Menopause Madness

Sometimes when you hear women tell you their stories about menopause you might think to yourself they are exaggerating.  It is only when you experience these symptoms firsthand that you realise just how much they understated the matter.

As if the hot flashes are not bad enough on their own (and it's like living in your own little tropical zone let me tell you), there are the mood swings.  I turn from a relatively nice person to the devil in yoga pants.  It is a surprise that my wonderfully forgiving and long-suffering husband has not seen fit to divorce me.  I'm a total cow sometimes, and my fuse is exceedingly short.

I eat a diet high in soya, and soya is supposed to help somewhat with menopausal symptoms, so I wonder how bad it would be if it wasn't for the soya.

The worst is that this can go on for the next ten years.  Urgh.

Somebody rescue me from this menopausal madness before someone murders me.

Sinking to new highs

In my serious quest to have a tidier house, I have had to have a really serious chat with my inner feminist.  I have worked my whole adult life.  Since my systemic lupus became unstable due to high amounts of stress, we decided that I would not work full time anymore.  Instead, I am a part-time genealogist, which brings much needed extra income in, but we still live on a whole lot less.  Half the money to be exact.  This means we went from having a full-time live in domestic, to not being able to afford one.

The challenge for me is not the same as for others.  Having a debilitating chronic disease means I do not have the energy or strength that other people take for granted.  Throw in a total lack of motivation, and it's a recipe for chaos.  I've decided that instead of beating myself up about the state of my house, and by now you understand this topic worries me a lot, I've decided to take a balanced approach and do some research on how best to go about this.  I read up on various sites on the internet and found a few handy tips.  I already have some handy tips of my own from my days as a full-time working single mother with no maid.  For example, if you are so tired in the evening that you just want to plop down in front of the TV, then do small chores during the ads.  You'll be amazed how much you can get done in the time the ads are on.  Unpack the dishwasher, or load up the washing machine, or just tidy up, etc.  Small chunks with long breaks in between.  I find this works.

But the problem is bigger, so I needed to call on outside help.  I found this website www.flylady.net.  This was where my feminist wasn't too thrilled.  By signing up to a site like this that offers advice on house cleaning, would I be admitting to being...*gag* ...a housewife?  The one thing I never wanted to be was a housewife.  There is nothing wrong with it, but I always saw myself as shattering these glass ceilings as I sped my way up the corporate ladder, and that is precisely what I was doing until the SLE chose a different course for my life and things got turned a bit on their head.

Anyway, back to FlyLady.  You start off with these baby steps.  The very first thing you do is scrub your sink until it shines.  That's it for day one.  The only thing you really have to do.  So, smiling wryly to myself, I though "what's the harm?" and scrubbed my sink.  You won't belive me, but it felt empowering.  I felt like I'd taken a step towards making life more ordered, less chaotic.  So what if I'm a part-time housewife.  At least I have a clean sink!

Operation New Broom

So, the new year is getting into full swing again.  Children go back to school again from tomorrow, and I can't tell you how happy this makes me considering how nice it will be to not have a teenager lounging around the house, eating everything in sight, making dishes, and just generally being slovenly.  The best was being told this evening that I don't do my job properly, because the dishwasher had not yet been packed full of the dishes made by Madam herself.  The cheek of it!

I am not in the habit of making new year's resolutions as a general rule, but I did make a few promises to myself that I would try to tidy the house a bit more often, and perhaps walk the dogs...ah yes, the road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions, but hey, I packed the dishwasher tonight. :)

As for keeping the house cleaner, I really do mean it.  I don't know how other people's houses always look so clean and tidy.  Or is it a case of them running around all over the show before guests come and it is merely a guise?  My parents' house, and it was so when I was growing up, is always immaculate.  Sigh...Between one teenager, three dogs and four cats (and probably a few Parktown Prawns) I just don't seem to have the formula.  I also don't seem to have the energy.  Bought myself a multivitamin with extra B vitamins today.  I hope it doesn't just make expensive pee.  I really hope it works.

Operation New Broom...starting tomorrow.  At 05h30.  I think.

Coffee

I really enjoy a good cup of coffee, and admit that I simply cannot drink a bad cup of coffee.  One sip and not a drop further will pass my lips.  I'd rather have tea.

I particularly enjoy a good cappuccino.  I like African grown beans, preferably organic.  And yes, organic coffee does taste different.  The aromatic fragrance wafts into your nostrils as you raise the cup for that first sip which you take ever so cautiously.  Then the full bodied flavour in your mouth.  Mmmmm.  And the after taste isn't bitter, rather it has a rounded flavour.  Ah, I appreciate coffee like others may sniff, and sip wine (with the notable exception that I don't spit out my coffee).

My top three makers of the good cappuccino are:

1.  Woolies Cafe
2.  Seattle Coffee Company
3.  McDonalds ( I kid you not)

Excuse me please.  I believe there are some coffee beans waiting to be ground and savoured.

Strong Constitutional

My husband remarked to me that perhaps we are not like other couples in terms of some of the topics of our conversations.  I pondered this fact, and concluded that he is probably right.  I also wondered if this extended to how we behaved too. 

In our house there is no modest giggle should a little gas escape.  Oh no, it's a full on fart fest.  And why shouldn't it be?  My own mother claims never to have farted in front of my father.  It would certainly explain her mood sometimes.  She has, however, delivered four of his children. 

Some of my friends express shock and outright horror at the propsect of even having a conversation about farting in front of their partner and are left gaping at the thought that there are no holds barred in our house.  There are those who believe you should have a little bit of mystery.  Marriage is not a place for mystery.  Heaven's, it's bad enough that we have to hold it in all the time in the big wide world out there.  If people are holding it in at home too, how miserable they must be.  Could we link the high divorce rate to people simply being miserable because they are full of gas?  I wonder why science has never studied this.

And it's not just farting.  We are only too happy to discuss the detailed content of our daily consititutionals.  After all, these are weighty matters, right up there with global warming.  We discuss the movements of the dogs.  Let's face it, if you're stopped up, not much else really matters.

Have we become a society who can have pornographic images in our daily intercourse (no pun intended) with advertising, and be exposed to the most shocking things, but not discuss farting?  Strange indeed.

Has the world gone bonking mad?

It's springtime in Johannesburg, and the world has gone bonking mad.  Literally.

The largest manmade forest in the world, botanical miracle that it may be, is driving me to distraction.  I believe that I am in danger of severe dehydration from the sheer volume of snot that I am now producing on a daily basis, and I lift up my prayers daily for Spring to please, please just be over.

We have a Transvaal bullfrog that has taken up residence at our pool with his considerable harem.  Let's call him Toadie.  Now Toadie makes Hugh Hefner look like a bit of a slacker in the girlfriend stakes, and is he a busy boy.  I am frequently awoken in the early hours of the morning by Toadie's very unIglesias like singing (Toadie clearly doesn't know he's tone deaf) to his swooning girlfriends.  Toadie has even taken it upon himself to extend his marathon bonking sessions to the daytime, and the pool wier has become Toadie's Lair of Love.  What goes on in that wier is simply too shocking to place on these pages.  Toadie is a very, very naughty little froggie.

The other problem with Spring is that it has caused a bit of inner turmoil.  I have this uncontrollable urge (still an urge mind you since it hasn't been followed up by action) to clean stuff.  I mean I was sitting on the patio just now and actually gave consideration to washing the dining room curtains.  I had to make myself a cup of tea and sit quietly until the feeling went away.  I fear, however, that the urge to purge is going to take over.  I'd like to clean out the cupboards, and the way I see it, a more practically implemented philosophy of less is more is not a bad idea.  I have enough changes of linen to comfortably service Buckingham Palace.  And towels...although my daughter uses a record number for a simple shower - clearly she gets far wetter than normal people.  A really big tossing out of stuff.

Let me have a cup of tea while I think about that.

The end of an era?

Yesterday was my annual gynaecological check-up.  I knew things weren't going to be straight forward, but it still gave me a lot to think about.  Fast forward past the part where we know that just going through the whole thing is gross enough.  I found out my ovaries aren't working anymore.

I'm 35 years old.

Now this doesn't trouble me in the sense that I'd like to have more children - I mean I've already had my tubes tied, but it does signal the end of an era.  An era of fertility?  I'm not sure what.  The question would be:  as much as I hate having periods, do I locate some of my femininity in them?  Surely not?  Women have become so masculine in our climb up the corporate ladder and shattering glass ceilings, that somewhere along the way I think we sacrificed some of our femininity.  Sad, but true.  And if I was one of those women who hadn't fallen pregnant at a young age, and quite by accident, my thirties might be marred by the desperation and disappointment of infertility.

Menopause.  Something that happens to 50-somethings.

No.  It isn't.