I Live with an Alien.

 

Today, I would like to offer a little insight for those who have women in their life’s who seem to have suddenly metamorphosed into a completely different human being than the one they once knew. Well, before you go running to the divorce lawyer, or mark your dear old mom up as a loony old woman, or disown your sister because you think she’s lost her mind, let me give you a little peek into why she may seem to be less than that loving and accommodating individual you’ve always known.

If she’s approaching the age of 50 menopause or what is often referred to, and rightly so, as the change of life may be the culprit.
The simple truth is that for women going through menopause it’s much like stepping back in time and reliving those teenage hormonal years with a myriad of added complications.

Here is a glimpse of what the women in your life, whose disposition you no longer recognize, might be experiencing. For those women who are approaching menopause, or for those who have women in their life’s approaching menopause, be forewarned. If you have ever raised a teenager, some of these symptoms might sound familiar.

Let’s start with, combative, bitter, angry, rebellious, cynical, frustrated, emotional, temperamental, and cantankerous. Are you shaking your head in agreement? Do you recognize these symptoms in any of the women in your life? Now, add to that insomnia, decreased libido, urinary inconsistencies, anxiety, itching, dry skin, weight gain, night sweats, hot flashes, depression, forgetfulness, and body aches. Then there’s hair loss in places women don’t want to lose hair and hair growth in places were women should never have hair. It’s not any one symptom but an accumulation of a range of these symptoms all happening in conjunction that transforms your once loving, peaceful spouse, wife, mother, sister into what appears to be some form of alien being.

Oh, and let’s not forget, this is coupled with the already stressful lifestyle women struggle with daily. Things like taking care of an elderly parent, nurturing a relationship with children and grandchildren, keeping the spouse happy, the home running smoothly, all the while trying to stay on top of the other numerous demands on their time from the tons of other obligations that they can’t keep from saying yes to because it’s somehow expected of them.

Let me paint you a picture of a typical day in the life of a woman going through menopause.

You get up in the morning to go to work after getting a night of fitful if any sleep in damp sweat soaked PJ’s. You climb out of bed only to discover that when your feet hit the floor, your knees and joints feel as if someone has beaten them with a hammer during the night. You push through the pain to rush to the bathroom before your bladder gives way knowing you may just not make it and knowing if you don’t you don’t have time to clean up the accident, or you’ll be late for work.

You grab the pants you wore two days ago only to find that suddenly they no longer reach around your bloated belly. You continue to rush through your many morning chores while cursing because you can’t find any object in the house quite long enough to reach that annoying and continuous itch in the middle of your back, and you’ve already scratched her legs until they look like you and the cat had a fight. 

It’s 30 degrees outside, the heater is set on 70, because the rest of your family is cold, yet you feel like someone dipped you in hot molten lava and your clothes are sticking to you like you’ve been playing basketball for an hour under the blazing sun. You then somehow manage to make it through the day glad you weren’t fired because you nearly knocked the boss over fighting to get to the bathroom so you wouldn’t pee on the new carpet he had laid.

You arrive home only to realize that you forgot to go by the grocery store, pick up your dad’s medicine, and drop off the flyers for the organizational lunch you signed up for a month ago. You have maybe half an hour before your husband arrives expecting super on the table. Luckily, you put on a crock-pot of something yummy for supper, but when you go to check you realize you forgot to plug the crock-pot in. You frantically search through the cabinets hoping to find something more appetizing than crackers and cheese that can be cooked in less than fifteen minutes. Your husband arrives home none too happy to discover ham sandwiches for supper but willing to let it slid if you can manage to fit in a little “alone time.”

Inadvertently, you roll your eyes, which hurts his feelings, and you wonder why any man would want to be intimate with an oversized, sweaty, itchy, achy, wrinkled, hippo all the while crossing your fingers that you don’t pee on yourself for the tenth time today. You wonder how many Tylenol you’ll have to down to give you enough relief from your achy joints to be able to comply with his wishes. Need I go on, or are you getting the picture?

Some of you are probably thinking, well aren’t there hormone pills and tons of other medications women can take to help offset some of these diabolical symptoms. Of course there are. However, your woman then has to weigh the options of risking cancer, drug dependency, and suffering from the various other side effects that come with taking such medications. Frustrating decisions to say the least.

Menopause is real it’s not some made-up excuse so that women can go ballistic. You now have a heads up as to why the women in your life have transformed into a disgruntled ogre instead of the loving, easy going, joyful, good-natured individual you once knew. Remember her emotional and physical status is beyond her control and that in itself is exasperating. So what can you do? There are no easy answers, but you can try to be a tad more patient, appreciative, understanding, and sympathetic.

1. You can avoid some of the pitfalls and frustration by educating yourself about menopause.
   
2. Communicate, let her know you don’t think she’s crazy and your shoulder is there for her. Be certain to assure her you believe her when she says she can’t help how she acts.
   
3. Don’t take everything she does and says as a personal attack.
   
4. If she needs more alone time or time with her girlfriends or wants to start a new adventure, be supportive.
   
5. Offer ideas for doing things together and laugh with her and not at her. Sometimes laughter can be the best remedy for both of you.

With that thought in mind, here are a few things to make you smile.

Male menopause is a lot more fun than female menopause. With female menopause, you gain weight and get hot flashes. Male menopause - you get to date young girls and drive motorcycles. - Author Unknown

Warning You’re in Menopause if…

1.  You sell your home heating system at a yard sale. 
2.  Your husband jokes that instead of buying a wood stove, he is using you to heat the family room this winter. Rather than just saying you are not amused, you shoot him. 
3. You have to write post-it notes with your kids' and grandkids names and birth dates on them. 
4.  Your husband chirps, "Hi honey, I'm home." And you reply, "Well, if it isn't Ozzie friggin' Nelson." 
5. The Phenobarbital dose that wiped out the Heaven's Gate Cult gives you four hours of decent rest. 
6. You have to change your underwear after every sneeze. 
7. Your friends compliment you on your new alligator shoes, and you're barefoot. 
8. Going bra-less pulls all the wrinkles out of your face. 
9. An "all-nighter" means not getting up to pee!
10. Your first reaction upon entering a store is to locate the restroom sign.

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New Word for Your Vocabulary

Ineptocracy (in-ept-o-cra-cy) - a system of  government where the
least capable to lead are elected by the  least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded  with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

The Future

Food for thought!

Thanksgiving 2022

"Winston, come into the dining room, it's time to eat," Julia yelled to her husband.

"In a minute, honey, it's a tie score," he answered.

Actually Winston wasn't very interested in the traditional holiday football game between Detroit and Washington .

Ever since the government passed the Civility in Sports Statute of 2017, outlawing tackle football for its "unseemly violence" and the "bad example it sets for the rest of the world", Winston was far less of a football fan than he used to be. Two-hand touch wasn't nearly as exciting.

Yet it wasn't the game that Winston was uninterested in.
It was more the thought of eating another Tofu Turkey.
Even though it was the best type of Veggie Meat available after the government revised the American Anti-Obesity Act of 2018, adding fowl to the list of federally-forbidden foods, (which already included potatoes, cranberry sauce, and mincemeat pie), it wasn't anything like real turkey.

And ever since the government officially changed the name of "Thanksgiving Day" to "A National Day of Atonement" in 2020, to officially acknowledge the Pilgrims' historically brutal treatment of Native Americans, the holiday had lost a lot of its luster.

Eating in the dining room was also a bit daunting.
The unearthly gleam of government-mandated fluorescent light bulbs made the Tofu Turkey look even weirder than it actually was, and the room was always cold.

Ever since Congress passed the Power Conservation Act of 2016, mandating all thermostats - which were monitored and controlled by the electric company - be kept at 68 degrees, every room on the north side of the house was barely tolerable throughout the entire winter.

Still, it was good getting together with family. Or at least most of the family. Winston missed his mother, who passed on in October, when she had used up her legal allotment of life-saving medical treatment.
He had had many heated conversations with the Regional Health Consortium, spawned when the private insurance market finally went bankrupt, and everyone was forced into the government health care program.
And though he demanded she be kept on her treatment, it was a futile effort.

"The RHC's resources are limited", explained the government bureaucrat Winston spoke with on the phone.

"Your mother received all the benefits to which she was entitled.---- I'm sorry for your loss."

Ed couldn't make it either. He had forgotten to plug in his electric car last night, the only kind available after the Anti-Fossil Fuel Bill of 2021 outlawed the use of the combustion engines – for everyone but government officials.

The fifty mile round trip was about ten miles too far, and Ed didn't want to spend a frosty night on the road somewhere between here and there.

Thankfully, Winston's brother, John, and his wife were flying in.
Winston made sure that the dining room chairs had extra cushions for the occasion.

No one complained more than John about the pain of sitting down so soon after the government-mandated cavity searches at airports, which severely aggravated his hemorrhoids.

Ever since a terrorist successfully smuggled a cavity bomb onto a jetliner, the TSA told Americans the added "inconvenience" was an "absolute necessity" in order to stay "one step ahead of the terrorists."

Winston's own body had grown accustomed to such probing ever since the government expanded their scope to just about anywhere a crowd gathered, via Anti-Profiling Act of 2022.

That law made it a crime to single out any group or individual for "unequal scrutiny," even when probable cause was involved.
Thus, cavity searches at malls, train stations, bus depots, etc., etc., had become almost routine. Almost.

The Supreme Court is reviewing the statute, but most Americans expect a Court composed of six progressives and three conservatives to leave the law intact.

"A living Constitution is extremely flexible", said the Court's eldest member, Elena Kagan.

" Europe has had laws like this one for years..---- We should learn from their example", she added.

Winston's thoughts turned to his own children.
He got along fairly well with his 12-year-old daughter, Brittany, mostly because she ignored him.

Winston had long ago surrendered to the idea that she could text anyone at any time, even during Atonement Dinner.
Their only real confrontation had occurred when he limited her to 50,000 texts a month, explaining that was all he could afford.
She whined for a week, but got over it.

His 16-year-old son, Jason, was another matter altogether.
Perhaps it was the constant bombarding he got in public school that global warming, the bird flu, terrorism, or any of a number of other calamities were "just around the corner", but Jason had developed a kind of nihilistic attitude that ranged between simmering surliness and outright hostility.

It didn't help that Jason had reported his father to the police for smoking a cigarette in the house, an act made criminal by the Smoking Control Statute of 2018, which outlawed smoking anywhere within 500 feet of another human being.

Winston paid the $5,000 fine, which might have been considered excessive before the American dollar became virtually worthless as a result of QE13.

The latest round of quantitative easing the federal government initiated was, once again, to "spur economic growth."

This time, they promised to push unemployment below its years-long rate of 18%, but Winston was not particularly hopeful.
Yet the family had a lot for which to be thankful, Winston thought, before remembering it was a Day of Atonement.

At least, he had his memories.
He felt a twinge of sadness when he realized his children would never know what life was like in the Good Old Days, long before government promises to make life "fair for everyone" realized their full potential.

Winston, like so many of his fellow Americans, never realized how much things could change when they didn't happen all at once, but little by little, so people could get used to them.

He wondered what might have happened if the public had stood up while there was still time, maybe back around 2011 or 2012, when all the real nonsense began.

"Maybe we wouldn't be where we are today if we'd just said 'enough is enough' when we had the chance," he thought.
Maybe so, Winston. Maybe so.

(Oh, that could never happen in the United States………..or could it?)

~Author Unknown

Speak Up–Let Your Voice be Heard

Andy Rooney's commentary on prayer.

Folks, will this be the year that  we RE-TAKE AMERICA & CANADA

Andy Rooney says:
I don't believe in Santa Claus, but I'm not going to sue somebody for singing a Ho-Ho-Ho song in December.  I don't agree with Darwin , but I didn't go out and hire a lawyer when my high school  teacher taught his Theory of Evolution.

Life, liberty or your pursuit of happiness will not be endangered because someone says a 30-second prayer before a football game. So what's the big deal?  It's not like somebody is up there reading the entire Book of Acts.  They're just talking to a God they believe in and asking him to grant safety to the players on the field and the fans going home from the game.

But it's a Christian prayer, some will argue.

Yes, and this is the United States of America and Canada , countries founded on Christian principles. According to our very own phone book, Christian churches outnumber all others better than 200-to-1.  So what would you expect – Somebody chanting Hare Krishna?

If I went to a football game in Jerusalem , I would expect to hear a Jewish prayer.
If I went to a soccer game in  Baghdad , I would expect to hear a Muslim prayer.
If I went to a ping pong match in China , I would expect to hear someone pray to Buddha.

And I wouldn't be offended. It wouldn't bother me one bit.
When in Rome ....

But what about the atheists? Is another argument. What about them? Nobody is asking them to be baptized.  We're not going to pass the collection plate. Just humor us for 30 seconds.   If that's asking too much, bring a Walkman or a pair of ear plugs.  Go to the bathroom.  Visit the concession stand.  Call your lawyer!

Unfortunately, one or two will make that call.  One or two will tell thousands what they can and cannot do. I don't think a short prayer at a football game is going to shake the world's foundations.

Christians are just sick and tired of turning the other cheek while our courts strip us of all our rights.  Our parents and grandparents taught us to pray before eating, to pray before we go to sleep. Our Bible tells us to pray without ceasing.  Now a handful of people and their lawyers are telling us to cease praying.

God, help us.  And if that last sentence offends you, well, just sue me.

The silent majority has been silent too long.  It's time we tell that one or two who scream loud enough to be heard that the vast majority doesn't care what they want.

It is time that the majority rules!   It's time we tell them, "You don't have to pray; You don't have to say the Pledge of Allegiance; you don't have to believe in God or attend services that honor Him.  That is your right, and we will honor your right;

But by golly, you are no longer going to take our rights away.

We are fighting back, and we WILL WIN!"

God bless us one and all...Especially those who denounce Him, God bless America and Canada, despite all our faults, and we are still the greatest nations of all. God bless our service men that are fighting to protect our right to pray and worship God.

Let's make 2011 the year the silent majority is heard and we put God back as the foundation of our families and institutions. And our military forces come home from all the wars. Keep looking up.

A Solution

This was shared with me from a friend and I felt the need to share it with you.

How to solve the Seniors Retirement problem and the growing Prison Inmate problem with one change....

Here's the way it should be:
Let's put the seniors in jail and the criminals in nursing homes.
This would correct two things in one motion:

Seniors would have access to showers, hobbies and walks.

They would receive unlimited free prescriptions, dental and medical Treatment, wheel chairs, etc.

They would receive money instead of having to pay it out.

They would have constant video monitoring, so they would be helped instantly... If they fell or needed assistance.

Bedding would be washed twice a week and all clothing would be ironed and returned to them.

A guard would check on them every 20 minutes.

All meals and snacks would be brought to them.

They would have family visits in a suite built for that purpose.
They would have access to a library, weight/fitness room, spiritual counseling, a pool and education... and free admission to in-house concerts by nationally recognized entertainment artists.

Simple clothing - i.e.. Shoes, slippers, pj's - and legal aid would be free, upon request.

There would be private, secure rooms provided for all with an outdoor exercise yard complete with gardens.

Each senior would have a P.C., T.V., phone and radio in their room at no cost.

They would receive daily phone calls.

There would be a board of directors to hear any complaints and the ACLU would fight for their rights and protection.

The guards would have a code of conduct to be strictly adhered to, with attorneys available, at no charge to protect the seniors and their families from abuse or neglect.

As for the criminals:
They would receive cold food.
They would be left alone and unsupervised.
They would receive showers once a week.
They would live in tiny rooms, for which they would have to pay $5,000 per month.
They would have no hope of ever getting out.

"Sounds like justice to me!"

Germany Bound

Well, it is official. The kids are in Germany. It has taken me a few days to come to grips with the reality of it all. It was an extremely difficult day saying goodbye and watching the plane ascend into the heavens. I allowed myself the day to indulge in a self-pity  party. Every toy left behind, every piece of clothing, brought a fresh batch of tears. The quietness now is almost deafening.

What I will miss the most is their hugs and kisses, their child-like  wonder, their honesty, and their imagination. I think I smiled and laughed more in the past year than I have in my entire life. I am thankful to God and my daughter and son-in-law for the opportunity to spend the past year bounding with my grand children. They have renewed my zest for life and adventure.

I am now eagerly anticipating the opportunity to visit a foreign country, something I’ve never really had a desire to do before. Children have a way of making you see things in a different light. Their fearlessness and innocence have a way of seeping in and giving life new purpose, new meaning.

I will trust in God that He has placed them where He wants them to be. I will trust that He will give me the strength, fortitude and positive attitude to forge forward each day with a renewed spirit for this fragile, wonderful, adventure called life. I will trust in Him to watch over them and keep them safe.

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Grandma Loves You!

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While we try to teach our children all about life,
Our children teach us what life is all about.
~Angela Schwindt

An Easy Fix

From a senior citizen around 80 years of age seen in an article in the St. Petersburg , Fl. Times. 

The Business Section asked readers for ideas on: "How Would You Fix the Economy?"

The Fix

Sounds like a plan to me. 

Dear Mr. President,

Please find below my suggestion for fixing America 's economy.. Instead 

of giving billions of dollars to companies that will squander the money on lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan.

You can call it the "Patriotic Retirement Plan":

There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force. Pay them $1 million apiece severance for early retirement with the following stipulations:

1. They MUST retire. Forty million job openings - Unemployment fixed.
   
2. They MUST buy a new AMERICAN Car. Forty million cars ordered - Auto

Industry fixed.

1. They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage - Housing

Crisis fixed.

It can't get any easier than that!!

 P.S. If more money is needed, have all members in Congress pay their taxes..

Mr. President, while you're at it, make Congress retire on Social Security and Medicare. I'll bet both programs would be fixed pronto!

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