Kdmay28

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From bowls to bedding, plus sexy shower curtains, check out some of my favorite vintage tattoo-inspired home goods…

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Sin in Linen Tattoo Flash Kitchen Oven Mitt/Potholder Set for $13

Traditional Tattoo Kitchen Roll for £5.50.

Tattoo Fund Hand Crafted Word Jar for $19

Tattoo Designs Mug on sale for $13.

Race Against Maritime Towel Set for $18.

Tattoo Designs Salad/Dessert Plates on sale for $25 for all four!

Tattoo Design Red Rose Cereal Bowl on sale for $10

Tattoo Tortilla Warmer for $11.95

Tattoo Tall 2 oz Shooter Glasses, Set of 4 for $16.75

Time To Ink shower curtain for $25

Sin in Linen Flash Tattoo Black Duvet Cover, on sale for $94.

 

Comments

• Too many Homies snapped 'em up! 1 agrees by Ariel
• I love the teatowels, but they are out of stock at the moment ... by Cinnamon Girl
• Oh thanks, a very sexy lady told me about them! by Megan Finley
• Love that kitchen roll!!! by Caroline Diezyn

Come here…or don’t.

I told you bananas are jerks.

Blackmailed by black bananas. Oh sure they look innocuous just sitting there in their fruity innocence but they’ve been torturing me - torturing me - for a week now. It all started with selling our house. (Which, good news, it’s sold! Yay!*) But the showing process was excruciating in a way that only trying to keep a house in catalog condition with four Tasmanian devils underfoot can be. There was a lot of frantic running around, throwing random objects in the back of the car and even some yelling. (I’m not proud but that is just what happens when I discover that my son has been picking his nose and wiping snot trails all over the wall I just freshly painted! Kids can be jerks.) But mostly there was a lot of eating out. We ate out so much even the kids started complaining about it.

Of course this bothered me. I’m a girl who normally cooks nearly every meal and generally distrusts restaurant food. But I kept repeating my new mantra - don’t be brittle! - like the octogenarian trapped in a soccer mom’s body that I am and we sucked it up. It wasn’t ideal but people got fed and it was decently nutritious and my kitchen looked perfectly ornamental for two whole weeks. But one day as I was rushing to sweep the last crumbs off the table I noticed a bunch of bananas in the fruit bowl that were rapidly browning. All the other things I’d put in there, like lemons and limes, were the type of thing to look pretty for weeks without rotting. Bananas on the other hand… well, bananas can be jerks. Nevertheless I still cared about them and didn’t want the overly ripe bananas to go to waste – mmm, fresh banana bread, banana muffins and banana pancakes, oh my! – so I grabbed the whole bunch and shoved them in my fridge. Right next to the Lego boat and a handful of Squinkies I’d hid in there.

I mistakenly thought that nobody would open my fridge since I thought that one of the universal rules of house hunting is that you don’t look inside anything but closets. My realtor disillusioned me later. Apparently not only does everyone look but they totally judge you on it too. I don’t even want to know what they must have thought of my dirty hippie fridge packed with 17 bunches of kale, a gallon jar of kimchi, a tiny pink sock and three different types of miso paste. Oh, and those wretched bananas.

Since I had no time to cook so much as a grilled cheese, much less banana bread, the bananas sat in my fridge, every day turning a more rancid shade of gray and filling me with wasted-food guilt every time I opened the door. “I can still use them,” I rationalized to myself. But tonight something inside me snapped. It was totally their fault – bananas do a mean stink eye – and I was sick of the guilt trips. So I grabbed the whole bunch and chucked them into the garbage can. I didn’t even put them in the compost bin! It was a total, utter waste.

It was also total, utter, overwhelming relief!

Words cannot describe how liberated I suddenly felt. I realized, as I sat in my vacuous kitchen, that sometimes the cost of doing something (even something good!) is far higher than the cost of giving yourself permission to just let it go. It’s okay to throw away the black bananas. It’s okay to feed my kids peanut butter toast in the car rather than homemade banana blueberry muffins at the table. It’s okay to tell all the produce that I’m stretched thinner than fruit leather and to stop guilting me by rotting in plain sight. It’s okay, sometimes, to not be superwoman.

This got me thinking about other little breaks I can give myself. I present to you Charlotte’s List of Random Stuff I Give You Permission to Do.

It’s okay to wear your sunglasses as a headband – all day – to hide your sweaty gym hair.

It’s okay to call your yoga pants just “pants” and wear them as such.

It’s okay to eat a handful of jelly beans because you just lifted and your muscles need their glycogen replenished, by golly!

It’s okay to admire your biceps in the mirror at the gym. Maybe just don’t kiss them. In public.

It’s okay to “stretch” for twenty minutes so you can finish reading In Style in peace while your kids are in the gym childcare.

It’s okay to wear your sports bra twice without washing it. In a pinch.

It’s okay to put your headphones in but not turn on your music because you just don’t feel like talking to anyone that day. (Or maybe because you want to hear what everyone else is saying when they think you can’t hear them?)

It’s okay to watch “Say Yes to the Dress” on the treadmill. And burst into tears. And then tell the people on either side of you that you always cry at weddings.

It’s okay to actually picture someone you hate while you do all those knee strikes and left jabs in cardio kickboxing. Burns more calories too. Science says so.

It’s okay to tell someone no and not give them an explanation why.

It’s okay to wear ballet flats even if you were never a ballerina.

It’s okay to be a modern, feminist woman and still have an entire playlist of nothing but Pitbull songs.

It’s okay to stop your workout halfway into it because you’re just not feeling it that day. (Yes, in spite of what all those fitspiration posters tell you about gutting through the pain, it is okay to quit early sometimes. I promise.)

It’s okay to wear a band-aid as a fashion accessory if it has Candyland characters all over it (this would be Jelly Bean’s addition to the list!)

It’s okay to pretend you’re checking your kids for lice just so you can sniff their head to see if you can still smell any of that heavenly baby smell on them.

It’s okay to stop this post here – on rando number 16 – in order to go to bed. It’s okay to not feel guilty and/or OCD about this.

Your turn! Finish this sentence for how you are feeling today: “It’s okay to…” Have you ever sneaked a peek in a stranger’s fridge? Did you judge them based on what you saw??

*It’s okay to not know where you’re moving. At least I hope so. Because we honestly haven’t got a clue at the moment. Clearly my responsible adult card has expired.

Arrested Development fans rejoice: you can get it from this etsy store

The last time I did a women’s race was the 2011 Iron Girl half-marathon in Clearwater, and by the time I crossed the finish line, I swore never again.  I had paid a considerable amount of money just to race as it was, but then the pre-race transportation was badly organized, which meant I was stepping off the trolley to the starting line more than seven minutes after the race started.  I didn’t get to stretch or go to the bathroom or warm-up or anything, so I was already in a right state by the time I started. I was already teetering on the edge of reasonableness but then all of the cutesy girly shit that characterizes the Iron Girl franchise pushed me right over into the land of “fuck this fucking shit.”

It was the third women-only race I’d done in two years.  I had also done the Women’s Running Half Marathon in St. Petersburg, which was another race I found exorbitantly priced and more than just a tad bit annoying, and another Iron Girl race.  Not even the fact that I got to meet Kathrine Switzer at the Women’s Running expo could make up for the things I disliked about the race.  I decided that women’s races just weren’t for me, and I haven’t done one since.

But then a couple of months ago I got an email about a race that would have seriously made me reconsider my “no women-only races” rule had it not been so far away.  On June 1, the Thelma and Louise Half-Marathon will be held in Canyonlands National Park.

Okay, let that sit for a second.  A Thelma and Louise Half-Marathon.  A half-marathon dedicated to one of the most ass-kicking movies of the 1990s, in which the women shoot a rapist and ditch one of the women’s shitty, domineering husbands and go tearing off on a cross-country crime spree and have dirty hotel sex with a deliciously hot, young Brad Pitt.  If you have never seen this movie, I insist you step away from this blog post and do not come back until you have seen this movie and can appreciate just how insane it was that such an overtly feminist movie could have ever been so mainstream (but then, I suppose, that was the 1990s for you).

If I still lived in Utah…shoot, if I lived even one time zone away from Utah, I would have signed up for this race faster than a ’66 Thunderbird could fly through the sky before crash-landing at the bottom of a canyon.

My enthusiasm for this race clearly illustrated for me that it wasn’t the “women-only” aspect of most women’s races that I had problems with.  I’ll admit that part of me disliked the idea that women needed to be coddled and cajoled into doing something athletic by having their own super-speshul races, far from all the scary boys and men, but the truth is, being surrounded by thousands of women was actually one of the things I dug most about doing the women’s races.

No, it was everything else about the races that left me feeling like the human embodiment of Feminist Hulk.  It was the insistence on referring to everyone as “girls.”  It was the cookies and the pink shopping bags and the pink swag and the pink pink pink everything everywhere was PINK.  (And I say this as a woman who actually really likes pink a whole lot. I just hate the idea that because I am a woman, I must lurve the color passionately and want everything I own to be pink.)  It was the vague sense that I was being condescended to, like I was some kind of delicate little princess who needed to be praised and told how special I was and how empowered I am by everything I do.

The version of womanhood being catered to was nothing like womanhood as I experienced it.  Where was all of the badassery?  The toughness?  The courage and the fierceness?  Did this collection of living-”Cathy” stereotypes really describe the only way the race organizers could envision femininity?

And the more I saw of women-only races, the more I felt like the organizers were operating off some really limited definitions of what it meant to be a woman.  Take the Nike Women’s Marathon, which touts firefighters giving Tiffany jewelry to finishers in lieu of medals.  Now, I like firefighters and I like jewelry (and truth be told, if I were to do that race that would probably be the only way I’d ever own something that came in that famous robins-egg blue box), but, as Courtney Szto pointed out, the assumption that every single woman alive is going to swoon for this to be rather heteronormative. As you know, not all women like men, a fact that I would have thought a race in San Francisco of all places would have been fully aware of.

And I have seen women-only races that include mentions of chocolate and champagne in their marketing materials, and that use vaguely suggestive titles like “Dirty Girl,” and that brag about having boa-and-tiara stations, or even an event that calls itself the “Jiggle Butt” race.  Shopping features heavily in the marketing, as does jewelry and princess and divas and high heels and a ton of other things that I just don’t relate to at all.

The Thelma and Louise Half-Marathon was the first time I encountered a women-only race with a concept and theme that made me feel like, hey, there might actually be a place for a woman like me at one of these things.

Obviously I know that just because something doesn’t appeal to me, that this doesn’t necessarily mean it will appeal to no woman anywhere.  On the contrary, I am aware that a lot of women love these races and are signing up for them, which is why they are proliferating like sparkly viruses.  And I also know that there are women out there who do love jewelry and princesses and tiaras and chocolate and that for them, this does not contradict their views of themselves as strong, capable, complex women.  And I also know that there are a lot of women out there who hate all of this stuff, but they do the races anyway for a variety of reasons: it fits with their training schedule, they want to run with their friends and family members, it’s local, whatever.

But for me, it all boils down to one simple thing, which is that I dislike the fact that the women-only racing community seems to have en masse decided to create an image of womanhood using the broadest sitcom-style stereotypes of frivolity and consumerism, then to exclusively cater to that image without seeming to consider the possibility that a lot of women – like, uh, me – find the pink-princess-shopping-champagne-diva stuff rather alienating.

I want more women to feel comfortable enough to get out and race, but is this really the way to do it?  (Evidently road-racing isn’t the only sport whose gender-specific marketing has left some, in the words of Sam, a bit “queasy.”  Check out her post about Cupcake Races and Heels on Wheels in cycling, in which she brings up some of the same issues I talk about here, except she does so in her very scholarly, smarty-pants way.  Oh, and read Tracy’s post about why she doesn’t think women-only races are inherently sexist, too.  Good stuff as usual from these two.)  Surely there has to be a way to organize women-only races that isn’t based upon lowest-common-denominator stereotypes ripped from the pages of Cosmo.

What do you think about women-only races?  I know y’all have opinions, because a few of you have asked me to write about this in the past. Spill ‘em in the comments below. 

This is a follow-up to the anti-rape culture blog post. Wil Wheaton has a slogan, “Don’t be a dick.” My friend Patrick Schwisow (@PSchwisow on Twitter) had a blog post entitled “Don’t be a Chet.” Bill & Ted say, “Be excellent to each other and party on!” So why is so damn hard for people […]

This isn't something I usually write about but.. And it may be a teensy bit controversial, but I feel like it's a topic that needs more discussion out in the open.. And I'd love to hear what you think. Especially if you've been in a similar situation..

Recently I was contacted by a stylist who was interested in using one of my designs. She wanted to decorate a cake to be used in a photo shoot for a national magazine Downunder. That sounded like a fun thing for my pattern to be part of! But it didn't happen, because they wanted to use my design for free. All I would get was 'exposure in a national magazine'.

Well, 'exposure' doesn't pay any bills. And I don't know about you, but it is very rare that I look anything up that I've seen in a magazine. Or if I intend on doing so, it is pretty likely that I will forget. So exposure doesn't seem like such a big deal. Maybe it was in the past.

I'm sure this stylist is being paid fairly for her work, as is the photographer and everyone else who may be involved in the shoot (who bakes the cake?), so it feels a little insulting that my work isn't worth enough to pay for. And it's not like I demanded thousands of pounds! I'm realistic; I know I'm not that well known a designer. But still, my work has worth and it's only fair that I be compensated for its use.

I wonder if they would ask Disney or Orla Kiely to let them use a design for free?


I know that with many magazines this sort of usage for exposure deal is the norm, but that doesn't make it right. I don't blame the stylist for this state of things. But if a stylist (or whatever) loves and wants to feature/use the work of a designer, pay for it. Even if it's not the done thing. Be the change you want to see in the world.

You might say that since I wouldn't actually be doing anything, I should've just said yes, sit back and wait for the exposure. But the thing is, I put quite a lot of effort into my designs. I don't just pull them out of thin air. Hours of sketching, maybe even some research, go into each design. As well as the work that goes into the actual final vectorized design.

This is work. It's my job. And I deserve to be fairly compensated for it. And most definitely if you're being paid for the thing/service you propose to use my work for.

It may have been different if the piece had been about me / Polka & Bloom, but it's not. My work would have been used as part of someone else's. With only the 'exposure' of credit, which would probably have been a tiny line at the bottom of the page, as 'payment'.

I asked them for $100. You may think that is a lot or maybe that it's too little. It seems fair to me at this point in time. But the number as such isn't that relevant. What is relevant is that if they really liked my work enough (love it, even!) they would want to compensate me for its use. And by 'me' I mean anyone, you get that, right? I'm just an example. :-)

As I said, the stylist, photographer etc get paid, maybe props are hired etc. Surely, paying for use of a design would just be another biz expense? I know, I know, magazines are struggling, things aren't what they used to be. Well, ya know who else is struggling? Designers and all kinds of creative people.

It's about respect in the end. I respect photographers and stylists and editors etc. That's why I buy magazines and don't just rely on pretty pictures I can look at for free on the internet. I like to think that the people featured in some way in a magazine are being fairly compensated. Even if a magazine/stylist/whatever can't afford to pay lots, atleast pay something. Show that you value and respect the value of creative people.

Watermelon is my favorite food. I love it like a love song, baby.

Several years ago a doctor friend asked me an interesting question. “What is emotional eating?”

I raised an eyebrow and wondered what kind of cyborg has to ask that question. I mean, who hasn’t tasted the sweet, sweet love of a warm cinnamon bun with cream cheese frosting and toasted walnuts and felt the same thrill as the first time a boy ran his thumb over the back of your hand? (Just me?? Awkward.) But before I bit his head off it occurred to me that I have a weird relationship with food, always have, and maybe there are other people out there who really don’t have any emotional attachments to food. Just because I’ve never met any doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Plus my doctor friend is kind and good-hearted, even if his asceticism sometimes impedes his rapport with the majority of us fallible humans.

So I answered with no snark, “Well I suppose it’s defined as eating for any reason other than physical hunger, primarily to fill an un-met psychological need.”

He sighed. “I know the definition. I just don’t understand how it works.” He told me about his severely obese patient who, in the doctor’s words, “was killing himself with food.” The good doc continued, “He says he eats to make himself feel better but it’s obvious that it doesn’t. Not physically for sure. And also not emotionally – he’s miserable.” Then he added, “Explain this to me! Why would anyone do this? And how can I help him see how bad it is?”

“I can’t explain someone else’s relationship to food,” I backpedaled.  (Can’t even explain my own half the time.) But I couldn’t let his question go either. It’s been years I’ve been mulling this one over. And now that he’s likely forgotten he ever asked for it, I’m ready to give him my answer. (Not my answer for his patient – just my answer for me.)

Emotional Eating is Not Irrational 

1. Physical basis. One of the first mistakes people make about emotional eating is assuming that it’s purely emotion driven. It’s not. There’s a very real physiological reason that food makes you feel better: carbohydrates, especially simple ones like sugar, work on your primary serotonin pathway. Serotonin is one of the neurochemicals that helps you feel happy and gives you a sense of well-being. Fat doesn’t work this way. Protein doesn’t work this way. But eating carbs makes you feel better. Science says so.

2. Mind-body connection. We feel things in our bodies. We get flutters in our stomachs when we’re nervous. We get headaches when we’re stressed. We get literal chest pain when experiencing a heartbreak. There is no way to separate our emotions from our bodies and therefore, to some level, all physical eating is emotional and vice versa.

3. Addiction. People sometimes equate chocolate with crack. They’re not wrong. In fact, they’re more right than they know. Lab rats given the choice between cocaine and sugar picked the sugar. Whole books have been written about how the salt-fat-sugar combo is so reinforcing (and so abused by the food industry).

Given all that, emotional eating makes a lot of sense, right? And yet it still gets a bad rap. But I don’t think it deserves it. Not only are there solid physical reasons why we do it, there are legitimate emotional reasons we do it. (More on those in a minute). And what I’ve discovered is that emotional eating only goes wrong when you stop eating emotionally. It’s when you turn off your emotions and go numb (like in a binge) or when you tell yourself that your emotions are bad or wrong and that you “shouldn’t” be feeling what you’re feeling. Then eating is suddenly an act of rebellion. When you start telling yourself that you’re a stupid fat slob or “Oooh this is so bad! I shouldn’t be doing this! I’m never going to eat ice cream again! (After I polish off this tub as a farewell to my favorite food!)” – Then you’re breaking the rules! Taking a stand! Damn the Man! Save the Empire! Except The Man is you. Which is what my doctor friend meant, I think, when he said his patient was killing himself with food. What is the ultimate act of rebellion against your circumstances if not suicide*?

I don’t think we need to stop eating emotionally. I think we need to stop eating rebelliously. Food is not bad. You don’t need to fight it.

How To Eat Emotionally

One of the things that was such a breakthrough for me with Intuitive Eating was realizing that a) food can be comforting b) good food should be comforting and c) that’s okay. Sometimes it’s okay to eat when you’re not hungry and to eat to fill an emotional need. But there are ways to do that to make it easier and more (ful)filling for yourself.

(Okay, listen: I am NOT giving you yet another list of rules to follow that if you break them you’re a failure. These are simply guidelines that I’ve learned the hard way, through a lot of trial and error and tears, and I’d like to offer them to you. As a gift. Not as another thing to punish yourself with. A kindness.) 

1. Recognize what you’re doing. You can’t fill the need you’re needing filled if you won’t even acknowledge that need in the first place. You need to name the emotion. It can be as simple as saying, “I’m so so stressed out today” or “I’m sad and I want someone to comfort me.”

2. Recognize the difference between an emotion and a craving. Cravings wax and wane – it might be intense in that moment but you can willpower through a simple craving. Cravings will mostly go away when you get enough sleep and eat enough good fats and protein. But emotions get heavier the longer they’re ignored. They will keep pressing on you until you listen to them.

3. Treat yourself with kindness. I think this is what Geneen Roth meant when she titled her book “When You Eat at the Refrigerator, Pull Up a Chair.” She wasn’t telling you to just give up and resign yourself to eating the whole quart of ice cream. She’s telling you to treat yourself the way you would a friend. You wouldn’t tell them to stand at the freezer with a fork sneaking bites out of the tub and pretending no one can see them. You’d scoop it in a pretty bowl and give them a spoon and tell them to sit. Then you’d ask them if they were enjoying it, perhaps tell them why you bought that certain flavor, why you like it. You’d smile and feel happy that they were enjoying it. Now: Do all that for yourself. Be kind. No name calling. No shame. No guilt trips. And for the love of little green apples sit down.

4. Let it comfort you. Enjoy it. Savor it. Allow yourself to remember why you find this particular food so comforting – wrap yourself in the memory of your mother making the special birthday cake with the Jell-O in it, just for you. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve eaten something looking for solace and then refused to let it make me feel better – because I was “bad” or wasn’t “supposed to” eat it or was too “fat” to deserve treats or whatever. Don’t do that. Be comforted. There is nothing wrong with allowing yourself to be comforted.

5. Recognize when the food has stopped being comforting. Warning: it happens fast. Everyone knows the feeling of scarfing down a package of cookies only to realize too late that you feel overly full and sick and awful. When you get to that point, you’re using food to abuse yourself (see end note about Binge Eating Disorder) and you don’t have to do that. But here’s the trick: you can’t recognize that point where it goes from “yummy this is amazing and I feel so good eating this” to “Ack, where did the rest of the package go I feel horrible” if you aren’t listening for it. Numb eating, unconscious eating, bored eating, distracted eating – not only is that not good for you, it’s also not any fun.

6. Do try other things. Food cannot be your only way of dealing with your emotions. Nor can exercise or talking to your sister or shopping or anything else in excess. It should be just one of many things in your toolkit. Once you de-stigmatize emotional eating you’ll realize that sometimes you really do need a warm slice of peach pie to feel taken care of… and sometimes you really do need a hug instead. (And acknowledge that sometimes it’s easier to just drop the money for the pie then it is to drop your defenses and ask for the hug. But if you eat the pie, you’ll still want the hug.) Have a wide range of coping techniques at your disposal. Write them down. (It sounds dumb, I know, but you forget in the moment that you have options.)

7. Don’t feel guilty and don’t let others make you feel guilty. Delicious food is not a guilty pleasure. It’s just a pleasure. Not very long ago, I was having a no-good-very-bad-terrible day. I grabbed a handful of jelly beans and went to my closet, sat on the floor, shut the door and began to eat them one by one in peace. Just as I was thinking “Oooh these are SO delicious! So fruity yet sour. So tangy yet sweet. So crunchy on the outside but chewy on the inside. WILLY WONKA YOU MINX!” the phone rang. I answered it. It was a friend who is a personal trainer that I’ve also been interviewing for an article. “Whatcha doing?” he asked. So I told him, straight out. “Sitting in my closet eating jelly beans.” I could feel his forehead crinkling in concern over the phone. “Let’s think this one through, Charlotte. Do you feel like you “deserve” the jelly beans as reward for your hard day? Because you deserve even more to be healthy.” I thought for a second. “Nope, I think I deserve both. Jelly beans and healthy don’t have to be mutually exclusive.” He coughed. “Well then are you trying to take care of yourself? Let’s think of other ways you can take care of yourself. Like get a pedi!” (Okay he actually said “get your toes done” which is hilarious on several levels but what he meant was a pedicure.) I thought longer about this one – mostly because I love pedis. Finally I said, “Actually, eating my fave food in peace and quiet does feel like exactly what I need to do to take of myself. Not to mention the fact that to get a pedi, I’d have to go a lot farther than my closet and hire a babysitter. So yeah, I’m good with this.” And I was. I didn’t feel like I was being held hostage by my emotions but rather that I was doing something simple, kind and comforting for myself. (For the record, I don’t think my trainer-friend understood it. I think he was still disappointed in me even after we finished our business and hung up. But I made the decision to let that feeling stay with him and not accept it for myself.)

Food Is Not a Moral Judgement

Remember: It’s not about denying yourself or indulging yourself. It’s about taking care of yourself. When it comes to eating you’re not “good” or “bad.” And food isn’t “good” or “bad” either. You’re eating and it’s food. Food is not a moral judgement. Does eating warm gingerbread with fresh whipped cream make you feel happy and loved? Good! I’m glad it does. There are so many hard edges in this life and I’m glad you found a soft corner.

All of this makes it sound like I’ve got this whole emotional eating thing all figured out. I so totally don’t. Which is why I’m now turning this over to you guys: What would you have said to my doctor friend? Do you have any tips for emotional eating? What did I miss?? Any foods you have a particular emotional attachment to?

In case anyone is wondering why I’m so emotionally attached to watermelon. (Poor quality video but the funny is SO worth it!)

Note about Binge Eating Disorder: All eating disorders are self-abuse. This doesn’t make you bad or guilty or shameful. It’s a clinical assessment. But you do deserve better than this. I say this from personal experience: Your eating disorder isn’t your friend, it’s not a part of you and – I’m not going to sugar coat this – it wants to destroy you. There are so many different components to this disorder – biological, genetic, sociological, environmental – so there is no way that this is just you being “bad.” You have to fight it. But to do that you first have to consider yourself worth fighting for. And if you can’t believe that yet, then let me tell you: you are. You are worth fighting for.

*NOT meant as an indictment or judgement of people who attempt or commit suicide.

* We’re sending lots of love to everyone in Boston (our cousins were at the marathon but are thankfully safe).

Update: If you’re reading on a mobile device and are still seeing the glitchy new mobile-version of our site that we tried out for a few hours before discontinuing it, try clearing your device’s cookies to return to the standard desktop view :)

Back in October we hardly would have called ourselves traveling experts. Honestly we only took a flight once every few years (we went to Alaska for our honeymoon in 2007 and didn’t get back on a plane for a family vacation again until 2012 when we went to Hawaii for our five year anniversary). But thanks to our book tour, we’ve been on lots of flights. 29 of them in four months to be exact. So while we still can’t quite claim expert traveler status yet, here are a few things we learned about planes and hotels along the way…

#1. If your airline is gate-checking bags, get on the plane towards the end of boarding (even if you’re invited to board earlier). On small planes where rolling suitcases & duffel bags are tagged at the gate and stowed underneath the plane, we found that often the last bags to go on were the first to come off. So if you’ve got a tight connection or just generally don’t like waiting for your bag, don’t be in a rush to board because your bag may end up at the bottom of the pile. Don’t be dead last and get left behind or anything, but try going on with Zone 4-5 people instead of Zone 1-2. Note: this works best if after you gate-check your bag, the only other carry-ons that you have can slip under the seat in front of you since overhead bin storage fills up while you wait to board.

#2. If you’re arriving to town before hotel check-in, just call ahead. Our flights often got us into town before noon – a few hours before the standard hotel check-in time of 3 pm. We used to think this required us to kill some major time, but usually all it takes is a call to get into your room early at no extra charge. We often called before getting on the plane (to let them know we were interested in an early check-in) and then again when we landed in that city (to hopefully secure something that was ready). This method only failed us once, but in about a dozen other circumstances when we arrived early, there was a room waiting for us.

#3. Be the bright spot in the front desk clerk’s day. Hotel employees deal with plenty of jerks each day (we witnessed more than a couple), so by being the friendly / smiley / not-engrossed-in-your-phone guests can sometimes earn you more than good karma points – we even scored a couple of random room upgrades.

#4. If you can’t reserve plane seats together, book seats that would be next to each other, even if they’re in different rows. All of our tour flights were booked by our publisher (many of them last minute). So on the few occasions where we couldn’t get seats together, we’d ask the desk agent, which worked in most cases. But for two instances it didn’t. So as a last ditch effort, we chose an aisle seat in one row and a window seat in another – even if it was a row up. Then we’d get on the plane and before the person in the seat we wished to switch with sat down and got settled we asked if they minded sitting one row up in the same exact seat that they booked. In those two cases, the person didn’t seem to mind at all (of course nothing’s guaranteed, but we thought it was worth a shot).

#5. Whenever possible, pack light and carry on. In all of our 29 flights, we never lost a single bag. This is because we packed light and carried on every single time. I just carried my purse (which also had our camera, our phones, our tickets, some snacks, and our itinerary) and John carried the backpack (with our books for reading on the plane, our computer, and signing stuff in it) along with dragging the carry-on-sized rolling suitcase along (full of clothes, shoes, etc). This is all that we brought with us, even when we were gone for nearly a week:

It might seem hard to get all of your stuff down to just a few bags, but our advice is to pack a few wardrobe staples that can all be interchanged (ex: don’t pack any tops that need specific shoes or pants that don’t go with anything else). In our case, a few pairs of jeans and tops along with one extra pair of shoes each, and some obvious things like underwear was all that we needed in our suitcase. When we travel with Clara we use one more rolling suitcase for her clothes, sound machine, blanket, and a few other comfort items, but since each person is allowed one suitcase and one carry on, we’re still good to go in that scenario without any bag checking.

6. Keep toiletries easily accessible in a plastic bag that you can pull out in two seconds at security. Many of the airports we traveled through were extremely strict about removing our liquid toiletries from our luggage when going through security (and it can really slow you down if you have to dig through your suitcase to grab them) so we learned to keep our plastic bag of contact solution and other small liquids more easily accessible. Rather than burying it with the rest of our toiletries in our suitcase, sticking it into the front pocket of the backpack made for easier grabbing.

Oh but they’ll take any and all fancy sodas away from you as you go through security 100% of the time.

#7. Make a travel document to use as a quick-reference itinerary for every trip. We put all of our hotel accommodations, flight confirmation numbers, and scheduled dates for departures & check-ins on one sheet of paper that we printed out before we left for the airport. It’s also a nice simple sheet to copy for a family member so they know where to find you in an emergency.

#8. Do a night-before-check on your flight, print tickets at home, and double check your hotel reservation. This is another one of those prepping-beforehand-is-much-easier-than-panicking-later things. We liked to check on our flight the night before, just to be sure it wasn’t delayed or canceled and, if possible, even print tickets at home to save time at the airport. We also learned the hard way to check our hotel reservations – on one of our first tour stops, we arrived to find that our hotel was booked for the following night instead of that night and we had to kill a few hours while everything was straightened out.

And if you’re lucky, your room looks like this…

#9. Everything takes longer than you think. Always give yourself a lot more time to do basic things like fly somewhere, catch a cab, check into your hotel, etc. In the beginning of our tour we tried to squeeze in a lot of things that we soon learned we’re close to impossible (ex: a house crashing after a delayed flight meant shooting a house in the dark and then eating a crazy-late dinner and collapsing into bed at 1am, which didn’t set us up well for our morning signing the next day). So it was a lot less stressful once we stopped underestimating the time it would take to do things and started being realistic about how much “fuzzy” time there is in there. You know, all those moments spent deplaning, waiting for a cab, or sitting in a restaurant waiting for the food can really add up.

#10. Hotel TV can stink. I know, this isn’t a huge deal for most people (us included) when you’re going to be staying somewhere for a few days, but when you’re traveling on and off for four months you definitely start to miss the simple comforts of home that help you unwind (your own couch, your own bed, and even your DVR). So we wised up in the last month of travel and got a free one month trial of Amazon Prime, which allowed us to watch Downton Abbey on our computer in any hotel. It sounds odd, but having this simple luxury really helped us relax and it made those random hotels feel a little more homey (instead of sitting on the bed watching Cops and missing “real life” like crazy).

So there you have it. Ten things that made all that traveling a little easier, more fun, tastier, and more comfy. Do you guys have other tips out there! I’m sure there are some we have yet to discover and a few that we’re forgetting thanks to scrambled travel brain. That’s a real thing, right?

Psst- Here’s a post about toddler travel that we did a while back, just in case that’s on the agenda for you.

Prom season is right around the corner and I fell in love with this piece sent in by Silvana.  She crafted it for her stunning sister and I think you’re going to all be obsessed just like me!

My baby sister had her very first high school dance this year.  Of course we had to make her the most fabulous outfit ever!!  Our other sister took her shopping at a local thrift store and found this dowdy original.

Silvana – Before

The shape and style was quite sad, but it was made of beautiful teal dupioni silk.

The sisterly love is incredible!!  Time to see what Silvana did…

I removed the skirt, altered the bodice, made an open back, and reattached the skirt a bit higher, giving it full pleats.

Silvana’s Sister – After

With a little styling and some inexpensive accessories, she was red carpet ready.

Love the fish!

The entire outfit, down to the extra flats in her little clutch for when her feet got tired, was under $20.

The gorge back!

What a glowing gal!!

Pretty lady!!

I don’t know if I love the dress or the fact that this was a total family affair more?!  The fabric on this dress is delicious and the color is incredible!  You’re totally right Silvana, the styling is perfection and your sister had to be the best dressed gal at the party…also the fact that this all ran $20 is just everything!  You’re going to have to continue to send in the pieces your make for your sis because this one is a total home run!

 This pic is from my Great CrossFit Experiment a few years ago and… I almost didn’t post it at the time because I was embarrassed by my “big quads”. Now I’m just embarrassed that there’s no weight on the bar and my wrists are so bent! (In my defense, we were using un-weighted bars to practice good form first – practice I clearly needed.) 

I did something really daring the other day: I went to the gym in some really crazy workout pants. Oh, wait, I do that all the time. No the daring part was that these particular Nike leggings, while super cute, are also ridiculously unflattering. They were a gift and I love the gift-giver so I have kept them but they are a swirly dark pattern with two patches of bright white over each thigh. They’re basically a neon arrow pointing straight to my much-obsessed-over and daily-derided trouble spot, the one I’m most intent on camouflaging. It’s not my friend’s fault – she has long, thin Gisele-esque legs that would look good in pants literally made up of neon arrows but she and I, well, we both may put our pants on one leg at a time but our legs sure don’t look the same in said pants! So why on earth would I wear something so unflattering out in public?

A thought: What if “flattering” doesn’t necessarily mean “thin”?

Another thought: What if wearing “flattering” clothing meant wearing items that showcased our strengths rather than hiding our “flaws”?

A life-changing thought: What if I acted like I loved my thighs? Like, was really, truly, deeply proud of them? What would that look like exactly? And would it change how I really felt about them?

Like many things, my thoughts started with someone else’s thoughts. I was reading a post by a blogger* who took exception to the idea that “flattering” = “makes you look skinny”. As an advocate of the fat acceptance movement she gets irritated that so many plus-size clothing options offer slimming panels or illusion color blocking or three quarter sleeves, among other skinny-fying tools and automatically assume that she wants to hide her tummy and arms. Which, it turns out, she doesn’t. Not at all.

I’m going to be honest. Up until the second I read her blog entry it never once occurred to me that flattering could mean anything other than “makes you look thinner”. To me the two phrases are interchangeable. Sure, sometimes I meant “flattering” as “You look gorgeous overall” but implied in there was that part of the gorgeousness included looking more svelte than one’s usual. But the more I thought about it, the more I think she has a point. Flattering should mean “anything that makes you look beautiful” and beauty is a concept much larger than a simple construct like body size.

I’ve whined a lot on here about my legs. And the truth is that every time I do, I have a little twinge. At first I thought I was twinging (that’s a thing, right?) because I’m supposed to be above all that body snarking nonsense and I was letting you guys down by indulging in it. And while that is true, I realized that I’m really twinging because – you ready for this? - I don’t actually want to hate my thighs. They may not be the perfect socially sanctioned shape and size but they’ve done all right by me. Better than all right. My legs are crazy strong. And I’ve worked hard to make them that way. They’ve carried me up mountains and downtown. They’ve helped me hoist everything from 200-pound desks (side note: I’m giving away a really big desk. Anyone want it??) to sleeping toddlers. They’ve ran me through long races and propelled me off vaults and helped me birth babies and walked me down the aisle and danced me until dawn. I can walk miles and miles and miles without tiring. We’ve had a lot of good times together my legs and I! I have every reason to love my strong quads. So what’s stopping me? Why is it that my first concern in buying any kind of pants is if they “flatter” my legs (i.e. make them look skinny)? Why can’t I just be proud of them?

So I put on the neon-arrow-to-my-upper-thigh-fat pants. And then I resisted the urge to cover them with a skirt or tunic top and just added one of my regular workout t-shirts. I’ll admit I was nervous going in the gym. (And this from a girl who has worn a full Katy Perry get-up to workout in!) But at the check-in desk, the girl’s eyes widened as she squealed, “Oooh I love those tights!!! And you are working them!” I don’t think this particular girl has ever said more than hi to me in her entire tenure there.

During class I couldn’t stop looking at my legs in the mirror. At first I was horrified: they were huge! From every angle! Even my butt, which I’ve been working really hard to build since I’ve never had much of one, suddenly looked like it had grown three sizes. My thighs, always best friends, never leave each other’s side and now I could see just how much they touched. There was no “flattering” light or stripes or color or even a long sweatshirt to hide me.

But as the class went on, I found my perception changing. My legs were strong! From every angle! It was kind of liberating actually. Knowing the pants already magnified everything, I didn’t worry about tugging them up or standing with my legs crossed or whatever silliness I’ve done in the past to “hide” the things attached to my lower body that everyone can totally see anyhow (or else they’re totally cool with me being a floating torso). It got even better when I hit the weight floor. In the past I’ve gotten some looks there. And I can hardly blame them for thinking I’m not serious. Take, for instance, the day I lifted in a huge fluffy pink ballerina tutu and zebra top? (It was hard holding the dumbbells out far enough from my body to not squish my tutu!) But this day I felt like a real lifter. I felt like I looked like a lady who lifted strong things and was proud of it. And this confidence helped me work even harder.

I was deep into a squat (also known as the least “flattering” position ever) when another friend walked by and chuckled. “I never have a hard time finding you in the gym! Those are some pants.”

On my way out, an elderly woman laughed, “I wish I could pull off pants like that! You look great, honey.”

Then when I got home I got a text from a friend saying, “You rock printed leggings!”

Honestly four compliments in one day! For wearing an item of clothing that highlighted (both literally and figuratively) the biggest and fattest (using that term clinically, not derogatorily) part of my body. Whoa.

I’m still trying to process what this means for me. Every woman who’s ever stepped out of a dressing room to rotate like a turkey on a spit in front of the unforgiving Triple Mirror of Doom, knows the fragile feeling of asking whether or not they look “good.” As if goodness or badness could be measured by an article of clothing. I’m not saying that I necessarily think I should dress in a way that points out every thing I’m insecure about. But what I think I’m saying is that I should stop trying to pretend that 15 (or whatever) pounds of me doesn’t exist, when it so obviously does. And not only has this “extra padding” not harmed me, I can think of many examples where it’s served me very well, including lowering my risk of heart disease, increasing my longevity and giving me smarter babies. (Gluteofemoral fat for the win!) I should not be ashamed of it.

The flattering-ness of our clothing should be about highlighting our beauty, not camouflaging what we’re afraid of.  Flattering shouldn’t be about comparing ourselves to others or to an artificial and unattainable standard of beauty but rather about showing our love for ourselves and appreciation for our bodies.

I know, all that from a pair of gym pants.

This realization didn’t come a moment too soon. In case you’ve missed all the breathless headlines of late, we’re officially entering the Panic Before Bikini Season. And while I’ll never wear a bikini (religious and aesthetic reasons), I do have to don a swimsuit on occasion, mostly thanks to my kids and their penchant for anything messy. So when I got to try out one of Albion swim’s suits, I put it on with some trepidation. As is the case for many women, swimsuits and I have a long, rocky history. If there’s one thing in which you cannot hide your thighs at all, it is a swimsuit. Tummies, shoulders, backs and bums can all be covered to an extent but unless you want to wear a swim dress, you have no help for your legs. It’s one of the reasons I hate swimming, honestly. But my little pants experiment helped me find some confidence to wear one. The suit I chose, The Showstopper, was perfect.

In case it’s not obvious, this is NOT me. Getting the confidence to wear a swimsuit is one thing. Being photographed in it is entirely another. Issues: I has them. 

First, it has an awesome retro vibe that I love. Second, it showcases my strong legs and, thanks to the red sash, also highlights my relatively smaller waist. Basically it makes me feel curvy and pretty. So even though I hate swimming, at least now I don’t have to hate my suit too. Albion would love to give one of you a $100 gift card to try out some of their women’s fitness and swimwear (yep, they make workout clothes too! I actually reviewed their skirt a few years ago). Plus, if you see something you like they gave me a code for GFE readers to save $15 on any purchase of $50 or more; the code to use at checkout is fitnessexperiment15 and it expires 4/23/2013!

To enter the Albion giveaway, either like their Facebook page or pin one of their items to Pinterest and then leave me a comment telling me which one you did. If you do both things, leave me an additional comment for a bonus entry. Also, I’d love to hear your thoughts about what makes something “flattering”!

What does “flattering” mean to you? Do you have a body part you routinely try to hide? Have you worn anything with the express purpose of making a part of you look bigger (other than your boobs)??

*So I’m dying to link to the original post so you can read it and be inspired by it too but this particular blogger has made a really big deal about how she doesn’t want people linking to her, interviewing her, quoting her or in any other way making her the poster child for fat acceptance. She says she’s just living her life the way she likes and isn’t trying to invite commentary on it. Which I will respect.

FTC Disclosure: I received one swimsuit for free to try out (LOVED it!). I was not otherwise compensated for this review. 

 

I'm about to get as girly as this blog has ever been, guys, so fellas? Yes, you - I know you're out there! Yeah, look, unless you're a guy who likes reading about lady boobs and lingerie, you may want to skip this one. Although I promise to throw in some fun geeky bras every now and then, just to keep it interesting:



See?

Ok, so, the other night I was following a rabbit trail of web links - like you do - and I ended up on this fascinating Reddit forum about bras. And when I say "fascinating," I mean I stayed up until 3AM reading, because holy WOW how did I not know this stuff before?

You know how you always hear that something like 90% of women wear the wrong size bra? I'd heard that, too, but never thought much of it. Sure, my bra straps were constantly falling down and the wires were always jabbing me in the sides and I'd been convinced I was just shaped like a mutant for most of my life, but GOSH DARN IT I WAS ONE OF THE 10% GETTING IT RIGHT. Right?

Wrong.

Did you know that a bra's cup size changes with its band size? So a 34D's cup is a fraction of the size of a 40D's cup? This seems blindingly obvious now, but I promise you I HAD NO IDEA. I think I've just been programmed since my Barbie-playing days that D = ginormous boobs, so I never bothered to think beyond that.


More stuff I learned:

- There are something called "sister sizes," or bra sizes that hold equal amounts of mass. For example, a 34D is roughly equal to a 36C, in as far as how much boobage mass they will hold. Here's a handy visual guide of sister sizes, plus other band-to-bust ratios:


It took me about five solid minutes of staring at that graphic to make any sense of it, but once you get it, it's great info to have  - especially if you're in-between band sizes like me.

- If you bend at the waist to adjust yourself with the "scoop & swoop" method, you can INSTANTLY become at least a full cup size bigger. (Hit that link for some impressive, NSFW before-and-after photos.) I tried this, and I can assure you: it totally works.

- There are generally two kinds of breast shapes: full-on-top and full-on-the-bottom. If you're full-on-the-bottom like me, you may have been fooled into thinking a bra's cup size was too large for you, simply because it gaped at the top like so:


NOT SO. Some bras are simply made to fit full-on-the-top ladies, while others fit full-on-the-bottom or both shapes. Head over to Bras I Hate for the whole post explaining the two shapes, plus plenty of helpful visuals like that one.

This next one is one of my favorite bits:

- A lot of armpit flab and folds are actually breast tissue being smashed upward by an ill-fitting bra. Ditto for back folds. So a properly fitted bra could actually eliminate some or all of your arm flab and back folds. (Great example in the 3rd set of photos here.)

Here's the most important take-away, though:

- The vast majority of women are wearing bras that are too big in the band size, and too small (by far) in the cup size.

So after reading this excellent and easy guide for measuring yourself, I decided to measure myself. (It's just two measurements - easy peasy.) Then I plugged in the numbers to the bra calculator she links to and did a quadruple take. Then I went back and measured myself again because there was NO WAY I was the size it claimed. Then I did the numbers manually, using the graph in the same post. Same results.

After the third measuring & calculating I finally gave up and decided to just go bra shopping. The proof is in the pudding, right? (Or in this case, the padding?)

Ok, so now let's get nitty-gritty, girls. LET'S TALK NUMBERS.

For the past few years I've been bumping up my band size, even though my weight has been the same. I could tell something wasn't fitting, what with the wires jabbing me and the gore* floating off my chest, but since I've never had much in the tracts of land department, I figured the band size was the only thing I could increase. So, I went from a 36B to all 38Bs.

[*Technical term! That's the bridge between cups at the front. See? I told you I learned stuff!]

Today I brought home 4 new bras that fit me just about perfectly. They're way more comfortable than my 38Bs, and they look about a million times better, too. Guess what size they are?  

34D.

34 FREAKING D, you guys. And on some of those the cups are a smidge too small, but YOU try finding a 34DD at Ross or Marshall's. (The calculator actually tried to tell me I need a DDD, but since I'd have to order those online I think I'll start with these and reassess in a few months. According to the forum I might need a larger cup size then due to tissue migration, anyway.)

How did I go from a 38B to a 34D? Simple. I put the bra on, bent at the waist, and scooped and adjusted until everything was up front and in place. Then I stood upright and goggled at my new found acreage.

Believe it or not, I really was adjusting each time I suited up in my bras before - but not with the bending-at-the-waist, "scoop & swoop" method. That part is totally key. Turns out gravity is a powerful ally!

You're probably thinking I can't breathe in my new bras, or that they're tight enough to make a Victorian lady gasp. Nope! They're snug, sure, but I can easily fit several fingers under the band. I actually measure exactly 35 inches, so I have to wear the 34s on the last hook - but that's good! See, another thing I learned: you should always buy bras that fit on the *last* hook, so you have room to tighten them as they stretch out over time. Again, that seems so obvious now - so why wasn't I doing it before?!

(Because of the sister-sizes thing, I also picked up two 36C bras. They only fit on the tightest hooks, so they won't last as long as the 34Ds, but they're great for now.)

Another benefit of the smaller bands: there's not as much weight on my shoulder straps. I'm hoping that means the straps won't be falling down as much, although only time will tell.



Ok, ladies, so now it's your turn: Go measure yourself using this post as a guide. DO IT. Do it now!! Then go try on whatever bra size the post's calculator or graph tells you to.

When you first try the new size on, it will feel too tight in the band and too big in the cup. DON'T PANIC. Just bend and scoop, baby! YEAH! (Sorry. Austin Power's moment.) And don't be surprised if your cups runneth over once you straighten up again!

Believe it or not, I've only scratched the surface of bra anatomy, so you should really head over to that forum, A Bra That Fits, to explore and learn more for yourself. Check the sidebar for all the basics and more helpful guides like what I've listed here. Then go learn about tissue migration, shallow breasts, how to spot a proper fit, and all the rest! I'm telling you, there's at LEAST enough there to keep you reading 'til 3AM.

Oh, and if you're curious how John feels about all this, let's just say he's the one who told me I HAVE to write this post, as a service to all mankind. Ha! He was as skeptical as I was initially, but after seeing my new sizes he's allll smiles.

Please share your own experiences/knowledge in the comments, ladies, and let me know if that measurement system works for you! Also, HUGE shout-out to all the lovely contributors and moderators at A Bra That Fits. I'm not a Redditor, so I'll just say it here: You guys rock! Thank you!