Re-Thinking Fashion for the Fat, Nerdy Girl

This may come as a surprise to people who know me, but, I admit it, I like fashion. Yeah, I know it sounds strange coming from me, but I like art and that's what fashion is: art on the body, just like my tattoos or long-disused piercings. 

As much as I like fashion, though, I rarely indulge my dress-up desires outside of my own bedroom...At first , this was because every time I wore something fashion-forward in school, I'd inevitably get the "you must think you're so cool" comment...not wanting to claim to be something I was sure I was not, I would quickly go back to trying to blend in with the crowd...

I eventually gained enough self-confidence to wear the occasional fun outfit or accessory, but I was always careful not to over-do it, lest I stand out too much.  I was still holding myself back from the kinds of things I really wanted to wear, so much so that my own fears of expressing my creativity began to turn into judgementalism and I began to associate fashion with shallowness and fakers.

Drawing Yourself

Art therapy without the therapy: The challenge was for the J-Rex to completely color in a chalk outline of herself by "drawing what [she] feel[s]."

For an adult, this is a relatively simple task. For the J-Rex, however, it was hard to understand the concept of drawing her feelings.  We talked a bit about what emotions she was feeling at the time, "happiness," and then I sat near her and let her see where her imagination took her...

This Red Ball of Vitamin C

Today, we picked our first home-grown tomato of the season. It looks like an orb of shiny perfection, sitting on our counter without a bruise or blemish upon it.

 

A First Harvest...Eaten Long Since...

In the late, wet, warm days of Spring, we had our first garden harvest.  I took a picture of our small bounty and had a bit of fun editing it to show what we planned to do with everything...and forgot to post it! So, a bit late, I present you with....Our First Harvest:

Any Excuse for Deviled Eggs

It all began with one of my first vegetarian cookbooks, Any Which Way But Meat. In it was a recipe for deviled eggs with mushrooms... Deviled eggs.With mushrooms. Two of my favorite foods rolled into one, delicious, bite-size treat... Over the years, the recipe has evolved to include pretty much anything that's fresh at the time, as long as it had mushrooms and some kind of seasoning.  Today's deviled eggs are about as fresh from the garden as I could get, not having any chickens to call my own (a dream for another time and another post) and were simply too beautiful not to share:

Blogging for the Better

It's been quite a while since I wrote a post on this blog - quite a while during which I had a million thoughts to share and more ideas to write about than I knew what to do with.... So what happened? Why didn't I write up and post a single one of the myriad of topics that have gone through my head in the past couple of months (Has it been that long? It certainly feels like it.)?

Climate Change is a Bitch...But Life Goes On

It has been a very wet and weirdly cold Spring in my region of the world.  I've lost a good half of the foxglove patch and a planter full of tomato, carrot, and marigold seeds due to drainage issues (and my poor placement of the patch), watched hard rains pummel and move seeds around their pots and in our few ground plots, have seen several herbs shrivel due to lack of sun and warmth, and waited anxiously for blooms on tomato plants that should be here but haven't come yet due to the unseasonable temperatures.  Yes, we haven't had a frost in a while now, but in this area, I should already be having to put my lettuce in the shade to prevent bolting and be seeing those same pollinators we attracted in the brief warm moments of early Spring hanging around the garden full-time by now... Instead, I've got a planter to set up again - with better drainage this time (and no more of that horrible hydrophobic potting soil we had accidentally purchased!) - successive plantings to do that had been put off because of the weather, and a bunch of well-watered plants that need to be fertilized...