My Book Is Now Available!

So excited to announce the availability of my new book!

One of my last posts was about all of the nonsense that 2020 had brought into my family’s life…including covid… then there was the terror of almost being evacuated during fire season….oh, and the story of my finding my birth mom (who promptly dissed me).

But now…. finally… my passion project has been delivered! I’m sure my parents are up in heaven, smiling with pride!

Would love to hear your feedback!

Book description:

Most people will be a caregiver or care receiver in their lifetime. What will that experience look like for you?

Caring For Mom and Other Loved Souls tells of one daughter’s journey as a caregiver for her elderly mother, recounting both the “blessings” and the “stressings” that she, her husband, and two young sons encountered while caregiving in their home. Along with the author’s personal story, she has woven in over a dozen other caregivers’ insights, including those having lost their loved ones to Alzheimer’s disease.

It highlights the challenges—and many benefits—of multigenerational living (aka “sandwiched caregiving”), and discusses the importance of managing both caregiver stress and the seemingly endless feelings of caregiver guilt. The author does not shy away from the mistakes she made during her own caregiving journey—nor her need for help and support to cope with the loss of her mom as well as the loss of her longtime caregiving role.

While the book may leave a reader teary-eyed by its raw emotion (often presented via the actual journal entries and emails written at the time), it also shares the humor and lighthearted stories more typically found behind the public curtain of caregiving.

If you have been or currently are a caregiver you will likely relate to the author’s and “other loved souls’” journeys—and the book’s honest and heartfelt narrative should prompt you to laugh, cry, and reflect on your own precious caregiving moments.

And while everyone’s experiences will be different, the author found many common threads during her interviews with other caregivers. Those are represented and shared as caregiving “truths” and philosophies that will help guide anyone becoming a caregiver in the future. A few examples are: knowing and accepting that every caregiver will be faced with “unable to do” moments and the need to plan for those. Also, as a caregiver, adjusting your perspective to match the care receiver’s. So often as caregivers, people react to everyday situations based on their wants and needs, versus those of the person they are caring for.

Caring For Mom and Other Loved Souls is not a handbook for daily caregiving tasks. Instead, it provides the reader with helpful and inspirational guidance—and practical advice—centered on the mental and emotional struggles of caring for a loved one, losing them, and surviving their loss. It also underscores the importance of family and shines a light on what caregivers are truly capable of doing in the name of love.

Please help out a first-time author!

Order my book and if you feel so inclined, please leave a nice comment…would very much appreciate it.

Men (o) Pause – the real story

Linguistics experts will provide one explanation relating to the origins of the word, “menopause”. Their root analysis will have to do with the “end of fertility in a woman” or something equally simplistic. Those linguistics experts must all be men. There is nothing simplistic about the menopausal experience, and I am 100% convinced that the term, “menopause”, really originated from the root term, “Men Pause”… because that is what they do when confronted with their wife (or significant other’s) symptoms…

What do you think?

menopause_mood_swings_large_mug

I’m sure there are a few men out there who actually do have the capacity to sympathize with the middle-aged women in their lives… perhaps running to turn on the air conditioner or providing a cold glass of water at just the right moment.

My husband wasn’t one of them.

His approach in life is more, “What you don’t acknowledge doesn’t really exist, right?” So I could flash away and he wouldn’t flinch. Ever.

Some of my menopausal friends, though, have husbands who really seem to WANT to help or understand, maybe even engage with them when they are “experiencing symptoms”. But something usually stops them from being successful in their intent, because they PAUSE in their tracks. Is it that they fundamentally don’t know WHAT to do? Or is it something more? Is there something just taboo about a man trying to relate to a female issue involving blood, hormones and sexual reproductive organs?

Or is it as simple as fear. My vote is fear.

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