hi there

One day I'll actually get motivated and change my little 1/4" profile picture.

In the meantime .... age is creeping up on me.

And this is really me.

The black sweatshirt is my staple.

The rug strip in my hand is my steady sidekick.

My hair (which really needed a trim) has come to a sort of color that I think would be great on a furniture piece. Brown with hints of red mixed with a silver that isn't merely streaks anymore.

Laugh lines circle my eyes which now need glasses or head straight to a headache from strain.

For today ... this is me.

Tomorrow will produce a few more grays, a few more lines.

Perhaps it will bring another joint that yells and howls once in a while.

For sure it will produce another rug or ten because I can't sit idle ...

not even to flip the page of a book.

I'd love a chance to visit with each and every one of you who come here to read

my, of late, sporadic posts.

A cup of coffee shared outside where the breezes blow silver strands of hair,

the birds sing to us and the visits range from the most light hearted to the deepest matters of life.

But for today, thanks for visiting.

I appreciate you.

fifty: font size

I was trying to change the font on my slower than molasses computer for Pappa last week.
The goal was to get icons on the desktop for Finnish news and then make the font readable.

The computer decided to do this automatic update thing and took too long.
I was off to work before it was finished.

Days later I'm finally on the computer again and guess what?

My icons are larger.
My text is larger.

And so I admit it.

I'm liking it!

finding fifty: rapids to prunes

I didn't know I was capable.
I hadn't even considered that I might be.

Many of those rapids filled my kayak with a wonderful spray of water
and left me to sit in it ... sometimes for hours.

Which leads me to dishpan hands.
If you're any kind of person, you've washed dishes by hand.
If you're from any size family, you've washed a lot of them by hand.
And when you're done, you've got these hands that are wrinkled up to worse than prunes.

So, in my many moments of meandering quiet thoughts over the weekend,
I sort of had to wonder.

If your hands can look that bad after a sink or two of dishes,
and you've now been sitting in a "tub" of water much longer than it takes to do those dishes,

what happened to the quality of the wrinkles that age has graced you with?

finding fifty: kayaking the verde

I told you that I went kayaking in Minnesota on the Mississippi for several hours this past summer.
At least, I think I did.
That would be the extent of my kayaking experience. Ever.

Why this weekend, when it has only been 117 in Phoenix this week,, and we aren't exactly heading to the mountains to do this?
It is the only weekend available between here and later in October.

This morning we are off on a weekend adventure.
I have had some serious misgivings and anxieties about this little jaunt of ours.
I can't handle the heat. I get crabby (big surprise, hey?) real quick.
That has probably been my biggest concern.
I drink my cold drinks with ice and there won't be any which makes me sorta sad.

I'm not worried about the river or the fact that the weather could change on a dime and we could have flash floods and be swept who knows where.
Nope. Not worried about that at all. That would be my husband who is in charge of that.
He worries and plans enough for several families which might be a good thing.
We have some another very precious couple joining us in our excursion.

I'm concerned about creature comforts.
I can pee behind a tree with the best of the them.
I can sleep in a tent ... we bought a smaller one for this trip.
I can almost go without a shower for 3 days, but I'm on a muddy river for 3 days, so I might learn.
I'll find time for a soap bar somewhere along the way.
I'm worried that the left side of my body won't cooperate with me and that sitting in the same position for many hours straight is going to have me ready to scream.
I'll have to come up with a solution for that.

In preparation for this jaunt of ours, we are now owners of inflatable kayaks.
Jari says mine won't puncture ... and I'm hoping that his will be just as safe!
I wanted inflatable ones because I intend to put it to use other than on the river and want to be able to pack it in the trunk of my car. Check that one off the list!
Dry bags to pack our sleeping bags and clothes in.
A water filtration system to harvest drinking water from clear streams ... or muddy ones if we need to.
Life vests. Yup. Got new ones.
We have a jet boil for coffee and adding hot water to meals to hydrate them for eating.
A trip to Sprouts this week for a few more food items this week and we should have that packed into a small backpack and ready to tuck in somewhere.
Sunscreen ... might need a gallon of it.

We have a list that goes for probably pages of a small notebook.
Many of the items are checked off.
Jari will spend this week making sure every i is dotted and t is crossed.
GPS is updated with software and mapping. After all, I am married to Mr. Techie who needs to know where is he at all times and when the next bend in the river is coming.
Marine radio? Yup. We even have one of those. Where no cell service exists (like it won't here) the radio will call up any emergency personnel you need. A serious security blanket.
And even more importantly, rope to pull me along behind him because that upper body workout plan I had in mind became a crocheted rug instead.

Off we go ... 32 miles of quiet life uninterrupted by facebook or the phone ringing.
Fingers crossed for a river that is running fast enough to carry us and keep us from portaging, yet not fast enough to make it a breathless three days.
Anxiety and trepidation aside, we are off!

finding fifty: a case of put it where it belongs

At the moment there are two of us who live here.
Both of us are over the age of .... yeah, that.
So when I open the refrigerator and find this .....

as long as I've not been home alone for a week and missed it somehow, I can safely place the blame elsewhere.

Right?

Because I think this is worse than placing an empty milk jug in the refrigerator.
Like, really, you just took the jug of milk out of the fridge.
It only makes sense to put it back there.
But the canning jar aka cup you used to drink your orange juice?

Maybe you got up a bit too early this morning after all!
After all, we know that putting things exactly where you took them from ensures you might just find them again.
It doesn't ever guarantee it, but it helps.
Being as the memory is going, the post it notes are plastered everywhere, the notebooks of lists are piled into drawers, putting things in proper places helps.
Usually.
Then your mind is off somewhere and you're running on auto pilot and oops!
You fall right off the track.

And the glass ends up in the fridge.
'Cause maybe you forgot that you already ate your breakfast this morning?

finding fity: love the old stuff

A while back I sold the dresser that we acquired with this.

The mirror never went to the dresser but came in the same truck load.

They were 3 of the pieces that we packed into a 20 foot trailer of our possessions

when we moved back.

The mirror has moved from place to place.

Finding a new perching spot here and there.

It was a very unfinished and beat up looking thing,

but I love it.

 

A bit of sandpaper, off white paint and a dusting of stain gave it life.

A hanging wire because these old things are rarely light weights

and it found a home.

 

 

The second piece was a nightstand that matched the dresser.

Our nightstands in our room are mismatched.

Jari's matches the dresser .. mine didn't match anything.

Until now.

 

It was naked. Bare. Boring. Sad.

Not a remnant of finish even existed anymore.

And it was on the list of old things to make young for several years.

It got the same treatment as the mirror did.

This one also received a coat of age defying polyurethane to keep it happy.

That little blue/purple bowl up there?

I'm a sentimental sort.

It holds all of the flowers removed from Jari's suit lapel following the weddings of our children.

 





 

It has lived a busy life .. sort of like all of us.

Needed a bit of rejuvenation ... like all of us do at times.

(If only a dip in the paint and stain vat would do the trick!)

Is well loved .. just like us.



finding fifty: on the side of tired

This is painful.
I thought I could come up with some seriously fun and not so fun things about turning fifty,
but instead I find I am torturing myself with this activity.

Why is it torture?
I work Monday thru Thursday and am so tired I can't see straight some of those evenings.
So what's wrong with the rest of the week?
Because while some folks relax on the weekends, I feel the need to fill every minute.
I'm not even capable of reading a book unless it is a learning kind of one anymore.
I listen to audio books because it allows me to multi task and get multiple things done at once.
My weekend ends up the same way.
Oh, don't get me wrong.
I probably spend plenty of minutes with my bottom firmly attached to upholstery, but it is rarely idle unless someone is over here visiting.
Even then, I might be winding strips of fabric into rope or something equally nutty.
Not kidding. I made it to work Thursday with fabric strings on my scrubs.

What is with this urge to get everything done?
I remember a time when I felt a sense of urgency that life was going to be short.
The baby books were all updated.
All ducks were in a row ... more or less.
I went to a Mother's Camp around that time and found that I wasn't the only one feeling the urgency.
I don't think I've touched the baby books since then ... and the kids are all now grown.

Is it because the To Do List isn't born of necessity, but rather of want?
Notice I'm not reminding myself to hit the grocery store or the car wash.
Is it because my homebody crafty creative self likes to create just as much as she enjoys her work outside of home?
Because I did the not working thing for 3 months a few years back and realized that I get more done all the way around if I'm working.
And, face it, life is busy!

You would think this empty nest thing would afford all kinds of opportunity to sit back, put up the feet and just enjoy the quiet .. and feel rested.

To be perfectly honest (and I know my kids are reading this), there are days when I crave a minutes peace and quiet.
A day to just meander from one thing to another and do whatever I want.
And I get those days.
Then there is the need to have the house just hopping and full of life.
I need and love that too.
One child on Monday, another on Tuesday, a few more on Thursday, another on Friday ... and maybe all of them on Sunday.
That is good stuff.
Seriously.
Good.
Stuff.
I wouldn't trade it for all the coffee in Columbia.

And then some days I'm just so tired I want to cry.
I actually did cry at work on Wednesday I was so tired.
Ridiculous!
Thank goodness there weren't any patients there.

Take a nap! you say.
Yet another might say Go to bed earlier!

I do and I do. Some days.

Way back when the kids were little people and there wasn't time in life to accomplish my missions, I would add things to my mental When I'm Fifty List.
One day I looked around me.
My eyes lighted on my parents and I knew I was in trouble.
They were retired and busier than ever.
That was the day I realized that I had better get a move on things if I wanted to get them done.

The move has been on ever since then.

I'm starting to get a glimpse of why it might take a wee bit longer to get things done ...
and maybe hubby's bedtime of 9:30 isn't so crazy after all!

finding fifty: does it really matter?

Does it really matter if I drink my coffee in bed?

Does it really matter if I grab a protein bar and a favorite magazine

and enjoy the quiet of the morning's early hour?

 

 

And, seriously, I don't drink coffee in bed.
I don't ever just lay in bed in the morning.
I turn the alarm off. Maybe three times or so.
Then I hurl my aching bones out of bed.
The ache totally depends on which position I ended up in for the last 5 hours while my eyes were closed in slumber and drool was bathing my pillow.

Yesterday morning my alarm first rang at 4.
Sometimes I still can't believe I get up at that time of night day.
I know other people do it all the time and it's no big deal.
For me? It is a great big deal.
The fact that my eyeballs even know how to open at that hour.

Years ago I had a wake up call service call me in the morning so I could make it to work on time.
Long before cell phones even existed and when my alarm clock was still white noise.
It was kind of like having the hotel give you a wake up call, but I paid these folks to actually call my house and wake me up in the morning.
Back then I actually had a house phone that rang ... and I woke up to the sound of it.
It may have been the only thing I woke up to back then.
Obviously, I didn't have teens yet.
Teens brought along the knowledge that the phone wasn't ringing for me anyway so why bother answering it.
Thank goodness my ears had been tuned to the alarm clock by then.

Is it a getting older thing or a born of necessity thing?
Probably a necessity thing, but aging has brought with it the beauty of mornings ... at least for me.
Quiet mornings.
Okay. So the days can and evenings can be quiet as well now, but I love the mornings.
I'm annoyed if I sleep past six in the morning and downright ticked off it's past seven.
I've just lost precious hours of getting stuff done time!

So if I'm on vacation and sipping my coffee in bed while the family I'm staying with is still snug in their slumbers ... it doesn't matter a whit.

I should ought to try this at home.

finding fifty: flashing

No.
I'm not taking up flashing.
Incidentally, I tell my patients who have to wear those cover nothing ever gowns that we only flash on Fridays. I only rarely admit that we don't work on Friday.

So how fitting is it to be flashing here on Friday?!

My goal here is to talk about finding fifty.
I'm equating fifty (at least in my world) with the onset of the lovely change of life known as menopause.
And at least one thing that comes with it.
I'm sure every woman out there has their own tale of terrors, but the one that reared its head with a trumpet blaring was the flashes of heat.
First of all, I don't like the heat of summer in Phoenix. At. All.
And this was one serious summer going on without the benefit of air conditioning.
I live here for reasons that have nothing to do with the summer heat.

However, there was a period of time that I was seriously wishing for a dip in this.

This particular dipping and cooling off spot is a mere 1,710 miles from my hot flash zone so it was a bit unrealistic. Add to that the fact that I really don't swim. And if I do ... it is in water that is 72 degrees Fahrenheit.

My other option, for a time, was to put clothes on .... take clothes off ... put clothes on ... take clothes off.
According to a quick jaunt through Google, I was burning some calories in the heating and cooling off. I didn't find anything about all the exercise I was getting in the undressing and redressing department.
Some day .... I am going to have some serious rolling on the floor belly (cuz I really didn't burn that many calories) laughing at the friend who got great amusement out of my discomfort.

At some point in this torture, I had a life changing visit with a friend who led me to a solution.
I'll be honest.
I know that this hasn't worked for everyone who has tried it. Some are unable to use this product at all due to undesirable side effects they have experienced. Others I know use it along with traditional western pharmaceuticals. Yet others, like myself, rely solely on this little miracle bottle of wonder.

I've shared this with some folks I work with and have found it to be a remedy that has worked for many others. In the sharing, the husband of a coworker started asking her if she had "oiled her ovaries" that day.

It stuck. We now Oil Our Ovaries and are so much happier for it.

We burn less calories because we've stopped the hot flashing business, but what a trade!

I haven't been miserable with mood swings. Or if I have, no one around me is complaining.

It could very well be that this lovely little purple packaged bottle of Progessence Plus is taking care of that as well. And, if you ask me, my mood was swinging with each flashing episode. It was downright intolerable.

 

I'm still working at getting my PMSing offspring to give the Oiling Ovaries a whirl and see if it provides them any relief.

 

In the meantime, my ovaries are oiled daily after a shower. The instructions on the bottle say: Apply 2-4 drops on neck area. For added effect, apply 1-2 drops along forearms daily. Do not exceed 2 applications per day.

 

I tried that one day and went back to Oiling the Ovaries. I find I get better results from that.

If you don't know where your ovaries are located, ask Google. I apply several drops to each side, on the skin, once daily.

 

If you're a Young Living oil user already and are in the throes of heat waves ... give it a try and see if it works for you.

If you need a source for this little miracle that keeps me sane, you can hit this lovely little colorful link.

If you have questions ... please feel free to ask!



In the meantime, I'm hoping to wear a sweatshirt this weekend!
Wish me luck!

finding fifty: cottage cheese

I don't eat cottage cheese plain.
Ever.
That stuff just looks scary enough to have me running the other way.
Like it has some serious resemblance to my thighs lately and that is just too disgusting.

However, when I was in Alaska recently I had the yummiest pancakes.
The recipe is a Trim Healthy Mama recipe that included cottage cheese.
I don't do THM.
I sort of tried.
I got as far as taping up some E and S menu type things on the inside of my cupboard doors for a while before I finally took them down.

When I came home, I actually looked at the container of cottage cheese.
Shucks, but that stuff is full of protein, and as I'd spent some time trying to curb the carbs in my life, why not play with some cottage cheese.
Part of this getting older thing is realizing that you just play around with and find the things that work for you.
There is no carbon copy anything that works for every single woman.
I don't care what the latest diet fad or eating plan says.
Especially when I have less willpower than an ant.

So, I started with some Starbucks Refresher.
I couldn't find anything else in the house.
I made the 16 oz drink in a bottle and tucked it in the fridge to dole out one shake at a time.

 

My strawberries are usually frozen in the Costco bag. I'm lazy that way.

I plunk some in a bowl and nuke 'em a bit.

 

 

Cottage cheese. I can't believe I buy it in big containers now. Really strange.

I throw in about a cup of that.

 



 

And as long as I was in the freezer, and there happened to be a bit of ice cream in there, why not add an itty bitty scoop of that as well?!

 

Send it whirling into a frothy concoction ....



 

and grab the bag of peach slices (thank you dear neighbors for inviting me to pick off your peach tree!) ...

 

 

and drop some of those into the mix.

I don't count, I just drop in whatever looks good.

Since the peaches are all gone ... I'm using whatever berries I have around here.

 

A bit more whizzing and whirring and voila!
You have a protein rich drink that tastes a bit like an orange creamsicle.

And if your household is like mine ....

they'll all be disgusted and you won't have to share.

In my really rough estimate, you're taking in (minus the dollop of ice cream):

Carbs 36g
Sugars 35g
Dietary Fiber 4g
Fat 5g
Protein 25g

I should probably throw in some spinach next time.

finding fifty

Several years ago this fall, Jari and I were at a camp working in the kitchen. Another couple, a few years older than us, was there and we were sitting around visiting that first evening. I don't even remember where the conversation led us but we hit on all kinds of subjects. For instance, preparing dinner and our lack of motivation to do just that. And, most importantly, the fact that we no longer cared. The guys could fend for themselves sometimes and it wouldn't hurt anyone. The other woman looked at me and said, "Are you fifty? You sound like it!"

I was intrigued. After that weekend, I came home and hit up google. What is fifty? What does fifty sound like? What comes with fifty that someone else could see it in me? Even if I wasn't there yet!

Google didn't have any answers for me.

Lately, I've thoroughly enjoyed reading a dear friend's posts on Facebook as she spends her nights of insomnia writing about life. Talk about good laughs. I don't have her ability to write, nor do I have her witty sense of humor, but I started thinking about this fifty thing.

It is a whole new kind of life.

Seriously.

Like who thought hot flashes could be so much fun? I almost wanted to buy one of those fans you can hang on a rope around your neck and call it a new piece of jewelry. I'm not even close to being a fashion guru so wouldn't have a clue that it isn't a stylish thing! Alas, someone helped me out in that department and saved me the embarrassment of showing my fanning self in public.

I am very fortunate to not have any serious health issues, but what the dickens made me all of a sudden start thinking about the things I was putting in my mouth? It didn't matter before! How did taste buds all of a sudden decide that asparagus is about to die for?  And when will beets acquire the same level of delicacy?

I never wore shorts to town when I was growing up. True statement. I would wear shorts at home and change into jeans if I headed to the whopping metropolis of Virginia. I should have worn them while I could. Because exercise is still not in my vocabulary. Kind of the same situation as the beets. I keep hoping waiting. Like, seriously, do my legs have to resemble the stuff I put in my smoothie?

I've been eating some weird things lately. Scary enough to my family that they won't touch them. While that isn't all bad ... I do enjoy when I have salted licorice in the cupboard and I'm free to enjoy it all ... there might be a few of you out there that might give some of my goofy ideas a whirl and enjoy them.

There are probably a few more things I can think, but that's good for starters.

No weekly photography challenge has my attention this year. Life has sort of quieted down a bit for a blink or two. So, I'm thinking it is time to ramp it up a bit or I'm going to take a trip to the SAS Fabric store and I probably don't need that. In fact, just this week I was keeping a tight hold on my steering wheel as I passed the Indian School Road exit. It was tough ... but I managed to keep my car from veering off to the exit lane.

Fridays at 430 Breezy Lane are going to see me finding fifty. I'm not joining the Red Hat Society or anything, but I might just come up with a little more attitude. Even the thought makes me nervous and weak kneed. Some weeks you might get something healthy coming your way. Other times it might be a very healthy dose of decadent chocolate that you probably won't want to live without. Some days it might be a rant, because I think I'm almost the age when I can get away with it. Maybe a link to a goal I hope to accomplish before the decade is over and out. Perhaps something useful that has helped me in my life.  Maybe my feet will be soaking in the ocean. Or maybe just a random thing off Pinterest that I would have scoffed at ten years ago. My challenge, at least the rest of this year of turning fifty, is to share. Aren't you just excited?!!

Maybe I'll even get that wacky fellow fifty friend of mine to share a thought or two with all of us.

Now I've got your attention!!

Happy Independence Day!