Kickstarter video

My 2 cents on Frozen

I have had a bee in my bonnet about this for a while now and I finally decided it was time to write about it.  Today’s subject: Frozen.

There was a lot of fuss about this movie due to a Mormon blogging individual and her myopic diatribe.  My hubby read the article before we went to see it recently and we discussed it at length afterward.  As you may be able to tell from the above I think it is a theory full of generalities, paranoia, small-minded us-vs-them mentality, and fear, but perhaps I am being to harsh... *shrug*

I will tell you right out, I bawled through the movie, especially during ‘Let it go’ and I intend to share why further on.  It touched my husband in a simple and beautiful way and I think left him and our teen Tim, better people for seeing it.

The message that is being communicated in frozen is not so specific as to apply to one cultural movement.  It is to everyone in the human race.  For Elsa it is to learn to accept, understand, and love oneself.  By doing this we can truly love the world around us.  And Anna is an example of the amazing sacrifices we are able to make when we truly love ourselves and those around us.  It is a poignant message of sisterhood and the importance of your family.

But to that “well behaved” Mormon Grandmother I would posit two other options to add to the basic message of Frozen:

Elsa & Anna’s isolation as a metaphor for everyone’s teen years

I am going to start with the obvious one…

Do those who feel different from the way the world is telling them they should feel relate to this?  Of course.  Do those who identify as LGBT relate to this. Yes.  Does that make that community the targeted message of this movie or are they just a part of the greater audience who needs to hear the message.

Here I would like to point out that we live inundated in a false idealized and unrealistic world.  All the people we see in ads and magazines are photo-shopped, we are told that what we eat is food and good for you when it isn’t (I am looking at you tomato sauce on pizza counting a veggie serving in school lunches), And the people we elect to be honest judges and guides to our society aren’t.  It has left everyone feeling at least a little alienated and weird.

No one feels ‘normal’, especially not when your body is changing everything you knew to be normal into curves and clumsy awkwardness that makes you feel like a total dork with a target over your head.  Our brains are being crammed with information on who to be, how to act, what to look like, what to learn, who to know and the worst advice ever: to follow your heart.  Every teen feels isolated, if you didn’t then you are the exception not the rule.  And Sadly many people do not ‘grow’ out of feeling that isolation, they have to struggle and fight with it all their lives.

 Now onto the one that has deep personal meaning to me.

Elsa’s Acceptance of herself as correlation to sexual abuse recovery

Here is a subject I sadly know plenty about.  When I was 4 I was molested, we will leave it there and not drag in more details as they are not pertinent to my statement.  I was left, at 4 to mull over the statements my abuser told me “This was your fault, You made me do this, You are a bad girl”  At 4 years old the mind does funny things to protect itself.  My mind believed that lie and for the next 13 years until I was a high school senior, I felt like a horrible unforgivable sinner.  I still struggle with that unnamed guilty feeling and the panic attacks it has always brought with it every night when I try to go to sleep.

In essence I felt I had to protect everyone from my sins, from the harmful nature I believed I was born with.  So like Elsa I hid it from the world and even partly hid it from myself.  However the effects were there and like Elsa I isolated myself from the world, from friends, from family.  I had to protect them from the truth about me.

It took me 2 different councilors and over 15 months of intense weekly visits to get to the point where I had rooted out the overprotective fallacies that had built up my young personality and begin (just begin) to re-assemble myself into a whole, healthy person.  The active counseling ended in 1998 and here in 2014 I am still assembling myself.

I remember the moment when I ‘Let it go’, and this is what made me weep tears of empathy, appreciation, and unity during that song.  I remember the exact moment when I looked inward and realized I had forgive my abuser.  That moment all the angst, they hate, the anger that kept me from trusting anyone just blew away like snow in a storm.  For me the storm inside stilled and the sun came out. And to paraphrase, there I stood in the light of day and I was finally, FINALLY free.

Even if no one reads this, I would like to thank all the wonderful people in my life who make it all worth sticking around through the hard times, especially my husband Steve.  And Gail Szkula, where ever you are, thank you for showing me the way to myself.

Also all who worked on Frozen.  In my opinion it is one of the most inspired movies I have seen in my life and I do believe it will do and has done a lot of good for a lot of people.

The Weekend and the Black Dog

Been a few days...  Here is the recap:  Friday night Steve and T. and I went to the late showing of the Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug.  It was the second time seeing it in theaters.  The first was 3D and the movements were weird and jaggy, nothing like that in 2D.  Also I am in love with Thranduil so... But I adored Lee Pace when he was in Pushing Daisies.

Saturday we got our Bountiful Basket (Which is an awesome program: Bountiful Baskets) and I made a bunch of yummy veggie dishes for my friends who gathered that evening for our every-other-week gaming or Setherday as we call it since that is the only day we see the Seth.  M ran the session and we had fun, it is looking like a fun adventure is brewing.

Sunday we went to church and Steve got a splint for his thumb that has been aggravating him.  I wasn't feeling top notch so I spent most of Sunday in bed.

Today I have checked the internet, mail, my shopping lists, and touched base with family.  Going shopping to fill my new freezer later this evening.  Evening shopping is the easiest and least crowded for me.

Also I finally watched this video:

As a life long sufferer of depression from a family rife with it, I appreciate this video.  Someday I will have to write down my depression development story.  Winston Churchill called his depression the Black Dog and it is a very fitting description.

Take care world.

Quiet Days

So not much happened yesterday and today.  last night we had our weekly gaming session and that was really fun.  I love my character, she is an oracle with very specific clairvoyant abilities related to reading the past off of objects and people.  Oh and gun-fu.

Today M. and S. and I went to Tucanos for lunch and I have a wonderful delightful passion fruit mousse in the fridge for later.

I never did get started on those drawings, but I am planning on it tonight.  I have the hubby on nag duty for it.

Took some silly internet quizes that say I am Belle, Yoda, and a Tolkien-esue wizard.  Other than that I just did some work for my mum-in-laws site www.maryannscupboards.com.

Tireds, Bullies, and LOTR

It is an interesting thing that lately UpWorthy has posted a string of things that I can get behind.  Not their usual politically charged crap, but videos about female empowerment, bullying, and self respect.  It has been interesting because I have had a streak of thoughtful days with these videos.  Like the one I saw today:

Now I adore John and Hank Green and if you haven't seen Mental Floss or the vlogbrothers I highly recommend their videos.  They have created a community called the nerd fighters and it is a wonderful thing.  A group of like minded individuals of all ages coming together in celebration of all things you can be nerdy about.

That being said this is a touching video to anyone who was bullied in school, be it physical or emotional will find great value in it.  I was kind of a victim and had a big somewhat self-inflicted target over my head from 6-8th grade.  By ninth grade I just stopped caring so much what anyone else thought and started making myself into someone that I liked, that I wanted to be around.

A lot of things contributed to that decision, one of the biggest things was reading the Lord of the Rings.  My beloved Grandmother gave it to me on Christmas when I was 12 and I dove right in.  It was hard not to be inspired by so many selfless and heroic characters.  The other reason was that I was tired.  Tired of worrying about people judging me, tired of seeking approval, tired of hiding, tired of avoiding.

So I stopped.  And the odd thing was, as soon as I stopped the worrying, and the desperate seeking of approval from others, it got better.  When I stopped being overly nice, stopped being afraid, stopped being morose and picked on, it got better.  I started smiling all the time and started paying attention to others behaviors.  I started to see there was a balance to interaction, a give and take and if things were too much give or take they broke down.

This is all simplified a bit.  I had social interaction difficulties well into my 20's and I still prefer to interact in small intimate groups, but Jr. High was the crucible where I learned to observe.  I worry so much about my step-son T. in Jr.high right now.  He is SO worried about being bullied that I fear he is avoiding all human contact.  And as in all things in life, you are going to get the bad with the good, but the good is worth it.

When I start each blog I have a burning desire to be profound, honest, and uplifting.  I always feel like I fall short of that, but I keep reminding myself that this project isn't about all that.  It is a place for me to express my thoughts, in whatever form they ramble out in.

That being said...

My youngest sister Sara is coming to dinner tonight and she requested my infamous Jerk Pork and chutney for the meal.  I mix up my own jerk spice and make a triple berry chutney with apples, cranberry, blueberries, cherries, and a little onion.  It is Delicious. 

After dinner I am going to work on art, even though I am not feeling like it.  I have a book cover and a logo for World Horror Con to do.  Not to mention my twelve tales project that has been stymied for months.
I will post some pictures of the sketches tomorrow.

Also a tale to end on:  When I was a senior in High school and my life was a mess with my Mom's cancer and HepC and having to take care of the house and 5 siblings the youngest one being 2 so Dad could work his 60-80 hours a week so we could keep a house...  There was a day when some punk sophomore skinny butt cowboys decided to start mooing at me (I was around 250lbs at the time).  I ignored it, but out of the corner of my eye I saw some guys from my grade half drag them down the hall and give them a talking to.  I never had a problem after that.  I could not clearly identify who my heroes were, but from the bottom of my heart, Thank you.

Curry, Freezers, and Female Empowerement

Last night we defrosted the new freezer and got everything organized.  I am such a boring person, this new freezer space makes me giddy.  I will be able to save so much more time and money!

I also got my new cpap mask, oh it is so much more comfy.  Still I wish I did mot have sleep apnea at all.

Big for me today is this video:

Please watch, it is wonderful and to the point.  The world we live in is so hazardous for girls and their self esteem and we need to do something about it.  Women have the greatest capacity to effect change in their environments and these 'sexy' trends are systematically destroying that ability.  I wish I had the power to get this video to more than one or two women.

I am grateful to my religion for standing up to the objectification of women.  We may not hold the same positions as men, but I believe it is in large part because the positions we do have are so much more important.  As wives, mothers, sisters, friends, we are the thread that binds lives and families together and without that you have no society.  This is not to say the role cannot be reversed, some men are better suited to staying home and some women better suited to being the proverbial breadwinner.  But still a healthy strong family is created with at least one nurturer, best with two who work together.

Going to stop here to keep from rambling...

Today I am making curry for dinner, with pork and Brussels sprouts. I am out of Vermont Curry which is our favorite but I have some other brands of Japanese curry mixes I am going to try.  I am going to stuff it full of veggies too.

Sunday and Kefir

Sunday was a busy day.  We picked up a commercial upright freezer from a friend who is moving cross country for just $75, I am so excited to have it!  My freezer that is paired with my fridge is always packed tight and it is like playing jenga to get anything out.

Then we went to church (late) and ate meatball oven dinner when we got home.  Meatball oven dinner has been a family favorite since I was a kid, since my mom was a kid.  And after 8 years of cooking for my hubby I finally made it for him and he loved it.  So I am happy.

Had a fun conversation with my fellow ward librarian Karen yesterday.  We talked about kefir which I mentioned on Saturday.  Here is a Wikipedia article that gives you the basic idea of what it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kefir  Most common is milk kefir, but I use water kefir because it is less maintenance for me.

So my method is this:  I keep 2 pitchers on my counter, one for the kefir and one for tap water set out for the chlorine to evaporate from.  This is important as the chlorine can kill the kefir grains.

Every couple days I get my jug and my Plastic Mesh Strainer (metal is hard on the grains, use glass, plastic and wood when you can), then I strain the grains out as I am pouring the water into my jug.

I then Rinse the gains a little with the prepared water, fill the culturing bottle with about 1 quart of the prepped water and add 1/4 c. organic sugar and a teaspoon of molasses stirring with a wooden spoon.

Then the coffee filter gets elastic-ed over the lid to keep dust and things out.  I set it in a shady place or in a cupboard then add some flavor to the finished kefir and put it in the fridge because I like it cold.

This site has a lot of info on Kefirs as well as sells the grains:  http://www.culturesforhealth.com/kefir

Why do I go to the trouble?  Because I have a bad case of Irritable Bowel Syndrome and nothing I had tried previously helped it.  My sister recommended kefir and I tried it.  For the first time since I was a child I was able to go days, weeks, and even months without and attack as long as I was drinking the kefir.  I will never go back to those painful days.

Off to figure out what to make for dinner and then to clean and organize my new freezer.  ;D