A New Introduction

Hiya guys I hope you're all good?

I wanted to let you know that I've started a new blog to document my journey in learning about witchcraft and Wicca.

I'll only link it this once as there's nothing worse than having someone's religion or beliefs shoved down your throat! If someone could mention that to the preacher guy in town every Saturday ranting and raving that we're all going to hell .... I mean the queues in Primark can be pretty horrendous but not quite on a par with fire and brimstone .....

So if anyone is interested you can find my witchy alter-ego at The Muddling Witch

Oh and in case anyone was wondering

1.  I don't worship Satan (I've always disliked Manchester Utd)
2.  I'm not fooling around with ouija boards (People have no idea how dangerous they are)
3.  I'm not going to be throwing about hexes and curses here there and everywhere (the Wiccan belief is that everything we send out comes back threefold)
4.  No I won't be dancing naked in a field (Nobody deserves that!)

Hopefully that clears it up 👯

Love Jen
XxxX

The Thick And Thin Of It

Happy very late New Year everyone. This greeting sets the tone for today’s waffle very well as it deals with weight loss which is often a resolution for people.

So to address the (literal) elephant in the roomy es I have lost 29.1 kilos/4.5ish stone. The problem with losing the weight, aside from nothing fitting anymore is the attention it garners. I know that people are commenting with only the nicest intentions but “Don’t you look good” when I clearly don’t or “You’re all skinny” when nothing could be further from the truth seeing as I’m still a size 16 and 5ft5 inches!

The most difficult comment to deal with is when people say “I bet you feel better for it” when the answer is really no! But I can’t say “No I still feel horrible all the time” and instead look at the floor and mutter something in the affirmative. Despite the medical community insisting that exercise and dieting will make you feel better I have to break it to you all that it really bloody doesn’t. I still wake up every day wishing that I hadn’t, I still have a huge amount of anxiety and my brain is still like a raw nerve with the littlest thing sending me into a downward spiral.

I also hate that being thinner is associated with being ‘well’. One of the happiest periods in my life when I was between working at Veritek/CMS and the Medical Records Library I was a size 18/20! Whilst I did slim down to a size 12 over the year due to constantly being on the move by the end of that I was ill and unhappy again due to external factors so no I wasn’t automatically well due to being slimmer.

It also makes me wonder when people tell me how well I look how awful must have I looked before?? Why do people not comment that someone looks really well/happy when they’re bigger? I know society equates skinny with good and fat with bad but surely people can be fat and happy as well as skinny and sad? It reminded me of an exercise we did at school many, many years ago when we were asked to choose between various lifestyle options; one being would we prefer to be fat, healthy and happy or skinny, unhappy and unhealthy. Nearly the whole class went for the skinny option, we’d been conditioned even at the age of 11/12 to worship skinny.

I know I sound ungrateful for the compliments but I’ve always felt uncomfortable receiving praise, thinking people are just giving it without meaning it and being praised for my weight loss is even more difficult. Whilst I do take satisfaction in knowing that my insides are probably a lot happier with me cutting out a lot of the crap I was eating (although I always prioritise weekend cake) and having stuck at being ‘good’ (another of society’s thin-centric ones there!), enjoying my walking- I walk to and from work when it’s not raining and am on my feet most of the day at work in my new Ward Clerk job( which I love by the way) regularly hitting 18,000 steps, luckily I should be able to keep this up when I do two day’s housekeeping a week too (not sure what it says that I’d rather clean toilets than work for my old boss!) and the money I'm saving on not buying chocolate and crisps every day has built up my 'fat fund' meaning that last year I was able to afford my 30STM gigs and a trip to the Air Tattoo! 

So please, please as awful as it sounds don’t comment on my weight. Comment on my mascara, lippie, jewellery, excellent taste in music anything except my wobbly bits!

Love Jen

XxxX