Freak of Womanhood

What, you ask, is that title supposed to mean? Well, I am an odd oxymoron of totally girly frufru while being totally at home with power tools and dirt. As a child, I remember wanting, not Barbie, but rather Micro Machines. They were cute little tiny cars... I still haven't given up on the cute and tiny.

The Toolbox

I wrote a little about this in an earlier post. My toolbox had more tools than B-chan's when we got married. Now, they have merged, but back then...
It started when I wanted to put better shelving in my closet at my parent's house. My dad had about 5 of each kind of tool in every size, but was I allowed to use any of them? Nope. I literally had to go out and buy my own tools and some for my mother to have so that we could fix things when he was lost in the library somewhere. We also had to keep them hidden so that he would not assimilate them into his own collection. Thus, I assembled my collection of tools and pretty complete, I might add. I even had my own drill and a set of bits.

Handygirl

I'd like to think that I can handle things on my own, so using the tools, not just having them, was (and is) important to me. I guess it was to my dad, too. He raised me to be a landlord.
We have a 4 unit apartment building in a local Orange County town. Add to that a house on the other side of said town. Those are in addition to the house where I grew up and the mobile home my grandfather left... in Las Vegas.
Unfortunately for my dad, he got stuck with two daughters, but that is probably why I am a "freak of womanhood". So, how did I get to be so handy? Most typical teenagers, preteens, even girls in general spend their weekends playing, finishing homework, hanging out with friends, going to the mall to shop, or even sometimes working. Not me! I was handing my dad tools at said apartments or mowing the lawn at the house... for the majority of my childhood!

Don't wait for a guy's help... DIY

So, what does this have to do with a blog about being ecofriendly? Well, I kind of learned to do things myself because my dad didn't want to share. It was also because that's what I saw him doing. He constantly reused parts or tried to cut costs by doing it himself. Somethimes it worked, but not always a good thing.
As for the being a freak of womanhood, I am totally at home with using my tools or doing things that most girly girls wouldn't be caught dead doing. Then again, I am a mommy. I rinse my own cloth diapers and launder them myself. Sometimes, even my loving B-chan can't handle that.

...And Dirt.

I like to garden, too.
As a little kid, I remember being outside and "helping" my dad. I'm not sure how much help I actually accomplished other than making sure he didn't paralyze himself by falling off a ladder or something many many times. Anyway, one of those times I decided to make stuff out of mud. So, I mixed water with dirt and fashioned a couple mud teddy bear figures (my girly freakishness was coming through). It didn't bother me that my nails were dirty or that bugs had crawled through my medium; I was creating.

Then there's the shoes

When people look at me, they see someone who is probably on the tall side of average. When they hear my shoe size and they recover from the shock of their jaw hitting the floor, they try to tell me that I am tall. Well, number one, my best friend is taller than I am, and number two, she has smaller feet than I do. So, no, I don't buy it, not one little bit.

Ever since 6th grade, I have had difficulty finding shoes. When I wore size 10, most retailers only carried to size 9. When I wore size 11, stores carried to size 10, even now some still only carry to size 10. Yes, my shoe size is larger than that, and forgive me, but you can stop gaping now.

It wouldn't be so bad if more than just two, count them a whopping two, retailers sold my size. I know, I know, I can buy them online. But, how am I supposed to save money when I have to pay for my shoes before I even get to try them on... At Payless?! Not to mention, I have one fifth the selection of other non-freaks. Let's not get me started on how I am stuck paying full price most of the time because inventory in my size is so scant or how most of the styles are just plain ugly! Kind of hard to penny pinch when shoes cost at least $30 a pair, or they never even make it to the thrift store because every other large footprinted woman keeps every pair of shoes she owns (and for good reason).

I guess that brings me to the list of retailers at the bottom of my blog page. Those are the websites I probably frequent the most. At one point, I even found shoes on the Target website, but alas, I do not know if they still do. If money is no object, then go to Barefoot Tess, Nordstrom, or Zappos. If your budget is a little tighter, go to the Zappos outlet or Nordstrom Rack (a brick and mortar store). If you just want cheap shoes for a little more than cheap, Payless is your store. There are more out there, but these are my most popular ones.

Finally...

That, people, is why I am a Freak of Womanhood. I actually consider it as kind of a compliment, though I don't know if it was meant to be. The term was coined, in good humor I'm sure, by one of my church's evangelists, so I embraced it.