Fly With Time Goes to Etsy

My Harry Potter obsession just got real.

As of a few weeks ago, I have begun making Harry Potter wands and I opened up my own Etsy account. You can just call me Ollivander. 

So welcome to Fly With Time, the shop who's owner likes to whittle wooden sticks with a hunting knife on her front porch surely scaring the postman, all in the name of art (for the sake of Harry Potter appreciation, because you really can't take it too far). 

So if you've ever liked one of my DIY craft blogs, you'll probably like the wands I've made. 

Check out my shop here! Four wands are listed now, but many more are to come.

Also new to my blog is a "Contact Me" section with an email specifically for my blog. Any comments, suggestions, questions, or general curiosities are welcome. I created the email account for those who have told me how difficult it is to leave a comment on my blogs without having a Google Plus account. 

Thank you for reading :)

Julia

https://www.etsy.com/listing/238089011/handmade-hermione-granger-inspired-wand?ref=shop_home_active_1

https://www.etsy.com/listing/238188256/handmade-harry-potter-inspired-wand?ref=listing-shop-header-1

https://www.etsy.com/listing/238087681/handmade-harry-potter-inspired-wand?ref=listing-shop-header-2

https://www.etsy.com/listing/237489728/handcrafted-hermione-granger-wand?ref=listing-shop-header-3

Book Review: Moon Time by Lucy H. Pearce

About a year ago I bought a book called, Moon Time: a guide to celebrating your menstrual cycle by Lucy H. Pearce, and it was just what I needed.  So many women have this idea that their periods are gross and that no one needs to talk about it, so it often is not discussed. I remember as a young girl I was always really excited to get my first period, but when I did I hated it. No one told me what cramps were going to feel like, I don’t think I was even aware that cramps hurt. I didn’t know how to deal with it, or the PMS, and I began to rue the day that I was excited for something so torturous. It really is a problem that menstruating is not on open topic of discussion. It’s the reason why any of us exist, so why can’t we all get over the “ick” factor and move on.

Moon Time is incredibly life altering if you really want to improve your relationship with your menstrual cycle and yourself. Pearce is not an author to write a book for profit. You can tell with every page that she cares about you and your growth as a woman. She teaches you the beauty of your cycles, how to care for your body and soul in natural and loving ways. I suggest having a journal that you keep with you as you read it. There are sections of the book that are interactive. She will ask questions to which you should respond. I go back and read my answers now from a year ago and I’m glad I have that insight. This book takes you through a metamorphosis with not just how you think about your cycles, but how you treat yourself because of them. I really cannot stress how important it is that women’s views on their periods need to change. We really should be celebrating them, not popping Advil and hating them for being an inconvenience.

If you are even a little bit curious about this book, I highly recommend you pick it up. Open yourself up to new ideas.

http://www.amazon.com/Moon-Time-guide-celebrating-menstrual/dp/1468056719/

To find other inspiring books by Pearce, check out her website.

http://dreamingaloud.net/

Feminism vs Hypocrisy

Mark Ruffalo has recently come out swinging at the “I am not a feminist,” movement and until I read that, I had no idea that such a thing existed. In order to understand the situation a little better, I looked up the tumblr page dedicated to women against feminism. I sit here now reading posts by women everywhere listing reasons why they don’t need feminism. Overall I have found that these women have no idea feminism really is. 

I’ve had multiple conversations with other women who are afraid to call themselves feminist because of this stigma that it is a dirty word used by men-hating women. People seem to think that feminism now consists of women who want special treatment. 

I will admit that I’ve met people who claim to be feminist and use it as leverage to complain about their misfortunes and pull the gender card whenever possible. These women do not understand what feminism is. Feminism is about equality. It’s not about getting special treatment. It’s not about oppressing men. These women who claim they don’t need feminism are so caught up in this horrifyingly trendy fad that they don’t understand that without feminism their lives would be extraordinarily different. 

One woman wrote that she feels she doesn’t need equality because it already exists. I understand that not everyone in the world will feel the effects of inequality, but that doesn’t mean it’s made up. Personally, I am disgusted by this ignorant movement. Their ignorance is not an opinion, it is a fact. Inequality is not imaginary, it’s something that women deal with every single day, it’s something I’ve witnessed and experienced, and women who are actively fighting their pursuit of equality should be countered. Something I hope everyone who thinks that feminism is a dirty word takes away from this is that there is a difference between hypocrites and feminists. 

True feminism is about equality, and that is something that does not exist yet. Of course there are people who take it too far, but extremists exist everywhere and an entire movement towards better treatment of people should not be tarnished because of a few people who crossed a line. Sound familiar?

Advice for Loving Life pt. 3

On the eve of my twentieth birthday before I fell asleep, I took some time to reflect on my teenage years and although there were some major cringe-worthy memories I was actually sort of impressed with myself.  In the past three years especially I’ve done things that really made me feel like a human. 

As a woman it is easy to sometimes feel limited in your decisions and actions, but when you go against the grain it feels so good.  These are some things that I really feel that every single woman should do ASAP.  

1)      Cut your hair off.  All of it.  I can tell you, from experience; there is nothing quite like coming home from the salon with the back of your head buzzed.  It was one of the scariest decisions I’ve made.  There were multiple instances where people thought I was a boy and many more where I felt ugly and spent a half hour crying. I thought I needed to compensate.  I thought, since I have a boy haircut I need to stop biting my nails so they look more feminine. Or I should wear makeup and dresses now so people don’t call me a boy.  I did all that for a little while until I got sick of it.  I learned to be way more comfortable with myself and my body. I stopped being upset about what people thought because at the end of the day, it wasn’t their life, it was mine and I wasn’t going to let them ruin a single day of it.  I didn’t hide behind my hair.  It was so freeing.  I can truthfully say it took away an body images I’ve struggled with.   

2)     Get muddy. Along with my short hair, I started acting a little less conservatively.  In some ways I guess I was motivated by the fact that I could emulate a man, I did something that was new to me.  I started hiking.  And in no way is that a man’s activity, I always never thought I should do it.  My favorite things about hiking are the moments when I am afraid I might get hurt.  One particular moment I love the most happened while I was trekking up the side of a creek.  It was fairly steep and icy.  I was using tree branches to help me not to tumble to my imminent doom.  There was a moment when I slipped and I thought I was going to fall, then my foot slide and caught on a tree root and my ankle twisted. My palm got scraped by the branch I was holding on to and my heart was in my throat. Things like that don’t happen every day and I think that women are sometimes too afraid of getting hurt so they don’t push themselves. Just the feeling of knowing I was strong enough to keep going after the thing I was afraid of happened, it gave me a thrill.  I would definitely twist my ankle again for more moments like that.

3)     Be weird.  I am naturally wacky, so this was easier for me.  I am a big proponent for seeing how strange you can be until you embarrass yourself.  Recently I was in my car and an awesome song came on and I thought to myself, man this song is so good I want to scream, (you know that really fun yell/scream people do in movies in convertibles?).  Well, I went to yell but I hesitated and went silent.  It was almost too embarrassing to do in a car by myself in traffic headed to work.  I have moments like this where I will be singing my lungs out to Christina Aguilera then stop because I don’t want myself to notice I’m enjoying being an idiot.  I have found the best way to counter your filter is to be even weirder.  I make chicken noises, do interpretive dances, and make goofy faces to myself.  I think weirdness is essential to being happy.

A lot of what I just talked about really boils down to going outside your comfort zone, so if I were to give one bit of advice to women and girls who are unhappy it would be to go so far out of your comfort zone that you build an immunity to it.  That’s when you begin to feel special.  

Love Can't Wait

Recent events in my life have sparked my thoughts about inequality in society right now.  I just dealt with some raging sexism at work and I realized it was the first time that I had personally dealt with the effects of inequality. I knew that we needed feminism and I’ve been an open supporter of it since I was little, but I was always coming from an outside perspective.  Now that I can say that I have been personally affected by sexism, I understand in a very minor way what the problem is.  A lot of people that aren’t supporters of feminism and think we’re already fixed don’t understand the effect it has on people.  The same thing happens with the LGBT community.  I have some real life experience that I can share with all of you about the bullying in schools towards gay people. 

During my senior year of high school, there was this boy who gave my friend and me a particularly hard time.  As us girls who are very close, hetero or not, we hold hands.  It was not uncommon for my friend and me to walk to our next class hand in hand.  We were not a couple, just really comfortable being as close as we were.  Every so often, after our lunch period, we would have an unpleasant encounter. 

One day in particular I remember, we were walking down a hall with very few people in it and from behind us came this boy who went right between us knocking our hands apart.  It wasn’t crowded in the hall so he had plenty of room to walk around us.  This sort of thing happened a few times and looking back at it now, I probably should have done something more than saying “What the f***?” because I can only hope that he will not do that to other people.  We thought it was rude and homophobic but we weren’t hurt by it so we didn't do anything.  

One other incident that only I experienced one time happened when I was walking to class alone in a hallway and he was coming in the opposite direction.  As we passed each other, he turned to me and said “Dyke,” then walked away.  As a person who doesn’t offend easily I kept walking and laughed it off, but I always worry that I wasn’t his only target and he was taking it easy on me.  There were plenty of other people in the school that were gay and I regret a lot that I didn’t do anything to stop him.  I might be lucky enough to have thick skin, but not everyone is. 

Whenever people say that we don’t have to protect the LGBT community, that they chose this life and need to deal with it alone, I’m always very upset by that.  Some states don’t include gay people in policies protecting from harassment, Indiana can refuse service, and now someone wants a bill passed that legalizes shooting gays in the head.  

Why in the world are people so offended by the idea that someone wants to kiss the same gender that they think murder is acceptable? I will never fully understand it and it terrifies me.  I am scared for the people involved in hate crimes and I am extremely upset for people who feel like they don't belong in this world.  Believe me, you do. Much more than someone who wants you out of it. 

I really hope that that boy either stopped or was stopped and that he didn’t make someone’s life miserable.  I say this as an apology to whoever has to deal with people like this.  I’m sorry I didn’t do anything then.  I also say this as a message to people who see this happening and I urge you to say something. As for the people who are perpetrators of harassment or worse.  You spend such a short time on this planet.  How about you focus some energy on healing it, not hurting it.  

Don't Wait

Hello Internet Friends,

Apologies are to be made for my general lack of presence on this blog.  But it’s the eleventh hour and finals week is almost upon us! As this semester is coming to an end, I have had a very prominent thought in my life about how we think of other people. 
Just recently I had my last class with a bunch of really awesome people and I realized that we all really enjoy each others’ company and it is going to be a sad thing to not have a class with them anymore.  To me I was upset that all of us hadn’t realized this sooner.  We spent all semester awkwardly avoiding conversation with each other and waiting desperately before classes for our professor to come in so we wouldn’t have to sit in painful silence.  Now that I know that we all get along so well, I find it silly and sad that it took us so long to warm up to each other.  I really didn’t happen until about two weeks ago.  Now the semester is over and I think back to all the times that I waited too long to make friendships.  One memory in particular was when I was in eighth grade and it was the very last day of school and soon everyone would all be heading to different high schools and I kept hoping this one boy (we’ll name him Harold) would ask me to be his girlfriend.  I liked Harold the whole school year, but waited until the very last day to say anything because I knew it would force him to act quickly.  Part of this was me being overly good at manipulation at a young age, and part was a desperate cry for this boy to like me.  Looking back on this it is so silly that it took me so long to do something.  There are so many instances in my life I can point to where similar things have happened and I think it is so sad.  Whether it was a friendship or a potential relationship, I thought I had to wait for things to work themselves out.  Word to the wiser-than-me, don’t go by that mantra.  That mantra sucks.  No one should feel that they need to wait until the last second to make a connection with someone.  Go right the heck out there and go for it! Most of the time, something good is just waiting to happen and you get in the way of letting yourself have something good.  Don’t let that whole semester go by, don’t wait until you’re graduating, leaving on office, or moving out of town.  Grab time by its feathers and fly with it. 

 Love you all, (except for you, poophead. You know who you are.)

Escaping Suburbia: Getting in Touch

Finally, the negative degree weather is over and I had a Saturday with nothing planned so I went on an adventure that I like to call Escaping Suburbia.  The weather wasn’t great, it was just above freezing and all the snow at my house was melted so I figured it would be extremely muddy what with all the melted snow.  I wasn’t even a little bit right.  Ten yards into the trail there was a foot of snow which was okay but a lot colder than I anticipated.  However, under the shade of the trees, the snow had compacted and it was all ice. 

Now, since I’m Julia, I wanted to take the tougher trail that was difficult and made you prone to slipping, even in eighty degree weather.  About five minutes into the hike, my boyfriend and I were slipping all over the place and I sat on a fallen tree, defeated.  I didn’t want to go on because I knew that the trail was really steep and if you fell the wrong way, you’d tumble three stories off the edge into a creek.  We didn’t want to be quitters so we decided that we would just go as far as we could, then turn back once it got too icy.  Two minutes later, we were at a steep drop with no trees or roots to help keep your balance.  We were about to turn back when I slipped a little and got an idea.  Instead of turning back, we slid down the ice on our butts, and what I thought would’ve been a crappy day turned into one of the most fun times I’ve had hiking.  There was a lot of butt sliding, climbing over fallen tree limbs, and falling through feet of snow into the creek.  It really wore me down.  I twisted my ankle and fell in the creek a couple of times, but it was awesome. 

You learn a lot about yourself when you’re forced to channel your wild side (wild in a nature/animalistic sense, not spring break in Cancun wild).  The typical person just sits and stands and walks and that’s it, really.  They might work out, but even then, it’s repetitive. Being around nature is what humans were supposed to do.  As much as people might disagree, humans are just animals with complex emotions.  We are no more important than other mammals and insects.  We don’t have any more of a right to Earth than every other creature we live with.  Going outside and getting in tune with everything out there (instead of looking at Facebook or Twitter) is exhilarating. 

When I’m hiking, I learn my body’s rhythm and stride better.  There is nothing to distract from myself.  It’s fun to see what you’re capable of.  One of my favorite feelings is when I’m going down a steep slope and I just let my feet fall in to place.  Hesitation just doesn’t exist in those moments.  The idea is that you don’t go down slowly and carefully, afraid of falling, you just leap and land without fear.  And I think that’s how life should be lived; without hesitation.  Just leaping and landing knowing that you could fall, but being okay with it.