Well, as I said I would, I checked out a book from my library: What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Premenopause and I have almost read it cover to cover; just a chapter or two left to go. The interesting thing is that my unpleasant symptoms have been gone since the Sunday before I got the book. Hmm. Does this mean that reading this book, or even just thinking about the book, will resolve your symptoms? If it does, I apparently should journal my observations. It is probably useful data.

So, I learned the following from this book. I am not in perimenopause yet, for that is the couple of years prior to menopause, which I don't really expect to hit for another nine years. Rather, I am merely in the premenopause stage, which can last anywhere from 5 to 20 years prior to the Big Event.

Secondly, there is hardly a symptom discussed in the book that cannot be corrected by the proper use of natural progesterone cream. And believe me, there were a lot of symptoms mentioned. Again, I say, "Hmm". This cream, which incidently is sitting on a shelf in the vitamin section of my local Malwart, is truly a miraculous substance, then. However, progesterone cream can be sorely misused, especially if you overdose on the stuff. Which is tempting, if you feel that more of a good thing is better, or if you don't carefully measure out that 1/8th of a teaspoon. If so, this miracle substance is truly a dangerous substance in the wrong hands. Yet there is no warning label on the box. In fact, there is precious little substantial objective information on the box. This, too, goes in the "Hmm" category. After all, it is supposed to be a real hormone I'm applying. That sounds pretty dangerous to have sitting on the vitamin shelf. But, then, so are vitamins.

Next (and this is the overwhelming part), I distinctly remember reading the chapter on diet and nutrition. All I can say is, "Gee Whiz, take me to another planet already!". All dairy foods and meats we eat should be hormone- and antibiotic- free, the animals you eat should be free to roam, and they should enjoy, during their short lives, a healthy wholesome diet of non- contaminated foods that are pesticide, herbicide, and fungicide free. If I do this, I can expect to be safe from toxins. All processed foods are the enemy. Refined carbs and processed sugar are bad news. This includes my beloved pasta. All foods should be just as they are picked off the tree, or harvested from the fields, and of course, should be organic, again having never ever ever been exposed to herbicides, pesticides, or fungicides. Poly-unsaturated fats are bad for you. Hydrogenated oils are bad for you. This stuff is in just about everything on the shelves, you know what I mean? Some monounsaturated fats, like olive oil, are supposed to be okay, but canola oil is a no-no. I learned that I am better off using a little bit of butter than I am in using any margarine or spread. I won't even write here what was said about cow's milk. It is too disgusting to think about again, much less share it on my blog. Fiber is good, but we know this already. Oh, and some of the symptoms we experience, and think are related to our hormonal fluctuations, might really be due to food allergies. Food allergies are very difficult to pinpoint, because the allergic response can be more subtle, delayed in time, and diffuse. So to uncover these food allergies, you have to journal in detail all your food intake, symptoms, and control your diet by eating only a few non-allergenic foods for two weeks, and then gradually adding back others, spacing the introduction of new foods by a day or two, in order to figure all this out.

All this I learned, a week before our scheduled 11 day camping trip, a time when we eat junk foods like no other time!

Can you see why I am finding this overwhelming yet?

The good news is, that for all those toxins that you cannot fully eliminate from your life, there are plenty of high potency multivitamins that can help bridge the gap. Thank goodness for this. And there is a whole world of herbs to explore. What fun.

So, I went to my local supermarket, the one in town that has the lowest prices by far. I looked for the special peanut butters, the organic produce, the organic dairy products, bread products, cereals and meats. Well, I was unable to find substitutes for any of the meats except chicken. Yes, there was the milk, and that will now cost me $6 a gallon. (and I will buy it now, because I don't want my children exposed to any more environmental estrogen than they have to. Baby Girl loves milk.) There are a few vegetables on the shelves that are organic, but not all that many. Mainly broccoli and carrots, big whoop. The eggs were there, and they weren't all that expensive compared to the regular eggs. The organic yogurt was there, but only in a highly sweetened form, which, I suppose, cancels out all the benefits of organic, for a dollar more than what I was buying. I guess I would find more such items at the other supermarket in town, but then each item would be even another dollar more expensive.

The economy has been shaky, and we've been trying to economize. Not the best time to start buying organic.

Knowing me, my symptoms will have to be pretty bad for me to muster up courage to use progesterone cream. As I get older, I get naturally skeptical --- of just about everything. I am skeptical of modern medicine, I am skeptical of naturopathic medicine, I am skeptical of anyone and everything that tells me that my status quo is not good enough and that I need to go out and spend more money on something to restore peace and harmony in my valley. Maybe it is my age, maybe it is the wisdom imparted to me by my parents, but this is the way I feel.

But, I can't continue a life of frozen pizzas, St*uffers dinners, Lean Cuisines, and the occasional chicken, pot roast and cut up vegetables. (oh, and by the way, the vegetables can't be canned. They are supposed to be fresh, and barely cooked, and I've been doing this wrong, too. I have been using frozen, and boiling my vegetables, probably too much to be any good. The writers of the book haven't really offered any opinion about frozen.)

And I am a homeschooling mom. I am not a nutritionist. I barely even get meals planned for the week, much less healthy wholesome ones!

Hold on, folks. There is an end coming to all of this.

So, my solution for now shall be Leanne Ely, the Dinner Diva. This lady has come to my rescue before, and now I need her again. Several years ago, I subscribed to her menu plans, and we did eat wholesome meals, dinners anyway, and they were different every day and we liked them. I printed out and saved the recipes I downloaded from her, and I uncovered them from a stack of papers this weekend. They were meals that used real foods (and some canned foods in the frugal menus) and they were tasty, they expanded our food horizons, and my DH liked most of them. The few I knew he wouldn't like I didn't bother to make. But you see, what she offers me is relief from the stress of having to dream up a meal plan for the week. Many of you bloggy moms are such experts at this, but for me, it is almost an insurmountable mental challenge here in the head of the senior teacher at M*ghty O*k Co*ntry Sch*ol. Psst . . . don't tell anyone, okay?

And I will continue to exercise more. And I will start taking that multivitamin. With these changes, I should more or less restore some balance to my body. And as for the progesterone cream . . . I think I am going to have to journal my symptoms for several more cycles before deciding that I need to add that into the mix.

Thank you, dear reader, for reading this far.