Cooking Again -Daughter Home from College

I use to really enjoying cooking and trying new recipes, but since I now live alone, I don't cook so much anymore. I do love good food though. Since my daughter has been out here visiting I have been cooking more. I guess that is just what mothers do when their children are around. My daughter is 23 years old so maybe she should be cooking for me, but that is not how it normally works I guess. Besides she loves it when I cook and when we are able to try out new things. Just maybe I will keep it up once she is gone back to college.

Facebook - what does it mean to you?

I was introduced to facebook about three years ago, but I was not to keen on the social networks. I am still not very fond of Myspace, and that probably is because there is a very young crowd there.

It is just in the last year that I decided to complete my profile on facebook and start to connect with others. I must say that I have really enjoyed it. I have reconnected with old friends from college and high school and it has been fun. Catching up with what everyone has been doing over the years. Seeing their children now all grown-up and going on with their lives. It has been a great deal of fun for me.

It is so easy to lose touch with old friends, and most often you never reconnect, but facebook has been that easy place to reconnect. I believe that I will probably stay connected with most of these old friends at this point. I must warn you though, it is addictive, or it can be.

Sighting - Jermaine Jackson and Ray J

Thought I would go to the mall to see if I could get a last minute deal on something wonderful. I did, but it was not what I expected. I ended up buying something for my skin. The mall was really crowded today as you would expect. Even though it has been reported that the stores were not as full today as in the past years. Maybe they were not talking about the one in Woodland Hills. They had a great deal of sales of course, but I was looking for that one thing that just jumped out at me and was such a great price. I didn't see anything like that. I am trying to gussy up my fashion accessories, and was really looking for things like, jewelry, scarves, hats, etc. Unfortunately, I didn't see anything that was screaming to go home with me.

I did see Jermaine Jackson and his wife standing in line around the Coffee Bean kiosk. He didn't see me at first but she was looking directly at me. I thought of taking out my cell phone and taking a picture, but decided against it, and just moved on through the food court. I saw him again as I was walking toward the upward escalator and he and his wife were coming down. This time he was looking right at me through his aviator glasses and I waved at him and he waved back and flashed that beautiful Jackson smile.

Jermaine is my least favorite of the Jackson's but it was good to see him out and about. If I had seen him 25 years ago, I would have been spellbound, but I guess from being older as well as living in Los Angeles, right around the corner from the Jackson compound, I am not star struck. I see celebrities all of the time and realize that they are just like you and I.
I am always asked if I ever get their autographs, but I don't because when I see them they are usually with their families and I am really respectful of their privacy and their family time. I usually always speak to them though, and they always respond in a friendly manner. That is enough for me.

Since my daughter was with me she got the thrill, even though she knows nothing about growing up with the Jackson 5, but she also saw Ray J, who is in her generation, pass right by her while he was of course talking on the cell phone. I think that we both spotted him at the same time.

I live in San Fernando Valley where a great deal of celebrities live, so I see them all of the time, and it is always good to see them doing their thing.

Why Do We Allow the Media to Manipulate?

It amazes me how we hold others to standards that we are not even able to live up to, especially those people whose lives are in the spotlight. I know in many ways we are supporting the careers of many of these people but does it also give us the right to tear them down?
We are supporting their work, their gifts, and their talents. Yes we want to know more about them as people, but when we find out that they are flawed we treat them like they have the plague, and that is not fair at all. Hell we are all flawed, some of us more so than others. I guess the old adage still applies that misery loves company, even when it is someone that we don't really know. I think part of it is that these people's lives are always plastered in the media so we feel that we know them, but we don't, there is always more to them whether good or bad that is not in the media. There is often more to those that we are closest too than we know. I have friends that have passed on that I am still finding out things about.

We forget that they are still people with the same feelings, emotions, hang-ups, and flaws as all of us. They have families, bad days, disappointments, and tragedies in their lives just like the rest of us and they deal with these things just as we do. We have the tendency to see them as bigger than life and what we consider role models, but when we see their flaws we immediately want to dismiss them.
Remember as a kid when you could not imagine your first grade teacher going to the bathroom. I do. The thought of my beautiful teacher, that commanded respect and attention in the classroom, and always knew the right thing to do for us as students and small children, could possible be sitting on the toilet. Right, too much to imagine, huh. There was also a time in your life when you could not imagine your own mother and father having sex.
My point is that we put people on pedestals because of what they bring to our lives, and yes there are some build their own pedastal, but those people fall off their self-made pedestal faster than others.
Then we grow up and realize that that teacher is just a person with bodily functions like the rest of us, that experiences that same things that we do, and we let those fantasies go. Well it is time to let those fantasies go when it come to public figures.
It is great for your children to look up to some of these people, but merely as a figure that has made some accomplishments that they too want to make, or as a person that has realized their dream regardless of the many obstacles or not; but not as a god.

Most will tell you that there are no overnight successes. There was a great deal of hard work and anguish that went into realizing their dream long before we ever knew they existed. When you really look into the past experiences of our celebrities, many slept in cars, a friends couch, lived on roman noodles or soup, that is because they never gave up and that is what you want your children to learn, to never give up on your dreams.
It is time for us to back off and not allow the media to control us. We need to give the same respect to others that we would want to receive. It has to be hard enough to have your life plastered in the media for everyone to see and judge.

Your Adult Children

It is a great feeling to see your kids grow into adults and make good decisions for their life. For a great deal of parents that is not the case and have to constantly worry about their children and their choices. Some of these situations are more traumatic than others. My daughter is not a perfect child, but she has definitely been a good one. One would like to think it is due to good parenting, and most often it is, but there are times when one is parented well and still make bad decisions. Decisions that potentially devastate their lives and rob them of their youth.

When you do have a child that turns out healthy and emotionally stable then you are truly blessed as a parent. It is definitely the hardest job that I ever had, but it has been the most rewarding one.
My daughter is about to graduate from college and for that accomplishment I am grateful. During the time of her college days, that are not quite over, she still made me proud. No the grades were not always her absolute best and there were trying times with her walking the line in making decisions for her life. I also remember those times and they are probably the hardest that I ever had to go through. Those are the years when you are growing into your own and those growing pains can be debilitating. You are faced with so many roads to take and you just don't know which one is right for you. I believe that is mostly because you don't know yourself well enough to know what it is you want and that is frustrating in its own right. Through it all she continues to surprise me and make me proud.

My daughter is now a woman and that is hard for a mother, knowing that your influence on your child is not as strong as it once was. And then you are surprised, because you realize that your voice is now in their head.

The Patch - Improved Quality of Life

I realize that menopause and often times major surgery as a hysterectomy of some degree is a definite turning point in a women's life. As much as I don't like or trust FDA approved anything, especially drugs and even food, I realize now that the quality of my life takes priority. This is why I decided to take the estrogen patch. I chose the patch mostly because of what my doctor didn't say.

We know that there are various ways for a woman to take estrogen, orally, in patch form, suppositories and even creams. The last two I thought would be too much trouble, and I figured that the pill would be just easier, but when my doctor explained to me that the pill would be fine provided I have never had any problems with my liver, I immediately felt that interaction with my liver should be something to avoid. This is why I opted for the patch. I realize that once you damage your liver there is really no turning back. I also realized that I am not going to have to take hormone replacement forever, probably just for 2-4 years.

For now, it has definitely improved my quality of life and for that I am grateful. I now realize that it is not always smart to fight things without personal experience. That doesn't mean that you need personal experience with everything, but I do realize that there are things you just need to experience for yourself.
I can now be the poster child for this estrogen patch.

Now it is just a matter of my continual physical recovery from the surgery itself. I have been told that it takes a great deal longer for the internal scars to heal than those on the outside. So I will do as I am told and take it easy by listening to my body and adjusting things in my life accordingly. I want to have a full recovery and I expect a full recovery. As hard headed as I am, I have been heeding the advice of my doctor as well as those who has had this surgery before me.

Can you sho' me the drugs!

Well that is exactly where I am three weeks after my surgery. I have been able to handle being here alone, merely moving from the bed, to the bathroom, and finally to the sofa. The lost of appetite, phantom cycle, and the daily misery has all been topped off with not being able to sleep more than two hours at a time. Often times it is 20-30 minutes at any given time. So this means that my body is not getting the rest it needs to heal, but in spite of that my doctor says that I am healing well.

Exactly three weeks after my surgery, the lack of hormones took a turn for the worst. The night before I had the worst night sweats ever. Waking up twice drenched in sweat. This was absolutely more than I was willing to deal with. So I already knew that it was not going to be a good day. Well I was right. I started to feel even more miserable than normal, and felt as though I was falling into a depression. I am just laying on the sofa fighting back tears that want to flow for no apparent reason. Starting to really regret even having this surgery. Asking myself, what have I done to my body? What have I done to my life? Will I ever be the same again? Then there were thoughts of my just wanting to lay there and die. No there were not any suicidal thoughts, but I just wanted it to end, to stop. Then the tears came at full force, and there was no control.
I called my friend in Chicago, who was here to care for me immediately after surgery, and her compassion was unbelievable. She just allowed me to cry, and eventually I stopped and was able to tell her what I was feeling and how bad it had been all day. Then I got a returned call from my doctor, who had just gotten out of surgery at a nearby hospital. She apologizes for not calling me earlier in the day and brought me a prescription for hormone replacement therapy to my house on her way home. I decided the patch would probably be better for me.

Now I was really trying to avoid having to take any type of hormone replacement because of all that has been implicated about these synthetic hormones, but I knew that I was in a place where I needed to do something and I could not do this on my own.