Revolutions not resolutions

Last year I accidentally made a new years resolution. Yes, that sounds stupid but did. I decided that I wanted to lessen my impact, shrink my foot print, that sort of thing.

I didn't make a resolution in so many words. 'I won't do this' or, as the taught us in school to be more positive about self denial, 'I will do this' In fact my resolution, such as it is, contained so many exceptions and so much hedging language that it doesn't compress in to a catchy phrase.

I wasn't going to buy any new clothes.

Except...

• Things that would wear out (like a pair of jeans or pyjamas)

• Gear (for camping, not freezing to death and other things with safety concerns)

• Underwear

• Guide Uniform

• Fabric

Everything else has to be second hand. I didn't make it an official resolution because I knew I'd break it. And I did, although at the time I didn't know that unemployment would help me keep on the straight and narrow. Besides it's just a thing I decided in January and not anything I put together for new years.

I sinned in Disney World, for a job interview, and shopping in the sales with my Dad last week. But I'm not giving up my not-resolution. I'm going to try to stick with it, let myself off for the little things and feel smug for at least making a small difference to my consumption levels.

This year it's happened the same way although due to a festive spike in our consumption levels. Christmas gifts have brought me three things: a Wii Fit (thanks Dad!), a pair of trainers (thanks Boyfriend!) and a journal (thanks Grandma!). Which means I'm exercising more, scribbling more, and running again.

I enjoy these things. That is why I'm doing them. And I'm not stressing about how I have to do it all everyday. Well, I'm trying not to. I'm enjoying the movement and enjoying the pen between my fingers. Who knows how long it will last. But I'm thinking that doing something that I love creates slightly more sustainable habits than telling myself that I have to do something.

And let me finish by belatedly wishing you a wonderful New Year.

Rules are Rules

I just got my Ultimate Edinburgh confirmation which is making me very happy right now.

So I thought I would use the opportunity to share with you our new unit guidelines. The girls thought up the rules, we vetted them and then held a vote.

1. Respect each other
2. Have fun but be sensible
3. Listen to others when they are talking
4. Tell a leader when you can't attend

All of them, especially number three, will be forgotten about before the next meeting but it did manage to buy us a bit of peace. I'm working on activities centred around Children's Rights, Independent Living and World Food Day at the moment. Any ideas?

A little round up

Because things don't happen to you unless you blog about them I'm going to do a quick round up of the things in my life that don't let me waffle for long enough to get a full blog post out of them but are nevertheless really exciting.

1. I've been selected to be on staff for Fusion! It's the Fourth of next August and is set to be spectacular. From the website 'Fusion will feature over a thousand of the best outdoor performers from across Europe, with everything from music and dance to circus acts, buskers and theatre performers'. If you are a little girly Guide (girly Guide!) you can start booking places on the 4th January.
2. If you used to be a little girly Guide (girly Guide!) you can chat with former and current members on Guides Reconnected. I'm on there.
3. I've got a reviewers copy of Seahorses are Real on it's way. It's 'a haunting tale of love and tragedy'.
4. I own three copies of The Picture of Dorian Gray already. But I want this one.
5. One of our Bookcrossing books made it all the way to Italy!

We got no troubles

So we moved into our flat in October. To go with it we bought a shiny new telly. It had a built in DVD player and freeveiw.

Now let me just say that I'm a big fan of the telly. I love sitting down to watch something. Accompanied by snacks, my duvet, and/or a craft project and it's even better. And at the end of the day (oh dear? Did I just make a bad pun?) my DVD collection is the only thing that makes my infrequent bouts of insomnia bearable.

So the shiny new telly which would be my first telly in four years was a very welcome addition. Only it's broken down bit by bit since we first bought it. First the sound, then the DVD player, now it's refusing to pick up all but the strongest signal.

Sad! But yesterday our shiny new DVD player came so now we can at least watch DVDs and when Stephen gets paid for a project he's working on we'll be able to put the old broken thing out to pasture once and for all. (Side note: how crap does it feel to be unemployed right now?)

So we treated ourselves to a night of chips and DVD's during which I managed to finish embroidering one of our cushion covers. I've been meaning to decorate them to fit in better with our colour scheme since we moved in. I feel guilty about that because they where hand made by Stephen's Mum and, honestly, you can't improve on her sewing. Especially not with my half baked stitches.

I did want to go for an alien theme but Stephen and I could actually agree on an under the sea theme so we went for that. He even obligingly drew the fish. Eventually I'll work on the second cushion.

How realising thin privilege meant realising thin...

For some reason that will go unmentioned, but from recent posts you can probably guess, I’ve been thinking of my own thin privilege lately.

When I found fat acceptance I was coming at it from the perspective of someone who thought them self fat. I’m not. I’m thin. But I’ve only come to realise I was thin recently.

Why? Well yes, I lost inches around the waist as a result of pasty deprivation but - I admit now – I was thin before that.

Probably my mental issues come into play here, making me cringe with disgust as my big flabby stomach brushed against the sheets in bed. Or how I screamed thinking of my fat cheeks turning inward to suffocate me.

Reading that back it scares me. How the hell did my body image get so far off of what I am: an average sized, average height woman who always manages to find something off the rack even if my boobs make me an inbetweenie.

And yes, some off that is anxiety and depression. I imagine I have some undiagnosed body issues thrown in. Some of it is, of course, growing up with a family that commented on my chicken legs. And I think that is why thin privilege can be so hard to grasp. Because it’s easy enough to think thin people have it easy but not so easy to say ‘like me’

I have had it easier being thin. To choose just one example when I joined the University Health Centre in my first year I had to have a physical. The guy doing it did my BMI and found me solidly (as usual) in the middle.

He asked me if I did any exercise. “No, not really. But I do walk everywhere.” He told me that it wasn’t a problem but I may want to think about joining the gym if I put on weight like a lot of people do in first year.

Yeah, spot the logic there.

So from realising I was thin I could realise my thin privilege, but how did I come to realise I was thin? It ties in with something I’ve wanted to talk about for a while. How my barely updated craft blog got political.

You see it’s hard for me to separate one from the other. Just like how we occasionally bring up the politics of food on Always Autumn politics is entwined with the way I craft.

If I where to post about how I wasn’t doing any projects or – more accurately – how I didn’t feel I had done anything good enough to post I couldn’t do that without talking about depression.

Cutting the cloth for a dress makes me think about my body. I measure it constantly, evaluating a clothing project means talking about my boobs or my hip size. And so often when I post ‘my big boobs’ so on or ‘I’ve lost weight so I’ve taken this in’ I feel like apologising for having at least some ideal (so called, although not in the sense that it causes me problems with altering in the first place!) parts of my body.

Crafting lends itself to discussion of body image, to my mental state. It makes me think about feminism and the treatment of the mentally ill. When I want to write about crafting with Guides it’s often linked up with thoughts about how young people don’t have a realistic voice.

Quite frankly if I tried to separate the political from the personal I’d never bloody post. And -of course - I didn't.

I'm hard to please

There is so much I want to rant about today that I'm just going to list them. Three things that I'm not impressed by:

1. This picture in Glamour (US)

It doesn't impress me, it doesn't placate me. One 'normal' woman in one issue of one magazine.

Not even getting into the idea of what is normal I think the ideal we are striving for here is a diverse representation of body shapes, sizes and colours. I want to see people on all parts of the spectrum not just one slightly chubby, naked, white, blond woman as a political statement.

A lot of people are saying she looks happy and healthy but come on! You can not tell how healthy someone is by a picture. You can't see inside some one's body, you can't even see the other side of her body. And happy? Chances are she was told to smile at the camera. She is a model, posing for a photograph.

2. This arsewipe Doctor who thinks loosing weight can cure depression.

I mean come on! I've heard every magic cure for depression there is. What I haven't heard is that you can cure depression by shaming your patients and treating what you perceive are their problems rather than what they are asking for.

And yet I know that there is a problem with people accessing medicine because their doctors are turning them away, or accepting them if only they did the impossible ie. maintain a low weight. And I know people don't take depression seriously even when you fit into that right weight. And I know that people have no idea how people eat but assume they do based on appearances.

Yet I'm shocked and bloody angry when one arse in a white coat can use all these things - all of their unfounded prejudices - to ruin some one's life.

3. It's the time of year again to tear young people apart.

A-level results are in and turns out people did well. This -as it turns out- is not to do with better teaching methods that engage a variety of learning styles, better understanding of learning difficulties or anything else that gives all people a chance at a decent education.

No, it is a result of the exams getting easier. And so the hand wringing starts from people who haven't looked at these exams in years know - like every older generation since time immemorial, or at least the Romans - that kids today are thickos.

And they say this with no regard to the young people. Who, lets face it, only ever get in the news over this and ASBOs. They don't care about someone who is pleased to bits about achieving their A or someone who already thinks they are crap for getting a D.

I'm angry, I'm full of hay fever and god knows the world isn't putting me in a happy place today.

At the wedding

It's easy to be cynical isn't it? But watching my cousin Chris get married this weekend was a good cure.

They are young, that is younger than me, so watching them get married was a little scary. But they are very family orientated - they are family Sims - and they are lucky enough to have found each other while they are young. And if anyone wants to begrudge them that they can come through me.

They were married in the presence of a great deal of loving family and friends including their young son Luke. He is incredibly well behaved and good natured. He has to be, I don't think he's had a second to himself since he was born. I'm sure the pictures of them all together will be treasured for a long time.

And, with a little bit of luck and a lot of love, so will the marriage. I wish them all the best.

But enough about other people, on to me. Not really, but I did make a dress to wear to the wedding. The top half is a grey butterfly design (last seen here) which didn't come out too well on the pictures, and the bottom is a purple cotton. I'm afraid by the time the picture was taken I was rather sweaty and creased. Still I like the dress.

I used New Look 6457 (view A). Turned out the bodice was huge. It was massive even for my industrial sized boobs. To make it again I'd cut the front panel two sizes smaller and the side and back one size smaller. But as I didn't have that much time I added some ruching on the bust.

I need money!

It was a good idea at the time. I was hunting through the Centenary website when I came across the advertisement for Ultimate Edinburgh. They describe it as a glamorous city break and it probably will be with the ball, and castle trip although what I was mostly thinking was that it's in the UK. This makes it cheaper.

I had the money for a deposit in my hands and I'd just sent off a pile of job applications so why not. I had hope.

Now I don't. I still don't have a job but this is an once in a lifetime trip. A once in a hundred years trip. So I'm pulling up my socks and trying to raise money in anyway I can.

Therefore I am proud to announce the launch of my new, first, and probably only jewellery line. The earrings are £4 a pair. If you want something in a different colour or a matching necklace bracelet or handbag it can be done. Just let me know.

Chandelier earrings hanging from a beautiful silver central piece. Beautifully coloured fire polished beads hang delicately down. Available in Blue/Pink and Green/Blue.

Captive bead earrings with various Japanese seed beads hanging from silver rings. Creates a lovely cascading effect. Available in Blue with Purple Finish, Clear with Blue Centre, Red and White with Silver Centre.

Cute dice earrings. Three strands of dice beads and vintage clear crystal beads with aurora borealis effect. Available in Purple/Blue/Black or Green/Blue/White.

Stylish drop earrings. Dramatic double drop red hearts on silver, cute double drop flowers with green fire polished bead on silver, and funky purple glass beads on wire. There is also a string of stylish vintage faceted beads with aurora borealis finish.

And then I ran out of beads! I'm also planning to sell cakes and do a quiz sheet. I'll sit on babies, do a bit of mending, hell I'll even take in ironing. I'm only after money to cover the trip and transport not a ball gown or anything mad and if I manage to make more than I need then it will be put into unit funds.

Happiness is sometimes a slice of pizza

I’m having one of those moments of awareness. You know when you see something and it chimes with you. You say ‘yeah that’s a problem and it sucks’ then as the days pass you hear it more and more. Something that you always knew was a problem is shown as a massive concern.

What brought this all on is this Ask Aunty Fatty post. A woman writes in to ask how she can stop grief eating, Aunty Fatty points out that if she does have a binge eating problem she can deal with it later, right now she shouldn’t feel too guilty because she is going through some seriously crap stuff. So comfort eating. I’m not talking about people who have eating disorders here, I’m talking about something all of us do. I’m talking about having a chocolate bar when you are feeling down, eating mac and cheese when you are feeling homesick, saying it’s because I’m PMSing or a thousand other things.

 Comfort eating isn’t a problem for me. Oh I do it, I do it bloody often, but it isn’t a problem and I don’t view it as a problem because sometimes I need a little bit of comfort. Most of the time my diet is reasonable well balanced and I exercise often, even if it isn’t in a gym. I’m kind of healthy. I’m not supper healthy but I’m not ill, injured and I get my vitamins. But sometimes the balance gets upset for one reason and another.

I’m constantly upsetting my balance. Probably has something to do with the depression. While suffering from that depression and juggling with my dosage I was walking around Huddersfield on my way home from, of all things, receiving my certificate that said I was now a qualified Girl Guide Guider. I was happy, a little lonely after the long bus journey. Then some very drunk girl called me a ginger bitch.

 Then I went home, cried about it, and was miserably unhappy. I was having thoughts about not ever getting out of bed again and death and all sorts of unhappy shit. When the sane half of my brain finally managed to talk me round I got up and did three things guaranteed to make me a little cheerful. First I sent an email to Stephen (in our pre-boyfriend-girlfriend days) then I decided which disk of the Jeeves and Wooster box set would be most likely to cheer me up then I went out and bought junk food.

It would be more effective to work on my self esteem, figure out my medication, or at least dye my hair a nondescript colour but I needed a quick fix, I wanted a pizza and I like my hair. The balance can be sorted out when I don’t need to buy myself 3 hours of unhealthy Jeeves and Wooster filled happiness.

Have you ever walked a tightrope? I haven’t. I’ve done it on the Wii though, your weight slips to one side and the little guy on the screen starts panicking. What you then have to do is acknowledge that and, as soon as you can, try and get your balance to the middle again. What you can’t do is dwell on the fact that you are off balance, otherwise the little guy falls.

What I mean by that extended metaphor is to say yes, acknowledge that you are eating too much pizza but don’t dwell on that. Sometimes you need too much pizza. You can go back to pizza in moderation later, when you aren’t so sad or angry or just in need of a treat.

Or in the words of Aunty Fatty:

“And if it turns out that this doesn’t help, and you really do just need to eat nachos and ice cream for a few months, while you get through what is probably the most difficult time in your life? Then by god, you eat nachos and ice cream for a couple of months”

Buying for a passive aggressive: knitting things

I lost my digital camera so I don’t have any knitting news right now. By lost I mean it’s in one of three places it’s just hard to narrow down. But I’ve updated the bars.

So you don’t get too board I’m going to do a post that was requested a while ago.

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I’m fine with one ball of wool, really. I can find tiny things to make. Two would come in useful for sock wool.

Colour wise, in case you haven’t noticed the type of colours I’ve been wearing since I met you, I like black, dark purple (think amethyst), dark red (think the colour of your blood if you buy me the wrong thing), dark green (gothhobbit), and dark blue but not navy.

If you need more guidance I really, really like Kidsilk Haze which can be bought from these nice people here.

Away from wool pretty, pretty things to store double pointed needles, circular needles or crochet hooks. Although those are more ‘I’m celebrating coming into large amounts of money gifts’ and are placed in this list in case I win the lottery. This is cute though.

The best knitting gift you can give me is to ask about my projects, not roll your eyes too much, encourage me to buy more wool, and say ‘yes but you can beat me up’ next time I get called the housewife. Much like you do now, except that last bit but you know I could.

Two Down, Procrastinating to go…

I'm back from my self imposed blogging exile. Sorry I don't mention it but essays have a way of creeping up on you. Or me. Just me? Don't look like you're so bleeding innocent.

And Knitting? Well I've knit the Yoke Vest from Loop-d-loop so many times the book is starting to live up to it's name (it would do even more if it was called Accidentally Snapping Stitch Markers and Occasionally Flinging Them Across Your Boyfriend's Bedroom As He Sleeps, In The Dark, Never To See Them Again, although I admit that is far too long winded) I'm using the discontinued Rowan Polar which I snagged from the clearance section of Stash. It's a darky purple. I know, I keep knitting in colour but it's a gothish shade and you know… please don't take away my goth card!

Crochet? Well I made a Garden Scarf using Louisa Harding Kashmir Aran, which is also available from Stash. It's lovely, soft, the colours are like jewels, and it's relatively inexpensive. For the scarf I should have used something able to keep it's shape better but I'm thinking mittens, hats, bags. Never too early to start doing coordinating winter accessories, I'm thinking one red/black, one purple/black one black/black.

Monty? He's back home in London but not before sampling the snow in my Aunt's front garden. I stayed with him in london where we went to watch Tom do his radio show.

There is a vague idea behind this. A very vague one. Mainly I need to stop driving my friends crazy talking about knitting, receive compliments (or flames, hay I'm just desperate for attention), and do the entire mocking myself thing.

So I have a blog. A blog with a mission. Here I will post about the joys and the sorrows of knitting mainly in black (like how you can never make out the intarsia ).