Amigurumi Hummingbird

As the Christmas holiday zooms near I am in a happy crochet rush to create crafty things.  This here chubby hummingbird is white and gold; a snowy hummingbird to hang on the tree or stash on a mantle; perhaps perched on a candle?  For those at all interested in a free pattern; see below.  Happy winter solstice as well today!  Brrr chilly!!!

Start with White Yarn

Rnd 1: Using Magic Ring, 6sc (6)
Rnd 2:  sc 2 in every sc around (12)
Rnd 3-8: sc around (12)
Pause (do not finish off) and attach desired eyes and nose; lightly stuff to this point

Nose with Yellow Yarn

Chain 8 and turn
Slip Stitch 7, Finish Off and sew onto head

Rest of Body with White Yarn; continuing from before

Rnd 9:  sc 6, *2 sc in next sc, sc 1*; repeat *2 times, 1 sc (16)
Rnd 10-14: sc around (16)
Stuff that chubby bird tummy!
Rnd 15:  sc 3, *dec 1, sc 1*; repeat * 2 times, sc 4 (12)
Rnd 16: sc 2, *dec 1, sc 1*; repeat * 2 times, sc 2 (9)
Rnd 17:  *sc 1, dec 1*; repeat * 2 times (6)
Rnd 18-20:  sc around (6)
Rnd 21:  *dec 1*; repeat * 2 times (3)
Finish Off, Weave ends

Wings, in White Yarn (Make two)

Leaving long tail chain 10; turn
Working into underside of chain: dc 3, hdc 3, sc 3, chain 1, turn
sc 3, hdc 3, dc 3
Finish Off, leave tail to sew wing onto body
Use yarn tail left at top to make wing pointer by making another chain if desired, then weave remainder in

Sew wings to body in desired place.  Can add loop of yarn at top of head to make into hang-able ornament.

Enjoy!

 

Glad for the holidays?

Otterly cute

In response to a question asked at zooborns.com about this time last year “Otter you glad for the holidays?” I have to say that Yes, Yes I am this year.  And not just because I’ve discovered th happiness which can be brought by images of otter babies!  Awwwww…

Now that classes are over for the semester and I can, if not fully take it off at least partially remove my Librarian Student Hat ™ until late in January; I’ve been able to reflect upon this holiday season and how it has been and looks to be.

Most deliciously tender turkey I've ever eaten

Thanksgiving was wonderful.  Not only did we have good weather but I also found myself not dreading any sort of weight-bashing scenarios.  And nothing came to pass either.  We celebrated with Adam D’s parents in New Hampshire and relaxed, ate, talked, watched some Macy*s Thanksgiving Day Parade (to me it isn’t Christmas season until Santa floats down the streets of that parade!) and drank copious amounts of delicious tea.  The turkey, which I’ve honestly myself never been a huge fan of, was actually delicious.  Wonderfully tender and juicy and everything a turkey should (I guess?) be.  Not only was it cooked well but I think a part of its yummy tenderness came from how calm and relaxed I was for the Holiday.  I was able to fully enjoy the bird and the company and the entire event for a few reasons that I am happy to attribute to becoming more at ease with my own body and self image.  For one thing I was not starving when I sat down to eat.  Unlike holiday feasts of the past when I was to join the masses willingly starving themselves in anticipation of a guilt-laden gorge later in the day; this year I had my simple breakfast and treated Thanksgiving as just another meal.  A tasty and better-than-usual one, to be sure, (PIE!) but something I could approach with a sane mind and a belly not screaming and clamoring for me to get everything/anything into it and NOW!  For me that made each bite all the tastier.

Perhaps a part of my calmness was brought on by knowing that Adam’s parents don’t really focus on weight as a Topic Du Jour at all like my whole family does; or tends to at least.  Granted, his mom does love to find new and…uh….interesting ways to use Splenda and sugar substitutes because Adam’s tall, thin father has diabetes.  (And a distinct love for those few occasions when he can have *gasp* White Breads!) Yet no discussions really go into weight-loss territory and the few that have were actually interesting and I found people willing to actually discuss and listen to my own ideas rather than scoff without even taking a moment to ponder another point of view.  It is refreshing.

Getting ready to share a Seafood Feast!

Adam and I had a wonderful 3 year anniversary on the 8th of this month.  We went to the aquarium again and got to enjoy the squealing penguins wiggling their butts and declaring their territory all over the place.  Then we walked around the area in the chilly but clear weather and ate a wonderful (if incredibly over-expensive) crab and lobster dinner.

Christmas will be hosted at our own humble abode and will just be Adam D’s family and our sister-in-law (Adam D’s brother is deployed at the moment.  Again.  Entirely another story…).  I already have the rib roast in the freezer (most money I’ve ever sunk into one hunk of meat!) and am planning some twice-baked potatoes. Still wondering about what veggies to have but already have chosen a tasty mild and creamy cheddar with chives to go on garlic herb crackers for the snacking.  My own mom is going to be convalescing down in Virginia after her knee surgery today so she won’t be joining in up here.  I just sent a package of gifts down to her and my brother which I hope arrives today to cheer her day. It includes a little amigurumi snowman I made that I hope really adds to her Snowman themed holiday tree/room.

It has been a wonderfully crazy and yet calm holiday season thus far and I anticipate only more relaxing moments amongst the storm of activity to come ahead.  A season where I am able to focus on the love of the people in my life, rather than the count of the calories which might pass my lips during gatherings.  To me, that is huge (Or Fat?) and it means so much that despite the struggle to still work on accepting myself and others for who they are; that this season has been going so well.  I think I’ll leave this post with a quote from a song that Pandora recommended to me and which I’ve really been enjoying the last few days.

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee. In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife. In 525,600 minutes – how do you measure a year in the life? How about love? How about love? How about love? Measure in love. Seasons of love.

The world before me is looking better every day

 

Animals: Fat and Happy. Also, knees to be fixed.

Whew!  I notice I’ve been un-post-y for over a week and had to rectify that situation!  Since it is a lovely Monday morning I thought I would add to the visual imagery starting off your week with the animal installment of “Images of Fat and Happy“.

This here critter (Harbor Seal) is about 250 lbs of swimming, playful, beautiful harbor seal-ness:

From the NE Aquarium. Swimming fine at 250 lbs.

But, you may cry in indignation, that seal can’t POSSIBLY be FAT!  It’s a SEAL!  Well, since seals are up to 30% blubber (that means Fat), check your assumptions again and realize that, yet again, who LOOKS “Fat” versus who IS “Fat” may not fit all  your preconceived notions.

In other interesting news, my mother has finally been approved for a knee surgery for this Wednesday.  Turns out that after her doctor had been “pooh-poohing” her knee pain and just waving that “lose weight Fatty!” medical hand of “yeah, you’re not beautiful so I really don’t care to look into your problem, just stop eating so much and work out on a painful knee more often”; that low and behold she has freaking torn ligaments and crud in there and that is why she is in so much pain.  Not because she has oh-so-much weight she’s carting around (which is far less than my own) but because some of her very active life’s physical activity did damage to the joint and muscles.  Yet another reason that sometimes I despair that people, especially those who hold the medical power over the masses, will ever stop to consider a person as a PERSON before they consider them as a Weight to be Reduced via shaming or the oh-so-subtle messages like this.  Here’s hoping her in-patient thing goes smoothly this week!

 

Oprah gives me hope for once

Or, rather, a pair of mother/daughter articles in her most recent mag (and now online) gives me hope for the possibility of redefining the weight narrative.

“There’s nothing healthy about fearing food and using exercise as a whip. A better goal is to exercise for fun and truly eat well—not less, not using different rules, but in a way that’s more nourishing and more conscious.”

Something that really hit home for me was this bit from the daughter: “But the ending [my mother] envisioned was the same one that played out in every kid’s book with a fat character I had ever read: the one where the troubled chubster solves her inner turmoil and ends up svelte. Mom never envisioned an ending where the fat kid discovers that there was nothing wrong with her in the first place. Why would she? Nobody ever wrote that story.”

How often did I read those same books?  The ones with the fattie who learns her self worth woes are only “in her head” and THAT is what makes her simply “eat too much” and *poof*! once learning said truth she does the 80’s montage into svelte acceptance and then Yay!  Rudolph gets to play with all the normal sized reindeer now. Celebration ensues.

Only, for anyone wishing for that same fantastical ending, it never does happen, does it?  Now matter how many times you have your own personal “epiphany” about the reality that you’re *gasp* Fat!  and perhaps even Sad About It!; there IS no happy celebratory end to your sweaty calorie restriction filled montage scene. Instead you end up cruising past that “happy ending” and right back to where you started, or even worse: fatter.  And those fictional former fatties mock you from their safe thin haven and you’re sure that somehow you’ve done something wrong in order to fail.  Again. And so you read those “inspirational” fictional stories about people shedding their fat selves (which are of course always the more clumsy, awkward, bashful and ugly sides of their personalities) leaving only worthy and wonderful people of skinny happiness behind.

“The weight she loses is used as a narrative tool to epitomize these emotional changes. Why is fatness allowed to be this tool, though? What other types of physical attributes would we allow to exist purely as symbolic of an inner flaw?…. With so many examples of fatness equaling flawedness, fatness slips easily into shorthand for anything negative. Skinny characters are sometimes bad or weak, but they are surrounded by other skinny characters who are good or strong or understandable; fat characters epitomized by flaws have few counter-examples. Some are Santa-jolly, but these are often stock characters, unreliable or entertaining, rarely heroes. Fatness is enough reason to be the subject of mocking laughter, the only comic relief in a somber book…” – Fat characters in recent young adult fiction

Even the one book I had sworn had been counter to this common narrative of the Fat Girl saved by Not Eating and “Finding Self Worth (though only once thin, natch) is really, upon recent inspection, exactly the same: “Ignore the taunts and show those bullies what’s what by proving you can be skinny with enough exercise and fewer ice cream cones!  Yeah!”  Bull. We need MANY more stories like these to replace this fatphobic wonderland of wishful thinking.

But anyways the point is to say that having anything akin to an “open” discussion available on a major woman’s magazine/site is a hopeful bit of progress in my view.  I’ve not viewed the comments online because I’m not a glutton for punishment today but I’m really hoping that even if they are spottled with nasty that this concept written down trickles into more and more lives….this narrative that the fat girl at the start of the story really IS fine As Is and doesn’t NEED any sort of Physical Change Montage to improve herself to within acceptable standards.

Even more amazing on a personal note is that I was able to send this to my mother who agreed it was an interesting read and reminded me that she has found me “beautiful inside and out for a long time now”.  I had to respond that I know the same about her.  It was kinda a huge moment for me anyways and is making me kinda weepy in a happy way that we can even lightly touch on the subject without the worried tummy butterflies of “what will happen now” going on. Now THAT’S what I call hope.

 

My fat body won second place!!

Okay so I had to post that all of the tentative fear of putting myself out there in digital images as mentioned previously has paid off in the form of winning second place in the Pin-Up Stock Reference contest being held over at Deviant Art. (Winning pose is at the end).

Here’s the quoted response for why one of my pieces won second place:  “…playful pose is perfect for her! She beams with the energy of a confident girl with a smile that says, ‘Hey there fella, why don’t ya come closer?’”

I’ll admit it.  I totally Squee’d and the hubby laughed with me at how excited I became. (Or possibly “at” but for now I’m on a happy-high and will go with “with”).

The contest now moves on to stage two; where artists use the stock created in phase one; by myself and other daring souls; to make pin-up drawings of Sailor Moon characters. I’m excited to see if anyone ends up using my images as reference to draw a character and if you’re into drawing or have a DA account you should consider joining up as there are many great entries (especially winner of first and third places!) and the prizes offered are very nice for anyone who uses the site.

SO yea, not too shabby a way to kick-out the end of a Thanksgiving weekend with a look into just how open some people can be about bodies which lie outside the normal scope of currently defined size standards. And this has really given me even more encouragement to continue creating stock images, at least for pose referencing purposes for now.

 

Energetic Poses come in all sizes

 

 

 

So I kinda lied to my doctor

I went in for a follow-up with my gastro-ent* today for some reason thinking that I’ve gained 50 pounds over the last year and worried about what possible things this might indicate (especially in light of eating better than ever and getting more physical activity than before in my life).

While I think that it was an awkward subject to bring up and that the doctor could have handled the questions I was posing better than to look at me and ask “Well, what do you think it is you’ve been eating to cause it?” I do have to admit a bit of pride in how well I held up under scrutiny and with responding calmly and rationally to questions.  We both ended up hunting together through the huge PDR (Physician’s Desk Reference…a HUGE volume of pages) to see about possible side-affects of medications I am on and once I got past her little lecture on how people perceive what they eat differently from what others see (Well no shit, have you never looked at a fat person Eating In Public and had NO internal (or external if you’re the nastier sort) comment pop up, regardless of what they happen to be putting in their mouths which goes either “God, no wonder she’s so fat, look what she’s eating” or “Right, like she eats like that at home. Bet that’s the first lettuce that has crossed her lips in months”), once I got past that and a little holier-than-thou “Well I’D take issue with a whole English Muffin (which I listed off as my usual breakfast, along with either butter or egg salad or tuna or cheese on it and some fruit) because that’s carb-loading…” jazz that I just rolled my eyes at and agreed with her closing “but I’m not a nutritionist” closing statements I still think I handled it very well.  I didn’t bring up HAES or IE or anything, just mentioned I’m comfortable with my size, fine with my eating and exercise habits and just bringing the gain to her attention in the case it indicated something more serious to consider looking into.

She did suggest possibly referring me to a nutritionist which I politely decline for now and then offered to take blood work to check on my thyroid.

After patting myself on the back for having any sort of weight-related discussion with someone and NOT breaking into hysterical sobs and frustrated panic; my husband brought to my attention that I haven’t gained 50 pounds in a year.  Far from it.  I gained 10. And have held steady for 6 months now. In fact I had to scroll back through many posts to find that I haven’t gained 50 pounds in even over a year in a half, gaining just 25 since I seriously stopped the dieting nonsense and said “enough!”  So I somehow got it into my brain that I had in one year taken on massive amounts of weight despite my jeans not having to be replaced and my clothes still otherwise fitting; despite all evidence in reality to the contrary. While I’m glad to have testing on my thyroid done I’m wondering how the next appointment with the gastro-ent will go when I have to sheepishly admit that no, I’ve actually not gained and things are fine really.  We’re all fine here. How are you?

*Every time I type this now I smile because I keep imagining a giant oak tree bending branches down to test my blood pressure.

 

State of Calm Worry

I have a doctor’s appointment today.  A follow-up with my gastroenterologist after a full year on her prescribed treatment for my irritatingly broadly diagnosed “IBS”.

For the most part, for about 95% of the time, I feel a pretty awesome amount of “normal” now. I don’t spend all of my driving time visually hunting for clues to the location of the nearest restrooms with the ever present knowledge that I WILL likely need it. I don’t eat in fear, knowing that 20 minutes later I had better be within sprinting distance of some sort of bathroom.  My stomach doesn’t let me feel and hear and squirm uncomfortably through every twisty turn my food takes on-route from stomach to exit-the-body-lane.  Instead of more than a dozen more than “quick” trips to the restroom I’m down to 2 or 3 in one day.  And for me that is an AMAZING improvement.  I have whole stretches of hours when I don’t even wonder if there is a bathroom nearby.  So I look forward to letting the doctor know just how much of a positive change her suggestions and medications have made in my life.

I am a bit nervous though because I so want to bring up the topic of weight gain.  Specifically the 50 pounds I have gained in the year since I started the meds, fiber increase and removal of all chewing gum from my diet. Especially seeing as how I’ve brought my eating roughly in-line with what qualifies today as the “healthy diet” because that is what works to keep my belly happiest and have also been consistently moderately exercising (minus about a month recently when my weight has, oddly enough, still remained constant).

I have had very good experiences with this particular doctor and in fact doctors in general of late so I have high hopes that if I can phrase it correctly; something along the lines of “Now, I have no problem with the size I have gotten to considering the vast improvement in my life quality over the past year. So if this is a result of the medications, fiber and plain old “food stays in my body longer” reality of my life now; that is truly fine.  I did just want to bring up that I have gained this weight and ensure that it is not a symptom that should be noted in more than passing with these medications.  I am fine having to buy larger pants if it means I can be as happy as I am now so I’m not looking for any diet tips; just making sure that it isn’t an indication of something wrong.”

But part of me is even wondering if it is WORTH bringing up at all.  I HAVE gained weight.  But for the past 6 months or so that weight has all but leveled off and I haven’t had to look into getting new pants for size problems in that time.  So I’ve been tossing the idea of trying to discuss this with the doctor back and forth.  The last visit with her really impressed upon me that she listens to me and is impressed with my desire to figure out what is wrong with my system and we are both actually interested in helping me to get back to “normal” so I shouldn’t be worried about her response to such a question.  But after years of hearing nothing but “Well I hear Weight Watchers is a good plan” anytime anything about weight is brought up in a health context; I still remain leery.

Am I worried over nothing?  Will I regret it if I DON’T bring the topic up to at least ask if it is normal?  Should I not at all CARE about the weight gain? (Is it somehow a betrayal of “FA” if I wonder about accepting such gains over a year??)

So yeah, feeling mostly calm with a slight hint of worry in anticipation of a simple follow-up doctor’s appointment.  Happy Monday!

 

Thought for the day

You can’t build a peaceful world on empty stomachs and human misery. — Dr. Norman Ernest Borlaug (1914-2009)

This was the quote topping one of the posts over at Junkfood Science.  I have been mulling it over thoughtfully all day.

 

Flipping the script; and being surprised at the results

New blogger Snarky over at Shapely Prose posted today something that really struck me:

Sometimes we are so defeated by our -isms we forget to wish for something beautiful. We forget we’re more than our bodies or our -isms. We are more concerned with pain avoidance and less concerned with pleasure seeking.

Flip that script. Make some wishes for yourself today.

Not only do I love her idea of making a weekly list of “wishes” but that bolded line (emphasis mine) really and truly reflects how I’ve been feeling as I begin to put images of myself out there into the world.  As “brave” or “courageous” as the action may be; I still realize that I’m doing so with an almost cringe-anticipation factor.  I keep EXPECTING to get massive amounts of negative feedback or trolling.

In an effort to avoid that pain I’ve been making sure to quickly delete the few comments that do fit into that realm and also working really hard to mark up my images everywhere that I don’t care about negative views on my body.  In anticipation of potential pain I’ve also marked all images with a huge watermark; which means that anyone wanting to make a nasty photomanipulation of my images would be hard pressed to do so easily (though that doesn’t necessarily mean it couldn’t be done; just that it would be harder for the idle nasty jerk).  I’ve been so focused on preventing possible back-lash; that I’ve really been less appreciative than I could be for how lovely the experience has really turned out so far.

People have been nice, supportive, encouraging even!  I have comments loving poses; suggesting new ones, and offering tips for future photo shoots as far as lighting and such is concerned.  There are actually artists praising me for stepping up and out into the world of Reference Pose Stock because they are actually hunting for ways to envision bodies such as mine in certain poses.  These things are a true pleasure for me!  Knowing that I might be helping other artists to see a form not often represented is amazing.

Yet I’ve been so worked up over the potential for negative response that I was totally unprepared, almost unopen even, for the far greater positive feedback received instead.

So to “flip the script” for myself this week I think I will start wishing for the beautiful and stop fearing so much more strongly the self-defeating “-isms”.  That isn’t to say that overnight I’m going to somehow magically No Longer Anticipate Pain in Potentially Painful Situations because let’s be honest; after a lifetime of expecting the worse it isn’t easy to stop that sort of snap reaction to life’s stimuli.  I am not able to just say “Oh, okay I’ll stop having that instinctive twitch in my belly of nervous fear when I do something that I’ve been told all my life Fat People Shouldn’t Do”.  But I like the idea that each week I can make a wish to that effect in the form of small steps of progress.  I may not be able to completely change from reflexively apprehensive to fully open and confident; but since FA has already helped me make great strides in that vein I can certainly step up and work to continue along the path rather than stopping where I am.  As I have been with the reaction to my newbie photo work; I may end up being surprised at the results.

 

Fat Review: Bolt (2008 Disney Film)

Okay so I’m a *wee* bit behind in watching movies.  Mostly I can explain this one in that the previews made the film Bolt look very much like just another sad little addition to the stereotype Hero Learns Life Lessons trope collection.  However this past weekend I found myself with an occasion to watch the movie and with incredibly low expectations I found that the film delivered above and beyond.  If you haven’t already seen; it I would recommend it.  The plot and characters are cute, often humorous in very interesting ways (think along the lines of the clever bits in things such as “Shrek”), and very pleasantly body shape/size neutral. If you haven’t seen it and don’t like spoilers, don’t read on until you’ve gotten a chance to watch it because spoilers abound below!

The premise of the movie is summed up on the Internet Movie Database: “The canine star of a fictional sci-fi/action show that believes his powers are real embarks on a cross-country trek to save his co-star from a threat he believes is just as real.”

What really struck me while watching it (and continues to turn pleasantly in my mind now and again in the days since) is just how nicely the film creates a set of characters with a bit of dimension and personality and then throws in different body sizes and shapes as just a natural part of things.  Perhaps it is a bit sad to think we’ve gotten to the point where anything that doesn’t blatantly go for the “Fatty stuck in a tight tube/corridor/hole/etc” is a move upwards.  Yet I felt that Bolt managed to surpass even that bare minimum. Here are just a few of the awesome bits of size positive or size-neutral scenes that stole my heart:

• The dog’s co-star Penny is a small girl with a large and very round mother.  Yet this mother is kind, loving, understands her daughter’s actual love for the dog Bolt and doesn’t hesitate at the end of the movie to kick her daughter’s weasel-y agent out and declare that Penny would be quitting.  Never is this mother called out for being fat as a code for being lazy or unloving or evil or unfit.
• Rhino is a fat rolly polly TV watching hamster who joins Bolt (and the practically starving alley cat: Mittens) on his quest. For most of the film Rhino rolls around in his hamster ball.  Yet he is not just a Fat Comedy fill-in character.  He is a full-out fan of Bolt and convinced the dog’s powers are real.
• Rhino is action and intensity packed into a furry frame held in a plastic ball.  And at one point he manages to roll after the truck that captures Bolt and Mittens, saving the day by releasing Bolt. He rolls in his ball for miles after a speeding truck mind you.  As a fat hamster he rolls around for miles and still manages to maintain the hyper-active ninja-esque attitude that allows him to free Bolt.
• Towards the end of the film the fat Rhino is set to sacrifice himself to jam his ball under a closing door (allowing Bolt to dash into a burning building to save Penny) and Mittens quickly unscrews the ball’s lid and pulls Rhono to safety.  There is no stereotypical “fat character wedged in tight hole” scene to slow the action down.
• At one point when Mittens is showing Bolt how to beg for food at an RV camp she lays back and points to her rounded tummy and declares in full happy and full-of-food-for-once amazement “Look, my stomach is distended!  Isn’t that great!!?” Perhaps this conflates food with fat a bit but it mostly had the feel of “Isn’t it great to feed your body?  Even overeating once in a while can feel awesome!”
• There is a set of 3 pigeons who seem to appear in any city the group stop in and they are a variety of sizes; with no bashing of the sizes on any of them (fat or skinny).

Not only did I enjoy just how neutral and positive the film portrayed characters who happened to run the gamut of sizes but I also really loved that the hero’s moment of “learning the truth” did not entail a long, drawn out series of scenes about his own self-pity when discovering he wasn’t truly a super-powered dog.

That isn’t to say that the film was great about everything.  It would have been great if the dog had instead been female, for example, and was saving a boy from danger.  There was also a distinctly pale-skinned feel to most of the characters.  Even size-wise it would have been fantastic to have a female lead who was fat instead of just a few side characters. But for the purposes of viewing with an eye towards the treatment of body sizes and shapes I found it mostly a very refreshing take on telling a story without having to fall back on appearance discrimination in order to tell a joke.

In all it was a great way to spend 96 minutes of my weekend.  I would even do it again; and for someone who has very few treasured movie classics that she is willing to watch more than once; that is truly saying something.