all honesty they're not really anything different or worth sharing. We struggle like anybody else does, only sometimes in different ways or directions, and in the long run it's really nothing to constantly talk about.
In other news, we finally got some planting done here at my mother's house. Because of the dogs, and of the time and effort necessary to maintain an in-ground garden, we've gone to container planting. We're now up three strawberry plants, a red pepper, sweet basil, onion chives, Italian parsley, tomato, seven broccoli plants, and a blueberry bush, with green beans and butter leaf lettuce in sprout mode as we speak, and plans to appropriate a raspberry bush as well. So far everything is doing fairly well, but we did admittedly learn something from our planting endeavors last year: we bought a LOT of plants that were already sprouted. Probably not as kosher as it could be, but the fact of the matter remains that we've proven on numerous occasions that we're really no good at growing from seed, and it's in our best interests to start with something that someone else has already started. We're hoping for better results this year and thus far have definitely been granted them!
Other than that there is honestly little to report. We're still desperately searching for our own place, but are nowhere near prepared for it. Life in my mother's house is often frustrating and grates on our nerves to no end, but it is by far better than homelessness and we're thankful on a constant basis that we're somewhere we aren't being asked to pay for bills, so we're able to better catch up with our debts. The job I started on February 13th has made this significantly easier, but sadly we're still in that "oh my god we have money" stage of development and are slowly easing ourselves into the idea that we will be paying off our debts on a regular basis from now on.
I wish you all the best, and brightest blessings as life awakens again in the Northern Hemisphere! I'm going to try to post more often.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
On A Loss
Storm chaser, volunteer, web site contributor, enthusiast, informant to the National Weather Service, friend, and father to a three year old daughter.
Killed in Oklahoma 02/04/2012 returning from a late-week chase in Texas. Someone was driving the wrong way down an interstate and killed him; the one going the wrong way was also killed and several others were injured.
On What The Hell
Although I know I do specifically have a few close friends who are generally people I would consider to be "mildly intolerant", I more or less like to think of the people I try to surround myself and my family with as rather open minded individuals who are not hateful or who, at the very least, understand and accept that the lifestyle choices of others may not coincide with their personal beliefs, but that doesn't make them wrong.
Unfortunately I'm sometimes wrong, and when I am it seems like I'm wrong in the most horrific way.
I'd like to put a big disclaimer on the front of this because this post is going to involve religion on a pretty heavy scale, and I don't want anybody to think I'm walking around spewing my own degree of intolerance because it's more convenient or because it's somehow okay when it's me and not someone else. So let it be said that while I typically tend to dislike some of the more vocal adherents of certain religions, I DON'T dislike the religions themselves. I realize that there are negative representations of every religious circle or belief system, and that those who unfortunately choose to be the most hateful tend to give the remainder of the believers a pretty bad name. Even the most demanding religious people I know still very specifically will not go out of their way to purposefully discriminate against people that believe differently from them (for example, I'm darn good friends with a beautiful, wonderful Mormon who is only a few weeks - squee! - from welcoming her first child with her awesome hubby!) and I'd like to think that that's the kind of world we need to have, one where people can agree to disagree (but maybe also agree that disagreement doesn't mean denying basic human rights from anybody).
That being said, I also know that there are, sadly, a rather large group of people in general who are out to ensure that the rest of the known world - our country especially - adheres specifically to their own religious beliefs and interpretations of their scriptures. They aren't at all gentle or politely suggestive; they don't offer information but instead end up not only openly allowing but encouraging and enforcing policies like those at schools in a district in Minnesota that ended in the eventual suicides of nearly ten openly LGBT and supposedly "straight" students in one year because school policies kept teachers from addressing the bullying they experienced by name.
And to that sort of thing, I say, what the fuck? I don't often and openly curse, especially when I have two kids who now happily and contently repeat everything I say (and one of whom is old enough to scold me on my language and send me to time out), but really now. I'll let you read the (admittedly rather long) article yourself, but to TL;DR the whole thing, religious conservatives in the district pressured school board members to enact policies that specifically stated that teachers and other employees were not to mention or bring attention to LGBT issues, and that ended with teachers being afraid to address bullying in their classrooms and halls. It ended with kids getting called horrible names and even being physically abused by their classmates, and allowed multiple teachers to even emotionally and verbally abuse their most vulnerable students because nobody was allowed to bring up the abuse. It ended in multiple suicides because there were a lot of (sorry) really pig-headed Christians who decided that talking about homosexuality would encourage supposedly straight students to "try it out", and that it would end with an epidemic of AIDS and homosexuality.
Without rereading the article in full and counting every single death, I want to say that seven kids died in that school district.
Seven.
I'll let that sink in for a while as I head back to my original point.
Anyway, I'd rather my children grow up surrounded by the sort of tolerance I want them to express to others, and only see the other type from the "right" side - to understand that being hateful is ugly, and that intolerance is a form of bullying. It's something I hope they never personally experience, but I know that they will eventually - maybe because one or both of them are gay, or bisexual, or transsexual, or "too skinny" or "too fat" or not smart enough, or because either one decides to wear "girly clothes" or keep their hair long or end up with glasses. I know from personal experience that children raised in an environment where there is bullying in the home or where it is encouraged through a complete lack of tolerance on the behalf of the parents. Until that day comes, though, I'd rather show them what I want them to see, and live the way I'd like to see them try to live, so that when the day comes when unfortunately someone does choose to bully them or show a complete lack of tolerance for something one of my children says or does, I want my kids to see it as what it is - blatant discrimination and bullying - and understand why it's happening and how to deal with it.
I want to surround them with people who will love them, and show them what it is to love other people, regardless of sexuality, gender, race, education, income, age, disability, size, or any other factor viewed in a way that doesn't simply make a person unique. So when we found an opportunity to interact with a local SCA group (Society for Creative Anachronism, for those who aren't aware) I was thrilled. The last had recently disbanded and we had a great time with them, even as non-paying members, that I was excited to get my kids involved and let them start to experience the world that I live in in my mind.
We found out about it in an oddly roundabout way; a former participant of another group who also happened to be a "friend of a friend" who was also an SCA member from the former local group found me on Facebook and we struck up a happy little friendship. When we first got to meet him at the first (and only) meeting we went to, I was reaffirmed that the guy in question is pretty damn awesome. He liked us, we liked him, he was easygoing and a lot of fun. We and another girl who was there with her daughter had a pretty good time together, even though the fighters more or less ignored us. We made plans to try to pay at some point for an actual family membership and to come back for as many meetings as time and gas money would allow us to.
Then everything exploded.
Some general stupidity ensued; accusations were thrown around by the guy who started the group (who is a hardcore Christian) and a similarly-minded girl who ended up being the new head honcho, and without warning or discussion by anyone our new friend was ostracized from the group (specifically, he was "voted out"). Once information was eventually offered, he was given the runaround, told that "some parents" complained about how he acted at some random point around children in the group, but he wasn't told when the complaint happened - so of course when he asked the only other parents who were present the night we were there as well if they complained, we all answered no. We hadn't. None of us had. The truth is that we all acted as we normally do around our kids, which is to say that we all sort of act like big goofballs.
It turns out that, after a lot of prodding, the incident in question was unrelated to our kids or anything that we had even been there to witness. It was something that, in the end, had absolutely nothing to do with him acting inappropriately toward a child of any kind, but instead had everything to do, more or less, with the fact that he isn't Christian.
The group "leaders" are.
And I'm not sure how to react to their perceived intolerance because he may "act gay", so this has taken me a couple of days to write. It makes me angry. It makes me want to roll my eyes and try to explain to our kids (who are WAY too young to care or understand) that when people act this way, it's unacceptable. They won't get it, but I want to try to make them get it anyway. This has nothing to do with the SCA itself, and everything to do with the unfortunate mindsets of the people in our area. This is not representative of the SCA (in fact, the response from the higher ups he has spoken to has generally been that they have no right to tell him he can't be part of a local group, and that's something that needs to be decided on a larger, "kingdom" level). This is representative of stupidity, of fear, of intolerance and a lack of understanding and education.
This is what happens when you hate, folks.
People get hurt. Luckily, our new friend isn't too personally concerned about the situation beyond the personal attacks on his character. He knows they're being douches. Everybody else seems to know they're being douches. Hubby and I immediately left the Facebook group that had been created and don't plan on attending again. We don't want our kids around people like this, and frankly, I'm not a nice enough person to be able or willing to force myself to be around people like this.
So there you go. What the hell.
Unfortunately I'm sometimes wrong, and when I am it seems like I'm wrong in the most horrific way.
I'd like to put a big disclaimer on the front of this because this post is going to involve religion on a pretty heavy scale, and I don't want anybody to think I'm walking around spewing my own degree of intolerance because it's more convenient or because it's somehow okay when it's me and not someone else. So let it be said that while I typically tend to dislike some of the more vocal adherents of certain religions, I DON'T dislike the religions themselves. I realize that there are negative representations of every religious circle or belief system, and that those who unfortunately choose to be the most hateful tend to give the remainder of the believers a pretty bad name. Even the most demanding religious people I know still very specifically will not go out of their way to purposefully discriminate against people that believe differently from them (for example, I'm darn good friends with a beautiful, wonderful Mormon who is only a few weeks - squee! - from welcoming her first child with her awesome hubby!) and I'd like to think that that's the kind of world we need to have, one where people can agree to disagree (but maybe also agree that disagreement doesn't mean denying basic human rights from anybody).
That being said, I also know that there are, sadly, a rather large group of people in general who are out to ensure that the rest of the known world - our country especially - adheres specifically to their own religious beliefs and interpretations of their scriptures. They aren't at all gentle or politely suggestive; they don't offer information but instead end up not only openly allowing but encouraging and enforcing policies like those at schools in a district in Minnesota that ended in the eventual suicides of nearly ten openly LGBT and supposedly "straight" students in one year because school policies kept teachers from addressing the bullying they experienced by name.
And to that sort of thing, I say, what the fuck? I don't often and openly curse, especially when I have two kids who now happily and contently repeat everything I say (and one of whom is old enough to scold me on my language and send me to time out), but really now. I'll let you read the (admittedly rather long) article yourself, but to TL;DR the whole thing, religious conservatives in the district pressured school board members to enact policies that specifically stated that teachers and other employees were not to mention or bring attention to LGBT issues, and that ended with teachers being afraid to address bullying in their classrooms and halls. It ended with kids getting called horrible names and even being physically abused by their classmates, and allowed multiple teachers to even emotionally and verbally abuse their most vulnerable students because nobody was allowed to bring up the abuse. It ended in multiple suicides because there were a lot of (sorry) really pig-headed Christians who decided that talking about homosexuality would encourage supposedly straight students to "try it out", and that it would end with an epidemic of AIDS and homosexuality.
Without rereading the article in full and counting every single death, I want to say that seven kids died in that school district.
Seven.
I'll let that sink in for a while as I head back to my original point.
Anyway, I'd rather my children grow up surrounded by the sort of tolerance I want them to express to others, and only see the other type from the "right" side - to understand that being hateful is ugly, and that intolerance is a form of bullying. It's something I hope they never personally experience, but I know that they will eventually - maybe because one or both of them are gay, or bisexual, or transsexual, or "too skinny" or "too fat" or not smart enough, or because either one decides to wear "girly clothes" or keep their hair long or end up with glasses. I know from personal experience that children raised in an environment where there is bullying in the home or where it is encouraged through a complete lack of tolerance on the behalf of the parents. Until that day comes, though, I'd rather show them what I want them to see, and live the way I'd like to see them try to live, so that when the day comes when unfortunately someone does choose to bully them or show a complete lack of tolerance for something one of my children says or does, I want my kids to see it as what it is - blatant discrimination and bullying - and understand why it's happening and how to deal with it.
I want to surround them with people who will love them, and show them what it is to love other people, regardless of sexuality, gender, race, education, income, age, disability, size, or any other factor viewed in a way that doesn't simply make a person unique. So when we found an opportunity to interact with a local SCA group (Society for Creative Anachronism, for those who aren't aware) I was thrilled. The last had recently disbanded and we had a great time with them, even as non-paying members, that I was excited to get my kids involved and let them start to experience the world that I live in in my mind.
We found out about it in an oddly roundabout way; a former participant of another group who also happened to be a "friend of a friend" who was also an SCA member from the former local group found me on Facebook and we struck up a happy little friendship. When we first got to meet him at the first (and only) meeting we went to, I was reaffirmed that the guy in question is pretty damn awesome. He liked us, we liked him, he was easygoing and a lot of fun. We and another girl who was there with her daughter had a pretty good time together, even though the fighters more or less ignored us. We made plans to try to pay at some point for an actual family membership and to come back for as many meetings as time and gas money would allow us to.
Then everything exploded.
Some general stupidity ensued; accusations were thrown around by the guy who started the group (who is a hardcore Christian) and a similarly-minded girl who ended up being the new head honcho, and without warning or discussion by anyone our new friend was ostracized from the group (specifically, he was "voted out"). Once information was eventually offered, he was given the runaround, told that "some parents" complained about how he acted at some random point around children in the group, but he wasn't told when the complaint happened - so of course when he asked the only other parents who were present the night we were there as well if they complained, we all answered no. We hadn't. None of us had. The truth is that we all acted as we normally do around our kids, which is to say that we all sort of act like big goofballs.
It turns out that, after a lot of prodding, the incident in question was unrelated to our kids or anything that we had even been there to witness. It was something that, in the end, had absolutely nothing to do with him acting inappropriately toward a child of any kind, but instead had everything to do, more or less, with the fact that he isn't Christian.
The group "leaders" are.
And I'm not sure how to react to their perceived intolerance because he may "act gay", so this has taken me a couple of days to write. It makes me angry. It makes me want to roll my eyes and try to explain to our kids (who are WAY too young to care or understand) that when people act this way, it's unacceptable. They won't get it, but I want to try to make them get it anyway. This has nothing to do with the SCA itself, and everything to do with the unfortunate mindsets of the people in our area. This is not representative of the SCA (in fact, the response from the higher ups he has spoken to has generally been that they have no right to tell him he can't be part of a local group, and that's something that needs to be decided on a larger, "kingdom" level). This is representative of stupidity, of fear, of intolerance and a lack of understanding and education.
This is what happens when you hate, folks.
People get hurt. Luckily, our new friend isn't too personally concerned about the situation beyond the personal attacks on his character. He knows they're being douches. Everybody else seems to know they're being douches. Hubby and I immediately left the Facebook group that had been created and don't plan on attending again. We don't want our kids around people like this, and frankly, I'm not a nice enough person to be able or willing to force myself to be around people like this.
So there you go. What the hell.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
On Going At It Again
I've been putting off posting for a while because of some crazy personal life stuff, but this needs to be said.
Facebook is at it again.
I don't mean that in a "oh, that crazy Facebook" way where we all shake our heads and have a hearty laugh and then go back to our daily lives. I mean that for over a year now they have been consistently deleting photos from the profiles of women who have posted pictures of themselves or ANYBODY ELSE breastfeeding, and on top of that they have subsequently been locking and blocking profiles associated with those pictures left and right. There are probably a hundred if not more groups on Facebook demanding that so-and-so's profile be unblocked or group be reinstated; there are easily a thousand or more pressuring Facebook to follow the laws of the state in which their main office (and thus they) are located, which happens to be California. You see, the law of California protects the rights of the breastfeeding woman. Want a copy of their laws? Find it here. California has been protecting the rights of breastfeeding mothers since 1997, when its first law ensuring a woman could breastfeed wherever she needs to was passed and put into force.
The problem?
Facebook is at it again.
I don't mean that in a "oh, that crazy Facebook" way where we all shake our heads and have a hearty laugh and then go back to our daily lives. I mean that for over a year now they have been consistently deleting photos from the profiles of women who have posted pictures of themselves or ANYBODY ELSE breastfeeding, and on top of that they have subsequently been locking and blocking profiles associated with those pictures left and right. There are probably a hundred if not more groups on Facebook demanding that so-and-so's profile be unblocked or group be reinstated; there are easily a thousand or more pressuring Facebook to follow the laws of the state in which their main office (and thus they) are located, which happens to be California. You see, the law of California protects the rights of the breastfeeding woman. Want a copy of their laws? Find it here. California has been protecting the rights of breastfeeding mothers since 1997, when its first law ensuring a woman could breastfeed wherever she needs to was passed and put into force.
The problem?
The California law specifically states, and I quote, "except the private home or residence of another". That is a huge fucking loophole that, if you ask me, is probably how Facebook is continuing to allow people to report (and thus subsequently remove) pictures posted on profiles of women breastfeeding. It's what we in the not-really-legal profession call "a huge fucking loophole" because one would assume that if someone sees a picture of breastfeeding that they don't want to see, they're probably seeing it in their house, and thus they've every right (through the state of California) to report that picture and even that profile or group to avoid seeing it again - even if it belongs to someone that tends to post pictures like that, or join groups that contain numerous similar pictures or posts, and even if the reporting individual is fairly sure that this will continue. To make matters worse, because of Facebook's new timeline feature and subscription options that automatically leave everyone seeing what everybody else says without people going through their list and turning off subscriptions for every person on there by hand, people indeed are inadvertently seeing comments, posts, pictures, and group activity that other people on their friends list may not care about or want to see - and if they can't see the whole post and click on it, they're likely to be subjected to something that shouldn't concern them.
What does this mean?
It means a couple of things. First of all, it means that 1) via California's breastfeeding protection laws, Facebook may actually be doing something painfully legal, even though the pictures are being hosted elsewhere and the homes in which said pictures are being viewed could be located absolutely anywhere. 2) It means that even if Facebook is still in the wrong simply because of the other logistics (and they are), this is a very real loophole that needs to be closed ASAP by the California legislature with a "no loophole" clause that insists that pictures posted from California or viewed in California households are not subjected to the "except the private home or residence of another" stipulation. (And if they don't close this loophole, there's the very real possibility that Facebook can and will continue abusing their own policies.)
The amusing thing is that Facebook has no algorithm in place to detect which pictures may show more potential nudity than others; if so, (WARNING: NUDITY) pages like this and profile pictures like this and this and this whole fucking page wouldn't exist. (Which reminds me of this page, and this one too.) There are thousands, MILLIONS more, not including the profiles of men and women alike who post way more inappropriate pictures that show far more nudity than the average picture of a woman breastfeeding her child. There are pages, apps, groups and profiles completely dedicated to the dehumanization of women, to the sexualization of children, and to nearly every single illegal act you can think of. There are more of these than there are pages, groups, profiles, and even pictures that support the beautiful bond between a woman and her children, that show the benefits of breastfeeding for mother and child. Facebook is a misogynist's dream, mostly because there are very few things that we women are capable of that a man typically isn't, and one of those things is breastfeeding.
Which Facebook wants to shutter back behind closed doors. Again.
There have of course been ups and downs. Facebook briefly apologized for "wrongly" removing a picture on a woman's profile in America, but soon opened itself up to Canadian criticism when not more than a couple of weeks later they were shutting down numerous groups and profiles and removing pictures from pages and groups owned and moderated by individuals located in Canada. One woman even made the news and was interviewed extensively about what she has experienced. There's an official page on Facebook supporting Emma Kwasnica and her breastfeeding pictures, which I am a part of.
So what on earth can or should we do about this?
Well, first of all, go sign this petition to the California state legislature (that I wrote, go me!) asking them to change a loophole in their breastfeeding protection laws that may be enabling Facebook to continue removing pictures at their discretion under the guise of being pornographic or containing "sexual nudity". Once you've done that, go grab the Open Letter to Facebook that I wrote last year and find every single form you can fill out to the Facebook administrators, then send it off. You may edit that letter however you please and you do not need to attribute it to me when you send it, but I would ask that you please link back to that post or this one if you mention it online. Then, if you're really feeling up to some good, flood your profile with pictures of breastfeeding women - I really love seeing them remove pictures of the Virgin Mary breastfeeding Jesus, that always gets me somehow (and I don't mean that in an angry way, I mean that it really goes to show how terrified of breastfeeding they are) - and wait to see the fireworks.
Then, go have a boob-filled day.
So what on earth can or should we do about this?
Well, first of all, go sign this petition to the California state legislature (that I wrote, go me!) asking them to change a loophole in their breastfeeding protection laws that may be enabling Facebook to continue removing pictures at their discretion under the guise of being pornographic or containing "sexual nudity". Once you've done that, go grab the Open Letter to Facebook that I wrote last year and find every single form you can fill out to the Facebook administrators, then send it off. You may edit that letter however you please and you do not need to attribute it to me when you send it, but I would ask that you please link back to that post or this one if you mention it online. Then, if you're really feeling up to some good, flood your profile with pictures of breastfeeding women - I really love seeing them remove pictures of the Virgin Mary breastfeeding Jesus, that always gets me somehow (and I don't mean that in an angry way, I mean that it really goes to show how terrified of breastfeeding they are) - and wait to see the fireworks.
Then, go have a boob-filled day.
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