Moments from Menopause

So today, on my official DAY OFF from my paying job, I wanted to devote some time to finishing up the current novel I’ve been writing. Before I could do that, though, I had a few “chores” that needed tending to on this, my DAY OFF (repetition intentional!) This morning, I: stripped the beds, remade them with fresh sheets, did the laundry, cleaned the bathrooms and the kitchen, vacuumed, washed the floors, and dusted. When that was done I had the outside chores: I went to the bank, the post office, grocery shopping in two stores because one store doesn’t carry everything we need, got gas, tended to the garden, took out the garbage and the recycling. Then realizing we needed something for dinner, I defrosted something from the freezer. I reloaded the refrigerator, un packed the groceries and put them away, unloaded the clean dishes from the dish washer and reloaded them with the dirty breakfast ones, and THEN I had to get my three mile walk in before it got too hot.

To have a friend and be a friend Is what makes life worthwhile. Unknown The greatest healing therapy is friendship and love. Hubert H. Humphrey, Jr. A friend is one who walks in when others walk out. Walter Winchill A friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future, and accepts you just the way you are. Unknown Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer. Ed Cunningham Louise Bernikow: Female friendships that work are relationships in which women help each other to belong to themselves. A quick glance at these quotes and you can once again guess what the topic of the day is. You got it: Girlfriends. Misery loves nothing more than company, so the old saying goes, so when you and some well loved girlfriends are going through this time together, misery can be a little less, well, miserable. If you Google the following phrase: The Importance of Having Female Friendships, you will get 25,400

  “If you had weak eyes, they needed exercise to get strong. Glasses were like crutches. They prevented people with feeble eyes from seeing the world on their own.”  ―  Jeannette Walls ,  The Glass Castle I have very poor eyesight, and I can't imagine a world without my glasses or contacts. Ellen Hollman “Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?” Groucho Marx So this topic I am an expert in. Truthfully. I don’t need to do any research here to wax prolific and wise. Remember those days when you didn’t squint? You could read a book and actually have a bend in your elbow? Not hold the book down to your knees in order to see the print? Remember when you would brag that you had pilot vision and could read the eye chart at the Ophthalmologists’ office on the 20/15 line and could see the reading chart all the way down to the minutest print? Ah, youth, like good vision, is wasted on the young. Welcome to the age of Presbyopia.   That’s just the medical-spe

Don't fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have. Louis E. Boone You can learn new things at any time in your life if you're willing to be a beginner. If you actually learn to like being a beginner, the whole world opens up to you. Barbara Sher A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. Albert Einstein You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream. C. S. Lewis True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new. Antoine de Saint-Exupery I've come to believe that all my past failures and frustrations were actually laying the foundation for the understandings that have created the new level of living I now enjoy. Tony Robbins There are more quotes than usual in this piece because they were all good and I couldn’t be brutal enough to edit any of them out! If you’ve read them you can