Women's Issues Midlife And Beyond
“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.” ― Mark Twain Please don’t get mad, but I don’t remember the source of the article that inspired this blog. Essentially, it implied we are becoming a nation of anger addicts. Too many… Read More
When life bucks you off, how do you get back on? What resolve lets you shriek with joy because you are in the race and not on the sidelines? How did you turn a seeming failure–or failures– into something extraordinary? Please share.
There, just beyond the puny pine tree, was the ledge. Beyond the ledge was a dramatic drop down, down, down to a boulder-strewn forest floor. And beyond the death drop was Lake Superior. Looked like a good spot for a picnic to me! My stomach growled in agreement. I should have had breakfast before heading out on the… Read More
North Folk Winery, just outside of bustling downtown Stark, MN, was packed. My husband and I had ventured up to hear Claudia Schmidt, a singer/songwriter/storyteller.  We bought a bottle of wine and squeezed ourselves onto a couple of open steps leading to the winery’s loft. When Claudia sang Star Girls, the lyrics tore through me.  Let me know how you feel… Read More
“Bedtime is fraught with fear and disappointment. When it is just me alone with my restless body and mind, I feel like the whole world is asleep and gone. It’s very lonely. I am tired of being tired and talking about how tired I am.†― Amy Poehler Everyone Has Limits It hurts when heroes fall. You build them up… Read More
 “It ain’t what they call you, it’s what you answer to.†― W.C. Fields  A group of older women sat around a beat up table discussing ageism. Coffee cups populated the area like impromptu game pieces, and the cookies were long gone.  When one of the women brought up the topic of nicknames, things got heated fast. “I… Read More
 There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.     —Albert Einstein The sun was thinking about calling it a day, but our dog was not. He needed a walk and, as everyone knows, an exercised dog is a good dog. At least it… Read More
I recently had my annual physical examination, which I get once every seven years, and when the nurse weighed me, I was shocked to discover how much stronger the Earth’s gravitational pull has become since 1990. –Dave Barry Note: I posted this blog earlier this year, but I’ve had requests to revisit weight gain in midlife. There are an incredible… Read More
There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered. –Nelson Mandela     There was that moment, as I held the invitation to my 40th high school class reunion in hand, when I thought, how have I aged? After all these years high school insecurities still exist. Why?… Read More
 “Now every girl is expected to have Caucasian blue eyes, full Spanish lips, a classic button nose, hairless Asian skin with a California tan, a Jamaican dance hall ass, long Swedish legs, small Japanese feet, the abs of a lesbian gym owner, the hips of a nine-year-old boy, the arms of Michelle Obama, and doll tits. The person… Read More
When I was a child, I discovered the joys of printing the alphabet on wide-ruled, unbleached paper that were so cheaply made it contained bits of wood that would catch my pencil lead and cause my carefully formed letters to go astray. I learned that if I practiced making the letters reach the appropriate lines on the paper -solid lines… Read More
“Remember there’s no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.” -Scott Adams I’ve got a problem with people being nice to me. I do. Maybe it was how I was raised. Self-sufficiency was the rule, and on those shameful days you had to ask for help you had better dang… Read More
I wrote this some time ago but wanted to bring it back. A few weeks back, on the anniversary of my mother’s death, a woo woo moment occurred at her gravesite. My sister had just visited a psychic. The woman asked who the third child in the family was because Mom had a message for that person. I am the… Read More
In confession…we open our lives to the healing, reconciling, restoring, uplifting grace of him who loves us in spite of what we are. —Louis Cassels “Raise some hell.†Thus was the ending line of my mother’s day card from my beloved and thoughtful daughter. Her note was handwritten in an assortment of colored pencils. Why? Because she’s good at themes, because… Read More
How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were? ~Satchel Paige Like cats wanting to be fed, the couple ahead of me at Burger King kept veering right into my path. The husband (I assume) acted as though he had been dropped in a foreign land with no money and the wrong translation book. He turned… Read More
I’m nervous. In a heartbeat, the summer art vendor season will be upon me, and I am experiencing intense moments of anticipation and fear. Â The anticipation comes from meeting people and being part of a unique industry…artists who must do their art. It’s exciting to test my work on a larger scale and to follow my heart. The phrase “art… Read More
Date nights are supposed to be exciting. They are intended to fan the glowing embers of daily life into an inferno of bodice-ripping passion. Body parts ignored after familiarity sets in and get reintroduced in clever new ways…at least for an evening. Yep. That’s what is supposed to happen. But then there was our midlife date night. My husband, bless him,… Read More
There is no more creative force in the world than the menopausal woman with zest. —-Margaret Mead
It is my privilege to introduce June’s Silk Scarf Giveaway Contest Ambush Model…Sally Brown. I had the pleasure of meeting Sally through the Vital Aging Network’s series on Aging With Gusto. Sally is a leader in the Minneapolis/St. Paul Gray Panthers, and a genuinely caring individual. Her first response to my request to be my ambush model was, “No.†But… Read More
Here I am in midlife. Creativity has become something I crave and unleash without worrying about staying in the lines. That said, I’ve been messing with more impressionistic photography and love it. Â It’s a whole new way of playing and creating and exploring. Â I was futzing with this image and realized it is rather hard to see the deer. Â At… Read More
“Courage, sacrifice, determination, commitment, toughness, heart, talent, guts. That’s what little girls are made of; the heck with sugar and spice.†– Bethany Hamilton, surfer My husband thrust the Minneapolis Star Tribune in my face and suggested I read Chip Scoggins article. I was so onto him. He knows I rarely read the sports page, but since he was in the… Read More
“I am a daughter, a wife, a businesswoman, a mom, but not a nurse†Margaret “Pook†Grathwol, Attorney, Chestnut Cambronne PA, talking about caregiving aging parents Is it true? Boomer women turn ordinary, age-old, situations into named things as if we invented them? Let Me Explain The ballroom was gorgeous, inviting, and dark-wood classy. I like those things in a… Read More
KBEK, my new favorite radio station—where else can you get an eclectic mix of music from the 1940’s through today’s offerings?—came to life on my car radio when I turned the key. My husband was futzing around instead of putting on his seatbelt, so I decided to park in the driveway until he behaved. He doesn’t always appreciate my subtlety,… Read More
“Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes.†–Jim Carrey If you were to walk into our kitchen door right now a couple of things would happen: You would scare the bajeezes out of me. The cats would scatter like Lutherans asked to clap and sway in church. You would most likely trip over the pile of shoes… Read More
“They say marriages are made in heaven. But so is thunder and lightning.” –Clint Eastwood Ladies, back me up. Sometimes we need change for the sake of change, right? I’m referring to sprucing up our homes, and not necessarily our marriages or relationships, but there are times the two come crashing into each other. My husband is a, shall we… Read More
We had no idea what to expect. NO idea. Our friend, Dr. Claudia Kittock, invited my husband and me to not only attend a Mill City Community Choir rehearsal, but to participate. “Everybody is welcome to join in and sing,†she said. “Come on down. You’ll love it! J.D. Steele does a fantastic job of leading us.†Before I… Read More
Feeling Like Your Efforts Are Never Enough Do you recall the moment in the movie, Schindler’s List, when Liam Neeson said he could have done more? It went like this (from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108052/quotes): Oskar Schindler: I could have got more out. I could have got more. I don’t know. If I’d just… I could have got more. Itzhak Stern: Oskar, there… Read More
The Backstory: May I tell you a sweet story? When I was a kid, my dad asked me to bake cookies for him to take to work. He had a construction job that kept him away from the farm Monday through Friday and liked to have “a sweet taste of home†with him. (Mom was not a great baker, so… Read More
Shame, Fear, and Ultimately Flying Above It All You know the awful feeling. You’re about to do something you’ve been longing to try—maybe it’s going to a local Zumba class, maybe you’re walking into the room of one of those “Paint and Pinot†meet-ups, maybe you’re finally ready to try out for the church choir—and your heart is racing. Your… Read More
I don’t think of myself as an allergy-prone person, but something has been getting to me this spring. When I’m desperate I use an antihistamine, but hate the way it makes me feel…tired, groggy, blah. Â When I saw this list from Dr. Williams I thought I’d pass it along. If Allergies Are A Problem For You, Here Are A Couple… Read More
