Using the hols productively

Just over two months to go before Christmas and the first full year of having a blog on here as a chunk of my mind goes back to when it was Autumn half term where after a special assembly at school, that was it as we had time off which often was focused on Guy Fawkes Night and Halloween.

 

Of course back then it wasn't all plain sailing not least when you literally lacked the language to express what it was you were feeling and why how it was they people saw you wasn't really how you saw yourself.

You wanted it different.

Yes! No more school for a fortnight and all the rules and enforced ideas about how how they think you should be not that there's anything much wrong with trying encourage us children to be kind, to think of others and do what we can for ourselves.

Can't we just use this time for something better for me?

How about setting aside some Girl Time, working on helping me dress a lot more girlie, encouraging me more to engage with and in the world of girls, maybe even find a girl or two help me learn to play as the girl I am?

Isn't this really what someone like me really needs?

Scouting and me

The one organization I'd love to have joined when I was a chronological child would of been the Brownies, the younger side of Girl Scouting but it was never to be. In fact my folks never enrolled me to any part of the World-wide Scouting movement which was a pity for although I have disabilities it wouldn't of been hard for them to accommodated me (and I'm sure if asked nicely they'd of been happy too).
This is the Brownie uniform I'd of been proud to have worn, learning more about self-reliance, serving others and improving my poor confidence at the time.

Taking the promise, one I'd of been happy to made in 1972 as I had no problem uphold the principals and pledging my allegiance.

Here's a 70's vintage uniform with  badges but can you see that oh so  1970's smiley face yellow badge. I used to have loads of them then!

Doing things Jo style

The same but different was part heading of an entry on the "big" blog that was a necessary examination of some topics before it could (and did) move on in an integrated way and in some ways this year was like that.

Different people do things very much in different ways and how people present and the kinds of gender roles and that they do can vary as indeed society itself has moved on since I was a child.

I have decided to put my feelings pretty much on the line where it comes to the variety of forms of presenting as more as a Little/Middle simply because as I see it we all do it differently and so do actual little or middle girls.

It's not uncommon for girls to wear shorts or trousers to school however much traditionalists may not so keen on it as I saw earlier on in the week where one girl of about ten living on our road wore grey long trousers to school and still be the same girl who may put a dress on whenever she feels like it. It's not one or the other necessarily.

There's a TomBoy element within me that likes in that context wearing formal shorts so I decided for the first day to wear my black ones where everything else was all girls  which I quite enjoyed as much as I liked wearing my thicker grey school dress on the Saturday and part Sunday.

My heroine, George who really is Georgina in the Famous Five novels by Enid Blyton did the same believing in challenging perceptions around what a girl can be.

They are both equal parts of the same fully integrated girl me, Jo, and I don't like pigeon holes.

Sleepy-byes

This really is sort of way I make any room when I go away on vacation really mine by adding a least a plushie or two and say a flower. I do prefer though to have more books, plushies and playthings in a room as it does feel really to spartan for me, preferring more the feel of a childs bedroom which is me really.
I really don't care that much about having a tv so long as there's a room in the house I can watch tv shows on.