For a good time, follow/subscribe/like...
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1. Elan Morgan's Five Star posts. Seriously. THE BEST weekly curation of posts on the internet.
2. The Gender Avenger newsletter.
3. The #FeministPrincessBride hashtag on Twitter.
4. Farrah Braniff on Instagram for her Monday Inspiration posts
5. My favourite Tumblr blog EVER!
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n~
guest post: her story matters
The Stay at Home Feminist is a safe place for all. And as such, from time to time, I provide this space to fellow writers who need to share pieces that, for various reasons, they can not share elsewhere. I ask you to welcome them here and be gentle, their stories are personal, they matter and I promise you, there is a real person behind these words.
The following post comes with a Trigger Warning and deals with abusive, stalking and terrorizing behaviour.
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We met through a friend. I had just moved across the country to a strange city in a new province. I had left everything I knew behind me in the hopes of starting fresh and I had to prove to myself that I could go it alone and be completely independent. All I owned was my car and whatever I could stuff in it.
The first time I met him, my new friend and I ran into him on the street. She introduced us and we all briefly chatted before going our own way. He didn’t really strike me one way or another, but I was happy to be meeting new people. Over the ensuing weeks, I saw him on occasion at my friend’s house or out at a bar. Eventually, he and I started dating. I’m not even sure “dating” is the right word - we mostly hung out and went out to clubs. It was never an exclusive arrangement and there were no romantic dinner dates, but it was nice to experience my new city through him.
It lasted only a few weeks. I ended it when I realized he just wasn’t for me.
After I broke it off, he called me often – at least daily, but sometimes more. One night, he called to tell me he got a new roommate: a woman. I didn’t care. He’d go into too much detail about their near-sexual encounters before I’d say, “That’s nice.” and hang up the phone. I didn’t care. I never really had.
One night, he called me and said “I saw you with another guy. Are you dating him?” I told him I was and that he needed to stop calling me. I wasn’t interested in him; it was over. It had, in fact, never really begun.
That night, I woke up to a rock breaking my bedroom window. I knew he’d done it.
I called the police because my landlord needed a report for insurance. The officers came, and after inspecting the window, they asked me if I knew who had done it. I gave them his name. They stopped writing and looked up at me. “This guy is known to us for weapons and uttering death threats. If we bring him in for this, he’ll come after you because we can’t hold him.” Then I watched them leave as I gripped my incident report in my hands. My Super told the landlord that some partiers had done it, and it was fixed the next day.
That night he called. “I see they fixed your window. That was fast.” I hung up.
That’s when I became aware that he was stalking me. He didn’t really try to hide it; I think he enjoyed knowing that I knew. He seemed to enjoy knowing that he literally lived on the periphery of my life, affecting my choices and influencing my movements. He knew I saw him standing across the street staring up at my window. Once, he even sat outside my apartment door for three hours when I was inside – every once in awhile saying something to let me know he was still there.
When I was at a club, he’d stand on the edge of the dance floor and smirk when I noticed him. On one occasion, he followed me into the women’s washroom, grasping my arm as I tried to pull away. The women inside scattered, but security rushed in and took him away.
This happened 10 years ago. I was in my 20s, fiercely independent, and maybe a little bit naïve. When he wasn’t physically barring me inside my apartment, I carried on with my life. I walked alone in my neighbourhood, assuming he was there. I went to movies and clubs by myself. I walked to work, or quickly ran to the coffee shop across the street after dark. Some might say my actions were stupid or reckless. In hindsight, they probably were. At the time, though, I refused to let him win. I refused to live in fear. I refused to let him control me. I was always aware, though, and everything I did was calculated. The times I was most afraid was when I was alone in a subway station – I always stood against the wall, far away from the tracks. I was fairly certain that he wouldn’t do anything to me in front of witnesses, but being alone in a public place was scary, especially a place with high-speed trains and open tracks.
I don’t remember telling anyone he was stalking me. I didn’t want anyone to tell me it was my fault. I didn’t want anyone to deter me from living my life. I didn’t want anyone to encourage me to involve the police again. I had figured out a rhythm to my life, which unfortunately, included him.
After close to two years of living my silent hell, I had to tell someone. For my own safety, I told my apartment building Super. We weren’t friends and I didn’t particularly like her, but she needed to know. I needed her to know the day I looked out my window and saw her having a friendly conversation with him. When she came inside, I ran downstairs and asked her what he wanted. She said, “Do you know him? He just applied to live in the apartment next to you.” I felt like I was going to throw up. I reminded her about the rock thrown through my window and said “That was him. He’s been following me ever since.” A quick glance at his rental application revealed that he had used an alias. Her response was swift. She picked up the phone and called the police, telling them everything she knew. They asked to speak to me and I gave them a brief history of his behaviour. They told me they couldn’t do anything unless he was still on the property, but gave me some possible options to help me feel safer. I informed them that I was moving back home – across the country – in a month. They said “Good. Leave in the middle of the night.” And that is exactly what I did.
A few years later, after my son was born, he tried to comment on my blog, saying, “The world is lucky you had a boy. It doesn’t need any more women like you in it.” We traced his IP address across the Atlantic, where I hope he’s stayed. I now also have a daughter.
Rarely, does he enter my mind these days. My days are no longer governed by conscious, calculated decisions to keep myself safe from him. I am, however, often reminded of how he continues to affect me – he’s the reason I don’t publicly share my kids’ names or faces online. He’s the reason Facebook continues to ask me where I live, and I refuse to fill it in. He’s the reason my location on Twitter is vague and encompasses a large geographic area. All these years later, I must protect my kids from his prying eyes. I need to be careful because I know he reads my blog and, probably, all my public social media.
Some may wonder why I am sharing this now, or at all. Why, 10 years later, have I decided to write this all down and share it with the world? My private hell. My past. My present. My on-going need to protect those I love from one single man who isn’t even known to them. My answer is this: I am not the only one. There are scores of women who live in constant fear, tormented at this very moment. Women who must protect themselves the best they can because no one else is. Women who are living their own private versions of hell.
I want you to know we are here. I want you to know that the silent ones have stories that deserve to be told, even when we think no one could possibly care. To my fellow quiet women: your stories matter even if no one hears them, even if you think that no one is listening. They are valid. You are valid. You may not know me, but I care. I care about what is happening to you, what has happened to you, and what continues to affect you.
I’ll admit that part of me doesn’t want to share this – to give him, or any man like him, the satisfaction of knowing that his actions had long-term effects. I don’t want him knowing that I think about him, ever. I don’t want him knowing that he factors into any of my decision-making. It offends me on a deep, visceral level that I need to give power to my experiences – to what he put me through. All told, I came out of this relatively unscathed. I actually feel like I’m a lucky one - so many other women have worse stories than this one. Hell, this isn’t even my worst story, but in some ways, I feel like it’s the most important one – the one I share with so many others. This is the story that so many other women could have written, but they suffer in silence… like I did for so long.
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The author of this piece chose to remain anonymous to protect her family. She is unwilling to expose her children to the fire that might reignite in her stalker if she publicly declares that this happened. This fear of repercussions is why stories remain untold, go unreported, and personal, private hells are silently endured every day.
Photo Credit: _namtaf_ on Flickr
Sunday
Sundays around here are usually our lazy days.
Except when they are not.
Like today, when The Consort and I go into some kind of weird deep cleaning marital pas de deux. He vacuums and does the toilets and takes care of small repairs or hanging of things that have otherwise just been resting up against the wall; while I wash the floors, change bed sheets, do all the laundry and dust all of the tiny things on the kids shelves in their rooms.
The kids kind of stand back and wonder what the heck has gotten into us, or find a channel that is playing back to back kids movies and try their best to stay out of our way. They have yet to catch this same kind of cleaning bug.
In the midst of it all though, I have to stop obsessing about washing all the water drop stains that my dog leaves on the floors every time she drinks from her bowl and sit back and be thankful for all that we have.
So I stopped. And here you go...
Today I am grateful for the following:
1. A husband that washes toilets - all 5 of them in this house! Seriously... in my books this is a major win and quite possibly one of the reasons I agreed to marry the guy. (And yes, I know, we have way too many bathrooms for a family of 4.)
2. Slow cooker meals that I can start at 10 AM, that fill my house with beautiful aromas, and that convince my mother-in-law that I am a genius in the kitchen!
3. My kids being just tall enough to give me what I think are the best, super-tight-around-the-waist, hugs a mother could ever ask for.
4. Persimmons.
5. My husband holding my hand while we watch Walking Dead, because he knows that even though the show terrifies me, I can't look away!
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Grace. It is a simple thing, but still a practice. Take care of and notice the small things too.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I really must get out those damn spots!
n~
Midway
At the beginning of the month, I had this strong urge to do all the daily things. Writing, picture taking, meditation, yoga-ing.
I signed up for my first official #NaBloPoMo, found a lovely little daily photo challenge on Instagram called #thedailybon and made a promise to myself to get at least one 15-20 minute session of meditation in each day.
So, how's it going you ask? Because I know you're all just sitting around waiting for me to hit publish every day, right. RIGHT??!
Well, it's day 15 of #NaBloPoMo and I missed days 9, 10 and 11. I have to chalk that up to the disappointing cancelled mountain getaway weekend and then frantically trying to make up for it by doing ALL THE THINGS with my family over three days. Movies, dinners out, a trip to Toys R Us.... Oh, yes, the guilt was strong in those few days. I swear I have a couple of heavier pieces in the works and a guest post coming up this week.
I am really enjoying #thedailybon photo challenge over on Instagram. I am pushing myself artistically with my iPhoneography and trying to remember all the things that I learned from @motherbumper at Blissdom Canada this year. I case you are wondering, I take most of my shots with Camera+ and then edit with Snapseed.
Here are my faves so far:
Follow me on Instagram at @StayAtHomeFeminist.
Daily blogging is tough, some days you just really don't want to, others you literally have nothing to write, and sometimes, yes, you get posts that don't have much substance to them. This thing is about more than just churning out words on the screen just because, it's about sifting through the words in our heads and turning them into something with meaning. It's about practice. For me it's about making a conscious effort to carve out my "writing time", and really explore different ideas about writing and actually getting good at this thing.
Thank you for tagging along with me this month.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I haven't meditated yet today.
Namaste,
natasha~
Feminist Fare Friday: The #DUH Edition
If it is not clear as bloody day yet that I AM A FEMINIST, then I am so doing this whole blogging and online activism thing very, very poorly!
Sometimes I am an angry feminist, sometimes a happy, lipstick wearing one, sometimes a barefoot-in-my-kitchen-making-dinner-for-my-family one and sometimes a loud, "what the holy heck is wrong with this world!!", activist-y one! But it is always a part of me, a BIG part....
Natasha - Writer, Feminist, Mother, Partner, Advocate, Activist. These are the words that I use to describe myself.
This week TIME magazine published their list of words that should be "banned" in 2015 and included FEMINIST on that list (Time Editor Nancy Gibb has since written an apology for this). It took all my strength on Wednesday to not curl up in a ball on my couch, repeating to myself, "why do I bother? why do I bother? why do I bother?".
And then I remembered why I bother.
BECAUSE (obviously) THE WORK IS NOT DONE YET!
So for today, all I want you to do is watch this video from my friend Jenni Chiu of Mommy Nani Booboo.
Because she too wants more of us say it loud and proud and truly UNDERSTAND what the word means!
[youtube]http://youtu.be/rXR9bPwCGKY[/youtube]
how many joy units is that?
The Consort has been hounding me for months (or possibly years) to read a book. Not just any book, because I do read a lot of them, but one particular book. This one.
And this weekend I caved. I had just finished a different book and was looking to start another and he, ever so nonchalantly, went to my bedside table, grabbed this book and placed it beside me on the couch.
OK, dude. I get it. I'll read the damn thing.
We all have those books that transform us or speak to us in ways others do not. When my husband was leaving his family home and taking off to the adult world of undergraduate studies at the ripe age of 17, the original "Wealthy Barber" book was given to him by his father. This is HIS book.
I am pretty sure when TC is doing anything financially-related in any way, the voice he hears in his head is David Chilton's. "Is this worth it? Are the joy units going to last long with this purchase? Have you saved FIRST?"
I fully admit that I am the spender in our family and The Consort is the saver. I do the clothes shopping for most of us, all of the grocery shopping and I am the one who buys the gifts for all the birthdays, anniversaries and holidays. Yes, we do have a family budget, that I stick to - about 87% of the time. It's that other 13% that gets TC's knickers in a knot and why he wants me to read what Mr. Chilton has to say about finances.
The funny thing is, that in the past year, I truly believe that my spending habits have changed. Or more specifically, my shopping habits have changed.
I know that part of the change has been a response to the life-altering time we experienced this past summer and from that has come much reflection on the things that truly matter in our lives. And you know what? More stuff is not IT. Another part of why my shopping habits have changed, is that I am much more aware of the influence that marketing has on us as consumers. Years of being a breastfeeding advocate and seeing the ways that infant formula is marketed has rubbed off and has me looking a lot more closely at the way ALL products are marketed. Being a blogger and a mother, I've also seen the way that marketing has taken hold in this age of new media and I am VERY sensitive to this in the blogging world. I am more aware now about the message I am hearing and who that message is coming from as well.
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This past weekend, we were supposed to go away for a short little mountain getaway. That didn't happen, mainly because it snowed and I have crap for tires on my car and we couldn't even get out of our little neighbourhood, let alone make it 300 kilometres to the lodge in the mountains. For the next four days we had to use my husband's compact car (which thankfully has AWD and all-season tires) for all our outings. What we both noticed over the weekend is how surprisingly easy it was to function with less car. And this included multiple errands, grocery shopping, and hauling all four of us around to various activities to make up for our missed trip to the mountains.
I have also recently purged every single closet in this house. My wardrobe alone is roughly HALF of what it was a month ago (if you know me at all, this is HUGE!). I am not quite down to Capsule Wardrobe numbers, but the philosophy behind this concept is guiding me right now in regards to what I keep, what goes and how I look at clothes shopping now. It's definitely a change. Especially for one like me, an admitted shopaholic, who gets greeted at Anthropologie BY NAME!
All of these things - reading David Chilton, surviving a week as a family of four with one compact vehicle, minimalizing our wardrobes - have happened at the same time and have caused a kind of cosmic convergence in my mind about how I want to live my life and about the lessons about money and spending and the value of what we HAVE versus the value of what we DO, that we are modelling for our children.
My family lives a very comfortable life, one that I am so very grateful for each and every day. It's just time for me take stock of all that we have, not get caught up in the game of keeping up with the proverbial Jones's and resist the messaging that we are bombarded with each day that we need MORE! More car, more house, more toys, more clothes, more STUFF.
Because we really do not.
My kid is not going to remember the expensive brand name winter boots he was wearing when he was eight years old or what kind of car I drove him to school in. He is more likely going to remember that his Mom bought new snow pants for herself that year, so that she could play outside and build a snow fort with him.
And trust me Mr. Chilton, the "joy units" from that purchase will never depreciate!
n~
how to make grocery shopping fun.
This post is brought to you by SPUD.CA
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When my kids were babies, I used to love grocery shopping. It was one of the things that got me (and my babies) out of the house and into pants other than ones of the yoga variety and the world of grown ups, and in line at the in-store coffee shop. And, I'll admit it, accomplishing this feat with babies in tow, used to make me feel like a super woman.
And then there were the times, when The Consort and I would finally get the babies to sleep and I would do the grocery shopping after 9 PM. I tell you, that is like the Golden Hour of grocery shopping. Barely anyone around, shelves getting restocked for the next day and again, the in-store coffee shop. I would leisurely walk every single aisle of the store, sipping my frothy latte, looking at new products, reading all the labels and squeezing all the melons. The soft hum of the store freezers was the background music to this idyllic scene and I swear customer service is at an all-time high at that hour as well.
Fast forward a few years and many more pounds of children to cart around and it gets a bit more complicated. Grocery shopping with toddlers and preschoolers involves multiple snacks, an iPad, the must-bring-toy-of-the-day and various other things that there is no room for in the cart. And yet, it can be done, with similar Super Woman-y feelings about it. You can luck out and get the ginormous cart that looks like a giant green toy car and this will entertain and contain the little buggers while you "drive" them around, picking up your cargo load of Bear Paws, mini carrots and cheese strings, so that you'll be stocked up on snacks for the next shopping trip. And of course, evening grocery shopping is still an option. A peaceful, get me out of the house, BY MYSELF, with no one touching me, hour or more of the weirdest self-care ever!
And now? Now I don't like the grocery shopping so much. And I know that this is going to come off as very #firstworldproblem-y, but it is what it is. Grocery shoping is just not as much fun anymore. Or, perhaps, I have simply figured out much better ways to administer my self-care, that I can now see through the facade that grocery shopping provided in those early, half-delirious with sleep-deprivation years. Oh sure, I can still handle the big Costco trip once a month to get all the things that cost too much or are not available elsewhere, but the weekly stuff? With all the activities that make up our days now between school, work and extracurricular stuff, at this point, I just want someone else to do the groceries thing.
Enter SPUD.ca.
Sustainable Produce Urban Delivery (SPUD) opened it's doors in Edmonton in September, 2014 and is delivering local and organic groceries to doorsteps throughout the city. Conveniently coinciding with the arrival of chillier temperatures and the closures of the summer farmers’ markets, the warehouse is now operating as the fourth SPUD office in Western Canada, enabling Edmontonians to stay connected to local producers and farmers, as well as the best in organic and sustainable groceries, all year long.
With over 1800 items including meat, dairy, grocery, produce, health, home and beauty, in SPUD’s online catalogue, diversity and convenience are what sets it apart. Ordering groceries from SPUD comes free of contracts or commitments, has a lower minimum order and later order cutoff time than other services, and does not require deposits on delivery boxes/bins.
A few weeks ago, we received a couple of boxes from SPUD delivered right to our front door. Eggs, bread, fresh organic apples and a great salad. All things that we needed and that I didn't have to leave the house to go get. The cute little pumpkin was a nice touch too and the kids loved it the most and proceeded to decorate it for our Halloween centrepiece.
Our fridge is getting a little low on a few things this week, it's cold outside, and I have a lot of writing to do to catch up on my missed days for #nablopomo. Time for shopping is just not in the cards for me this week, so I am going to be putting in my first official order. If you think you want to give it a try too, use the following promo code to receive $40 worth of groceries when you spend $20. Feel free to share it with friends too - the promo code is: EDMSAVE and it is good until November 30th.
And with that my friends, grocery shopping is fun again!
Thanks again to SPUD for the great intro to their service and the yummy produce - although I am still trying to figure out what to do with the beets!
Cheers,
natasha~
Snowed in.
Today it snowed. And we were supposed to leave for a family weekend getaway in the mountains. The car was packed, everyone had their movies queued up on the iPads and we were good to go.
But...
We live on a street in a valley.
And I made an appointment to have my winter tires put on NEXT week.
My poor car couldn't even make it up the hill in front of our house to get out of our neighbourhood.
We had to park a block away, grab all our stuff and walk back home.
Four people, walking home, all looking pretty much like this.
So we fired up the fireplace (flicked the switch actually) and settled in for a day of movies, games, naps, dinner out and a new Wii Dance game.
The day ended far better than it started.
I am still disappointed that I have to cook meals all weekend, but we are together and we are going to have a fun little staycation (the kids are on a 5 day break from school).
And next year, I'll book my tire change at the beginning of October and look more seriously into heading to Palm Springs for this fall break thing!
n~
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Day 8.
