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Time and Life can be a Sobering Thing-But Don’t wish Maycember Away!

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  I have been thinking about time and life and the amount of time that I might have left here on earth a lot lately. Bottom line, I want more! There are reasons why…maybe you have thought about it too in one of these ways? I approach the decade of undeniable senior hood this year. 60 is coming in hot. So, I am putting the breaks on the year in a big way…slow down! It is almost June which means 2024 is nearly half over!...and I get ever closer to 60. Why does 60 seem so big to me? It is plain and simple, because of 70 and 80!   I look at these upcoming decades with the backdrop of my parents; everything they went through after 80 yo, seemed awful to me…. from a physical and mental aspect. So, I think I likely have two decades of quality life at most , God-willing. More often, people around me are passing away. In a most tragic way, I just heard of a friend of a friend who is in hospice (she is not even 40 yo) due to the physical complications of Anorexia. Heartbreaking, and yet I unde
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To Feel or Not to Feel, that is the Question?

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  It is heart month, do something good for your heart.  Let it feel. I don’t know about you, but music conjures up all sorts of feelings for me and it has since I can remember.   When I was a young teen, my bf and I had a few songs that we would intentionally listen to if we needed a good cry. I don’t recall talking about our feelings, but we simply just wanted to cry…. we have to let it out at times, don’t we? My music choice usually reflects my mood. If I am all disordered and stoic, I would listen to music that got me motivated and out of a feeling place. My music choices would help me to block out the bad so to speak. I still have some songs like that, but rather than feeling like they help me to block out life, now I feel like they just remind me of a really tough time in my life and they help me to say yes, I relate to all that. The other day, I was being pushed out of my comfort zone at work and I needed some music to soothe my spirit. I was not near Alexa, so I had to go
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Barbie Movie Blog/Review

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  T oday after reading about Billie Eilish’s award for the song, “What was I Made for?”, I decided to put my real work aside and write about my Barbie thoughts which by the way, feels very exposed and scary to me. I agreed to go see Barbie one Friday in late summer. A group of dear friends were going, and I didn’t really want to see the movie, but I went to be with my girls.   As we were partaking in some wine and appetizers before the show, one friend said that she cried a bit in the movie (she was seeing it for the second time). I said rather emphatically and loudly “I am a grown-ass woman, I am not going cry!” I am forever skeptical and rather cynical at times. My expectations for this movie were very low simply because so many people were praising it. If the world likes it, then I won’t and that is how I often think. Much to my chagrin, I had to take those words back…. I am not going to lie or cover it up; Barbie hit me hard and I loved it, and I saw it twice in the theater. It
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Another Year Coming to a Close

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  Mercy, how does this happen?   It seems like just yesterday that I started NY eve with Covid and shortly after a new hip (which is now doing great).  And, it has been so many months since I last sat down to do this. To sit and type and write is a very therapeutic action for me and yet so many times when the ideas pop in my already-fully-muddled brain, I don’t sit and type.   What have I been doing, you ask? You might think, she is compulsively or obsessively exercising, hiking, baking, reading, or working. But the answer is when I could have been writing, I was usually stress cleaning, painting walls, and organizing…….for a better part of two years off and on in some shape or way that is what has filled my downtime. I did take two wonderful trips to hike. One in the summer to Bozeman and a quick one to LeConte this fall, picture above. Case in point on the cleaning though, last night before drifting off to sleep, I was “dreaming” about another closet space I could improve.   But be
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The Marvelous Emotional and Physical Connection- I'm Challenged by the Tension Between my Heart and Brain

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  There seems to be a constant battle between what my heart and emotions desire and what my brain and body says are needed. I see it as a disconnection or short circuit (anorexia diagnosis) in my emotional and physical connection. I constantly willfully choose to ignore what my body wants or needs. It is eating disorder 101 and because I am so advanced in it, it still lingers even this far into recovery. I suppose all of us do this to some degree with something. Yesterday, I posted a rather fun for me to write blog about my hip replacement. This one is more honest and vulnerable because there is more to the story than meets the eye and I have come to the point of wanting to share the difficult or dark-belly-of-the-fish stuff (you know the nasty part that is gross looking) for some unfathomable reason. It just might be to keep myself accountable, I am not sure.    In May 2017, after being sidelined from running for four months after major ankle surgery I went all in on recovery and
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Hip Replacements-What You Need to Know and What your Doctor Doesn’t Know

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  Your doctor will likely tell you that you will swell and have pain. But, is he or she going to tell you that it will hurt to pull up even your underwear after surgery unless they are really big and stretchy? Will he or she tell you that even the loosest pants still may not fit over your giant thigh after surgery?  Keep in mind that often you will go to physical therapy within a day or two after surgery so ladies a dress is out of the question…..best to find you some big shorts girlfriend. The answer is your doctor is not likely to share these things unless you have a very close personal relationship with your surgeon.   Most times, you are fortunate if your surgeon or their team reminds you to take a stool softener several days before surgery (no knock on them, I just have had enough surgeries to tell you that it is a rare thing for them to suggest).   Don’t get me wrong, I had a fabulous surgeon and experience, and they prepared me well, but I did learn some hip things that I want
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Breaking Barriers-taking a step toward joy

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Many of us can agree that happiness can be seemingly fleeting and short-lived because, especially as we age, it can get harder due to the natural order. We may experience more illness, more physical pain with aging, financial difficulties, children flying the coup, and more trials due to aging parents etc. There are lots of potentially hard things to muscle through. There is a great book called “Living Joy” by Chris Stefanick, where he gives tangible ways to experience and cultivate a joyful life….which he describes as different from happiness in that you can suffer in situations but still have underlying joy. It occurred to me today that despite tools and steps, that joy can still escape us. Ultimately, he explains that joy is found in believing three fundamental facts about Jesus and living accordingly. My revelation today was that joy is buried deep in each of us…planted there by God. Just as faith can be easy to find in children, I think the same is true for joy. Children do
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