# Throw Back Thursday.....Strawberry Fields...Summer and first jobs all in one......

Here is an old photo of my children in the strawberry fields of Bradford Vermont.  Whenever I see strawberries I think of my first job.  Waking up a five in the morning and being dropped off at the strawberry fields. 

At first you were cold and wet, while you picked basket upon basket of strawberries.  Then you were roasting and sticky.  Row by Row my brother and I and the other strawberry farm workers picked strawberries.  Of course you ate a few along the way.  My daughter has a perfectly filled basket of strawberries.  Although I don't think my knees have ever been the same, having kneeled for hours each morning during strawberry season, I do know that it was a good first job for me.  To be out in the fresh air, working to be able to buy my school clothes.  I learned the value of hard work and money.  And really there was no crazy office politics out there in the strawberry fields it was just you and a row of berries. 

It was fun to bring my children to this beautiful spot, and just remember being young and what summers were like in Vermont.  This year when July rolled around I went out and got strawberries and made all my favorite strawberry desserts. 

Strawberry Pie.....Strawberry Shortcake........and Scone's with fresh Strawberry Jam.  My neighbor actually made the jam and gave it to me. I also had a lot of Strawberry jam and peanut butter sandwiches at work this summer.  The Jam was just so good!

I have to say though.  There is nothing better than Strawberries picked fresh from the Strawberry patch!

Have a happy Thursday!

G.G.

# Throw Back Thursday....School photo's.....

Looking through the old photo's today here I am in Kindergarten.  Can't say I remember much about kindergarten, perhaps the best part was the naps... I'm not sure our kids get to take naps...

Here is my daughter in Kindergarten.  It's so cute we have almost the same length hair, her bangs are much better than mine.  She totally got her father's chin.

Here I am in 1st Grade.  I have to say I look to young to be in school.  I should just be home playing still. I think we got three recesses.  Poor kids these day they are lucky to get one.  What is up with that?

My Daughter in the 1st grade.  She has naturally curly hair.  When I was young my hair was thin and straight.  No curl what so ever.  She is so lucky.  Of course she hates it!

Here I am in 3rd grade.  I didn't put 2nd grade in.  That was the year of the skunk!  Ugh.  A skunk got in our basement in the middle of the night and sprayed and we had to leave and go to a friends house.  So I was not looking to great the next day for school photo's.

Here is my daughter in 3rd grade.  All that long wavy hair. We almost have the same smile, she though has no freckles, and I've got them all over my face.

My son in 3rd Grade.  He did not get the blond hair, he does have some curls, but with his hair cut short you can't really tell.

My husband in 3rd grade.  Do you see any resemblance with them all?

Hope you enjoyed some old school photo's! 

G.G.

# Day out with my Daughter.....What Tom boys do....

When I was young I was a Tom Boy..... I liked to hang out in Jeans and a Tee Shirt and work at the horse barn.  When my daughter was young I really thought she was going to be a Girly Girl.  All pretty dresses and painted toe nails.  I worried I would fail her as I really don't know much about nail polish and make up.  But at about 2nd grade all the frilly dresses (except for Sundays) were put aside due to extreme discomfort.  Jeans and T-shirts and baggy sweat shirts all in the color black were the wanted items.  And out of those frilly dresses emerged the next Tom Boy generation.  Her school friends in New Jersey kept trying to convert her to their girly ways but she took no part of it.
So what do Tom Boys do on their days out? These Tom Boys visit the book store.
On our first stop we actually got all our books for free.  What a great deal!

Our next stop was TGI Fridays for a yummy lunch.

Then we went to Karate.  My daughter is known for her "Beautiful Kick"  While sparing her instructor one day she kicked him in the head.  And every now and then he tells people about her "Beautiful Kick to his head"  I'm not sure who was more shocked about the kick her or him.  I see a lot about # Like a Girl.... and wonder why our society likes to think a girl can't be good at throwing or kicking.  Because many girls can kick or throw a lot better than men.

Then after all our adventures we sat down with a buttery bowl of popcorn and watched Sherlock Holmes.  I have to say we have become big fans.  Who can resist a good murder mystery?  Plus my daughter hopes some day to be a forensic investigator.  I have fun reading the real stories and then seeing how they incorporate them into the show.  Although I think they make Sherlock a bit on the weird side in the shows, not sure the book character was ever considered a sociopath.  But still it has been fun to watch.
I have to say that risking my life to have a second child, so that I could have a little girl who would be close to me the way my mom and I were close was worth it.  I love the time we get to spend together, the chats we have as we drive to Karate and sharing similar interests.  I'm so glad for my vacation as I now get to spend the rest of the week with my kids.  They are my treasure, where my heart is.
G.G.

Birth Control Pills......At 42 I'm still embarrassed to pick up my perscription why is that ?

As I contemplate my life as a woman, in my Ultra Violet mid life crisis I realize that even now a mother of teenagers I'm embarrassed to pick up my Birth Control pills.  I always wait till the last day to go to the pharmacy.  This weekend the horror was the pharmacy tech was this very young boy.  Well I guess he couldn't be a boy as he wouldn't be a pharmacy tech, but he sure seemed too young to be back there.

Here I am this middle aged woman, picking up birth control pills, feeling like the world is judging me.  It is probably more my imagined thoughts than them, perhaps they think nothing of what I'm getting, but to me I feel there is this sign over my head saying: "Woman trying to prevent Pregnancy."  And the thought that people think I'm out there with multiple partners etc...... 

What makes it worse is that every time I go in I say I need to refill my prescription and they ask "which one?"  I think next time I'll ask are there more than one?  Because as far as I know I only have one prescription.  Then they say "Oh...You want your BIRTH CONTROL PILL'S refilled....."  I turn all shades of red wondering how many people are out there listening.
I'm sure that like the majority of women out there taking birth control pills, I'm actually not taking them to prevent birth.  It's a nice plus, but the real reasons is that with out them my body does not produce hormones correctly.(  Although I'm sure they are not helping me produce hormones they are just supplementing what I'm not making.)  And then I am thrown into states of depression, and I have the most horrible periods in the world.  The pain can be so horrid that I miss work and feel extremely sick. And if you read my last Women's issue blog, I had a period that lasted for over a month.  I could never go through that again.

OK if you are a man and you are reading this, I know you can't understand this at all.  I live with one who thinks I should embrace this time of month, that time when I'm such a woman.  After all the years my husband has lived with me I still can not convince him that the pain is real and it is not a time of the month where I feel anything like a woman or celebrating. (perhaps I'll share more later on that)

I've lived with this pain, and embarrassment pretty much since I was a teenager. And it is hard to watch as our society decides who gets to know what prescription drugs I'm taking.  Now that corporations may decided to not pay for these prescriptions..... It just leads me to believe that all people believe that if a woman is taking any type of birth control she is some how not living to the higher standard. 

I think we should change the names of birth control pills, they should be named something different.  Perhaps they could be called "Hormone regulators, Period regulators, or something else."  Because they are used for much more than preventing conception. 

In reality I can not have any more children, I'm lucky to have the two I have.  If I had listened to the doctors after the birth of my son I would not have two children.  But I took a chance (which did not make certain family members happy) and had a second child because I really wanted a daughter.  After her birth and all I went through I knew two was all I should have.  Not only do these pills keep me balance hormonally they also prevent a high risk pregnancy that could cause myself and a baby to die.  I think that the prescriptions we take should be between us and our doctors and not something we have to tell the boss that we work with about. 
And some day I hope that women can go to the pharmacy and pick up their prescription and not feel judged.  But then again perhaps I'm just being over sensitive.... What do you think?
G.G.

# Throw back Thursday.....I love gardening because it reminds me of my Mom!

I love to Garden because it reminds me of my mom.  When I was young I would watch her out in her garden, weeding and watering and caring for the flowers.  I would never help as I didn't want to get my hands dirty.  But I loved to see all the flowers.  This top photo is of  my daughter and my Mom walking through her gardens.

Here is a photo of my daughter picking some of the flowers from the garden.  She also liked to look at the flowers when she was little.

 I love to plant black eyed Susan's and Daisy's.  My mom has tons of these at her house.

It has also been fun to watch my children visit my parents house and be able to see my mom's gardens and enjoy them like I did when I was little.  Now that I have my own gardens I love to get my hands in the soil and plant seeds and watch the flowers grow.  And it always reminds me of my mom.
G.G.
Have a great Thursday!

I love cook books but I don't like to bake.....How can that be?

When my kids were little they used to watch a show called "Between the lions" and in it they had these Fanny Dooley riddles.." Fanny Dooley likes cook books but hates to bake?  Why is that?  Well I love cook books, as you can see from my photo but really I don't like to cook.  Why I'm not sure.  Perhaps it is because cooking is like a chemistry lab, you have to put a whole bunch of things together and have it come out right.  I always blew up my chemistry labs, and I always seem to burn whatever I'm trying to cook.

This is only one section of cook books that I have, the others are down in my office. The other week my daughter said "Mom, your cook book buying is getting out of hand, especially since you don't cook!  You need to stop buying cook books!"  If you notice most of my cook books have a theme... Simple, easy, for busy families, quick..... I'm always looking for that perfect book that will have the most easy, simple quick recipes that will almost make themselves.  Unfortunately I have yet to find that perfect book.

Most cook books that I use have photo's with every recipe.  I will never have a Rachel Ray cook book as there are no photo's.  If I can't see what it's going to end up looking like, I most likely won't make it.  I like Sandra Lee's Semi homemade cook books and magazines.  But what I have found is that even simple, easy and quick cook books sometimes are more work than I want.
As I was thinking about making this blog, I realized I am just like "Kim Possible"  She can not cook, or at least in the episode "Two to Tutor" she could not cook and Ron of course was an amazing cook.  "Be one with the mixers."  It just doesn't happen well for me. 
And yet this summer I'm embarking on a cooking adventure.  I'm slowly teaching my son how to cook.  And he is doing wonderful, which is lovely because that means less cooking for me.  Of course his favorite subject in school this year was Chemistry. 
So I'll be sharing some of our cooking experiences with you...And perhaps there will be a week where I don't set the fire alarm off while cooking.  Well at least I know that they work right!
G.G.

I know what it's like to be the woman with the issue of blood....part of my Ultraviolet Catastrophe....

When I was young I remember wanting that time of the month to happen.  Listening to friends talk about becoming a woman.  It all went down hill once it came.  It wasn't until I was thirty that I felt that I understood my body and all those womanly issues.  Only to have my forties become a  new nightmare. 
I could tell around thirty five that my body was slowing down and changing but last summer I had the worst experience.  We went away for the forth of July and I missed my period.  No big deal to me, as my periods had become lighter so just figured my hormones were off.  Then August came and went. No period, and moment's of extreme sadness.  And I could not quiet figure out why I was sad.  I told myself if September slips by with out a period I will go to the doctor.  Having poor medical insurance and not wanting to pay for something that I thought would just get better was probably not the best of ideas.
Well at the end of September my period started, and after a week I was ready for it to end.  Unfortunately it didn't.  I kept thinking this has to end..... About a month later I finally went to the doctors.  I kept thinking of the story of the woman with the issue of blood in the New Testament.  One month was enough for me, I can't imagine living with this type of problem for 12 years. 

The doctors all had different ideas of what my issue was, a fibroid, ovarian cysts, and one thought I had been pregnant. Thankfully doctor offices are much more advanced now than back in the new testament times.  In one day I found out that I had a cyst on my ovaries and that was causing the issues.  Thankfully it was not a fibroid as then I would have had to have surgery.
Now I have medicine to take everyday to keep my body more regular. I hate taking medicine but the alternative is something I don't want to deal with. 
With this issue I have started to read and learn about Peri menopause.  I find that many of the things that are going on with me are caused by changes in my hormones.  Basically I'm going through reverse puberty.  What a sense of humor God has.  I wonder why women must go through this. 
I found a really good link about the woman with a blood issue.  I can connect with this as for a month I felt like her wishing to find out what was wrong with me and hoping for a miracle to make it stop.
Another thing I find with turning forty is that I have been reflecting on my life and its purpose and also watching my daughter become a young woman.  I hope to share my thoughts with you on these topics.
G.G.
Have you had a Peri menopause moment you would like to share?

# Throw Back Thursday.....First Birthdays

I don't remember much about my first birthday, or even many of the birthdays after.  I'm not sure if this is a photo of my first or second birthday.  But I sure know that I was more excited about this birthday than I am about my birthdays now.  When you are young growing up is fun and exciting, when you get past twenty two, birthdays become a reminder that you are getting "Old".  Ugh!

Here is a photo of my son on his first birthday.  What a fun time for a parent.  That little baby is now starting to talk and walk and become this amazing person.  I was so happy to be able to stay home with my children and watch them grow.  I wouldn't trade those slow paced baby days for anything.  And yet in a blink of an eye I have teenagers! 

My daughter on her first birthday... It seemed like she did everything faster.  She wanted to catch up to her brother and so she walked faster, and learned to talk faster and my babies were gone.  I love the messy cake faces.  I've been having so much fun this summer looking at my scrapbooks and remembering.  It is also fun to look at myself as a child and at my children.  They are so different from me, and their world is so different than the world I grew up in. 
Have a great Thursday.
G.G.

Gaillardia Plants that grow both in New Jersey and Utah

This is a Gaillardia Flower.  I love this flower for it's color and the fact that it blooms from late spring all the way to fall.  I first planted seeds for this plant in my New Jersey garden.

It grows really well in poor soil and is drought tolerant.  I love also that every year the plant grows bigger.

The flower petals can come in different shapes and colors.  I really liked this variety.  I've yet to find it here in Utah.

When a plant is in full bloom it is so beautiful.  They will continue to bloom if you deadhead them.

It's so nice to have a reminder of New Jersey in my garden.  Although I think perhaps they were a sign that I would move west as they really are a western flower and I just didn't know it.
G.G.