From this vantage

45

This past week I turned Forty-six.

I have given up fighting; wanting to lie about my age or feeling bad about it, or at least I'm trying too. I think I look pretty damn good. I fight the good fight; I work out and use moisturizer, dye my hair for those grays. But I got a phone call yesterday that in one breath was the ending and yet a beginning.

I'm post menopausal. No more eggs dropping. No more periods. I cannot get pregnant. No more worries about birth control. I'm elated. I feel free. No more cramps. No more emotional highs and lows. I feel a sense of wonder come over me and it feels me up for quite some time.

I text my sister first. She is the first person I think of telling. She is younger than me and has been fighting early menopause for years and me I'm just kicking along with regularity until last year. She and others keep asking me if I'm having hot flashes. When I pause to think about it... They tell me "If you have to think about it you aren't." So after a pregnancy scare late last year and then no period since then. I thought it was time to head to the gynecologist. The gynecologist says that the blood tests will tell me if I'm Peri-menopausal. So to have them come back and say I'm post was a bit of a shocker.

Me: Got Blood tests back I'm post menopausal.. Cannot get pregnant and done with periods! Kind of excited! Lol. 

Sister: Well that is good. So what does Nick say about that?

Me: Just found out. I'll let you know. But the other day he made a comment about my age and I said...I'm pretty hot like jlo and the same age... and her boyfriend is 28 I may trade you n for a younger guy. Derek laughed his ass off and said yep all my friends want her bad.

Sister: Funny! It'll be good to keep him on his toes!

Nick was the second person I told. I must admit I was kind of worried about it. It is a game changer between us. I cannot have children any longer. He is young and sometimes wants them and so now yes, I'm worried. He blushed, but was kind of relieved. We were both embarrassed about the whole conversation. Then he was sweet trying to comfort me, when I gave in a bit to my fear and said it out loud. "It makes me feel old."

But here is the thing.. I feel damn good. For the most part (aches and pains here and there) but  emotionally, I have not felt so all around happy in years. And lying there with my feet up in the stirrups last week, the doctor says it all looks good and healthy. My blood tests all come back great. I feel great. I have a sex drive. I'm laughing and happy all the time. My boyfriend likes me and he is twelve years younger and cute as fuck. 

So this may say I'm getting older but if this is menopause. I kind of like it. It's like being set free. Free from all the bullshit of youth.

Cards against humanity.

On a Sunday afternoon we make the drive through our quaint little towns into the countryside.  For dinner with our friends and tonight it is a traditional Hawaiian meal. Noodles and slow roasted Pork Butt. We drink beers and eat and chat over dinner. Nick is having O'Doul's though. As we finish dinner, the jalapeno poppers are done on the barbeque and they are served as dessert as we sit back down at the table  to play this new card game.

Me, Nick, Kelly, Tom, Rhonda and Jim. It is wrong in so many ways but so damn funny!

What is Cards Against Humanity?

Unlike most of the party games you've played before, Cards Against Humanity is as despicable and awkward as you and your friends.
The game is simple. Each round, one player asks a question from a Black Card, and everyone else answers with their funniest White Card.

Bluffing

It is Monday March 17th, Saint Patrick's Day. We stir in the early morning gray light, as we lay next to each other in the warm bed. Yet I'm cold. I stir a bit further and realize that all the covers are gone, sinking to the floor on the other side of the bed. He may or may not be guilty of hogging them. The alarm on his phone rings and the lack of covers, the irritating ring of his alarm reverberating in my head make me grouse and grumble in an unfriendly way. I'm a day person. I like day. I like to begin my day at day. Not in the early morning and sure as hell, not in the dark of morning. I don't like to be up past midnight and I love to be woke by the sun lightening the room in gradual shades.

Alas, today Nicolas is off to work at Central Nursery in Ellensburg. He gets up early to have some quiet time, a cup of coffee and peruse the internet. I linger in the warm bed, planning to ride my bike to Roslyn Fitness and start working out again this week. Committing to doing it today. I wake again an hour later and it is seven, the house is still and quiet I can sense that Nick has left. I get out of bed and put my slippers on and confirm he is no longer there and head back to the bathroom thinking I still have plenty of time to linger and enjoy the morning and the house to myself before I change clothes and head to circuit training. I ponder the puddles of water that are laying below my feet in the bathroom and wonder why, but still in the throes of sleep the thought skitters away.

Returning to the kitchen I push the switch on the Krups water machine... then I catch a glimpse of the trees across the street. They are covered in white fur."What the hell," I say out loud in the silent house and move across the room to look out the window. The ground, the trees, the air is covered in snow. I take a step back from the window as a strong breeze swirls and streams snow past me on the porch. Shivering in response, as if I was outside in it feeling it rush against me. Glancing down at the 'kids' sitting on the table near the window. Their green heads peer out of the dirt, they are safe and warm inside the house. Nicolas has started gardening and the brussel sprouts, basil and other seedlings are nestled safely inside the house in their pots just like me.

Spring was a bluff, winter is back.

I turn away from the whiteout and pick up my new book from the kitchen island, by my favorite author titled "The all you can dream buffet," and head back down the hall and crawl back into bed with it. Winter has called my bluff. I will start working out again on Wednesday. I cannot ride my bike in the snow. My new goal is to finish this book this morning in the warmth of my bed, or make it the finish linger over a cup of hot tea in my house. The book is set in the Northwest, and as a Washingtonian born and bred I'm thrilled to be in Oregon this morning amid the lavender fields and getting to know a group of strong creative woman who also blog.

Random

The snow is receding and has the consistency of a snow cone when lifted and moved with a shovel. We are itching to get outside and in the yard and impatience has us moving the snow out of the way. Spring is rushing in with its clear skies and cold shadows. I know it's spring when I can sit at my stoop and gaze at the retreat of winter. The wood of my porch steps are dry against my pajama bottoms and my cup of tea is warming my hands as I start my morning by sitting on my stoop, this cannot be done in Winter for many reasons. So in my mind when I'm able to move to this spot, spring has come.

I watched a movie last night the title escapes me at the moment and I don't want to go look it up on the roku right now, but the premise of it was that he only had a very short time to live. He was young and about to be married and instead of facing treatment he bought a motorcycle and headed west. West through Canada. I loved the moments when random things happened to him. These random moments and meetings with people gave him the answers to what he was looking for and the choices he needed to make for himself.

What am I trying to get at here? Well...(that is a deep subject). Things happen for a reason and just by random coincidence and living through the choices that we make sometimes we find the answers in the simplest of random moments.

Did that make sense? Sometimes I have a hard time formulating what it is I want to say, what is in my head and getting it to the written word.

Nicolas and I broke up for three and a half months. It was something neither of us wanted to have happen and maybe that is why we have recovered and tried again with much success. It is just so much easier this time. But in the time back together I have reflected on many random moments that have led us to this time to try again. Moments as far back as 2007.


 Best part of this Spring day. Having Nick walk by my window as he worked in the yard while I worked. I sure missed that, the last part of this past summer. The way he strolls down the sidewalk twinkling eyes covered in shades, twists at the waist and flashes me a grin as he walks by the window.

"One Week" I went and looked up the title.

Where did the time go?

Crikey it is 3 months past the last post. Where in the hell did the time go?


Christmas, attended a Seahawk's Game, New Years, The Superbowl, Valentines Day all behind me now. Winter was delayed this year and our snowfall did not arrive until February. After the "long duration snow event" of last weekend I took the photo above of mixed snow and ice ribbons slowly sliding down the stoop to dangle.

Swiftly and easily we have settled in to a happy routine. Easier to share pictures then to write.

The finished sexy boudoir.

Playoffs.

Nicolas pondering Hawks as Superbowl Champions.

 

Oyama Angel Roll.