How did I become a feminist without knowing it?

Answer: I was raised by my grandmother.
I started thinking about this after reading a post that The Rotund has up on her LiveJournal*, dealing with a blatantly sexist comment.
Here’s the part of my comment that really got me thinking:
But then, I was raised to believe that I was just as good as any man. I [...]

What *I* want for Fat Acceptance.

Quite a few blog posts have had me thinking about this.  One of which I have to admit, I sparked.  And because we’re not a monolithic group, because we’re made up of many different people from many different walks of life who have many different personal goals regarding FA, I decided I needed to be [...]

Mother, you’re breaking your Daughter’s heart.

I wasn’t sure how I wanted to write this.  I knew I wanted to write about it, from the moment I had this conversation with her, but I just didn’t know how to approach it.  I’ve decided to make it an open letter to my mother.
Mother,
My heart is breaking for you.  This year has been [...]

Fat Family: an Observation

Yesterday was my best friend’s (May) daughter’s (Hayley) birthday.  As I’ve said before, my best friend and her family are like my own second family.  And apparently the feeling is mutual, because Charlene (May’s 2nd daughter) said practically the same thing to me the other night.
While we were all out together, we ran into [...]

Pre-Friday Fun: My New “Baby”

I got a kitten yesterday!!!! 
I had been saying for months that I would love to have another cat.  We had 2 when we lived in Illinois – Cheyenne and Dakota (they were brother and sister).  Cheyenne accidentally got locked out of the house the day we brought The Little Chatterbox home from [...]

I need some help brainstorming.

The thing that I was hoping to avoid happened yesterday.  The Little Helper came to me and announced that she was going to Fitness Friday* to exercise to get rid of her belly.  “I have 3 weeks** to get rid of this,” she said, grabbing the puppy fat she has around her belly.
I was horrified.
I [...]

Memorial Day

As a child growing up in the USA, I really just saw Memorial Day as another excuse to have a big family party.  The subject of my Uncle Ray (who served in WWII) would sometimes come up, and every once in a while we would visit his grave and lay flowers for him (not as [...]

When ‘home’ is gone.

I’ve known for a long time that my grandmother wanted to sell the house. The house that my grandfather built with his own two hands (and largely out of scraps from other jobs [he was a carpenter]). The house that my father grew up in. The house that I grew up in. [...]

Lend me a hand, will ya?

Okay, here’s the thing.  I was talking to my birth mother last Saturday, and somehow the conversation turned a corner into diet-land.
See, I don’t broadcast my decision to become FA and anti-diet to most people.  I don’t feel quite strong enough in my convictions just yet to do that.  I also feel like I don’t [...]

Merry? Christmas?

Christmas just hasn’t been very merry for the people in my life at all this year.
My best friend might have cancer.  What she thought was a tooth abscess turned out to be a tumor – and another one popped up to join it!  Christmas Eve morning she had to go to the doctor to have [...]