They didn't mention the aging...

When  you turn 40 the machine starts breaking down. Has anyone noticed? Literally, the DAY I hit my 40s my eyes started to fail. I needed readers immediately and now I'm onto full time specs....if I could muster courage to visit the eye doctor.

Then there's the beard I'm growing. No, I'm not kidding! I'm like an old Greek woman, sprouting two inch beard hairs overnight. Only noticeable in the daylight, and enough to preoccupy you during meetings. Not cool....

The the sun damage started to appear. All at once. As thought I did all the damage on one day in my 20s. The fact is, the damage took more than a day. The sunbathing, burning and peeling took real dedication and I was the woman to do it. But I looked fabulous at the time.

Oh, and then there's the hair colour. I fear the day I must let it go grey, but that day is not today. In the meantime, I sport grey temples like an old labrador retriever.....as my husband mentioned jokingly one morning on the way to work.

There's an epidemic of working mothers drinking too much wine and slipping silently into alcoholism in their own homes. Not to make light of this serious situation, but I can kind of see why. Being an aging beauty queen is hard work! 

The maintenance is increasingly expensive. There's the dying, the tweezing, the moisturizing, the abdominizing....and now the visits to physicians and dentists to have dinosaur teeth tended to.

And all while holding down a job and maintaining trophy wife status and measuring up to yoga moms in the neighbourhood. This is full time work my friends.

But the solace comes in the commiseration with friends. Thank goodness for aging pals who are experiencing the same wrinkles and sagging and greying temples. I appreciate friends who can lend me their Chapters reading glasses and tell me I look fashionable in them. And for those who compliment me on my low heeled boots and attempts to be hip.

I wouldn't want to be younger, as long as I have my beauty queen peers beside me, getting more elegant and wise together.

The tedium of no sodium

.....and we're back! It's been quite a while since I last posted.....I know you were lost there for a while ;)

There's lots going on now that I feel people can relate to....at least if they're women, over 40, maybe have a job and kids? 

It appears I've been doing some damage to my bod! Of course I have kind of known it all along. It all started when I was in my late teens. It was then I believed I looked best with a deep, dark tan. Every March break and every summer I would bake, burn, peel and glow....comparing my tans with my pals when I returned to school. Well, this year.....precisely, this year....the chickens came home to roost!

I went in to have some sun damage frozen off at my doctor's office. While there, I asked her to check my blood pressure. Uh oh. I sat thinking about my heart and could literally feel it speeding up as she measured my BP. Turns out it was high. Can't figure it out. I run, I work out at the gym. I eat lots of veggies.....and well....I'm invincible. Not so much!

My doctor and I think the culprit is SODIUM. Or maybe STRESS. Or a bit of both....Hmmm do you think? I find myself running logistics through my mind regularly, Hitting targets and deadlines, planning timing, doing laundry, making meals, shopping, scheduling. It's really freaking stressful. To reward myself for all the exercise and stress, I eat chips, bread, crackers, cheese, smoked salmon, olives. Guess what all these foods have in common. SODIUM.

It's no wonder I have high blood pressure. It's part of the job. Yet, somehow I feel like a failure. Like I need to be perfectly healthy, fit, organized and calm. Oh yeah....and good looking! OK I may have ONE

of those nailed down....

So now I'm stressed and confined to a salt-free diet that includes almonds, rice cakes, raw veggies and no crackers or cheese or olives. Fresh food is a good idea, but it feels bland for the moment. But like all things, it will require discipline. And who better than a working mother to exercise this kind of self control?

It's a tough, stressful, sweaty, fragmented and thankless job....and I'm just the girl to do it!

The routine that refreshes

The return from Christmas vacation is very weird this year. Maybe it was the timing of Christmas and New Year's day but it feels like people are having trouble re-entering the routine.

As a consultant, this can be unnerving.

Dunn & Associates Communications and Public Affairs officially returned to work last week. I e-mailed some clients, did some edits, started some planning. But my messages sat....unanswered, my dutiful edits...not reviewed. I realized, there was no one at the other end to receive my missives. I was trying to kick start some work, but my team mates in the outside world were not ready to play.

Today is the first official work day back and now we will stand by while everyone reviews their e-mails, makes plans and prepares for the next onslaught of work. Some real work might happen by Wednesday, but in the meantime, we all hang on to the afterglow of the holidays and wait for the action to begin.

I notice my friends all posting motivational sayings and quotes online - emphasizing brand new starts, the endless possibilities a new year brings, to potential they hope to achieve. It occurs to me this is meant to shock us into action and optimism....and it works.

I hate to admit it but I want the work to get crazy. I want my schedule to fill up. I need my kids to start booking in birthdays and basketball games. It's the only way I know what to do with myself. This is kind of sick, I realize, but it also may be an indication that I've had enough holiday days.

Ready for my routine now.