If You Quit, You'll Never Know if You Would Have Made It

This past month is a blur.  It is hard to believe that less than a week ago, my world shifted on its axis. Has that ever happened to you?  Sometimes our lives change in an instant; it could be a good thing..... or not so good.

I have had more than the allotted amount of difficult times that any one person should have to endure in a lifetime. Yet, almost daily, I am reminded that I am blessed and more fortunate than millions of other people.

There is good stress and bad stress.  Sometimes they are equally difficult to handle.  After years of things going wrong, discouragement after discouragement, shattered dreams and broken promises, I became conditioned to question everything, not trusting; yet never giving up hope that someday, somehow, somewhere, it would be my turn.   Often it would take every ounce of effort I could muster to get up in the morning and make it through another day.

Putting one foot in front of the other seemed a greater feat than I might be able to accomplish.  I had to stay strong.  It was a constant battle.

To Flash or Not to HOT Flash - That is the Question

Hot flashes.  Dry skin.  Night Sweats.  Insomnia.  Mood swings. Hair loss.  Memory loss.   It has been suggested that Baby Boomer's hot flashes are causing Global Warming!

Sound familiar?  There are many posts written about menopause. Most of them are humorous yet packed with information on how to survive the numerous symptoms and body changes. 

I beg you not to roll your eyes at me but when I read and comment on these posts, I feel ostracized as if I am some kind of weirdo or liar.  I am told I am one of the "lucky" ones.  I am acutely aware of the list of symptoms that are common to menopausal women.  I often wondered why we don't find posts about women who have not had to deal with these negatives.  Do some women bypass them or could there be another reason?

10 Reasons to Skip Summer

Yes, I'm one of those inconsiderate people who likes the cold when everyone around me is freezing. Even in the winter time, I like my home cool.  The living room is the only room in the house that is heated. No matter how cold it is outside, we sleep with the windows open and the fan blowing.  No, I am not hot flashing - we just prefer living in cool temperatures.

My friends know that I don't own a winter jacket.  They offered to loan me one when I visited my daughter in the Arctic a couple years ago. I reluctantly took it with me for the trip, but I never zipped it closed – the temperature was a balmy MINUS 30 degrees. At that temperature, it doesn't matter if it is Fahrenheit or Celsius – your breath freezes in mid-air. Barely fazed me. Always been this way.

I grew up in Midwest USA.  Over 40 years ago the man I chose to spend the rest of my life with informed me he wanted to move to the West Coast.

“Don't believe what you read, it rarely rains in Seattle” he lied. Blinded by love, I believed him and helped to fulfill his desire to live and die near the ocean.

I realized very quickly that it rained a lot more than I had even imagined, but it didn't matter because the bonus to living here was the summers were cool.