If I’m going to blog, might as well…blog.
Truth is, I’m trying to figure out how blogging fits into my writing life and my life, period. I write a great many things in different formats and venues, some of which have my name on them, some of which don’t. I wonder about blogging, every day when I fire up the computer, do my work, read other blogs, and see “WordPress” flashing before my eyes. In case you were wondering, the main reason I don’t do intense, issue-related blogging anymore is simply because I don’t have anyone who has my back anymore. It’s harsh out there – even if you’re just going to blog about pants for heaven’s sake - and if you’re going to wander into that minefield, it helps to have a real person who can commisserate with you and assure you that you’re (sort of) sane after you shut the computer off. Not asking for sympathy here, but that’s the deal. Hugs from little children are nice, as is amusing banter with older children, and perhaps a good, vigorous Rosary Run should suffice, but since I’m weak and earthly, none of the above quite cut it as far as recouping from online battles is concerned, so since I have to take care of myself, I have to …take care of myself.
Most bloggers go through periods in which they agonize about blogging, but I don’t find those kinds of agonies any different than the agony of wondering why write, period? It’s all the same thing, it’s all a battle fraught with matters of ego – if you have any kind of moral core at all. That is, quite simply, why should anyone care?
Well, they shouldn’t. But here we are, anyway.
Reading.
So here’s a post that’s been on my mind for a while:
The blogosphere is full of Mommybloggers. Pregnant, homeschooling, crafting, lactating, birthing, monetizing…mommybloggers!
You know what I don’t see out there?
Catholic Menopausebloggers!
Yeah, well.
I turned 50 this past summer, so it’s that time. I don’t keep track – because I don’t keep track of much of anything, really – but I think I’m done. Maybe 2-3 times over the past year, and not at all for six months or so?
Weird.
And the strangest thing of all is how few “symptoms” I’ve had. About 3 years ago – I know because we were still in Indiana, and it was winter – I had 2 nights of hot flashes. And that’s it. My heart races occasionally, which I’ve researched and found is a consequence of menopause as your hormones sort of run past each other and can’t get organized. I’m distractable, but then I always have been. I also don’t know how much of any possible mental/emotional symptoms I can blame on menopause or on Mike’s death. The most noticable symptoms to me have been that it’s harder to lose weight and my hair, which is definitely thinner and dryer. Witch Hair Coming!
I mean…if this is it…is this it? I’m very glad if it is. If this is it, it doesn’t deserve a book, much less a blog post.
I suppose if I were still married it would all be more significant to me. After all, I do have a five-year old. To go through menopause with a kindergartner is certainly unusual in these days and times. Up until the moment Mike died (when I was 48 and still apparently fertile) there was still and always the welcome possibility of another baby. But that’s over now. If Mike were still alive, it might strike me more forcefully than it does in the present situation, but now it really doesn’t matter since the baby days left when he did.
I have to say I’m glad. Not about the babies, but about the fact that this..er..transition..has been (I think. So far) pretty painless. All things considered.
What about you?
(Oh, and if you use the word crones you’ll be banned….)
Oh please keep blogging- even just once in awhile. You know what you know and some of us are glad to hear without debating every nuance (not that that’s bad- is that bad?) In about 5 years, I’ll be a 50 year old mother of a five year old. I’d like to know how it goes.
God bless you! We should start a blogging group of Kindergarten Moms Who Are Old Enough to Be Moms of the Other Kindergarten Moms!
Loved this.
I’m 39 and my husband died last month. Ouch. Hurts to write that. He was 41 and killed in a boating accident.
I had thought to myself that it is weird to realize that my baby days are permanently, and not just potentially, over. Not bad, but odd.
I have not been a regular reader of your blog since you made the brief switch to beliefnet, but one of the things I really wanted to read after I lost David were your posts about losing your husband Michael. I couldn’t blog about my situation–I live in too small a town to put my whole interior self out there–and I was so glad to re-read what you had written about those days and weeks.
I do hope you keep blogging if only once in a while. You are about the only other Catholic widow I know of who lost her husband at a young age. That’s not a distinction anyone would wish to have, I know. But thank you for putting yourself and your thoughts out there.
Oh, LeeAnn, I am so sorry. So very sorry! Thank you for commenting. I must tell you that your comment means more than you know. I will pray for you and for your children.
Never really got to ‘this is it’. Not in the usual way, anyway. Lost uterus, are we allowed to use such words, at 28. To the big C. That was 28 years ago. Ovaries still in place, symptomless ‘change’ post 50.
Survival, staying alive for my two young children, 5 & 8, was overriding concern. Seemed more than a fair trade, my uterus for my life. All other issues, feelings and concerns pale.
Menopausal? No problem. Now my grandchildren, 19mo & 4 yrs, are my great joy. The transition, the change is complete. I’ve made it to the other side of 50 and I’m loving it.
As a male reader I’m not fit to weigh in on the present topic. But I would like to say: please keep blogging. Your “voice”, however virtual, is both welcomed and missed. =)
Joining in the prayers for LeeAnn and her family at this difficult time.
Amy–glad to see you blogging again! :)
First…prayers to LeeAnn. Your comment brought me instantly to a place in my life, the same place you are now, that was 14 years ago. I remember 1 month after my husband died vividly. I reached out so I wouldn’t implode. May you be provided with all the strength and comfort you need.
Now….Catholic Menopausebloggers!
I’m in. Seriously.
Please keep writing the blog whenever you feel the tug.
Too funny! The funny part, that is. The real stuff, well, that’s just real, and important for us, too. Thanks for your honesty and the risk to blog it. Many many more of us are touched by it than the random wacko who is just “touched.”
Can a Catholic peri-menopausal Kindergarten Mom occasional blogger lend support?
Just keep doing it, please. We’re patient. I’m not a fan of the Catholic mommy blogs–nothing wrong with them, just not a fan. Yours is not that and is so much more. I’m late 40s with a youngest who is 9, so I’m sympathetic to the club if not quite a qualified member.
Chiming in at 50 with a 6yo, but no menopause in sight.
I’m thinking The Catholic Change of Life might be the right blog title…
Please do keep blogging, at whatever rate and on whatever topics you find worthwhile. The fact that you veer away from some topics because no one’s got your back might just be an indicator that it’s time to let others duke it out on those issues; perhaps your heart (and wisdom, and words) are shifting to other things. It would make sense, given all the other shifts in your life.
Amy, you could blog about grocery shopping and I’d read it. Voices of real sanity are few and far between on the blogoshpere.
I was just thinking the other day about how much I missed you! I was actually missing the good old days when I read two blogs: yours and Danielle Bean, and then I kept up with Rod Dreher over at the Corner.
Times were so simple then, blogosphere-wise.
Oh, Amy. You are such a Catholic Blogoshere pioneer. I’m not even 40 yet, but I’ve already been mistaken for my kids’ grandmother. Ok, it was in China and my 23-year-old step-daughter was with us, but it stung nonetheless.
I went this morning from reading a heart touching part in Jane Austen’s “Mansfield Park” directly to the comments on this thread…and yes I…6’3″ and male… thereupon delivered a 16th of a cup of tears from these now red eyes. Lee Ann, a daily cycler…me…dressed in black and blue gear in a harbor side park will be stopping periodically at the ocean’s edge and praying for you for months to come by name as I do for Amy and the boys and 8 other widows I know of and for Jade who I recently found here too. Intercession is my place in the Body. Offer up each wave of pain for your husband as soon as the wave begins….and that will disarm the wave to an extent but you will have used the pain for good as Christ did. No wasted waves. No wasted waves.
I love this post! And of course, selfishly, want you to keep blogging, I’ve been a long time reader (and I’m glad you’re off Beliefnet…that site is cumbersome to use and makes me nuts).
As for this missing niche? Hooray for you and I’m there too! I’m a Catholic menopausalmom too…but mine came early and I have a three year old (and was in the midst when we adopted him) all the way up to a 21 yr old (nxt wk). These things can surprise you tho, three years and then bam, one, then another year, nothing. GO figure. Many symptoms tho….mostly murderous hormonal swings. Awful stuff. Hot flashes etc etc….
Maybe you’ll ‘get off easy’ on this event, I hope so, for your sake! Sounds like it just might be.
Please keep blogging, you’ve long been one of my fav voices on the web.
It happened at the dentist a couple of weeks ago to me. It happened more when Katie was around – like your stepdaughter. And SHE would get so upset because it was clear, say, at a restaurant, the way they addressed us, that they assumed she was at least little Michael’s mother. I kept telling her she should be flattered – that people thought she looked older, but she never was. She took to saying things like, “Let’s go see MOMMY” particularly loudly if she thought she was in danger of being taken for their mom.
Oh, so six months doesn’t mean I’m all clear? Oh…… They say that sometimes you can predict how it will go by how it went for your own mother, but I have no idea what the answer to that question is. I do feel suspicious of how easy it’s been though.
Menopausal Catholic mommy blogger! Just got the official test back to prove I’m menopausal. Test? Test!?! Well, yeah. While mostly smooth sailing through perimenopause, there was a fling with fibroids that made me so anemic that an IUD was prescribed to get me to the other side without, you know, dying. Made the gospel story about the woman with the years-long blood flow more personal. *cough*
No hot flashes. No wild mood swings. But no more babies.
Now I look meaningfully at my five kids and mutter, “Twenty-five grandchilden… that’s all I ask! If I can have five, YOU can have five!”
They know I’m joking (mostly), so’s all good.
But do keep blogging: a sane and faithful voice crying in the wilderness (ratio et fides, hear! hear!)
Within shouting distance of 51 here (youngest child is 11). It’s nice to commiserate a bit on this topic! Although I’d be surprised if any men were still reading at this point :-)
I have read that you have to go a full year without before you can officially say you’ve experienced menopause. It’s an event rather than a phase. Until that occurs, we’re in perimenopause I guess.
I went through a few months early in summer in which they came like clockwork (every 30 days), then stopped. Nothing since then. So I’m wondering, is this it? Like you, I haven’t had much in terms of hot flashes, night sweats, and all the classic stuff that is supposed to happen. I have noticed some mood swings and a tendency to “go off” on people for relatively minor things (but surely that’s their problem, not mine, right?!)
Oh, and I recently became very weepy at a TV commercial in which a father hands the car keys to his toddler daughter sitting behind the wheel (in the final frame she is a teenager and heading off on her first solo drive). But I’m in the middle of teaching my 16-year-old how to drive, so I ask for a dispensation on that one too.
I’m sure it’s all perfectly normal, right? RIGHT?
Please keep blogging Amy. You’re a mommyblogger for the rest of us!
For those who are symptomatic, may I recommend black cohosh (Remifemin is a controlled dose.) I went through surgical menopause and the hot flashes were constant about two weeks in. Black cohosh was the answer, especially since I couldn’t take hormones due to the reason for the hysterectomy in the first place.
I weaned myself off from it after about four years and have been symptom free.
That is all my medical advice for today!
Please don’t ban me..Crone is my last name. At 52 Almost a year and a half gone by and I bragged to my mom and sisters that I had no hot flashes, night sweats, etc., in other words pretty painless. Careful doing this, I guess I tempted fate…now I know how annoying those hot flashes can be.
BTW, a Crone is a wise woman…the third and last step after maiden and mother. Although I’m afraid the usual definition of crone is too firmly entrenched. :-)
Amy, please, please write whenever you feel inspired.
And add me to your club. Even though I’m turning 51 on Monday and my youngest is ten, not five. I thought I was all through… and then got hit in June, right before an MD appt. (And what’s that eternal question? What was the first date of… ?). But that was the only time in twelve months. And otherwise, very calm.
So … the key things for being your child’s grandparent are gray hair and wrinkles. Which I don’t have yet. Or maybe it’s just gravitas. But I can sympathize with your daughter. I have been mistaken for my dad’s date and my half-sibs’ mother (well, they are my kids’ ages).
Ahh, Amy, as usual. Right on the money. I have actually caught myself hovering over google trying to figure out what phrase might find a catholic menopause mommy blogger type who would reflect on what THIS stage of life is like, what it means, what we should consider. I have loved raising children – and the pastoring of young persons – and with 3 young adults still in the nest I’m figuring out what it means to mother them – but this is really different than what has come before.
I”ve been “over it” for 5 years now, it came a little early. Absolutely NO hotflashes or emotional traumas of menopause for me – age 53, 5 kids. My body is different, yes, it’s harder to lose weight, skin drier. I’m using “stay in” conditioner 2x when I wash my hair now, that seems to fix that problem.
Regarding you and blogging – I’m sure that I’m not the only one that has missed your musings. I suspect that as an introvert, it is all the harder to suffer the slings and arrows that must come when you put yourself out there. It seemed to me, reading you in the past, that the more heated remarks were, the more likely they should be ignored. But that probably doesn’t fix anything. It’s the same in the real world of the church – about 50 percent of the time, the person who has the most to say at Bible Study is the one with personal issues.
You are technically a premenopauseblogger. You are officially “menopause” when it’s all over and you are on the other side of the transition.
I’m 47 with a 3yo. While another child would be a great gift, it would also be a great challenge for health reasons. So we are using NFP and naturally hate it – heavy periods, Skipped periods, long periods, confusing mucus, erratic temperatures, hot flushes. Yuck. I can’t wait until menopause (neither can my husband). It doesn’t help that I’ve been given the senior discount at my grocery store a couple of times. I’d love to hold another baby, but I think I’d like it to be a grandbaby (then that senior discount wouldn’t be so bad).
I just finished my year without anything so I guess I’m through with menopause. It has been a terribly depressing time for me because I’m not married and have no children. Now I will never have children and it’s a hard realization. I also have no nieces or nephews so it’s the end of the family line. Lots of emptiness ahead.
Please keep blogging Amy. I do love your views and your insights.
Hitting 50 in a couple months. Cycles crazy–about every 17 days, or every 60 days–heavy, too. No hot flashes yet–hope they bypass me. Mood swings actually better the last year. But facing the end of this part of my life fills me with great sadness, because I mourn even more the fact that when I was 30-ish and feeling quite overwhelmed with 3 small children, I was surgically sterilized. Felt ok about it for a year, then have regretted it mightily ever since. I know we would have had more children–I should have just taken a break until I didn’t feel so crazy. I know it was seriously wrong and have received absolution for it in the confessional. Struggle with forgiving myself, though, obviously. Haven’t found many women who share this sentiment. At church it seems like I’m surrounded with women my age who did trust God and were very much open to life and still have at least a few children at home. On the other hand I know many friends who permanently altered their reproductive abilities (or their husbands did) and do not seem to regret it. I’m haunted with the thought of the children we WOULD have had.
Even more fun is being Single (as in never married, no, really not ever) Catholic Menopausal and going to your first gynecologist’s appointment because for the first time in *mumblemumblethirty-some* years you’re having “lady troubles” and he tries to figure out a tactful way of asking are you a lesbian after extracting the information that nope, never been pregnant, nope, never used contraception of any kind.
Oh, yeah, that appointment was all *kinds* of fun, lemme tell you!
:-)
Went a full year and thought…ok… guess I’m done with that. A week later, well… you can figure it out.
Bless you LeeAnn.
Please keep at it, at your pace, in your good time. Like others have said, you are a voice of sanity. As a male, I have nothing to offer but virtual support. My wife is approaching post-menopause at 58 and it was a challenge for her and quite long in her case. My role is to be her support and to understand the best I can.
I also offer my prayers for Lee Ann and others separated suddenly from their spouse of child.
Thank you Amy and all of you for your prayers. It means a lot to me to know that we are being lifted up in prayer by the greater body of Christ.
I went through Menopause ten years ago. I’m 50 now. I consider it God’s little gift to me because I wasn’t married then, still am not married. At this point, I’d be surprised if I ever got married. Not ruling it out – just independent minded and introverted and not out looking for it. LOL, Martha. I can relate to your story.
I had a relatively easy time. Some hot flashes, only occasionally bothersome. Hot at night, but not terrible night sweats. I had been taking hormone replacement and just quit that. So far, so good.
Dear Amy,
You are a gift in the blogosphere. So often I turned to your blog to see how you sorted through the topic/crisis of the day. More often than not you would help by getting at the heart of the matter. That is why I hope you will continue to blog. You are like the older Catholic sister I never had.
I turned 46 today and have a 13 month old. I have been asked twice if I am the grandmother. OUCH. My daughter is so afraid of being confused for the mom. She is in her teen years and doesn’t want the wrong label. I am not experiencing any change symptoms, but I am grateful you are having a discussion about it. Thanks!!
Meggan, why are we talking about menopause? Aren’t we still in college???
God bless you! We should start a blogging group of Kindergarten Moms Who Are Old Enough to Be Moms of the Other Kindergarten Moms!
—Love this idea! ;)
Tell me about your situation! Do you have a blog?
Keep blotting. Please. Forty and with a two month old. My mom had a wicked time. I think I was starting just before getting pregnant. Leanne, God be with you. I pray my husbands safety. He’s away in iraq until mid year 2011. Amy, you help me love more my family my husband and my God. Thank you
Thank you. Just for even writing this much. Thank you.
WE THE 40 SOMETHINGS ARE A FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH. We are not alll crafty.. blah blah h schooling mommy bloggers.
I consider you the big sister of mine in Christ. I am 47 and about to adopt. I live in florida and the AC went out tonight. What would a mommy blogger do? blank school ow to fix it?
We are Catholic smart blanks and they had better deal with us. We are older and a hell of a lot smarter and verrrrry educated. NEVER LEAVE. WE NEED A BIG SIS. I can’t raid your closet but I am glad you are here and admire your courage.
What the hell…. Tune back to my blahg I m going to have some serious cool stuff on there. ok. .sorry for the plug but welll you are one person I would buy dinner for. :)
I think I need to do the dishes now.. tee hee.
Congratulations on the adoption!
Lee Ann, I’m so sorry for your loss.
Amy, my mother had a similar experience to yours. Hardly any menopausal symptoms. I’m hoping my experience will be the same way. Please keep blogging!
I’m almost 46, hit the one-year mark last year, and have a first-grader: can I be in the club? And I will gladly lend anyone my hot flashes if they think they need some.
I have a friend whose little girls are the same age as my youngest child. When she had another baby, the girls came over to play, and her mother brought them. This woman who looked very like me — same mid-forties age, same longish hair, same grungy mommy clothes — came to my door, children’s hands in hers, and said, “Hi, I’m Meemaw.”
And I thought: People my age are not named Meemaw.
But maybe I’m just in denial.
Prayers for you, LeeAnn.
Amy, I’d like to think that perhaps your easy transition to menopause is a little gift from the heavens since you’ve already experienced so much pain from your husband’s death.
For those experiencing heavy cycles due to approaching menopause, I recommend the Novasure procedure. It doesn’t remove fertility but it does reduce it, so if that is a faith issue for you, discuss it with your pastor. My priest looked over the material and gave it his blessing because of my medical history and age. It is a quick procedure that is covered by insurance — 97 percent of women have much easier cycles afterward.
Amy,
Please don’t stop writing.
I enjoy your books immensely, especially “Here Now”.
My kids really enjoy “Loyola Kids book of Saints”.
Carlos
+ First off, prayers and sympathies to Lee Ann. And to Bill B., I too love to pray by the shore… I will keep your “wave upon wave” imagery with me.
Amy, tho’ a reader of yours for some time (we actually met in Atlanta at the first CNMC), I was sent here to read this post by my SQPN pal, and fellow cohort in midlife-ism, Maria.
I am in the 50 club and unlike your experience thus far, I suffer with hurricane hormones, but for the grace of God….it has been a cause for some angst, but also for a renewed sense of humor.
We are a funny lot at this age…all shapes and sizes and circumstances. I meet several people who tell me I couldn’t possibly have grown children or be that old, and I have several 50yo friends, who like you still have the joy of little hands to hold.
What surprises me most about this age is not so much the hormonal craziness, but how starved the folks younger than we are need mentoring. Not only that, blogs like yours (and others) help people integrate faith and life. So vital in our world today. I hear that coming out in some of the comments above. That older “sistering” in the faith…
A blog for, with, and by menopausal women will certainly have a younger following that is watching and learning.
Thanks for your post.
I went through surgical menopause sometime in my 30s. (I could go look it up, but somehow it doesn’t seem that important to remember exactly when.) I have used hormone replacement therapy now and again since them, but even now, many years later, I have hot flashes and all the rest. I think my mother had hot flashes until she was 80 (not really, but almost), so I had better just plan on them forever more.
Almost 53 with an 8 year old. Yes I was 50 year old with a kindergartener.
I so relate to the title: “Kindergarten Moms Who Are Old Enough to Be Moms of the Other Kindergarten Moms!”
“Witch Hair.” rings true too.
I am sixty and went through menopause about age 50. The last couple of years I kept taking pregnancy tests, thinking the lack of the period must mean I was pregnant; after all women in their fifties had become pregnant before. I was always disappointed when they were negative. Even now I have trouble accepting that I can never do that again. I’d like to try a waterbirth. I want to nurse a baby again. I really envy pregnant women. My body feels OK…why can’t I do that? I read that the evolutionary sociologists say that having the protection of two women, a mother and a grandmother, is of survival value to a baby, and that comforts me some. But I don’t have a really close relationship with any of my eight grandchildren, who don’t live nearby. I still work, have to work, paying off debts and a mortgage, so don’t have enough free energy for devoted grandmotherhood. I can’t move near to where they are.
I was a grandmother at 41, when I still could have had more children of my own, and still had a child under two, so that mistake never bothered me. My grandchildren range in age from 2 months to 19. I hope to be a great grandmother by the time I am 70.
I really didn’t have much trouble with the physical symptoms of menopause. I did have some hot flashes. I took hormones for about two years, used some of the soy products for a short while after that. As for mood swings, I have always had those; I didn’t notice that it was more so at that time.
My main issue now is whether I can stay healthy enough to have some time to enjoy after I finally retire from my boring bureaucrat job at the age of 68.
Susan Peterson
I’m in … not quite menopausal, but 50 next month with a four year old.
LeeAnn, praying here too. I’ll make a point of praying for you in the mornings, when it is the middle of the night on your side of the pond. The Body of Christ never sleeps.
I’m 55 and it has been 9 months since my last. The symptom that bothers me the most is the irregular heartbeat – I’m sorry you have it too, but not sorry to know someone else has it. It has been beating this way for 9 months without a break, but I have started taking COenzme Q10, and it is somewhat better.
I need a glass of Pinot Wha? because this is the best and richest and most tectured thread of the Catholic year on the net and it all began with: “Oh, what the hell”.
Amy-
I am a Catholic Menopausal blogger, about to turn 50, although you wouldn’t know it based on my blog name- “chick” that is. I became Catholic and then 6 months later found my husband diagnosed with brain cancer- and to top it all off, my menopausal symptoms started right about that time, too. I’m not complaining about all of that, though, because my husband is doing fairly well. The real challenge is when my pubescent (is that a word?) 14 year old daughter and I get into it- watch out nuclear explosion! The males in the family have to leave the room to get away from the fallout.
I enjoy your writing and hope you continue.
Cheers!
Chick B
Amy,
Great to see you blogging again! Prayers for LeeAnn
I turned 50 in August and am most supportive of my women friends who are going through the hurricane hormones. As for 50, I feel that I’m just hitting my stride, and receive daily visitors through your link to my blog.
God Bless and welcome back. Yours is such a needed voice.
Gerry Nadal
Amy,
Yours was one of the first blogs I’d read. I consider you (in that odd Internet-ly way) as a friend I haven’t met. Please don’t stop blogging, even if only quarterly.
Your work, and Michael’s, has deepened my appreciation of the faith so much. It’s because of Michael’s short-lived podcast that I started praying the Office of Readings. I press your books on people frequently, and have many that I reread, so it’s not as if I won’t get my “Amy fix” if you quit blogging, but it will still be a loss.
I’d love to be a menopause blogger, but it is not yet to be. Recently had all the blood tests, and apparently I’m just irritable and crazy because I’m irritable and crazy, not because any organ systems are going into retirement. I think there are a lot of sneaking-up-on-50 women making “new media.”
I’m in- perimenopausal, 48 with a four year old- almost 49 with a five year old. So nice to know there are so many of us! I actually met two other such mums in a local park one day and we stood and chatted and chatted for quite a long while- they also had a big gap between their older and younger children.
WARNING. This is meant as a joke, even though it’s true:
Women who are experiencing hot flashes, where the room temperature is 72 degrees but suddenly feels like it is 115 degrees (with 90% humidity) do not enjoy hearing stories from women who are not experiencing any menopausal symptoms. It can provoke us to rage attacks.
Women who are experiencing hot flashes smile when they hear (or read) other women say their menopause is “almost over.” Good luck with that, sister. My hot flashes/night sweats have been going strong for three years.
We are not sure menopause actually has an end. We think doctors just let us think that, because if we knew it had no end, and we would never get another night’s sleep for the rest of our lives, we would commit an act of violence.
We believe “perimenopause” is a ridiculous word, coined in the last generation to help women who are actually in menopause adjust to the idea.
We recognize being female as spending most of your life wearing some sort of pad — first a diaper, then a menstrual pad, and finally an incontinence pad. You barely get excited about leaving one behind when you get another one. Is it any wonder we have mood swings?
Q: What do you do when a mommy blogger non meno blogger imitates your blog and then gets nasty?
Have you ever had that happen? I have to know.
I am getting legal advice and have warned the blogger woman who has nothing better to do with her time.
Sad how some of them do not like us, those who do not believe like we do.
I love your writing. Please share whenever you can. I am a Catholic menopausal homeschooling mom. Kids are 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, and 20. Two are in college (away), and four are at home, and I am married to a man whose job keeps him away 7 days a week (ugh). I am a brain surgery survivor (1.5 years ago!), and life is so incredibly crazy busy, I don’t know which end is up. But I read all the time. I read your stuff, your late husband’s (God rest his soul), and just about anything I can find time to read. Learning Spanish right now, “just because.” I hoped to be a “real writer” someday, but too busy with LIFE to actually get working! I will just live vicariously through all the online writer friends I know (some I’ve met in person, others I’ll meet in heaven some day, God willing!). THANK YOU and God bless you for all you do.
I am a Catholic, ‘menopaused’, non-blogging grandmother.
I have enjoyed reading this ‘Oh, What The Hell’ post, and have been follwing the long thread of comments with interest.
I want to add my voice, to join the Chorus call of voices praising your gift as blogger and writer.
Pleeeease keep blogging Amy! I’ll be 5-0 in October and I need to share in your wonderful insights of the wonderful world of perimenopausal Catholic mothering. Sounds like there are lots of us out there.