The Great Balancing Act......

What a week, right? Getting ready to have all you want to accomplish done by "the day" just to find that you have forgotten something. It might not have been something big, major or even critical but still not everything you wanted to accomplish.

The problem is that you find that it is a perpetual battle to actually feel like you did everything you wanted. There seems to be a lingering feeling..."I could have done more". Whether it is get that special dish done, or buy that new blouse instead of throwing on the same one you wore last year, sit and have a conversation with someone you wanted to catch up with...any number of things on our never ending, long, getting longer list of things.

We know that taking care of "us" is best for us and then we want to take care of our loved ones and just those two things are feats in and of themselves. How do we let everyone else know how much we care without working twenty-four hours a day?

Seems like the more we do the more there is to do...balance each and every day is what we need to strive for and we don't always give ourselves permission to let the balance change or vary. We won't always be the same or give the same or want the same from others. We vacillate between so much it is a wonder that men find any way to understand us at all...LOL

We are beginning the 48th week of the year and it is daunting how fast each year goes by after you reach a certain age....young people don't believe it but time somehow speeds up and we run out of time before you have a chance to realize it. We are smart, successful, kind, loving, giving women, why can't we let go of some things that are not, or should not be as important as we make them? Balance what involves cultivating relationships before material things and don't let anything or anyone tilt your scale of balance without good reason. I can't say "DON'T" let it happen because it will. There is no point in trying to ignore those times but let it be for a really good reason.

This season as I try to balance the internal desires vs the external possibilities, I pray that we move forward with determination to get, as well as give and that at the end of the day we aren't lamenting that which we didn't get done. Just think about all that you have enjoyed, accomplished, given to others and received from others.

How will you or do you successfully find balance?????

When you least expect it..............

I have been scheduling doctor's appointments and have had the annual boob smashing, the new and invasive vaginal ultrasound, received the referral for and even call to make the appointment for the first time Colonoscopy. As I was speaking to the appointment desk clerk, she asked why I was requesting the procedure and I stated that I had never had one and I was 51.

Wow when I said it out load it made me stop and think....am I really 51? How did I get here, what the heck have I done the last 40 years? I felt so daunted by the number...and yes I am a firm believer that it is just a number...after all my mom who is in miraculous health is 95. What am I going to to for the next 44 years.

Yet I often feel like I am running out of time...the time for productivity, health and even wealth is closing in on me and the advanced menopause symptoms are ever present. I can't do anything, even that which is not a bit strenuous without feeling like I have been dunked into a hot vat of steaming water and I can't get out. I ran out of my hormone balancing pills and can't get more until next week. When I take them I don't get any hot spells at all but buying them and taking them seems like such a chore.
It really does suck to be female sometimes.......... Coping is one of the biggest preoccupations of life lately. Coping with the ebb and flow of everything that comes my way... I remember a time when life just happened ...now more and more things that were of no consequence seem to be either more sad, more happy, more scary, more everything...what are some of your "mores" lately? How do you deal with them?

One for the books..............

As some of you may know I deal with the review, registration and dissemination of birth and death records. Today I recieved a call from a funeral director who requested that I review and register a death  record. He recounted the story told to him by the decedents husband. The wife who hadn't been feeling well for a few days suddenly slumped over on her computer. He called the paramedics but it was too late. She was gone to meet her maker. However, at the time this happened she was "googling" heart attack symptoms......so I am giving you a link below for a site that I often use in reviewing causes of death.

The husband recounted that she had felt badly for a few days but didn't know why and he also stated that when he looked at the google history on her computer she had been researching for days.

She was the kind of person who put others first, who didn't stop, who worked from home and on weekends.
I submit to you that those days when you feel like saying 'no more', 'not today', 'I can't', 'I shouldn't', that you DO. Take time for yourself, get a massage, go for a walk, so something for and for you alone.

It is often said by experts that if you do not take the time to be in good physical and mental health first then you are or will eventually be useless to others, those others that you love and want to be there for the most.

Take this week and do something for you and tell us what it was, share how you internalize being a beautiful, kind, loving woman that you surely are. Enjoy and be safe this week as you prepare for the Thanks Giving meal and the travel that it may entail.
God be with you and bless you and your families.



http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/features/her-guide-to-a-heart-attack

The ever changing body

It is an understatement to say that the variety and challenging changes that I have gone through since that day back when I was ten are various, curious and sometimes confounding but I know I am not alone. 

I went from heavy flow for eight days and horrible cramps to allergy type reactions that I now have every month even though I have no flow. What the heck!! 

Seems that there are so many variations of symptoms that are attributed to menopause or hormone changes and it varies so much between women and yet there are hints of sameness. I was so relieved to know that one of my sister-in-laws also gets allergic symptoms now that she is pre-menopausal. It comforted me and made me less anxious about my own issues.

Are we influenced by what we eat and or is there anything out there that will help with the hormone change that might alleviate the symptoms? I don't know but I do take a natural product that is supposed to alleviate the symptoms, and it does calm the hot flashes but I still have the itchy scalp and eyes once a month...it just seems so odd. What odd reactions have you had?

Since the beginning......2000 and beyond

It is amazing how many times we go through changes with our bodies and we think we are unique. The more I speak to, blog with and interact with women I find that there is some common thread that links us as females beyond our genitals. Aside from all the droves of books that have been written about the differences between men and women and the similarities of how women behave, react and function.

I have never read a book on just what women feel, or go through without trying to analyse it for a "greater" good. Can't we just talk about it and feel comforted by the fact that if we have different experiences and we share them then we are giving ourselves some sort of worth by doing so and giving others the gift of ourselves. Just a simple gift that many need to feel like they are not alone now or ever. We aren't trying find a cure, or understand why, just giving to one another. That in and of itself is a joy that can fill our hearts so that we can receive the joy of others and their life experiences.

I was recently on a table in small ultrasound room with a technician who asked me my date of birth, whether I had children, how many pregnancies and BAM...I had to stop and decide if I would tell the truth or if I would only say repeat how many children I had....in a nano-second I told the truth and felt the tears roll down my cheeks and thank God that the lights were dimmed so the tech would not see them. It isn't that I feel God has not forgiven me or that I haven't forgiven myself but when you speak your truth and you haven't done that out load in so long it moves you,  it sends you to a place that was once painful and in some cases devastating. I sometimes am in awe that I survived some of those days, weeks, months and even years.

I am grateful to know that I am healed from so much in so many ways and that the past pain and suffering seems to have occurred to someone else...a movie perhaps or a sad book that was experienced so long ago that I can't quite remember the details.

I am happy and blessed to be where I am right now and I hope you are too. What has given you cause to have a  BAM in your life lately? I hope that the recovery of it was quick and seamless and that you were able to recover and move on to the now and not let the past sit too long in your heart or head.

In the middle.....1980's and 1990's

I had all three of my children by the time I was twenty-four and I was anxious to move on from giving birth to getting the proverbial "body" back. Let me just say it never happened...sometimes I wonder if I ever had that "bod" I thought I was going to get back in the first place. I remember thinking when I weighed 133lbs how dang fat I was....gee to be that again!!! 

My cycles went from heavy duty cramping and flow that lasted up to eight days to light and breezy, almost delightful compared to the cycles of my youth...Ha then the a trick of nature played itself on me and I started getting migraines. No more heating pad days. When I asked my mom about the change she just nodded in the affirmative that indeed she had gone through the same. Gee, I wish that had been comforting but alas it wasn't. 

My poor kids when they were growing up it probably seemed like I had a headache more then not. I couldn't have light, noise or any smell of any kind around me...it was the worst. 

How about you ladies? What changes have you gone through over the years and how has it affected your self-esteem, your ability to function etc....chat it up!

in the beginning.....1970

Despite the fact that I have seven sisters, two of which are in heaven.....and we lived in a two bedroom house with one bathroom, I never heard about a menses, cramps, period or "friend" until the day I started at the age of ten! Yup ten!

It scared the hell outta me to say the least. I ran to my mom and I remember so clearly that she was washing dishes. I stood close to her not knowing what to say and she glanced over and asked what I wanted. I said I was bleeding and she lifted my chin to look at my nose.....it didn't make sense to me when she did that but now it makes me laugh so hard I almost pee...which is another problem we women have, as I would find out later....

Oh back to that day...I pointed down to the "area" and she calmly dried her hands and took me to the restroom. She pulled out the box of "Kotex" and explained how to put it on, said that it would happen once a month and to make sure to change the pad, which seemed more like a thick skinny diaper, every time I went to the restroom. To this day I don't remember my sisters ever mentioning this occurence to me then or since...what is it about all of this that they wanted to avoid?

Maybe it is just that they were tired of thinking it an "occurence". By the time I came around who wouldn't be tired of women...lol

in the beginning.....1960

When I was born my mother had already had seven girls and three boys before me. I don't know if she didn't know about contraceptives or she just didn't believe in them. The fact that she is still alive and I can't ask her speaks to the objective of this blog.

I was recently having a typical hairdresser/customer conversation when she said she wished she could find a site that provide a place to ask questions, vent or just read how other women, real women who are, if not her friends, friends of friends about how they deal with menses, contraceptives, infertility, peri-menopause, menopause, cancer, surviving cancer and all the rest that goes with being female.

This is an attempt at doing just that. They say that we are all just six degrees from actually knowing each other and I truely believe that it is a fact. So today I propose to all of you to join me in creating a support group that will uplift and engage women of all walks of life who want to share and edify that which makes us individual in this "like" experience called womanhood....let the chatting begin!