The Dirty Truths No One Shares with New Moms | Blog Nosh Magazine

I thought back to all the times I’d tried to warn her and I knew I was partially to blame. It’s true. We don’t tell our pregnant friends everything, not because we don’t think they can take it, not because we don’t think they’ll believe us, but because it hurts to relive it and it’s easier to joke about sleepless nights than to go into details about how hard it really is.

When It Isn’t Really Senility – The New Old Age Blog – NYTimes.com

Reversible causes of dementia include the side effects of many medications. Ditropan is only the most recent addition to the list, occasioned in part by a study by U.S. Navy neurologist Dr. Jack Tsao involving 870 men and women with an average age of 75. The subjects, who were all Catholic priests, nuns and brothers, were followed for almost eight years. At a 2008 meeting of the American Academy of Neurology, Dr. Tsao reported that those who were taking anticholinergic drugs — a class that includes not only Detrol but also drugs to treat hypertension, asthma and Parkinson’s disease — had a 50 percent higher rate of cognitive decline than those who were not.

BabasFarmLife

If you have lost your job during this economy slump and are wondering how to bring in cash to make ends meet, I may just have the solution for you. You probably have things laying around the house that you don’t need, or have never even used. Perhaps you have collectables taking up space or old CD’s or DVD’s that you no longer listen to or watch; or maybe you received one too many toaster oven’s or coffeemakers for
wedding gifts and not sure what to do with them; or too many designer purses in your closet?

Your Impact Matters

My passions are my children, my home and our beautiful Earth. On these pages you’ll find my personal recipes, crafts I do with my children, homeschooling information for the beginner, and homesteading advice.

THE DAILY BLONDE: The Luck of the Irish?

I am not Irish? Come on, now. I have freckles. Freckles mean I’m Irish, right? I also like cabbage and corned beef. Come to think of it, I eat anything put in front of me, so that doesn’t really mean much. But I have freckles. Not as many as my little auburn haired daughter, but I have them. I also buy Lucky Charms (because they are magically delicious) and I believe in pots of gold at the end of rainbows. Just haven’t located the rainbow yet.

Down with Facebook!

For the five or six Amish shut-ins who may not yet have heard of this scourge (your tenacious ignorance is to be admired, and I’d immediately friend you if I was into Facebook and you had electricity), Facebook is an online community where colleagues, friends, long-lost acquaintances, friends of friends or long-lost acquaintances, and perfect strangers find and “friend” each other based on their real or perceived
affinity. They then have access to each other’s web pages, and
consequently to each other’s lives, quirks, photos, jottings,
oversharings, and mental disorders, as well as to those of the
ever-expanding universe of their friends’ circles, thus increasing the likelihood that you will either embarrass yourself or be embarrassed by someone whose life would never otherwise intersect with yours. (Right about now, a Facetard is ginning up an angry letter to the editor saying this would not be the case if you know how to control your privacy settings. Save the geek speech for your Facebook friends, Facetard, I already got my eight hours sleep.)

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Funny how different seasons of emotions hit each individual at a different time. Must be some sort of trigger that sets it off. I got hit with empty nest type pangs last time our oldest left home. My wife is going through the same thing this time.

Understand we aren’t even empty nesters yet at all. We’ve still got a sixteen year old at home with a couple years of high school left. We have two in college only sixty miles away that make frequent visits if only to do their wash, raid the fridge, and hang out with their little brother. Regardless, family life and family dynamics just aren’t what they were when we had a house full.

So I guess what we’re talking about is pre empty nest syndrome. Or perhaps we are just seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and projecting what that day will be like.

Its not the big things you see yourself missing either. Its the spontaneous little conversations that might or might not be about anything consequential at all. The ad hoc, spur of the moment Starbucks runs. Picking up on all the moment to moment changes.

I guess what I’m talking about is the ongoing flow of life. Without daily contact family life quickly becomes a series of snapshots: This is what I did last week. Here is what I’ll be doing next week. Instead of the movie like constant stream of updates that comes with living together.

My wife and I always laugh about a catch phrase of our generation; “quality time.” The wife always hypothosizes that the notion was invented by over busy, career driven parents or perhaps divorced ones.

Instead, we always valued quantity time. The big things, the vacations, the events are great. However its the little in between things that act as the glue to keep relationships together.

But that phase of life seems to be coming to an end for us now. With all four kids heading in different directions, there can’t possibly be that same level of contact with each and every one of them. And maybe that’s just how it should be.

We’ll move on to whatever it is lies ahead. What other options are there? But forgive us a moment if we mourn the ending of what is passing away.

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Grandma, Mom and me

I love my mom. Nothing out of the ordinary there. Most people do. Yet I suspect I’m also in an overloaded life raft of folks who dread visiting their aging parent. Not much to talk about. Not much to report. Too many prying questions you’d rather not answer. Too many repetitions. Yet I’ve chosen  to live in the same town most my adult life. So I feel obligated to stay close but I might ignore more than the good son or daughter who lives at a distance. (Case in point, my sister who lives 60 miles further away but is much more of a constant in Mom’s life than I am.)

Speaking of repetitive stories, those same stories I’ve heard dozens of times and tuned out hundreds more are ones I’ve encouraged my Mom to write down or record somehow for years to no avail. Once she’s gone though, all those stories go with her.

Here lately I’ve come up with a great idea that at once gets the stories I know and many I don’t recorded for posterity and makes our visits more fun for both of us than they’ve been for years. How? Well, I bought one of those scanner/printer combinations and parked it at my Mom’s house. Every week I try to make time to visit taking my laptop with me. I scan some of the old pictures she has in albums and on walls. Then as I edit them slightly at the kitchen table, she will go on and on telling stories the pictures bring to mind. I type them into the caption of the picture (using Picasa from google) asking follow up or clarification questions as necessary. Doing this, the time just flies by and yet our visits are much longer than they were before.

When I’m all done with the pictures, (which could literally take years at this rate) I plan on turning the collection into books for all immediate family members through a site like mypublisher.com. In the meantime though, I post weekly updates of that week’s  pictures over at our family website at geni.com for all the family to enjoy. I’ve gotten positive comments from several family members for what I’m doing.

But the point isn’t the pats on the back. The point is that I’ve found something that rekindles a stagnant relationship and records a bit of family history that will soon otherwise be only a vague memory in our family life. I recommend it to any of you faced with a similar situation.