Signs, Symptoms, and the Insanity of Getting Older and Facing Menopause

     Menopause is time in a woman's life when her periods (menstruation) eventually stop and the body goes through changes that no longer allow her to get pregnant. It is a natural event that normally occurs in women age 45 - 55.  Naturally occurs?  There is nothing natural about breaking into a sweat while standing still in a cold shower.

     I am a 44 year old woman in what medical experts call peri-menopause.  Which seems to be a test run of menopause.  I kid you not, when I go to bed at night in a room that is kept at a chilly 62 degrees in the winter, I will wake up in a pool of my own sweat having to change my t-shirt and underwear and put a dry blanket down.  This on top of the fact that it took me a good two hours to fall asleep!

      One of my favorite symptoms is the moodiness...I can go from perfectly happy to tears in less than one second.  My two older sons, I believe, may be plotting with my husband to build me a padded room with no sharp instruments and a built in air conditioner (which actually sounds quite peaceful and calming).  Give me a fridge and a TV and I won't come out until menopause is over, unless, of course, I have to pee.  That leads us into the next symptom, urine leakage.  Now I don't believe this is really a symptom of menopause but instead is due to the fact that I have squeezed four melon sized heads out of a very tiny opening.  If I cough - I pee, if I sneeze - I pee, if I laugh - I pee, if we hit a bump in the road - I pee, cry - pee, yell - pee, go upstairs - pee...you get the picture.  Just a word of advice have lots of extra underwear on hand or buy stock in panty liners.  You would think that after all the peeing and sweating that women would end up dehydrated - no such luck.
  
     Let's chat about fatigue or being dog tired, which is kind of a pain because you can be extremely tired and still have an issue falling asleep.  I am not completely convinced that my weariness has anything to do with menopause but more instead due to 9 pets, a husband, and 4 very busy children.  However, I can say that I can be seriously tired and still struggle with falling asleep.  This is why I always have a bottle of melatonin on hand as it is a natural supplement that assists one in sleeping.  Since we are discussing sleep, which normally takes place in the bedroom bringing up sex drive seems to be the next symptom to discuss.  I have not experienced this at all but I do have friends who are dealing with this problem.  My suggestion is to go see your doctor and let them know because there are supplements that you can take to help you get this drive back, that is if you are not too tired to actually go to the doctor.

     The last symptom I am going to discuss is irregular periods and worsening premenstrual syndrome.  I have really never dealt with the latter but the irregular periods are seriously annoying. It is like a practical joke your body plays on you.  You are in your room picking out your clothes for the day; you grab the light colored skinny jeans because there is no bloating and the white lace undies with the matching bra.  You decide against the bulky sweatshirt and go with the form fitting shirt - while looking in the mirror you decide to wear your hair down.  When you go to grab your brush you realize that your "lady drawer" is running low...no worries you feel great and your friend just left a week ago.  Time to hit the mall with your bestie!  As you are walking into your favorite store - IT HITS!  The cramps come and you race to the mall bathrooms, which are clear on the other side.  You shuffle your feet because you are trying to hold it in by squeezing your legs together.  Once in the bathroom you dread what you are going to find.  Your whole demeanor changes as you wash your hands after dropping your undies in the trash.  At home you take off the skinny jeans, put your hair up, find your sweatpants and the bulky sweatshirt.  Let the moodiness begin!!!!

  

     On top of all of these lovely symptoms you also have to deal with getting older which includes gray hair, whiskers (yes you read correctly) on your chin, difficulty losing weight, having to stop for a break after going up a flight of stairs, making those noises older (face it you are the older) people make when getting out of a chair or bed, choosing the comfortable shoes instead of the stylish ones because your bunions are sore, and straining a muscle while you are sitting absolutely still.

     There are days when I am in my third hot flash, crying at the insurance commercial in front of me - tired and bloated - that I think all of this is due to the fact that Eve just had to take a bite out of that damn apple - if it had been chocolate I would be a tad more understanding but an apple is so not worth it. 

   

Cleaning Your House While the Kids are Home is Like Brushing Your Teeth While Eating Oreos

My House will never be clean!!!!!!!!!!!

 I have found that having kids and a having a clean house are like oil and water - THEY DON'T MIX!!! I find myself apologizing to people for my messy house constantly. My worse offenders are my oldest and my youngest. The two in the middle TRY to pick up after themselves. This Lens introduces you to my world and the attempts I have made to keep our house fairly clean. I am still on that journey but love to talk about it.

You should have been here last week when   the house was clean....

 I remember clearly taking my daughter out to a friend's house to stay a while back; right outside the door was a sign that said "My House was Clean Last Week...Sorry You Missed it!" This made my husband and I chuckle to ourselves because that could be our family motto.

We live in a 5+ bedroom colonial brick home. Everyone has their own bedroom equipped with a dresser, TV, a place for their shoes, toy storage, and yes, a laundry hamper. Now within this household lives two adults (my husband and myself), a 16 year old boy, a 13 year old boy, a 9 year old girl and a 5 year old girl. If that isn't enough we also have 6 dogs (border collie/lab mix, vizsla, German short hair/lab mix, border collie, mini long-long haired daschund, English lab) and 3 cats. Insanity you say? Well for the most part we love living with a full home, fur and all. However trying to keep the house organized and clean is a task that would drive most people crazy and I do have my moments of wanting to crawl up in the fetal position and suck my thumb until the house is spotless.

Now my husband and I have done several things to keep our house somewhat systematic. When we first moved in to our house we had a closet in our entry way that could hold four jackets and two pairs of my husband’s size 14 shoes. We also had hooks for the kids to hang their coats and book bags on. For 5 years I dreamed of having cubbies built in place of the closet. Each kid would have their own cubby to store coats, bags, sports equipment, and a couple of pairs of shoes. I just knew that this would cause the kids to be more orderly with their belongings.  

 

My house is clean enough to be healthy but dirty enough to be happy

As I was saying I believed that this would keep the kids more organized, as well as, keep my floor clear of shoes, coats, and backpacks. Unfortunately I did not take into account that my kids have some sort of a blind spot on their left side. The reason I say this is because when they walk in the front door the cubbies are to their left, so you would assume that they would walk in the door and place their things in their cubby. Wrong!!! My kids walk right past the cubbies and begin dropping whatever they are carrying, leaving a trail behind them. As this happens I follow behind saying "You have cubbies!"

Now I know what you are thinking...we are the adults and we need to lay down the law. However, we are clearly outnumbered with 4 kids, 6 dogs, and 3 cats. Each kid has their own issue when it comes to picking up.

First there is the 17 year old boy. He is the stripper in the house. What I mean by this is that from the time he enters the door, after whatever sports practice he has been, he begins removing articles of clothing. His shoes, socks, sweats, sweatshirt, and last his shirt are scattered throughout the main floor of the house. After eating supper (leaving the dishes where he ate) he will take a shower forgetting about taking the clothes up to one of the 6 hampers provided for him upstairs. Now besides being a stripper, he is also has some sort of disability that keeps him from putting the towels he uses into the hamper in the bathroom. It is not unusual to find a plethora of wet smelly towels littering the floor. We have tried several attempts to cure him of this habit but to no avail he still cannot seem to find a normal place for his laundry. I would like to say that when we do point it out to him, he will immediately pick up his droppings and put them in their proper place.

Next we have the 15 year old boy...he has a condition called extreme laziness. Unlike his older brother, he does normally put his things into his cubby. However, he is plagued with the attitude of why clean up when it is just going to be a mess again. This belief applies mostly to his room and the kitchen. Just last night he was asking me to wash a bowl for him so he could make some soup in the microwave, claiming that he is just not good at washing dishes. I laughed and told him that if he wanted soup, he needed to clean his own bowl. He finally did but not without some groveling to get me to do it first. As for his room...have you ever seen a person walking around picking up cans to take to the redemption center? Well lets just say that if they somehow found their way in to my son's room, they would hit the bottle/can jackpot. He claims that he forgets to throw them away, but we know that it is the fact that he has to walk downstairs and throw them away in the kitchen. He has even used the I am waiting until I have more than one thing to throw away excuse. One thing? It is more like a whole garbage bag full - hefty size. He also has an aversion to making his bed, which he claims he does not know how to do. Now I realize that every morning when he gets up it looks like he was in a wrestling match with five WWE stars, but to pull up a sheet and comforter really is not that hard, yet he still rarely makes his bed. He also contributes to the towel chaos in the bathroom but tries to convince us that he does not use towels. The one thing we do not find of his around the house or on the floor of his room are clothes. He does somehow manage to put them in hampers strategically placed throughout the upstairs of the house.

Thirdly we have the 11 year old diva, I mean girl. She is the forgetful one...or so she would have us believe. If you ask her why her things are not in her cubby the answer we get is "I forgot", if you ask her why the game she got out 10 minutes before is not put away she will say "I forgot", if you ask her why her clothes are still in her clothes basket waiting to be put away, yep you guessed it "I forgot". Out of all the kids she is the one who will get out something to play with, use it for 10 minutes, then get sidetracked, and move on to a whole new activity forgetting about the one she had just gotten out. By the end of a Saturday you will be able to locate all the areas in which she occupied because of the items she has left throughout the house. Now while she is by far the largest contributor to our organized mess, she is also the one who helps the most when it comes time to clean it up.

Last is the 7 year old girl. Everyone has heard of the terrible twos, but let me assure you that a seven year old trying to become her own boss is far worse. Her idea of picking up is picking herself up and walking to another room. She has the attention span of a gnat, like many her age. She will start playing in one spot and end up in another with a whole different set of toys. She loves to help me clean but when it comes to picking up her own mess you would think that the sky is falling. It is something we work on daily.

While this whole article seems to be geared towards my personal experience, I want to take you back to the beginning and the sign I read "My House was Clean Last Week...Sorry you Missed it" that was on the outside of the door. I told the mom of my daughter's friend that I loved the sign and needed to find one for my house as well. She laughed and then passed on some advice; she told me that there would be plenty of time for a spotless house when the kids were grown and that she would much rather spend her time having fun with her kids instead of making sure every thing was off the floor, dusting, vacuuming, and making beds. Little did I realize that her time would be cut short. She passed away 5 months later.

The advice she gave me was right. I have watched people become so immersed in keeping their house spotless that nothing else matters. My house is a home, better known as an organized mess. I have learned to walk past the book bags on the floor, the shoes on the couch, and the empty plastic pop bottles left around. I do ask them to pick up after themselves but I also realize that kids make messes and when there are four of them plus whatever friends are over for the day, spending all my time following after them is time taken away from just having fun. So when you feel like screaming when things are not just so, realize that there will be time later, when the kids are grown, to have the perfectly clean house.

How My Blog Got its Name

     Anyone who knows me is well versed in my obsessive behavior when it comes to certain things - especially writing.  I will write, rewrite, erase, and then write again.  This is actually my second try at this post.  Anyway I wanted to begin a new blog with a great name.  And so the struggle to come up with a name begins.  I started with researching short quotes and sayings...nothing there inspired me.  Than I tried blog name generators...nothing really jumped out at me.  So after a few hours of  finding absolutely no inspiration I decided to go do laundry, which I despise.

     I began collecting the baskets in all of the bedrooms upstairs, taking them to the laundry room, and sorting them out into their proper containers.  Yes I am that person that has a container for each type of laundry load.  Anyway...once I sorted all the baskets I then went back to each of the rooms and gathered clothes off of the floor, since apparently walking two steps towards the laundry basket is an energy draining task.  Last, I hit the two bathrooms. Of course the boys bathroom is littered with socks, wet towels, and underwear.  Our bathroom, which we share with the two younger girls, and of course it is the same story only you need to include hair ties and head bands.  I begin to pick up and under one of the towels is the hairbrush, of course because putting it in the drawer does not make sense.  

    Now this is where it gets good - I pick up the brush, which makes me think about the morning.  Why, you ask.  Well every morning I brush my youngest daughters long blond hair; it is always full of ...are you ready...TANGLES! And when there are a lot of TANGLES there are lots of TEARS, which is where I came up with the name.  Who knew that doing laundry would inspire me?  After settling with the name, everything came together.

    When going through life we deal with a lot of tangles and shed a lot of tears.  Each tangle is something that helps us learn and push forward, to untangle what ever obstacle gets in our ways.  Then there is the tears...some are out of joy, some out of sadness, and some for no reason we can fathom. Each drop carries a strong emotion leaving a watermark on our memories.

    This blog will be a way for me to share my tangles and tears with the world and hope that what I write about touches the reader making them smile, laugh or even cry.  Welcome to my life Of Tangles and Tears.