Amy Currioman

Over the past couple of years I’ve noticed that it is getting more difficult to find ladies clothes that fit me.  I’m too small for the plus size dresses but too large for the misses size dresses.  According to the size charts of the catalogs, I am the perfect size 12W.  Which is a size.  But no one carries that size – the catalogs start at size 14W and go up.  So I’m in a fix.

Every time I get a fashion catalog in the mail, I look through it and find a few styles that I’d like to wear.  But I can’t find anything that is my size.  And I get really aggravated that most of the outfits that I like the most are either dry clean only or made out of polyester.  I want something that will breathe and be washable!  I don’t think that is too much to ask!

I either have to lose weight to fit into a misses fashion size, or gain weight to fit into a plus size fashion.  I don’t want to gain weight, and although I wouldn’t mind losing a few pounds, with my lifestyle it will be very difficult to do that.

And to be perfectly honest, I don’t like how a lot of the women’s sized clothes look like maternity clothes with their empire waists.  Or they look like tents.  I think that the fashion designers could put together some clothes that are nicely tailored that don’t make the women look like fools!

Thanks to Maureen Smythers for the guest post

I’ve never been one to want to be home alone.  I guess when I was a young child some traumatic event happened that ingrained abandonment fears or some kind of phobia about home invasions, I don’t know.  But whatever it is, I do not enjoy being home alone.  I get very anxious, to put it mildly.  So when Thomas was told by his company that he was going to have to travel one week a month, and that was non-negotiable I was one very unhappy camper!

Fortunately the company is giving Thomas a travel allowance generous enough that we could install a home security bear system.  I still don’t like being home alone, but when I have to be alone, I feel less vulnerable and try to distract myself by watching special “chick flick” shows on our Direct TV that I would not normally be able to watch if Thomas was home,  eating Edy’s vanilla caramel ice cream, and pamper myself by doing special beauty things like manicures, pedicures, dye my hair, avocado masks.  And sometimes I invite Laura over for a “ladies night” and sleep-over.

All of those things help to keep me distracted from the anxiety that I feel when I’m home alone.  Hopefully as the months go on the anxiety will slowly disappear.

This guest post from Edgardo Rosa

My wife and I love hiking, even though some people don’t really consider it a sport. It’s been a really great way to keep in shape these last few years and we usually get to travel to find a great hike which is an added bonus! Recently I subscribed us to Wireless internet which means we have mobile connections wherever we go. After a few weeks of spontaneously emailing friends from the car on the way to a hike to ask them to join we had a revelation: let’s start a hiking club! We know plenty of people who like it as much as we do and there’s no reason we can’t plan the! hikes since we’re doing so already, so we figured it’d be a great way to see our friends and get some exercise. My wife’s been joking around about designing team t-shirts and even having a listserv so everyone can communicate. I think it sounds like a lot of fun and I’m excited to get a group together to start hiking every weekend!

I was quite surprised when I took my hubby to see the neurologist last week and he suggested that he try acupuncture as a way to manage his pain.  I’ve always been a little bit leery of alternative therapies.  Mostly because the medical field here in the USA has been focused on finding medicines to give people to cure them.  But there are other methods of healing folks that don’t involve throwing prescriptions at the patient.

There are holistic methods that have been practiced in other countries for a long time with good success stories.  And I think that with the continuing influx of immigrants to our country that these other therapies will start to become more widely accepted.  But I digress…. I was surprised when the neurologist suggested acupuncture and then he told us that his wife performs acupuncture!  I thought that was extremely interesting, that a neurologist would marry an acupuncture practitioner!

The human body certainly is a fascinating thing. Here is a youtube video I just found that shows a little girl that will certainly have an unusual life!