Menopausal Mother

     Welcome to another Fly on the Wall group post, hosted by Karen of Baking In A Tornado. Today, 12 bloggers are bravely inviting you to catch a glimpse of what you’d see if you were a fly on the wall in their homes.

     This month, the fly overheard more than he needed to know when it came to conversations between the men in my family. Other than that, we're all buzzing over here about the new edition of my Spandex book that was launched by Booktrope Publishers on Tuesday. Right now, that's a heck of a lot more entertaining to me than discussing the male anatomy. 




"When there's cornstalks growing out of your rain gutters, you know it's time to clean them out."

"Just because you haven't worked for a few days is no excuse to let your whiskers grow so long that you look like a woolly mammoth."

"We can't let him leave the house in that shirt. People will see his breasticles."

"If I don't stop pigging out on all the good food in this house, the 'Manatee Preservation' truck is going to pull up in our driveway."

"You've been in the bathroom way too long. What are you doing, nutscaping your man parts?"

"His dirty laundry pile is so high, I think another family is hiding under there. The least they could do is pay him rent."

"This storm is bad enough to be classified as a 'Hornado'."
"What's THAT?"
"A tornado and a hurricane combined."
"Sounds more like a hooker's stage name."

"If our granddaughter doesn't stop singing B-I-N-G-O, I'm going to go N-U-T-S-O."

"Of course he's scared of having a vasectomy. No man wants to be part of the cropped testicle club."

"If you're going to straighten my spine by popping my back, be sure to do it correctly so that I don't turn into a pile of sand."

"He compares his manhood to a prawn, but it's really more like a langoustine shrimp."

"That new hedge trimmer you bought would come in handy next time you decide to cut your toenails."

"I still haven't found the perfect turkey for Thanksgiving. The largest one I saw was only 28 pounds, not the 35 pounder that I had hoped for to feed our crowd."
"You don't want a turkey; you want an OSTRICH."


     Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Enjoy your day with the family and friends you're blessed with. This is my favorite holiday and one that I look forward to every year! Be sure to keep plenty of Alka-Selter on hand for the day of feasting, or else the Manatee Preservation truck will come looking for you, too!

***I'M EXCITED TO SHARE THE NEWS THAT BOOKTROPE PUBLISHERS JUST RELEASED THE NEW EDITION OF MY BOOK, "WHO STOLE MY SPANDEX? LIFE IN THE HOT FLASH LANE" ON 11/17! YOU CAN PURCHASE IT HERE:  
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B017Y979X0?keywords=Who%20Stole%20my%20spandex%3F&qid=1447957918&ref_=sr_1_2&sr=8-2

 
     I've noticed a lot of changes in my life over the past few years, and I'm not just referring to a few extra pounds or menopause. My husband has noticed little changes in himself as well; his knees click when he gets up off the couch, and his back gives out whenever he tries to dance to anything sung by Pit Bull or Fetty Wap. This is what happens after you slide over the far side of the midlife hill. And it's only the beginning. Here are fourteen more things you have to look forward to in the not-so-distant future:

1. Your mailbox will be inundated with AARP invitations, LifeAlert ads and sales on cemetery plots.

2. You'll have the memory capacity of a goldfish.
3. If you're a man, your testicles will drop low enough to chafe your knee caps. If you're a woman, your breasts will look like two deflated pastry bags straddling your belly button.

4. You'll never leave the house without aspirin, floss, and antacids.

5. Skin tags and age spots will appear out of nowhere, which means you'll be visiting your dermatologist more often than you visit your friends.

6. You'll check WebMD at least once a day.

7. Your hair will mysteriously disappear from several areas on your body and leave you looking like a hairless cat.

8. You'll need to keep a handy stock of powders and thick creams for relief from chafing.

9. Every room in your house will be equipped with at least one pair of reading glasses, but you still won't be able to find any of them.

10. You'll be a sucker for every "miracle" serum advertised on TV to prevent your face from looking like a peach pit.

11. Most of the money you saved for retirement will end up invested in a good dental plan. Crowns, root canals and gum surgery will take the place of your dream vacation to Niagara Falls.

12. You'll need several shots of espresso to stay awake during the day and a dose of sleep medication at night to avoid playing mattress tag with Mr. Insomnia.

13. Viagra and menthol lubricants will become your best friends.

14. You'll feather your empty nest with extra cats, dogs, and possibly a few stray rodents.


     Welcome to the far side of midlife!



****I'm beyond thrilled to have a BRAND NEW POST featured on Purple Clover this week! Check out "The Battles Of The Bulge" here: http://www.purpleclover.com/health/5528--battles-bulge/?icid=pclver%7Cswipehp

Meno Mama was also featured on BLUNTmoms this week with my post, "Ten Lies Parents of Teens Tell Themselves." You can read it here: http://www.bluntmoms.com/10-lies-parents-teens-tell/

     I love, love, LOVE today's guest blogger, Sharon Greenthal of Empty House Full Mind! We're both writers who embrace the midlife years and look for humor in everyday situations. I can relate to pretty much everything Sharon writes----she puts into words so perfectly the very things I feel in my heart. She is one of the kindest, most generous writers I've ever met, and I am honored to call her my friend.

     Please welcome Sharon to Meno Mama's site today with lots of comment love. Thanks!

               AGING AS YOUTHFULLY AS WE CAN

One of the biggest problems with getting older is that everyone else is getting older too.

It can be startling to look at the faces of those closest to us, those we’ve known the longest, and realize that, yes — they’ve gotten older, too.

 
   In honor of Halloween, I'm sharing one of my favorite posts written in 2013. Meno Mama has lots of new followers who may have missed this blog when it was originally posted, so I thought it would be a good idea to get your halloween festivities off to a great start. Enjoy!


     We survived the Y2K "computer crash" on December 31, 1999, and we surpassed the deadline of the Mayan calendar. But what about a zombie apocalypse?
 
      I live in Florida, home of the most notorious flesh-eating zombie stories of 2012. Zombie defense plans have been all the rage since The Walking Dead first aired on television, and after watching enough episodes, I think I'm prepared to do battle. This folks, is how I plan to survive a zombie apocalypse:

1.  First, disguise myself as a zombie to fit in with the rotting rogues. I will do this by refraining from bathing for weeks, rolling in garbage and raw sewage, shredding my clothes, tossing out my toothbrush and skipping my daily naps for awhile. Of course at this point, none of my fellow humans will want to be downwind of me, either.

2.  Hone my growling, moaning and bloody slobbering skills.

3.  Practice precision slicing of cantaloupes with a large machete.

4.  Stick wood planks down my pants in an effort to walk stiff-legged.

5.  Stockpile toilet paper, chipped beef, canned corn, beans and Little Debbie Cakes to eat secretly in my attic while the zombies are outside gnawing on human chicken wings.

6.  Build a mote around my house and fill it with zombie-eating alligators. Or perhaps piranhas would be more effective since they don't leave anything behind. The vultures in my special, ugly bird aviary will be allowed out each morning to eat the zombie leftovers. If they're too full to finish the gruesome banquet, I can always haul out the wood chipper/shredder to finish the job.

7.  Blast Judy Collins, Bette Midler and Barry Manilow songs from loud speakers to deter the zombies and make their brains explode.

8.  Douse myself in a perfume repellent known as "Eau De Zombie Poop".

9.  Trap the zombies by digging big holes in my yard and camouflaging them with leaves and branches. Once the zombies fall into the trap, I'll torch their asses.

10.  Place a large banner across my home that reads: "1st Annual Zombie Barbecue. If You're Human, They Will Come".  Then I'll sit behind the machine gun turrets on my roof and wait....


     As I go through my check list in preparation for the apocalypse, I realize all that is left is for me to slip into my special zombie gear.

     I'm ready for battle. Are you?


***WANT MORE MENO MAMA? Check out my NEW blog post, "The Secret To A Successful Marriage" featured on Scary Mommy. You can read it here: http://www.scarymommy.com/the-secret-to-a-successful-marriage/   I also had a post featured on Better After Fifty this week---"The Seven Dwarfs of Menopause" which you can read here: http://betterafter50.com/2015/10/the-seven-dwarfs-of-menopause/

    Welcome to another edition of Fly On The Wall group postings hosted by Karen of  Baking In A Tornado. Today, 14 bloggers are inviting you into their homes to catch a glimpse of their life if you were a fly on the wall.

     The first two weeks of October rocked! National Geographic came to our house to film a follow-up episode about my pet chinchillas. The crew was delightful and made us feel very comfortable. If you'd like to see the original television program with Hubs in action at the exotic vet pet's office, check out Nat Geo Wild if you have cable On Demand. The name of the episode was "Chinchillin' Like a Villain." Then you can click on this website to watch the follow-up video they filmed at our home: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/wild/dr-ks-exotic-animal-er/videos/animal-update-kirby-the-chinchilla/ What a blast!

     The other exciting thing that happened this month was that I got to meet my idol, NY Times Best Selling Author Jenny Lawson (The Bloggess). Folks, she is unbelievable funny and sweet! I was thrilled to get a signed copy of her recent book.

     After all the excitement died down, things were pretty quiet around my house unless you count coughing, sneezing and nose blowing as rigorous activity. Yes, the dreaded head cold from hell invaded our home and is still lingering here like the ghost from Christmas past. My only reprieve from this miserable ordeal was the birthday I celebrated last week. It was great having my family around and of course, the perfect opportunity to pick up some weird tidbits of conversation from them to include in my FOW blog post!

"I just accidentally squirted nose spray into my eyes, thinking it was my eyes drops. At least my eyes will breathe better now. "

"If you eat that chunky bleu cheese dressing, it's going to be chunky on your salad AND chunky on you thighs."

"If you let me sleep in a little later in the mornings, I promise your world will be a better place."

"It's a good thing snot isn't fattening because I've been swallowing a ton of it with this head cold. "
"That's 'snot' funny..."


"I need a new mirror. This one makes me look fat."

"If I was a pigeon, I know EXACTLY who I would poop on."

"I'm not sleeping in the same bed with you tonight. Your snoring is so loud that it shakes the bed. Last night it registered 4.3 on the Richter Scale. "

"I'm great at multitasking. I can start three diets at once while simultaneously snarfing down a bag of Hershey's Kisses."

"It never fails that when I'm having a great hair and makeup day, I don't run into anyone I know. But the days I pop over to the grocery store in my pajama jeans, a stained t-shirt and ratty hair, I run into my entire graduating class in the liquor aisle."

"If parents were smart, they'd just put food dispensers in their teenager's rooms and call it a day."

"My granddaughter spent the night last night. This morning she decided to teach me the entire alphabet by naming three things for each letter. All this before coffee. I forgot how much 3 yr. olds chatter."

"I was really excited to receive tickets in the mail for a complimentary lunch until I saw that it was for a pre-planning seminar held at a funeral and cremation center."



     Despite being sick, my family is still a great source of entertainment. Where else can I laugh so hard that I cough, sneeze, and pee in my pants simultaneously?

***WANT MORE MENO MAMA? This week I was featured on BLUNTmoms with my post, FIVE STAGES OF A HEAD COLD. You can read it here: http://www.bluntmoms.com/five-stages-head-cold/

 
   I'm always looking for new and innovative ways to combat the symptoms of menopause, especially when it comes to hot flashes and night sweats. There is nothing worse than waking up in the middle of the night to damp sheets clinging to my skin.

     I recently spotted an ad from Cool-jams about their special sleepwear that has the ability to keep the body cool and dry when it's hot. This certainly got my attention, and I contacted the company immediately for more information. They offered to send me a free pair of pajamas in exchange for an honest review of their product, and I happily agreed.

     A little background history on Cool-jams:

     Cool-jams fabric was originally developed for the Canadian armed forces. The military had requested development of a fabric that would look and feel like cotton, but it also needed to have wicking ability, temperature regulation, quick drying ability, Anti Microbial longevity and effectiveness, Anti-pilling, washability and wearability. Today, this ground-breaking fabric is only available through Cool-jams Sleepwear, which was recently selected as one of the top innovative sleepwear companies in the United States by Apparel Magazine.

     The Science Behind Cool-jams Wicking Sleepwear:

     Cool-jams fabric is a specially designed Poly Microfiber that has been engineered to feel like soft cotton but has all the attributes associated with the fastest wicking and drying material in the world. The fabric, with its amazing "cotton-like" comfort and feel, is integrated with  Bact-Out®  (an antimicrobial agent that offers odor and fiber degradation resistance) and delivers unparalleled performance in moisture management. It lasts 6 times longer than cotton fabric, maintains color sharpness with minimal fade, and is a great alternative to cotton pajamas. 


     How it works:

     The unique technology behind Cool-jams Wicking Sleepwear involves fine fibers which are made into long strand fibers known as filaments. Each breathable, microfiber filament is less than 1 decitex in measure, and are tinier than a strand of human hair. The five to 8 filaments that are used have slightly different performance capabilities, and are twisted together to form a fine thread. Due to the unique blend of filaments and their configuration within the thread, this creates a greater surface area for moisture to travel along the thread. These threads are then knitted together in a specific pattern, which increases the speed of moisture movement through the material (also known as the Moisture Transference System).

     The Moisture Transference System is a three step process. First, as the body perspires, moisture is transferred through the material from the skin to the outer layer of clothing, a process known as moisture absorption or wicking.  Secondly, the moisture spreads over the surface area (moisture transport or disbursement). The third step is the disbursement process, which allows the outer air to evaporate the moisture (moisture drying or evaporation). As moisture is pulled away from the body, it carries with it the body’s built-up heat, helping to regulate body temperature. This also minimizes excessive temperature drops in the body during the cool down period after intense physical activity. The Moisture Transference System technology regulates the body heat while minimizing the energy used to keep the body cool and comfortable.
    
     In short, Cool-jams fabrics can be constructed to reduce or accelerate air flow and have the ability to absorb moisture off the body to its outer surface. The fabric disperses moisture over larger areas in record time for faster drying and optimal comfort.


     My Experience:

     I ordered the Sonya Snap Front Nightshirt from Cool-jams and received it within a few days of placing the order. The pajamas are attractive and very soft to the touch. I loved sleeping in them---they were comfortable and definitely kept the dampness away. The material is lightweight, quick drying and wrinkle resistant, which makes it perfect for travel. Another plus I discovered is that the fabric does not shrink, fade or pill after multiple washings, and I enjoyed sleeping in pajamas that stayed fresh and odor free. I can see why many of the Cool-jam customers refer to the sleepwear as "menopause pajamas" because they really do draw the heat and moisture of night sweats away from the body. If you're tossing and turning at night or waking up sticky with perspiration, you need to order a set of these pajamas right away for a good night's rest!

     For more information, please visit the following links and enter to win a $50 sleepwear gift certificate to use on their website. They will pick a random winner two weeks after this blog has been posted.
   
***Cool-jams now also offers temperature regulating bedding, sheets, comforters , pillows and mattress pads. Visit Cool-jams at www.cool-jams.com to learn more about their products.***