Category Archives: Middle Age

Aging, Body image, Employment, Female Empowerment, Fun, Girlfriends, Humor, Middle Age, Sisterhood, Weight

Weight Schmeight

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A couple of months ago, when I was still employed, my co-worker Maureen, laughing her head off, presented this book to me. She had discovered it while sorting through donations for the thrift store portion of the non-profit we worked for.

This, I think, is one of the simple things in life to treasure: working with someone who likes and appreciates you. Someone who’s thoughtful, generous, and knows how to make you laugh. I just love this woman. She always lightened my mood.

I read this book shortly after she gave it to me.

It’s important to note that the author, Wendy Reid Crisp, wrote this in 1995. Because of that, some of her commentary is not necessarily applicable or relatable, in my view, to the upper middle-aged women of today. Like me.

Yet there were some bits and pieces that struck a chord with me.

Here’s one excerpt that I have a little something to say about:

“I’m not going to….3. Introduce body parts as topics of conversation.

In New England, there’s a group of women in their sixties who have been friends for forty years and who meet annually for a long weekend at a good spa. Their first event, on Friday night, is an “organ recital”. Everyone recites ad nauseam the state of her organs-heart, uterus, lungs, kidneys-and other anatomical conditions. As it should be, for the rest of the weekend the subject of personal health is taboo”.

I love this. Having a group of friends who get together yearly at a spa sounds fabulous! I’ve had this notion for a while now that someday, I’ll have a girls weekend. My sister will be there along with my “bonus” sister (Hubs’ sister), along with a couple of my girlfriends and a few cousins. We will sip sangria in the mornings, jam out to rocking tunes, and spend time in a pool or lake lounging on giant inflatable flamingos. We will dance, we will laugh, and we will raise a little hell.

It will be epic.

But there’d be one catch: at my girls weekend, on Friday night, we will engage in newfangled version of Ms. Reid-Crisp’s “organ recital”. There will be a designated amount of time (not to exceed one hour) during which we are allowed to freely discuss all things related to our weight. We can bitch about our muffin tops. We can talk about the pros/cons of intermittent fasting. We can swap Keto recipes. But when the timer goes “ding” (yes I will bring a timer) that’s that, ladies.

I might even bring a big old jar that those in the group who utter a word about their weight at any point after our Friday night “recital” will be required to put a dollar in. Kind of like a “sear jar”. All monies collected could later be donated to Planned Parenthood or another non-profit that benefits women.

I say all this because I detest the conversations we women always seem to engage in about our bodies. Our weight issues. It bores me. It seriously irritates me. I don’t like how when one woman will look at a perfectly good tray of delicious cupcakes and make some comment like “I need one of those like I need a hole in my head”. Because then, I feel like I need to “own” the fact that I’m a little fat. Probably 10-15 lbs over what I “should” be based on my height. I always feel compelled to respond by saying I don’t “need” a cupcake either.

Like “hey girlfriend, I’m fat too!”

I just find this troubling. There’s so much more to us women than how we look in our jeans. Or how we think others think we look in our jeans, I suppose.

And there’s so many more interesting topics of conversation, right? The books we’ve been reading, the vacations we’re planning, the new job we are applying for, the state of the world, our favorite movies, who’s pissing us off at work, who’s pissing us off at home, caring for aging parents, fun experiences we’ve shared together, and so very much more.

Sometimes inspiration comes from an unexpected source. Thank you Maureen, and thank you Ms. Reid-Crisp.

***Featured Image courtesy of https://www.healthygirl.co.za/20-healthy-girl-body-positive-quotes/

Aging, Balance, Blogging, Changes, Empty Nesting, Grandparenting, Gratitude, Life, Love, Middle Age, Motherhood, Parenting, Self-Care, Work

At almost 55

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Super self-indulgent title, right?

Yet I think it works.

Buckle up while I summarize my current status:

Tomorrow I turn 55. I don’t recall freaking out inside about my birthday since the day I turned 31 (for real). But, I accept it. What’s the alternative? There is none.

Shit, I wouldn’t want to turn back the hands of time even if I could.

While “balance” is my word for 2022, “Moving Forward” is my new mantra. Or “Progress, not Perfection”. It’s a toss up.

In that spirit, off I go.

Hubs and I’s empty nesting status has been on hiatus for the last 13 days. We are now a household of 5, for the time being. It’s nothing I want to delve into on this platform at this time. But it’s important for you to know if you’re going to stick around, because my whole world is in the most transitional period since 2014, and because I know that part of my self-care routine (I despise this overused and abused term but am in the flow and choose not to google synonyms right now) is writing these blog posts. Because it’s going to affect everything you read here from this point on to some degree or other.

I’m determined to focus on the present moment. One day at a time. While of course planning for the near future (aka our move back to Wisconsin). Along with simultaneously doing my best to wrap up the Colorado part of my path in the neatest, most colorful bow, with the exception of my talented artist kid Rabbie and Karl the cockeyed cat, who intend to remain here, work-wise and beyond.

One thing I don’t believe I have done a good job of communicating to you about on this blog is that I love numbers. I find meaning in them. I enjoy making mathematical calculations in my head. I notice numbers all the time. It’s kinda weird.

That, among other reasons, is why I’m going to simply share the Top 5 things that are making me happy these days.

  • Hearing and seeing my almost 8 year old grandson laugh at his own jokes.
  • Having the support of my employer with reducing my weekly hours.
  • Listening to books on Audible (Jen Mann’s most recent one simply spoke to me while making me laugh).
  • Witnessing the bravery of my adult children amidst life’s changes and challenges.
  • Blogging, and the fact that I feel great enthusiasm about writing on topics I haven’t covered in the almost 5 years since I started this blog. The primary topic I’m feeling now is under the umbrella of “Work”.

This song is dedicated to my kids. I think you might like it too.

Anxiety, Blogging, Books, Creative Writing, Facebook, Humor, Irony, Life, Middle Age, Self-Reflection, Storytelling

Alphabet Soup Challenge: I is for Indecisiveness

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I have an almost finished post about how “I” is for “Investment”. It’s about how I’ve been trying to do a better job of investing in myself. Using my time, emotional, physical, and spiritual energy to improve myself.

Investing in myself translates to intentionally going out for walks most mornings, which gives me a lift and helps to collect my thoughts about the day ahead. This investment also includes talk therapy via telephone with a behavioral health counselor. As well as doing more personal journaling and intentionally consuming entertainment that gives me the good feels. I’m feeling better about myself these days. That’s the gist of it.

The it occurred to me that dedicating an entire post to how I, as a privileged white upper-middle aged woman, was “investing” in myself was a bit too much. Too self involved.

That’s when the anxiety I experience on the daily crept into my brain and manifested itself into another “I” word of which I am quite familiar: “indecisiveness”. Because now what “I ” word am I going to pontificate about? There’s so many choices, I can’t possibly decide on which one.

There’s “irony”, which I have a little story about. I mentioned in a recent post how I was reading “Untamed” by Glennon Doyle in which I found some pearls of wisdom that resonated with me. Well, I finished that book several weeks ago. In one of the two all female Facebook groups I belong to, one of the admins posted a picture of herself looking all cute and holding up “Untamed”, notifying us that there was going to be a Facebook live video discussion of the book on Wednesday night at 6:30 p.m. In a moment of impulsivity, I replied that I would plan on attending.

I had been thinking for a while that I wanted to gain more experience with using video communication, both with friends and family, but also with people that I only know online, not IRL as they say. Zoom and Facebook Live are the tools du jour in the age of Covid-19, and I suspect that will only grow just like the amount of time we will be compelled to stick close to home.

Wednesday rolled around. I remembered about this “happening” about 5:30 p.m., after imbibing in a couple of cocktails. Supper wasn’t quite ready. Kid #2 was out at the local Hookah bar and about to come home soon. I was anticipating Kid #1 calling me at any time based on a message she had sent me earlier in the day. I had taken all my make up off, revealing just how “53” I looked. I hemmed and hawed, thinking about putting on some makeup, fluffing up my hair, grabbing “Untamed” and just doing it anyway.

Then Kid #2 came in the door, greeted by a very happy Radar-ling and his slinky sidekick Karl the cockeyed cat. I felt happy. Relaxed. I let myself off the hook and decided “Nah”.

After having intermittent pangs of guilt mixed with a side of regret about flaking out on this experience throughout that evening and into the next morning, I checked Facebook and learned that the admin hadn’t been feeling well the night before so she cancelled the event. Whew!

Now that’s irony. All that worry for nothing. Ha!

I am very tempted to continue this post with anecdotes on other “I” words that I have a lot to say about like “imagination”, “inspiration”, and “intention”.

However, I’m going to instead head on back to my “A-Z” draft folder and work through my indecisiveness surrounding the remaining letters of the alphabet I have to write about to complete this self-imposed challenge.

And leave you with one of my favorite Alanis Morrisette tunes.

**Header image courtesy of http://www.uniquelyandbrilliantlyadorned.com/2015/10/lets-talk-about-indecisiveness.html

Dogs, Humor, Joy, Lifestyle, Love, Middle Age

The Radar Diaries

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Well, you all knew when Hubs and I adopted Radar, you were going to hear all about it, right?

We’ve had him now for almost 3 months and so far, so good. Mostly.

On the bright side, he has brought us a lot of joy. Ironically, the wonderful dog trainer who we see every Sunday is also named Joy. I like to think that is no coincidence. Radar is a happy-go-lucky, people loving pup. Just a little rough around the edges.

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A brief respite among his shedded fur after some crazy random running around as I was writing this post.

Radar is also the most distractible dog I’ve ever seen. For now, I think that can be blamed on him still being a puppy (the initial guess was he was 18 months old when we adopted him, and according to Hubs, German Shepherds do not fully mature until they are 2 or even 3). Pre-Radar I took great delight in seeing the bunnies when I was out walking around the hood. Now they are my nemesis. On account of the fact that Radar either wants to play with them or wants to eat them. He demonstrates this desire by pulling as hard as he can on the leash that I’m holding so tight my fingernails are making imprints into my palms. The upside to this is that he has increased the speed of my reflexes, as I’m usually able to tell him “leave it!” and yank him to the other side where the bunny is no longer in his line of sight. Of course, he isn’t dumb and he is very obsessive, so there’s usually a few quick turns back so he can give that bunny the evil eye. Then we carry on, at least until the next bunny appears. Fucking stupid bunnies.

Contemplating my next purchase…

Then he can’t see those dumb bunnies!

I won’t even go into the trauma I experienced the other night, whilst taking the little shit best dog ever out to take a shit. Bottom line, two smaller dogs invaded his space  came into our shared front “yard” (we live in a townhome community, people) with their owner and he couldn’t resist bolting toward them, tail wagging, ready to mix it up (undetermined if that was in a good way or not, it’s all a blur to me now). I acquired a banged up knee and a bruised dog mommy ego. Tears were shed.

I may have to take my neighbor, Robin, up on her offer of a dab of CBD infused peanut butter for Radar’s Kong toy. She said it works wonders for her two doggies. Though Hubs  refers to it as “snake oil”, so that may be a hard sell.

Radar has gifted me with flashbacks to when our spawn were toddlers as well.

Examples:

Just like when my kids were little, I can be made to feel bad about my parenting skills. Like when Radar got himself kicked out of the group beginner obedience training at PetSmart. It was our second time there, and while we had high hopes that the furry devil was going to be at least somewhat calmer this time, that is not how it went down. He pulled Hubs and I around. He barked in his loud and scary (to those not used to it) way, which echoes in the store. He was a very distracted distraction for the other canine participants. So that was a bust, causing me to feel that “mommy guilt” that I had shed 10+ years ago.

We are now doing one on one training and this has been quite helpful as well as enlightening. Thank the good Lord for Joy!

When our spawn were toddlers, pooping in the approved receptacle (that would be the toilet, if you wondered), Hubs and I get so excited when this dog poops in the proper receptacle (that would be outside, people). We have figured out that within 7 minutes of chowing down his food, he must have a bowel movement. If we foolishly miss the opportunity to take him out, he will evacuate his bowels on the floor. Lucky for us, he now only does this on the tile floor directly in front of our front door, so clean up is easy! Not like we want to clean up poop of course. But at least it’s not on the carpet. We take our wins when we can.

How about the rest of you dog ‘rents? Trying out some new lingo here based on Spawn #2’s millenial vernacular. How are things going? Please share pics of your furry companions in the comments!

P.S. Funny story that I remembered after watching this sweet music video….when grandson Christopher was about 2, we would ask him “What does the doggy say”? His response: heavy panting. Ha ha!!

Adult children, Aging Parents, Blogging, Employment, Middle Age

Where my head’s at: Jobs, Life, and Gun Violence

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You may have or may have not noticed that the frequency of my blog posts has declined as of late. It’s because, well…life. Other bloggers are surely familiar with this predicament. You get on a roll, posting with regularity, reading other blogger’s posts and providing commentary. You are in your groove.

Then, life rudely barges in, forcing you to shift your focus and re-assess your priorities. Like when circumstances force you to acknowledge in your core of cores that your parents are aging for real as illnesses and surgeries grow in their frequency and severity. Like when you begin planning for your young adult spawn’s overdue visit to your new-ish home in your new-ish state and potential snafus in this plan begin to emerge, leaving you to ponder an alternate plan. Like when you realize the amount of time and energy spent on blogging will not equal the satisfaction of working outside of the home with real live people and earning actual money.

That said, this is not me declaring that my blogging days are over. What I can declare, however, with relative certainty, is that change is afoot in my life at the moment. For better or worse. 

I have made some headway in my search for employment.  I updated my resume and applied for a job as a para-educator in the special ed department of a local elementary school. I have also applied for another job, for which I have an interview this afternoon.

So as not to jinx it, I’m going to supress my urge to provide details about said job interview and the anxious thoughts rattling through my brain as I mentally prepare myself for the first job interview I’ve have in 10 years. Gulp.

Then there are other happenings that are taking up space in my brain and especially in my heart. One week ago today, I awoke to the news of yet another fatal shooting. Only this time it happened a mere 5 minute drive from our home, at the Wal-Mart in Thornton, Colorado. I can honestly say that for the first time since all of these horrific shootings in this country of ours began, this scared me on a personal level. I’ve been to that Wal-Mart. I’m much more aware of my surroundings when going out and about as a result of this. Three innocent lives lost, for no reason whatsoever.

What angers and sickens me the most about this is that there does not appear to be an end in sight with these shootings. 

I pray, as many others in this country and throughout the world are. I pray for the families left behind but even more importantly, I pray that the jokers representing us in Washington, D.C., will take action, once and for all, to reduce the likelihood that mass shootings will continue to occur. The only way, I believe, for this epidemic to have any chance of being remedied, is for stricter gun regulations to be enacted.

A good friend of mine here in Colorado shared a video on Facebook today with the pictures and stories of all of those folks who lost their lives in the mass shooting at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, last Sunday. I appreciate that, because I think it’s much easier to say our prayers and then get right back to living our own personal lives when we only pay attention to the sound bites offered by the media.

I don’t believe in taking the easy route. Not when it comes to the mass shooting epidemic in this country and not when it comes to how I live my personal life. Because a meaningful life and a more harmonious society is not manifested by making easy choices.

I’m going to go forth and do my best to seize this day. I will count my blessings, which are many. Likely more than I deserve. And tomorrow, I will strive to do the same. Day by day.

 

 

 

 

Blogging, Creative Writing, Humor, Middle Age, Sarcasm

Amusing myself in AARP land

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Full disclosure: I am an overthinker. And very likely too hard on myself. I confess this today after coming to the conclusion that writing is actually hard. I had every intention yesterday of publishing a truly epic post, only to find myself completing approximately 70% of a moderately humorous and mostly lame essay.

I jazzed up one other post that I had in my draft folder as well, but it didn’t meet my standards of publishability. Yes, I may have just made up a new word. 

Of course, I just had to google the word publishability and of course it is a legit word. No matter.  I have also come to the conclusion this week that the most beneficial thing I can do to harness whatever creative writing abilities I possess, is something. As in, don’t just plop your arse down in front of the computer and force yourself to write something, anything, just so you can give yourself a high five that you continued your blog for yet another day. As it turns out, writing doesn’t work that way.

So I actually did some stuff this morning. Not a lot of stuff, mind you. But stuff, nonetheless.

I checked off one of my to-do list items. I wrote a check and filled out a form to claim my new, free duffel bag from AARP. Which means I am now officially a member of the Advanced Age Restless Party. Take that, those of you under 50! Ha!

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Oh, the irony of this sarcastic comment!

All I had to do was put a stamp on it and then send it on it’s merry way. I recalled recently locating a book of stamps I purchased at the post office in one of the zippered pouches of my trusty black Baggallini purse. I also recall thinking to myself let’s put those here where they will be handy when I need them. 

The only problem is the “here” is nowhere to be found. And of course since I’m thisclose to being a member of  the exclusive AARP club, I cannot recall for the life of me where precisely that “here” is. I’ve searched high and low-in other purses, in my small filing cabinet next to the computer desk. No stamps to be found. Not. A. One.

Those darn stamps are bound to turn up somewhere at some point in time, right? The most likely scenario, however, is that the moment I arrive home from purchasing a new book of stamps they will magically appear. Just like that belt I forgot I bought after buying the exact same one at Target last week.

So after this kerfuffle, I decided to do something else. Something challenging but entirely irrelevant and self-serving. Something to divert my attention from the reality that I have indeed lodged myself firmly into AARP land. As I said in a very recent post, one of my life goals is to be able to successfully sing all the lyrics to R.E.M.’s “It’s The End Of The World” song. I found the lyrics on Google Play, then put this song on play on my tablet.

All I can say is that I was all kinds of happy when I got to the main chorus of “It’s the end of the world as we know it” (times 3) then “and I feel fine”. The rest of the lyrics were akin to rapidly repeating an old timey tongue twister like “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers”. But nonetheless it was highly amusing.

I guess the lesson here for me, today, despite my geriatric tendencies, though one could also conclude the lesson is that I have entirely too much time on my hands, is that I’m still young at heart. Like a 14 year old geeking out at those “amazing” music videos on MTV trapped in an occasionally audibly creaking, slightly overweight, stretch-marked, 50 year old body. And that’s okay with me, because acceptance leads to freedom.