Michelle, you're very welcome!!

It's such a shame so little is known about this and so little money is allocated to research and help concerning this.
It's as this former gynaecologist said: If men had this, it would be a world crisis! Billions would be spent on research and help.

But... there IS a lot you can do and there are professional people who can help you.

John Gray (author of "Men are from Mars...") knows a lot about this, has written books on it but also on his website. Tons of interviews of him on YouTube and in many he also addresses the issue.

You can also look up Mary Claire Haver's website and/or interviews on YouTube. She's an absolute expert, (former) gynaecologist who researched all the ins and outs to a T when she herself became menopausal and realised she didn't know a thing about it.

Here's one great interview of her:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQqcnYcKx68&list=PLgEri0xc8yS9tKTUUS3aWG-3rrvUi7-bs&index=1

Since I'm post-menopausal I take an interest in finding out more about all the things that change in your body due to a decrease in female hormones but also dip in testosterone.
The latter we also need a bit to not lose muscle mass.

What I've learnt so far is that there are an unbelievably amount of problems that are all related to this and most people don't even know about the depth of this!

Most know the hot flashes, night sweats, mood changes and weight gain.
That's where most people's knowledge ends concerning menopause.

Thing is, I haven't got night sweats, nor mood changes, no real hot flashes either. I've put on a bit of weight over the years, but that is not all due to menopause.
What I'm trying to say is, not every woman has these well-known symptoms!
My version of a hot flash is a mild warm wave, as I call it. And I don't always have them either as I use supplement to balance my hormones.

What else is all related to menopause, and ladies, these issues do NOT STOP once you are post-menopausal!!
That's another thing, many women seem to thing that once they're post-menopause the problems stop. THEY DON"T STOP!!! Maybe you won't notice it so much, but it'll continue until you make your transition, UNLESS you do something about it!

Remember this if you think you have none of the following: you may not have severe issues, but certain things you may be unaware of, like your insulin resistance, cholesterol levels, bone density and so on. So don't disregard it too soon! Maybe have these things checked out so you know for sure!

Let's start with the well-known things, I will continue with the rest:
- hot flashes
- night sweats
- mood changes
- weight gain (belly fat you cannot shift which is dangerous!)
- recurring Urinary Tract Infections
- incontinence
- having to get up to urinate several times a night
- Inner ear changes causing
------Vertigo
------Tinnitus
------ possibly ear infection that won't go (I had that in mid August and it still hasn't fully subsided in spite of antibiotics, both eardrops and oral)
- High cholesterol
- High insulin resistance (leading to diabetics)
- Increased risk of Cardio-vascular disease
- blood sugar dips and insatiable hunger
- low or no sexdrive
- aches & pains (joints, muscles, ligaments)
- vaginal dryness
- rather fast and incredibly loss of muscle mass, even if you still work out the same way you did before
- changes in gut (microbiome)

This list is not complete, I cannot find my notes, grmble...

In any case, much of these issues have to do with lowering of oestrogen. You need this as it's very anti-inflammatory.
The dip in this hormone causes the tissues of the pelvic floor to get thinner which causes problems like UTIs, bladder control issues, vaginal dryness etc.
This can be resolved by using intravaginal oestrogen!!

The dip in oestrogen is also the cause of many of the other issues described above, incl. the joint issues and pain and inner ear issues as low oestrogen affects cartilage! Joints and inner ear have a lot of cartilage so they (can) get affected.
Even if you have no serious complaints, these will be affected but then in a milder way. It does happen regardless unless you make sure your oestrogen goes up again!!

The loss of muscle mass is due to a dip in progesterone and testosterone. Women can produce testosterone out of progesterone so if these levels are low you cannot make much testosterone either. But also, if you don't produce testosterone in other ways, the production of this out of your progesterone will deplete this and you do need this!!
How to create testosterone?
Do resistance (power) training!
That builds muscles AND testosterone! There are more reason why you should do this, why muscles are important btw but I'm trying to keep it reasonably short, hihi.
So NO aerobics as that does NOT produce testosterone nor muscles. You can still do it a bit, but the emphasis should be resistance/power training!
You can do this at home with an aerobics band (which is a resistance band). There are tons of vids on YouTube for resistance training with such a band for menopausal women!

As for the rest... HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) is a very good one! NOT ORALLY THOUGH!!
Orally goes via the liver which can again lead to issues there.
Use patches, creams and so on.
And no, it does NOT cause cancer to have HRT! That is a myth and proven to be NOT TRUE whatsoever!

One thing to remember with HRT is that when you have a uterus you need progesterone, not just oestrogen.
In essence you need more progesterone than oestrogen. The bummer is that we get a lot of unnatural oestrogen in our bodies from the environment which makes the body believe it has oestrogen.
So in a way it would be best to not experiment on your own but to see a naturopath or an other therapist who is experienced in this area.

The best way to get a huge increase in oestrogen is... a romantic partner, a man! When a man has healthy testosterone levels and treats you right because of that you get a huge increase in oestrogen.
Unfortunately most everyone here is single...
But there are other ways if you really don't want HRT. But remember, whatever it is you will have to continue to do it for the rest of your life.

Last thing: even post menopausal we still are cyclic. Not as much anymore as when we were fertile, but our adrenal glands still produce some hormones. This is why some say to not go for HRT.
Bummer is that many these days already have rather depleted adrenal glands as our Western society and life-style creates a lot of non-stop stress.

A lot of info here, do with it what you will. Bear in mind you do not have to suffer through peri or post menopause, remember that the process of rapid decline will continue, EVEN post-menopausal!! Unless you do something about it.

A few good things that esp peri-post menopausal women need:
resistance training
Vit D3
Fibre (approx 25gr a day)
HRT could be very helpful
Magnesium (Have levels checked though and find a good version as many cannot be easily absorbed in the body!!!)
Calcium (have levels checked!!!)
Intermittent Fasting 16:8hr can apparently be very helpful (NOT when diabetic!!! NOT if you have any eating disorder!)

This list is also not complete, but at least it's something.
Do your own research or see someone who's well educated on this matter which is typically NOT a doctor!!!

Doctors in their years of study have only 2 pages on menopause so they know Jack chit about it.
Gynaecologists who are supposed to be the experts on this only have ONE lecture of some 6 hours on the topic!!
This is why they don't know what to do with you and tell you to suck it up and bear and grin with it. Maybe give you a tranquiliser or painkiller.
They have a code word for menopausal women: WW, meaning a "Whinging Woman"!! That's how they talk about you among themselves... So they are not the ones to help you unless you got a better educated more well-rounded one and these will be very rare, almost non-existent.

Carebear, the way you should do it is have 3 things you'd like to do or see on a date.
If a guy then asks you what you want to do, you say these 3 things like "I'd love this and this and this" and end with "You pick!"

Something along those lines.

Men ask what YOU want as a man's job is to please YOU!
If they succeed at that it gives them a boost in testosterone, they feel good and want to please you even more by doing things for you.
This is the reason men ask you, it's not that they don't know, it's they want and need to please a woman.

The beaut is that when you receive that and react the above way and a man gets to please you, YOU get a load of oestrogen which makes YOU feel good!

Doing it this way removes all stress as the man knows he will be successful as he has option that YOU like. So no matter which he choses he knows you're going to be happy with it.
You can also relax as he's going to take you to a place you'd like to go, win-win. And there's still the element of surprise as you don't know which of the 3 he's going to pick.

Haha, thank you. And that's to be expected as I progress, lol.
With the way I'm learning to paint now you first block things in, then finish it off with detail etc.
Which can cause the in between stages to look like nothing much at times, but it's part of the process :)

I happened upon a good photo of this section of the wall which is going to help me tremendously!!

I altered the whitish highlights on the trees to the left of the tower as it didn't look right.
And added a bit more sunshine on certain parts, even in the shadow area to the left but also elsewhere. Very subtle changes, but these do make a difference.
Now I'm really happy with the trees :D

Did a lot of work on the closest section of the wall. Will have to sort some minor perspective issues.
Then there's a ton of detail to be done and... glazing!

I may actually start with a few glazes today as these will show the final colours of that large section of the wall and the left guard tower, truly revealing all the hard work I've done so far.

I decided to re-watch "The Great Wall" with Mat Damon as I'm painting a section of the Great Wall.
Even though they didn't actually shoot it on the real wall, there are very good shots of the wall in the movie!
And apart from that, it's a really good movie!

Thank you, Julie!

OT --- Yesterday I finished off the trees in the foreground. That was a lot of work, phew! And when done the values didn't look right and shadow areas were mostly gone. Lost too much of my negative space so I had to do more work to correct it.

I also did a 2nd glazing with Zinc white to soften the mountain in the back and the part of the wall that's furthest away (to the right).

Now with that out of the way it's time to focus on the wall.

Say what?!
That's scary!!

More work done :) Background haze (might do a tad more, not sure), details, colour changes on the side of the wall and so on.

Still a work in progress. I'm very happy with it so far!

Cleaning up the Christmas stuff, taking the whole lot upstairs, and after that vacuuming the floor.
Putting it all on the attic is for another day.

Now gotta go get groceries. I actually want to paint, but I'm out of so many things that I have to go.

Thinking... if the best you can say in a message to a girl you don't know is "fake lol" you better go back into your mancave and never come out again or do a 5 year intensive people skills training.

This is how far I got before dinner. I'm quite happy with how it's progressing.
Values will change a tad later on as I will do some glazing.
You can now also see why that first mountain range I painted in needs to be put into the background a bit with a whitish glaze. Doing that will create way more depth, and also separation between the front mountain section and the one at the back, which really is needed otherwise it become one blob of trees and mountains.
I suspect the Zinc white I need for that will arrive tomorrow.

The orange-like cliff will of course also be worked on.

Well, I tried to explain, but clearly you don't understand.
Breasts are related to femininity, whether natural breasts or not.
And that has nothing whatsoever to do with where men's gaze goes.
Men looking at your breasts all the time can even make you feel insecure, get low self-esteem and with that ruin your sense of femininity.

Yeah, but those have been the same for thousands of years as these are indicative of testosterone levels and with the potential Alpha male.
For men it's not a fashion thing that changes all the time like having to have narrow shoulders, no muscles, a feminine jawline and so on.
The idea of what's attractive for men is always the same and will likely always remain that way.

It's insane that breasts are regarded as a fashion item.

In the 70s you had Twiggy with barely any breasts and suddenly women were to look like her in order to be considered sexy to men???

Then in the 90s we had Baywatch with Erica Eleniak and later on Pamela Anderson and then large breasts became the thing to have.
Plastic surgeons must've made a fortune out of breasts being a fashion item.

Breasts should be treasured, valued, cherished and loved by the woman who has them and by her partner(s), whether she has small, no, large, normal breasts. And regardless of them being saggy, perky, large or small nipples etc. etc.

It's always women's bodies and bodyparts that get judged this way. Where not merchandise nor lust objects to please.
We deserve respect and love and to be cherished.

You do't understand cos you're not a woman, hihi.

If having breasts -even non-natural ones- makes you feel great and more like a woman it will boost her self-worth, self-confidence, self-love etc. etc.
And with that it will also give her an incredible increase in oestrogen... Not the breast themselves as they're not natural but the side-effect of what I mentioned above will do the trick.

And again: if a woman is perfectly happy with small breasts or barely any/no breasts there's nothing wrong with that and no reason whatsoever to have this altered surgically.
Most certainly not because of a hype or any 3rd party demands.

Thank you, Julie!
I ordered a transparent white today so I can go over some things to make them a bit more hazy. That'd put them a bit into the background.
As it is I only have opaque white, never felt the need for anything else, nor did I ever think of it. But now going for Zinc white. Seen some things done with it and the difference in what that can do is astounding.
So for mist/haze etc I'll use that.
Learning all the time, right?!

Happy New Year everyone!

Only an hour and 12 mins to go!

Thinking... talk about a kitten with baws (and it's a girlie): really loud bang as it's firework night and youngster walk around all day chucking banging crap around. Not allowed but happens regardless.
Anyways, normally cats are scared, but this li'l dare-devil jumps on top of her cat tree to look out through the gap between blind & wall, hihi.
I guess calico's indeed are more bawsy!

The beginning of my new painting: The Great Wall in China.