Friday, April 30, 2021
Wednesday, April 28, 2021
Tuesday, April 27, 2021
Aging with Grace and Age Shaming AKA Ageism
I've been wanting to write about aging for a while now but wasn't ready to wrap my mind around everything I wanted to say, cause I have a lot to say on this one.
The inspiration for my rapid thought production on this one is that I recently came across a video where a man was rating beautiful aging women (I think they're beautiful - he called them "spoiled milk") in Hollywood on his top list of women that age like "spoiled milk."😲
In fact, he says that "men age like fine wine and women age like spoiled milk," 😲 and this was coming from a man that, dude, seriously needs to take a long look in the mirror. Have you looked lately?🧐😂I never knew this was a "thing" till I got closer to 40. It seems like it just popped up, but, no, I think it's always been a thing in Hollywood anyway.
In the real world, in my world, the way I was raised is you're born and then you begin to age. Everyone ages.😃It's not something that only happens to a select few... However, the way we age depends on: genetics, health, maybe even wealth but really doesn't have to be the case, skincare, and fitness.
I also believe stress reduction and spirituality can make you live longer too, along with the ability to have a good laugh daily. Laughing keeps us young. Let's dive into this one a bit further... The women he examined, who shall remain nameless because I'm not down with age shaming, are to me all beautiful women.
Some of them are women that have had work done in the past and I personally have noticed that women that have had things like face lifts, botox, etc. age the worse. Still beautiful but I do feel that if you just take care of your skin, exercise, take care of your health, you age better.
There's so many beautiful women in Hollywood over the age of 40 that just take care of themselves without "procedures" and they're ageing "like fine wine." I think this can go both ways. It's not a male female thing. I've seen men that age like s**t and vice versa. It's all in how we take care of ourselves.
If you don't take care of yourself and/or have bad genetics you won't age so well. Is it bad to age? Come on. Aging is a part of life! We all age. As much as we'd like to look like we're in our 20s till we're 90, 😂, that's just not happening. We can prolong it as long as we're able to and that's about it.
What we can do is "age gracefully," so as we age, we age in the best way possible - naturally and beautifully. Embracing the changes that take place in our body and taking care of ourselves the best we can, giving it our all. As a kid I was the little girl that loved old people. I've always had a soft spot for the elderly or disabled. I've never viewed my elders as anything but my elders.
I never looked at anyone over 40 and thought, ew, they're aging like s**t. I mean, what is wrong with people? Aging is part of life! The reaper is coming for us all...that's why we age. From dust to dust...we begin to age from the moment we're born. For me, my aging process has been an interesting one and here's what I've noticed with myself... I've been one of the lucky ones.
When I was in my 20s people would tell me I still looked like I was in my teens. Literally in my late 20s, early 30s, people said I still looked like, to quote, "you look like you're 16 yourself." Cause I had teenagers - teen mom story to come... In my 20s I was obsessed with skincare and since I was 19 I've always honestly just washed with oatmeal soap which is really good for the skin.
Later I added in African black soap, also good for skin, along with other things that I love. I went to a spa and had two light peels, but that's it. The rest was just me taking care of my skin. Oh, and, duh, how can I forget things like dead sea mud clay masks, the Aztec Secret Indian Healing Clay, and microdermabrasion products. Homemade masks are my absolute favorite though.
So fast forward...I was aging great till I was 38. I used to smoke but only had 1-2 a day. That's how I ended my sorry day was to sit on my porch at night and have one or two cigarettes before bed, eww. Been smoke free for over a year now. But smoking adds to the aging process, I digress...
Anyhow, I still got "carded" buying cigarettes till I was 38. Then I started having health problems, a s**t ton of stress between age 35 and 38 began to add up as well - stress ages, and wasn't taking care of my skin. I was in full on mom mode and honestly, didn't give a f**k.
I just wanted to work, pay my bills, and have time for my kids if there was any time leftover after working. Me, went out the window. Carmen who? Once my health problems began, I started taking better care of myself again and now I'm throwing the damage that was done (aging began to accelerate) backwards and this has always been easy for me, although this time was the hardest I must add.
Skincare, facial massage, the right skincare products, serums, astringent, masks, and I'm dabbling with derma rolling. I think I'd like to maybe leave that one to the professionals though. That one makes me nervous. I'm afraid I'll do it wrong. And it's also on my list to treat myself this year to some facials, etc.
Working on getting fit again because when I'm at my best weight and my skin is in check, I look my best. I've embraced my aging hair. Hair ages too. It's more thirsty now than ever and the texture has changed. I have my father's Puerto Rican hair, so this is a work in progress and I'm proud of how far my hair has come. Embracing my curls more and straightening less.
Embracing the little white hairs I'm getting cause once this starts happening you have to make the decision - dye or leave natural. I've personally never been one to dye my hair, just on occasion. I had a pretty natural brown with auburn highlights. So I tried dying my hair, not because I felt I had to, but because I wanted to and what I found for me is that dying my hair made me look older.
Maybe if I had it professionally done I'd feel different, I don't know. What I do know is I think gray hair is sexy. I also thought this in my 20s. I think a young face with some salt and pepper hair or graying hair is hot. I've got that Elvira thing going on, 😂. I don't mind it and I embrace it. I like my aging self.
So with all of that said...I wanted to share MY top 11 list of beautiful aging women in no particular order:
That's all for now...I think I've said enough. I mean, if you're gonna come at people for aging and shame women you better be looking like a young Brad Pitt. Look in the mirror before judging others...lacks class to age shame anyone. Just sayin...And I apologize for the censored profanities (I censored myself) but this s**t had me tight...😂✌️
With Love,
Carmen
Sunday, April 25, 2021
Saturday, April 24, 2021
Saturday mornings and Intermittent Fasting with Coffee Update
French Toast and Coffee...mmm
 |
| Our Saturday morning breakfast today. |
So first and foremost, I've decided to post when I have something to say, not just once a week. Today's inspiration is coffee and Saturday morning breakfast...mmm.
So coffee, I have an interesting history with coffee and it goes a little something like this - cause you know I have a story for everything, yes, even coffee...
When I was a kid and I'd visit my father on the weekends, my little brother and I were allowed to have small cups of coffee with our breakfast. My dad's coffee was bomb. Never had coffee like my dad's.
He made it from scratch on the stovetop, Puerto Rican coffee. Still till this day haven't had a cup of coffee like my dad's. One of my goal's for 2021 is to teach myself how to make it from scratch like my dad and see if I can finally find that coffee from my childhood.
So we had coffee as kids but only at our dad's and they were small cups. Not sure if this is a culture thing, but it made me feel like a big girl, lol.🙃 And it was so good. My father left the country when I was 11 going on 12, like I said before, so after that the next time I tasted coffee was when I was 15 and working my first housekeeping job at a hotel.
I would drink it on my breaks. I can remember that it would give me a headache and stomachache so I wasn't really feeling it back then. Didn't really care for it. Then I had kids young, which is a story I'll share another time, my teen mom story. I had kids young and eventually I became drawn to coffee to help wake me up during my mornings.
I "think" I started drinking it regularly around age 18? Not the age I became a mother, but I think that's when I started to drink it. By age 22, I was a coffee fein, drinking, not gonna lie, up to two pots a day. And it didn't go to my waist cause I also had an eating disorder in my early twenties, something I'll also share another time...
I cut back on coffee in my mid to late thirties when my newfound weight problem began, cause I realized my body and metabolism were changing and later of course found out I had stomach issues as well. Bringing me to the present and my inspiration for this post - intermittent fasting with coffee. I've had to choose between my love of coffee and healing my stomach and of course I choose health.
My next scope (endoscopy) is in June and I know if I continue to drink it in the mornings or even three or four cups a day, then I'm gonna be told it's still bad or worse again. I know it's not helping matters. Also, it's hindering my fasting. Even with a little bit of cream, I know I'll see better results with my weight loss if I sacrifice my, dun, dun, dun, beloved coffee.
My health and loving myself are more important to me than my coffee. So I tested this out yesterday...my stomach's been bothering me lately and I said F this, I'm not having coffee in the morning. The problem was that I'm not eating till two during the week (I fast Monday-Friday) but still having my morning coffee, which was wreaking havoc on my stomach.
But I also "felt" like I literally couldn't function or wake up without my coffee. But, you see, this is all in the mind. It's mind over matter. I knew that was bull**t, so yesterday I woke up and did not have coffee till about 1:30-2:00. Instead, I started my day with water, chamomile tea (which is gentle on the stomach) and I moved my a**. I just woke up and started moving and did all of my morning things and tasks that I do normally, and before you knew it I felt "awake."
When I realized I was fine without it, it was actually sort of empowering, lol.🥳😎 But I was still excited nevertheless at 2:00 p.m. when I had my coffee with a little cream and sugar. Yes, that was so yummy. By the end of the day though, I felt my pants get looser and my stomach didn't hurt, so I knew I made the right choice.
As for my "Saturday mornings," the inspiration for that part of my post is that for the past over ten years now I've always made Saturday mornings our pancake day and Sunday mornings are our egg day. But last week I switched it up cause pancakes every Saturday got boring.
My kids let me know this...and honestly I was sort of sick of it too. So now we'll have one Saturday pancakes, the next waffles, the next French toast. Today was our French toast day, so yummy. Definitely good to switch things up in life, otherwise things get repetitive and boring...
Till next time...
With Love,
Carmen
Friday, April 23, 2021
Name Change Tonight...
Changing my website name tonight and Jesus Christmas, Jiminy Cricket, Roger Rabbit, this is the last one. I've already bought my new domain name and will make the switch tonight, then I'll have to go through and update all of my inbound links.
I liked this name but there's too many other entity's with similar names, not identical, but similar and I don't want the stress and I don't like that.
Sucks cause my name really is "Carmen" not a pen name, or an acting name, or screenname - it's my name I was born with and named after my grandmother who died of leukemia before I was thought of.
And the funny thing with my name is, when I was a kid I hated my name cause everyone else in my school was a Jessica, or a Sara, or a Nicole. I was the only Carmen and I hated that. I couldn't appreciate how beautiful my name really was. I didn't even understand that I was half Puerto Rican till I was 12 and had a BFF that was obsessed with Puerto Ricans.
I mean, like I said before, my father didn't teach me Spanish even though he spoke it fluently because it was so hard for him to learn English when he came here. He didn't want to confuse my brother and I. With that said, this also wasn't strange for me to not know the language.
When I'd visit his home and he got married to a Mexican woman later, they always spoke Spanish around me when I'd visit for the weekend. And this wasn't strange for me. It was just "my dad" if that makes sense. So back to the name, later I learned how special my name was, that I was named after my grandmother and I grew to love how original my name was.
I also met one more Carmen, just one in real life, and she was like a motherly figure to me. So anyhow, do, do, do, do, do, I'm changing my domain name tonight. That's how my Friday's going down, lol. I usually work anyway on Fridays and Saturdays, and...Sundays so why not work on my blog. I work seven days a week basically, just less hours on some days than others.
I should make my dot com nolifecarmen.com (I haven't even dated in over five years and have no desire to - it's a choice and a good one for me - celibate, baby), but, nah, I like the name I picked better and this new name will be permanent. No more changing my name - this is it, finito. Once it changes, you'll get redirected to the new name. But this is it. I will not change it again. I promise.
P.S. Edited to add that my new name is perfectlyimperfectcarmen.com but I can't update till tomorrow now. Server issues, ugh. ✌️
P.S.S. Was not able to redirect from old domain because the hosting was Google and domain name owned by elsewhere, so...it is what it is...
With Love,
Carmen
Carmen's Funny Cat Pics: Well hello there...meet Tazzy
This is my cat Tazzy...😂. There's actually a story behind this pic... I bought my cats this cute new mini tower with a hammock and scratching posts and Tazzy likes to chew his toys off of anything dangling. That's what he was doing here... Looked so funny that I just had to turn it into a meme 😂.
Thursday, April 22, 2021
Wednesday, April 21, 2021
Carmen's Funny Ecards: You know you're getting old ecard
This is a phenomenon that I've now experienced myself. Still don't always agree with my mother on things, like that whole Mariah Carey thing for example, of many examples I could give, but there's times where I've been like, yeah, you're right and her jaw hits the floor and she feels special for a while. But now, I, too, know how it feels when your kids don't need your advice cause they know everything. Ah, the circle of life...🙃😂
Monday, April 19, 2021
Intermittent Fasting is Working - It Works
Finally Seeing Results
My eating window during the week is usually between 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., sometimes ending at 8 p.m. at the latest. I do this Monday through Friday, then on the weekends I pretty much eat regular but still mindful of sugar intake and still careful with my coffee and eat normal portions of course. We've always had special pancakes on Saturday and eggs on Sunday, and so I've still been having our weekend breakfasts with bacon and sausage, etc.
So although I wait till two to break my fast, I realize that even just a little sugar in my coffee could ruin all that hard work and mess up my ketosis. So how do I know it's working for me? Well like I've also said before, I have yet to jump on the scale cause the scale is not our friend. The scale is psychologically abusive, so I'm gonna wait till my clothes get a little bigger to jump on that baby.
The way I can tell is that my clothes are getting bigger and fitting better. My face is slimming down, which my entire life I was the girl with the chubby cheeks. This is cute when you're a toddler or a baby, or even a little girl - everyone wants to squeeze your cheeks cause you're so cute. But not so cute when you're 42 years old...that's a whole other story.
Even if I go just ten pounds over my normal weight it always goes straight to my face. I hate that, so I never let that happen. And now I'm beyond ten pounds over, lol. That's all I'll say, but I'm not obese if that makes sense. I was getting close to the obese marker though if I'm gonna be honest here and well beyond ten pounds over.
And for me, my weight gain really was caused by sedentary job, age, and mainly the digestive issues I'm having, which are presently being treated, which I "think" are also finally starting to heal. I can sleep on my side again so that's a positive sign. The pain was so bad from my peptic ulcers that I couldn't sleep on my side, either side.
Other signs that intermittent fasting is working for me is I can see that my tummy has gone down. I'll elaborate more once I reach my goal, but love handles are pretty much gone - yes, I had those. And I'm leaving the fat zone and have more or less entered into the "thick" zone now. I don't mind being a little thick, but I'll see where this journey takes me. My ultimate goal is to feel good in my own skin.
Feel good in my clothes. Be happy when I look at myself in the mirror and most importantly - to be healthy. My blood pressure went up too with the weight gain and I was prescribed something for it back in December but never took it. The side effects scared me and my doctor really felt I could bring it down with diet just as I had, which was the conclusion we came to the year prior when we discovered I was heading towards high blood pressure.
And I was trying that year, but nothing worked till I finally pin pointed my problem, my digestive issues. So regardless, though, I'd hate to say it's age cause I feel like that's a cop out but my doctor did say age many times to me. Ugh, metabolism changes with age. It just made me realize this can happen to anyone cause it was never an issue for me, ever, never ever.
I'm glad it happened at this point in life though, because I'm more confident and it also happened at a time when I was more focused on my spirituality and my mental state, being happy no matter what. Sometimes even laughing at myself, well, many times I've done that. I felt like Adam Sandler in the movie Click when he woke up fat, lol.
Ah, yes, that scene popped into my mind many times, although I wasn't nearly as big as he was in that scene, but just to watch the changes in my body were hilarious. There were a few moments I honestly wanted to cry out of frustration cause I've tried everything, but mostly laughed at myself.
Please note that I've never been one to judge overweight people and I raised my kids to be the same. There are big women in my family. And there are many beautiful big women out there. I'm just not one of them. Heavy C isn't cute. Carmen looks better at a smaller weight and she's more happy at a smaller weight. I just don't have the face for it; goes right to my face. Plus, vanity aside, high blood pressure is deadly.
I'll post another update on this in four more weeks and if I see more improvement I will jump on the scale and divulge actual details on pounds lost. But I know that you can lose weight too without so many pounds going down - body fat, inches, and all that good stuff comes into play as well. There's definitely good stuff going on and a lot of it, which is very exciting. I'm excited to get dressed again. Bottom line - intermittent fasting works but you've gotta do it right.
With Love,
Carmen
Saturday, April 17, 2021
Friday, April 16, 2021
Carmen's Inspirational Creations: Live Your Best Life
Happy Friday! We made it through another week... Today's message is to live your best life. This is one of the things life is all about, living our best life no matter what. Learning to live in the moment. Be in the present. Embrace the good along with the bad and make the best out of whatever hand we were dealt.
Using and transforming any negative into a positive whether it be using our own sometimes horrid experiences to help others not make similar mistakes or to help ease their pain cause we've been there and know how it feels, or so on and so forth, being the light in a world of darkness - you get the picture.
Perhaps living by example that we can go through things and keep moving because this is how we transform. So no matter what - live your best life. Living in the moment and being in the present is one of the things life is all about...and trust me, I know, this can be harder said than done especially when we get caught up in stress, or work but press that pause button and make time to be present.
Thursday, April 15, 2021
Carmen's Funny Ecards, You know you've finally got yourself a problem ecard
Okay. Not gonna lie, this happened to me this past year. Yup...never thought I'd see the day, lol. I stopped hearing the "no, you're not fat" when I'd call myself fat. That's when I knew...shiz got real, lol, and I had a lot of work to do...
Wednesday, April 14, 2021
Trigger Warning: Periodically Check Your Records and Here's Why...
And as I say this I can envision the therapist or doctor writing as I speak and then over ten years later getting the records and saying out loud to myself, where did they even get that sh** from cause I know I never said that?
That's not even true. That's not the way it happened. And at times even laughing cause the errors are so gross. Lawsuit type stuff... In the past seven years I've pulled records for myself when I went through a custody battle, a two year battle, those were therapy records from when I walked into a mental health clinic in my mid twenties to reach out for help for trauma issues and anxiety issues, mainly from my youth.
No one referred me. No one sent me. I walked in ON MY OWN to finally get help for these issues. When I was younger I was forced into therapy by my mother, my brother and I both, to deal with her alcoholism that she was getting help for and because when we were little we used to fight which siblings do, then in my early teens depression issues from getting severely bullied in the 7th grade, severely bullied till I ran with a different crowd.
It helped when I was little but then as a teen it didn't help because I wasn't ready for it to help. In my twenties I reached a point of readiness and after five years of therapy including trauma group therapy and one-on-one, and dialectical behavioral therapy I no longer suffer with depression issues since my late twenties - we're talking over ten years now, ten to 15.
The records for myself that I was outraged about were from my twenties. Now mind you I don't have a history of alcohol or drug abuse. I was in therapy to only deal with TRAUMA. First of all, I had a therapist once tell me I was a "martyr" when talking to her about something I was going through. Yes, nice therapist. But at the time I saw that as tough love, but then later after I read her thoughts in her notes I was like, wtf, if I had only known I would have filed a complaint against her and asked for new therapist.
That's what she was getting paid for and what I was there for was to listen to ME TALK about my TRAUMA issues and things that I continued to struggle with because of my youth years. I was trying to work through that to reach the point I'm at today - of inner peace. She was a disgusting vile human to call a patient a "martyr." Then more recently I've pulled records for a son who suffered a head injury at age 12. He's now in his twenties.
He was also in therapy when he was younger for things that we experienced thanks to his father's family and his father. That's all I'll say on that. But going through these records I realized this...it's like the "telephone game" when talking to therapists, or doctors - in office and the hospital - medical and psych. I can remember being taught the telephone game at school as a child.
Everyone sat in a circle and passed the same information on given to one child, then that child whispered the information to the next, and the next and so on till it reached the end of the circle then the last child said what was heard and it was NEVER the correct information given by the teacher to the first child. Well this is 100 times worse because we're talking about people's lives and what's written in black and white can affect someone's life medically and socially.
Decisions can be made on someone's life based on inaccurate gross errors because clinicians and doctors and social workers don't LISTEN. My lesson after reading through some very disappointing and disheartening things is to periodically check my records in the future for health issues mainly for myself because I'm passed therapy. There will be no more of those types of records for me.
And to now also pass on this advice to anyone out there going through therapy or trying to get help with a medical issue that no one can figure out - pull your records periodically to make sure they're LISTENING to you and the information they're putting in your chart is accurate and truthful and CORRECT. And if it's not have it corrected ASAP and file complaint with whomever you need to file that complaint with.
My son, it took over ten years to finally get a dx for neurological issues he experienced after his head injury and that would have been avoided if people LISTENED to us when he was younger and so much heartache and hardship in his life and our life as a family would have been avoided if we received the help we needed and deserved!!! And now we can't get those years back.
We have to accept "it is what it is" and God's will be done no matter what and "everything happens for a reason" but my son didn't deserve to go through everything he went through when we were reaching out for help. The errors are horrific, some things completely out of left field made up, some important facts left out. It makes me both angry and devastatingly sad.
I cried many tears in the recent days and it takes a lot to make me cry. I'm not a crier but this was sad stuff. Now I'm making a list of all the places I plan on filing complaints with and attempting to update records, and to tell the story of how he was failed and how they need to LISTEN to patients and their families...
That's all for now... This has been on my mind since last week and I'm a little behind with my ecards. Trying to be funny when you've got a lot on your mind can be hard, or trying to be creative, but I do have an ecard coming up this week that I was supposed to post last week so I'll get to it maybe tomorrow.
So again, check your records and make sure they're "listening" and accurately recording what you tell them, whether medically or psych...
With Love,
Carmen
Thursday, April 8, 2021
Carmen's Funny Cat Pics: Oh, my gawd Becky cat pic
This is me when I catch a glimpse of my reflection or bump into something cause I've got that big, big...
Wednesday, April 7, 2021
The Power of You: Unleash the Magic...
The power of you...you're more powerful than you know. We have the power within us to change anything in our lives regardless of our circumstances. Tap into that power within and unleash the magic...
Monday, April 5, 2021
How to make your blogger blog more responsive in 2021
This was very frustrating for me cause I assumed that my site automatically had a responsive web design considering it's on Blogger. I discovered that it wasn't through the Google Search Console dashboard and quickly went to work on fixing these errors with my site.
Wasn't a complicated fix at all but what was complicated was finding updated information on how to do this. I found two very helpful guides to make a more responsive web design for my site and I'll pass them along rather than explain in detail how to do it. I'll let the experts do that.
If you're here then you know what I mean by responsive web design, clearly a website that adapts to any device - tablet, smartphone, desktop, etc. After I discovered mine wasn't responsive I tried checking out my site through my own smartphone and was like, what? It was awful...looked like something from the 90s, 😂 dial-up days.
So here's what you need to do:
- Add code to the meta viewport.
- Add media queries to the CSS file.
- Update your mobile settings, which are located in the Theme section of Blogger when you click the drop down menu for Customization.
This website, Infiblogger, was generous enough to provide instructions and code for doing so, but the guide was posted in 2016, so the instructions for locating the CSS file were outdated. I used this post from TechPostPlus, to find the CSS file, which are located in the Theme section as well. So I used the code from the first website and successfully completed step one and then used the media queries code from that same site along with the instructions from site two to add the code to the CSS file for step two.
And thanks to both of these guides I ran a fix check from my Google Search Console to see if the problem was fixed and I passed! On top of that, while I waited for my results I checked my site from my smartphone and everything looked good - my site was responsive!!
Once you visit the above sites the only tip I'll add is for when you're searching for the CSS file in Blogger. The guide is very helpful but just note that once in the Advanced section of the Customization section of Theme it's the little arrow next to "page" just below the word Advanced that you'll click on to find the CSS file option.
I hope this helps!
With Love,
Carmen
Friday, April 2, 2021
Funny Ecards: Stalking is a Felony Ecard
My ex's new wife loves to stalk my stuff. I wonder if she found my new site name. I sure hope so. This is for you puerca. Enjoy. P.S. Get mental health. 😉
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