A Year to Change: Conversations with women on choice, connections, and clarity in midlife

Getting the colonoscopy is on my “To Do” list for this year.  And yes, I’ve been putting this off longer than the American Cancer Society says I should. 

I’m not Katie Couric, so they’ll be no live streaming video here on this blog.  Also no photos or general whining.  And no vivid word pictures, either.  I’ll just check it off the list when it’s done and note same here.

It’s enough to say that I have now scheduled the colo for about 6 weeks hence.  I’ll be the first appointment of that day at an “endoscopy center” - never to be confused with an outpatient center at The Hospital.  Clearly colonoscopies (sp?) are such a growth industry that they have their own facilities now. 

This is, I suppose, another example of Baby Boomers and their endless contributions to a burgeoning economy as a result of our aging body parts.

And you think that You’re having a hard time managing change?

Click and look

Click on this link to an article in today’s Telegraph about The Big Ballet. What is The Big Ballet? “…a unique Russian dance troupe (average weight 20 stone)”

Yes, there are pictures. Yes, you will envy these women who “aim to show that grace, nimbleness and femininity are not the preserve of stick-thin ballerinas.”

I love them!

A couple of the women who we e’mailed yesterday about this site have asked if they can track their own progress in various areas on this site.  Here’s how:  make your entry as a new Comment to this post on the topic and schedule of your choosing.  Just remember, it will live on the Internet for the world to see!

I’ll start:  Weight change was not a particular goal for me this year, but getting (and staying) Healthier IS a particular goal for me.  I track my weight weekly, so I can tell you that for the past 3 weeks, I have been stable.  No change up or down.  I’ll take that!

I must report that in my travels through my neighborhood on foot today, I saw blooming crocuses.  Croci?  3 of them, and they were brilliant yellow through the snow. 

This causes me to note the progress of the year through winter and now headed toward spring and to relate that to my own “progress against goal.”  I feel like I’ve made some progress, despite my continued failure at quitting smoking.  A number of my health-related “to do’s” are now “done” and I’m closing in on the last few. 

My vainglorious return to the gym now feels like habituated behaviour and my eating is under control (which means that my weight is not going up and - some weeks - actually goes down a little).  Still, both eating and exercise are battles that are never really won and done, are they?  Always a work in progress, I guess.

Well, I’ve started on the “body work”. 

Bone density scan - done.  All ok.

Abdominal ultrasound - done.  All ok.  I do not appear to be apt to “go” from the same hereditary malady that killed my father.

Gym - back on track.  At least for now.  I try to go every day and I won’t go with more than one day “off”.  And on the off day - like yesterday - I seriously walked.

Cardiologist follow-up appointment - done.  With an EKG classified as “norma”. Normally not a word I enjoy, but I’ll take “normal” to describe my EKG.

Blood work to determine exactly how elevated my cholesterol is and the dreaded colonoscopy to go!

And look below - I’ve figured out how to put my signature in!

Kerch -

A tip o’the hat to Merlin for this:

Beauty & Simplicity

The Hipster PDA (Parietal Disgorgement Aid) is a fully extensible system for coordinating incoming and outgoing data for any aspect of your life and work. It scales brilliantly, degrades gracefully, supports optional categories and “beaming,” and is configurable to an unlimited number of options. Best of all, the Hipster PDA fits into your hip pocket and costs practically nothing to purchase and maintain. Let’s make one together.

Building your first Hipster PDA

1. get a bunch of 3″x5″ file cards (here’s 500 for around 3 bucks)
2. clip them together with a binder clip
3. there is no step 3

Settings & Preferences

For you hotrods who like to tweak your equipment, I’ll note a few mods you might make to the basic configuration.

• Consider picking up some different kinds of cards—different colors, lined and unlined.
• Personally, I like the really small binder clips and a stack of 12 or fewer cards; experiment for the combination that suits you
• Try using a single different-colored card as a visual separator between used and fresh cards in your stack (helps you from accidentally giving someone an old, written-on note)
• Buy yourself a Fisher Space Pen. I’ll post more on this later (since I’m a bit obsessed with them), but The Fisher Bullet model is tiny, sturdy, and surprisingly comfortable to use. And, thanks to its famous nitrogen-forced ink well technology, the Space Pen writes upside down, underwater, and—yes I’ve tested it— through a pat of rich, creamery butter. It’s the perfect stylus for your new Hipster PDA.

Point and click your way to his blog - it will change your life!

http://www.43folders.com/2004/09/03/introducing-the-hipster-pda/

…and can one really teach an old dog new tricks?  Kerch has been trying to get me to learn how to actually insert my own signature into these posts.  Several e-mails have been involved.  For reasons that are not clear to me, I am unable to do this.  This is especially perplexing because I really am generally OK with computer skills.  Her latest e-mail to me on this topic says:

 ”i just uploaded your signature into a place so you can see it when you are writting in the blog..
there’s a tab.. view all.
and then click on something.. see what happens.”

 To which I can only say….What tab?

Kerch is Very Good at this.  She even writes code!

What do you do when stumbling over something that is so obvious to someone else, and then you feel so incredibly stupid when you can’t do it?

This happened to me when I tried to learn to knit.  Decades ago, my mother tried to teach me.  “How To” articles from Woman’s Day/Family Circle magazines were also involved.  Still, I never learned to knit.  Crocheting, on the other hand, was something that I could always do - and I still do.  But I gave up attempting to knit 35 years ago.

About 5 years ago, I took a pottery class.  I had always wanted to be able to work on a potters wheel and make my own pottery.  I tried - I really did.  Like knitting, I have no aptitude or affinity for making pottery.  None.

I really do know how to do a lot of things, and I have been generally successful in learning new skills.  Still, the failures are always “front of mind”, aren’t they?

The failures make better stories.

What’s next to conquer? Change requires risk-taking, and a willingness to fail, to look foolish if necessary.  To be covered in potter’s dust and have no bowl to show for it.

(If you see my actual signature here, it’s because Kerch put it here. Thanks!)
 

I had a philosophy professor who always said that paralyzing winter weather - extreme cold and snow and ice and “wintry mixes” - were God’s way of telling us to be still.

We’ve been “still” here now for almost 2 weeks.  And I think I like it. Change requires periods of stillness, reflection, quiet….don’t you think so?

Otherwise, we’re just careening headlong from crisis to crisis, stimulus to stimulus, shiny object to shiny object. And that’s not purposeful, that’s random and reactive.  Agreed?

My “regular” daily 2Do list 24 items on it.  Some of those items rotate through, but there are never less than 24 “have-to’s” that I try to do every day.  A lot of days a lot of those things don’t get done because of Job 1.

What is Job 1?  It’s the thing that you have to do on any given day that probably defines your day, whether you like it or not.  Whether it’s on your regular 2Do list or not.  Whether it’s on your calendar or not.

But your calendar is the first place to look. 

If it’s Tuesday and you have to be at your office all day, then working is your Job 1 for Tuesday.  If it’s Tuesday and you’ll only be at the office in the morning because you have to take your mother to the doctor’s for her one-year cancer follow-up appointment, then I’m figuring that being a Daughter is Job 1 for that Tuesday.

What’s important is that you acknowledge what is Job 1 for any given day.  Some days, you get to pick what is your own Job 1, since there is nothing in your life (or someone else’s life!) that has pre-determined it for you.

I call this “Today’s Opportunity”. 

That 24-item 2Do list I started by talking about begins with a question:  “What are Today’s Opportunities?”.  I ask myself this question early in the morning - just about the time I’m determining the Job 1 for the day.  Sometimes Today’s Opportunities and Job 1 go hand in hand. 

When Kerch comes with me to my annual mammogram (which is very stressful for me), we get to spend time with together in an appointment that neither of us cance..  That’s an opportunity.  And, of course, the mammo would be Job 1 for that day.

Sometimes “Today’s Opportunities” are not as obvious as a calendar item.  In which case, you have the best opportunity of all - to choose for yourself.

Choose early in the day - then you’ll have focus. You’ll be using your time more purposefully and not fall down the rabbit hole of Law and Order  and ER reruns on TNT.  Unless, of course, the opportunity to spend the day watching a Law and Order marathon is your choice.  Hell, you don’t even have to iron or knit at the same time - just watch Jerry!

–Leslie