Desert Magnolia

 Getting older seems to require significantly more focus on just general maintenance than earlier life. I make it a point to take pretty good care of myself. I have better years than others, but mostly I stay on top of routine checkups and requisite blood work. I feel like staying on top of things will, hopefully, prevent a big (nasty) surprise at some point.      In the last 60 days I have checked off a bunch of health To Do's:          Mammogram. Check.          Cologard.  Check.          PCP visit. Check.          Gyno visit. Check.     In the next 60 days I will visit the dermatologist for a top to bottom check (s'rsly, she is way thorough...), and an eye exam. I am looking forward to getting new glasses. I am going to try Warby Parker this time. My daughter uses them, and likes them, and they have a store in Albuquerque, so I'm going to give them a ...

Without real warning, without fanfare, and without a really good reason, 50 is barrelling down on me like a freight train. Scheduled to arrive next week. On Thursday. Which is kind of cool, since I was born on a Thursday. There will be celebration. Dinner out at a favorite restaurant. Dinner cooked by hubby the next night. And some introspection, I'm thinking...between celebrations and over the weekend to follow. I think...I'm happy. I'm definitely engaged with life, with current events, and am now creating a new career, new future, so that state should hold indefinitely. I'm happy in love. I'm fulfilled as a Mom. I have an amazing group of friends that..sustain me, and for whom I am eternally grateful. But motherofgawd it's happened fast. I mean, just yesterday...I was giving birth to my son, who turns 25 6 days after I turn 50. Just yesterday! And immediately following that, ok, 4 years later..my daughter was born. And everything from then to 3 ...

Middle age isn't for wimps. When I look in the mirror backwards, (and no, JL, I do NOT do this when I'm just a day or two away from my period-you're totally right in your urging me NOT to add to the emotions already violently careening with additional 'oh crap-ness'...), I'm amazed at how gravity works. I've always had a bubble butt. It's how God made me. When I was little, and all of my flat bottomed friends fit nicely into Ditto jeans (or cords), I looked on, envious, and knowing that my hips and those pants would never enjoy one another's company. I have a relatively tiny waist, which means...hard to fit. Anyway, as the bubble butt ages, it assumes some annoying habits. Like visibly succumbing to gravity much more quickly than it used to. I have to work out a lot more to keep it suspended, I'm just sayin, and that gets stressful at times. In spite of my best intentions, now that I've undertaken the whole school on top of career thi...

In Chinese Medicine,  females are considered to age in 7 year cycles. So at 7,1, their teeth are in, their hair is thick, they're beginning school. At 7,2, they begin to express reproductive capabilities, menstruation starts, and so on. I am on the brink of 7,7. I love it, because it's a square. I kind of hate it because it's so very much closer to the big 5-0 that I'm practically there , and that distresses me just a bit. Things that happen at 7,7 if you're Chinese: Your hair begins to gray. Your menstrual cycles may begin to falter, then cease entirely. Your skin begins to appear older. You, essentially, begin to show signs of age. So the hair part? Yep. I'm beginning to be shot with silver in my nearly black locks. But weirdly enough it's not bothering me enough to color it anymore. So I'm either maturing, very comfortable with who and where I am, or I'm fucking busy and just don't want to deal with it. I'm really not sur...

A blog by a mid-lifer wouldn't be complete without occasional musings on the whole aging thing, so here ya go. My first in what may prove to be a series, over time, on my thoughts about this topic. First of all, the whole inside feeling young and perky and healthy vs the outside showing the ravages feels fundamentally unfair, but it is what it is. We sun, we laugh, we stress, we get too little sleep, we simply live , and, over time...lots of time, all of this shows. On our faces. Everywhere, actually. So what should we do? Should we refrain from life's roller coaster ride and live in a bubble sans sun, sans laughter, sans the complexity that makes the great journey infinitely interesting? I don't think so. One of my fondest memories of sun worship involves my Mom, and me at 9 months pregnant with my son. We oiled up, laid out, and for the first time in months my aches went away and I soaked up the lovely Spring sunshine. Which was actually kind of funny, when you t...