Beware of Menopausal Woman

Thursday was just one of those days. I definitely had the blues. By the evening I was in a full-blown ready to cry, don’t talk to me, don’t want to do anything meltdown. Why? Who knows—certainly nothing major or tragic happened to me that day, and I feel like a whiner even bringing it up.

You would think I would have been in a good mood; I’d just spent several hours with Beckie including some shopping for plant bargains. But apparently it wasn’t enough. Just a combination of little things added up –my computer was acting up all day Wednesday just when I had a free afternoon to work on a photo project for my parents’ anniversary coming up soon. There were some financial paperwork issues to deal with. A minor family squabble. The Japanese beetles were eating my roses and hollyhocks faster than I could catch the little #@!*. The weeds were taking over my vegetable garden, and it was too darned hot during the day and too mosquito-infested at night to work in it. My son and daughter-in-law asked me to go with them to Disney World—fun, huh? It should be, except I worried I would wind up being the full-time babysitter, plus I didn’t think I could take a whole week off at that time. Then I felt guilty for turning them down.

I told you I was whining! But probably the worst thing of all was that I ran out of my HRT meds, and my prescription apparently got lost. So for three days I warned my family that they’d better watch out—they were living with a severely estrogen-deprived (depraved??) woman!

Whatever the reason (and I’m betting on the lack of estrogen), Thursday night was a bust, and I couldn’t even bring myself to reading blogs. That tells you how bad things were!

I tried various forms of therapy Thursday night to get over it. Sleep didn’t come, so I finally started going through the family pictures for my project. This is one of my favorite childhood pictures of my Dad reading me a story.

I tried my favorite form of therapy. . . chocolate.

These Hershey’s dark chocolate nuggets with truffle filling are to die for! Each piece has only 50 calories, but of course, my mood required a several-hundred-calorie dose. Finally, I thought sleep might come, so I watched an old episode of “Everybody Loves Raymond” and finally drifted off to sleep.

Friday morning was a little better; at least I had the desire once again to read some blogs, and that always cheers me up. I went outside with my coffee and found the hated Japanese beetles. Not having a jug of soapy water handy, I tried an alternate eradication method. Grabbing them and throwing them quickly to the ground, then stomping on the little buggers works quite well, I've discovered. I decided, too, some little accomplishment would help, so I planted a bleeding heart and some coleus that I had purchased the day before.

Beckie and I vowed on Thursday we would buy no more plants this year . . .then amended that to “no more annuals this year.” Ok, that should work, especially since we spent part of our lunch time drooling over the spring bulbs in a new catalog.

While I was planting, a baby toad hopped away from his nearby hiding place. Of course, I didn’t have my camera with me, but he did give me a few words of encouragement, and I felt so much better.

I had my yearly physical scheduled for Friday, as well, and I wasn’t looking forward to that. The doctor didn’t give me a lecture about my weight, thank goodness; I’m sure the extra 10 pounds I’ve put on since last year is just water weight from all the water I’ve been drinking. All in all, I’m in pretty good shape she said.

With a clean bill of health and fresh hormones now flowing through my bloodstream, I was definitely in a better mood. I ran a few errands and bought a chocolate milkshake as a treat for being such a good girl at the doctor’s. (And I wonder where those ten pounds came from!) My final stop was at the bookstore, a favorite shopping haunt, where I purchased a new book.

I don’t buy many gardening books, but this one was featured in our local paper last week and looked very helpful. I’ll write a review of it for you when I’ve finished reading it.

By the time I got home, life was looking much brighter. I reminded myself of the people starving in the world, those whose homes and fields have been flooded out this summer, the soldiers in Iraq, and those who have lost loved ones recently. I scolded myself for letting little things get to me: “Chin up, Rose!”

Thanks for putting up with my pitiful venting.

Life is good once again.