Blog Slacker...or what happens when your interwebs randomly go on holiday

So this morning at some point I noticed that my chat client had booted me offline. This isn't unusual (hello Google...fix that please) so I set my status to available and watched the little curser whirl in a circle. Then I watched it some more. Then I got the news: Unavailable to contact server at google.com. I check my browser. It wasn't just google. The whole thing was down.

So I did what any sane person would do. I set a playlist going to make sure it didn't suck and I started (and completed) a project that I've been staring at for way too long.

What's that, you ask? Why WINTERIZING our casa, that's what.

The fact that Silicon Valley gets winter like Houston gets winter is beside the point. We don't need a lot of winterizing.

What we do need, is a solution to this:

No. That's not the closet door from the Poltergeist. It's our front door. Our back door is similar, but not nearly as cool to photograph.

So I broke out my new sewing machine and decided it was time. For Draft Snakes.

Step one: buy fabric that you like. A yard-ish will do. But that door is 38" wide, so I opted to go overboard and bought two yards. (Yay leftovers!)

Cut it into two 8ish inch strips and then sew up two sides - leaving the top open so you can fill it with the heavy material of your choice (beans, rice, kitty litter.)

Yes. We use the wheat litter. Because they strip mine for the clay kind. Not pictured: the funnel you're going to need. Trust me.

Then pin the ends so you don't end up with a very large mess:

 

 

Then sew up the ends and voila! Draft blockers to confuse your cats:

Here's hoping that helps some with the insulation. Every little bit counts, right?

So I'm An Imaginary Woman?

A few months ago, Glamour (a magazine to which I subscribe) put a tiny little picture on one of its pages along with a single-page article about body image...and loving yourself no matter what your flaws are.

This is that picture:

Her name is Lizzie Miller and she's twenty and gorgeous and no one is debating that.

You can find the editorial follow up here.

What is my beef, you ask?

This is what I looked like at the ripe age of 10.

This is what I looked like at the ripe age of 30...a mere month before getting myself knocked up. Sure, I look great, but T&A are not things I was endowed with.

And this is what I looked like right after lunch today. I'm 31, I'm 30 weeks pregnant, and two weeks ago I weighed in at 135. (I will be weighed again tomorrow, but we don't own a scale.)

I took these pictures at the library in the bathroom (because pregnant women pee. a LOT.)

Why was I inspired to pull out my camera and take pictures, aside from the stellar orange wall and the fact that my camera battery was actually charged?

Today's Talk of the Nation.

Their guest today? Cindi Leive, Editor-in-Chief of Glamour magazine.

(hear it all here.)

Let me point out some of the key differences between my body and Lizzie's up there:

1) I am not a size twelve. On a good day I'm a size 2.

2) I'm not blonde.

3) Apparently, I am not "normal" or "real" because I don't have curves.

Who uses those heinous words? Normal. Real. Cindi herself. People who call in. Random people on the street. I've been hearing about this woman for MONTHS. I've had conversations with people who are on the other side of the body image equation wherein I've been given a heaping plate of guilt because I "just can't understand" what it's like not to be thin and gorgeous. (You know why I'm funny and a good cook? Because I was NOT a cute teenager. Lanky twelve year old boy is not a good look on a fifteen year old girl who hasn't figured out how to control her hair, yet.)

According to these people, every woman featured every where should be a "plus size"...which is a ridiculous phrase. Seriously. Plus what?  And arm? A leg? A head? Some fingers?

And women like me - the roller-skate skinny girls who just can't gain weight - should remember that men only like "real women" with curves and cushion and whatever.

Is swinging the gauntlet to the other extreme going to help women the most universally? No.

Here's what makes a person a "real" woman: having a vagina.

Here's what makes you "normal": not having an extra head.

Here's what makes you "beautiful": not being a hag.

The end.

PS - there are a few instances in the interview where the focus on health rather than appearance. But the fashion industry - by definition - doesn't care what you had for lunch. They're not selling you food. They're selling you, as so eloquently put by Nigel in The Devil Wears Prada, art that you wear. And art isn't always realistic. Sheesh.