Aunt Jen, Hope you come back here and see this reply to you! This might get a little long, but since every woman is different, I feel like you need to know MY circumstances. I always swore I would never take hormones! I was just going to tough it out. I am 47 and "think" I have been in perimenopause for almost 10 years. I was having super heavy bleeding and it had gotten to the point where I couldn't leave the house for a couple of days, and then it was 3 weeks on and one week off! ugh! My gyn had offered in the past for me to take birth control pills to help with the bleeding. Well I also had a tubal ligation 20 years ago and it just didn't settle right with me to take birth control pills. So I just kept "dealing" with it. Then last year it got bad enough that I was going to have a hysterectomy. I was all prepared, and my mother n law was diagnosed wtih Brain Cancer. My DH was the only caretaker living close by, so I knew I couldn't put him through caring for him dying mom and me trying to recuperate from a hysterectomy and still go to work everyday. So, my gyn and I decided I should try an endometrial ablation. It has been a miracle! I have not had one period in a year's time! woohoo! So I do still have my ovaries. Around Christmas last year, I started having strong heart palpitations in the middle of the night when I would get up to go potty. I couldn't believe that walking like 10 steps to and from the bathroom would cause such a thing, and I was convinced I was fixing to have a heart attack or something major! I went to a cardiologist, and convinced him to do a stres test on me, also a chemical one, and everything showed up fine. My blood pressure was up a little, so he put me on a beta blocker, but it's a low dosage. Then later in the spring, I started feeling sort of dizzy, light headed, like I might pass out...even had that feeling driving to church one morning...that really scared me! I just felt very strange and very wierd. And then at the same time, the hot flashes at night started...it felt like 20 times a night I was pushing the covers down, and then 5 minutes later pulling them back up because I was freezing. Not easy to sleep with all that going on!!! So, it got to the point, I was not getting much sleep, and then during the day, the wierd head feeling( i was convinced I had a brain tumor) was keeping me from functioning. I found myself waiting for my hubby to get home from work, and then asking him to drive me to Walmart or to the grocery store, etc...becaue I was too scared to go by myself, for fear of passing out somewhere. It was awful! Then, I had a breakthrough thanks to ThatHOmesite! There is a menopause message board on here, and I started reading threads there and OMG! There were threads about, wierd head feeling, palpitations, feeling like you are going to pass out...and most of these women were right around my age!!!! I couldn't believe it! So, I printed all those things out, and took them to my gyn at my annual checkup in June. I talked to her about it, and she knew I had never wanted to take hormones, and she was also concerned about be taking them so that they didn't start to build up the lining of my uterus that she had ablated. So she recommended I go to our compounding pharmacy and get a saliva testing kit...it was $170 out of my pocket, but I was so desperate, it was worth every penny! So I spit in a tube, and mailed it off to Oregon. A couple of weeks later, the results came back in and my hormones were WAY out of whack AND my adrenals were exhausted. So to answer your question...=), I am on a progeserone/estrogen cream that I use twice daily right now. This cream is made just for me according to my results. There is also a long questionnaire that you fill out about all your symptoms. I am also on DHEA and adrenal forte, to get my adrenals working the way they should again. I started all this about 6 weeks ago, and the difference it has made in my life has been life changing! I would say I am at least 50% better already, maybe even 75% and I feel so much stronger during the day, I have actually been able to start exercising. Couldn't even do that before! The hot flashes at night have all but gone away...there might be a couple sometime, but they are very mild and I seem to fall back asleep easier than I was. I still wake up during the night now, for what reason I don't know. I am going to try cutting out all caffeine, even though I don't consume much of it anyway. But it came down to quality vs. quantity of life for me, and I wound up choosing quality. I have seen my 91 year old mother, be miserable, with not much quality of life, and I just decided I would rather enjoy my life now, instead of just trying to go for quantity of years and be miserable later. I am still trying to take care of myself, in fact, I feel like doing that now where as before the hormones, I really didn't care! So I hope this somewhat helps you. Sorry it took so long to explain, just wanted you to know my own situation. You have to decide what's best for you!

Thankful that, after borrowing my allowance ahead from Dad on a few occasions and having been forced to stretch the pennies for some months afterward, to heed Dad's advice that if I couldn't pay cash for something ... to not buy it: wait till later, when I had the cash on hand. And build up some cash on hand, available in case of need.They said on the radio the other day that many people, earning $100.00 ... are spending $160.00! One can't continue a hobby like that for any length of time, without getting badly burned! Dad taught mne to be a good neighbour ... and my boss told folks a couple of thousand years ago that we should love our neighbours as ourselves. Seems to me wise to be courteous, generous and kind to others, even to offering a smile to folks that we meet on the street, in the supermarket, etc. ... or making a friendly comment: usually I get a reply that includes at least a small portion of warmth, and oftern there's a smile that each carries away, to brighten one's day a bit. Seldom do I get that look that offers even a slight suggestion that it'd be a good idea were I to get lost! Dad used to say that he wanted to leave the farm better than he found it, and brother, the retired farmer, feels the same. Though they may not have articulated such, they'd say that they wanted to leave their community better than they found it, as well - and both did. I agree ... and my definition of community stretches to our province, nation and the wider world. We'll either learn to live together, showing concern for the welfareof others ... or we could well all die together. Years ago we were worried about being fried to a crisp with those horrendous bombs ... but now it appears that our demise may be brought about by wasting precious resources and causing massive global warming and pollution. Unless we smarten up. Those seem to be my major good things ... thus far. ole joyfuelled ... who's been known to dispense gas ... as well as burning it

What wonderful advice in this thread!! I will agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment that you should decorate in a way that is true to who you are. If you're not quite sure who you are, you should take some time to find that out first. My approach is to look at decorating in parallel to fashion. My wardrobe is not the least bit trendy, I tend to buy clothes that may be colorful but are neutral, in that they don't represent any specific time period, I struggle with fashion a bit so I have some outfits that are matchy-matchy but can easily be broken up by adding or subtracting one thing. These elements are completely reflected in my decor. When I look at outfits in fashion magazines, I stop and think about WHY I like the ones that I like. Is it because of the colors? Is it the shape of the garment or the shape of the model? Is it the material? And then I think about whether those things would transfer to me and my figure. Some things I will always love but never buy. Again, these are the things I think about when I'm looking at pictures of rooms that I love. Will that look still be dreamy in a room with just one window, no lake view and 9' ceilings instead of 14'? I do not have an open concept home and all of my rooms are different colors and are styled for their function but they all rhyme with each other. You don't feel like you're in a different house just because you're in a different room. I think of it like a professional family photo. You wouldn't have a photo done with one person in a jogging suit, one in a ball gown, one in a business suit and another in a Halloween costume. Lastly, I'm not one of those people who gravitates toward dark clothing so none of my rooms/furniture is dark. I am not one of those people who flips out if I get a ketchup stain on my blouse and it doesn't come completely clean. My sunny yellow sofas with the ghost soda stain will attest that I am the same with my furniture. I love sparkly jewelry so every room in my house has some accessory that sparkles! Instead of fighting the fact that I'm short and curvy, I buy clothes that compliment that frame and avoid tube tops and other trendy items that won't make me look my best. My home is over 125 years old and while it's far from being Grandma's museum house, there is a definite nod to the age of the home in every single room. Take your time. You've been given a lot of really good advice in this thread and it can take a minute to digest it all. One GWer used the phrase "visual emptiness" for living with a blank space until you find the right piece and I am completely on board with that concept. I am so in love with my home because I feel like it really reflects who I am and I think that speaks to my guests, making them feel at ease. Now, if I could just get some of this construction done, I will also be at ease!!

These are ideas from GW I've acted on: - Silgranit super single sink w/grid - touch faucet w pull-down sprayer (Delta) - bar pulls on drawers in prep/cooking area - under-cabinet lighting in prep area - Wellness mats in prep/cooking/cleanup area All of these have made such an improvement that it's hard to say which is the best idea -- but no question that the sink-faucet combo is the most transformative. I'd read elsewhere that the sink is the most-used appliance in the kitchen, and confirmed it by observing our work motions. But seeing what was available, and hearing in detail GWers' experiences with their choices gave me the confidence to spend the money for what would really make a huge difference. GWKF ideas that will be put into effect if/when we re-do the counter and cabinets along the cooking wall: - drawers rather than doors & fixed shelves in lower cabinets - trash pull-out in prep area - quieter and more powerful vent hood/fan - built-in paper towel niche - paneled dishwasher - dish storage in drawers next to dishwasher - pullout or roll-out shelves in cabinet above wall oven (may retrofit this soon no matter what; we're wasting a ton of vertical space) - warming drawer below wall oven (the most optional of these ideas; will be on Craigslist etc. lookout) GWKF inspirations that might be incorporated if we turn our current worktable and the cabinets above it into more of an island/peninsula + hutch: - open cabinet built for microwave (w/rollout landing below if needed) - freezer drawer (for freezing pastry, items on trays to be bagged for storage in the bigger freezer, etc.) There's also the huge amount I've learned about design and construction from the many professionals and skilled amateurs here. Thank you.