Getting together to sew quilts, exchange news, and enjoy one another’s recipes constituted the pioneer quilting bee.  This often was a rare social time for these ladies who were busy with the day-to-day work (drugery in some cases) of running a household and helping with farm chores. 

Image:sxc.hu

Today, quilting and crafting ladies still get together for what I’d call “modern” quilting bees.  As I read Cindy’s Stitches in Time blog post about friends getting together to work on quilt kits they had purchased at quilt show, I pondered on the many types of quilting bees in today’s world of the computer and Internet.

• Friends getting together at one another’s homes to work on projects
• Quilting groups meeting regularly to work on projects; these might be their own or a charity project
• Groups working on fund raising projects
• Internet groups that exchange information and news via e-mail
• Round robin projects sent through the mail to those within a group.
• Two quilters who exchange projects and news via mail and e-mail.
• Quilting classes that continue as quilting groups who meet regularly

(Although I mention quilting bees, these gatherings could involve most any art/craft.)

What type of quiting or crafting bee are you involved in?

There isn’t a woman around that doesn’t feel awkward about her body a little. Most of us have some issues here and there with at least one body part.

Glamour magazine wanted to find out what women really thought about their bodies, and more than that, why some women felt confident while others didn’t. They did their very first “body survey” in 1984. Do the words “leotards” and “high-impact aerobics” ring a bell at all? That was 1984. During that first survey, “75 percent of women surveyed felt they were too fat, and more than 60 percent said they were dissatisfied with or ashamed of their stomach, hips and thighs.”

Twenty-five years later, Glamour has done another survey, asking many of the same questions. They’ve found that “more than 40 percent of women still seem to be struggling with their body image.” However, there was one noticeable change. “Women under 30 are now 22 percent more likely to say they are happy with their bodies than older women are.” I know some of you women are thinking that is because younger women have better bodies in general, but it’s really more than that. For example, I’m much more comfortable with my body now and it’s heavier and less toned than it was in my 20s. In other words, age has a lot to do with things.

Women also said have professional success made them feel better about their body all over. Exercise made them feel good about certain body parts, as did having sex. Eating a healthy diet also worked. Glamour concluded that you should spend time with people that make you feel good about yourself. (I second that!) After all, we all have “days” where we feel negative, so surrounding yourself with positive folks will help you get over negative self-talk quicker. In other words, all of us might have areas we don’t like, we are beautiful nonetheless. Don’t focus on what you think is negative. Chances are, you’re the only one that does.

Image: sxc.hu.

Today I’ve got something for the men. AOL Health has a piece on the best exercise for even better sex.  C’mon guys, grab your weights, and lets get busy.

*Push-ups - Men need good upper body strength to support themselves in the missionary position.  Push-ups build muscles and help increase endurance. They don’t mention it, but the yoga position known as The Plank would also help here. Lean forward with forearms along the floor, hands in fists, feet bent down, toes on floor. Lift mid-section off the floor and support your weight on forearms and toes. Try to keep your body in a straight line, butt tucked in, not poking out. Hold for as long as you can, work up to 1 minute at time. Works your arms and core.

*Pelvic Tilts - A long time favorite of women, pelvic tilts help to increase control in pelvis region. A tilted pelvis helps a man to position himself for better friction for the woman in the cowgirl position. Lay on your back, bend knees, feet on floor, lift butt up off the floor, toward the ceiling, hold for 2 seconds, return to floor. You are trying to lift everything, except your feet and shoulders off the floor.

*First 1/2 of a Clean Lift - To support your lady in a standing position, you need leg and upper body strength. The first half of a Clean Lift works well here. Put a barbell or dumbbells in front of you. Bend your knees, pick up weight(s) with hands facing opposite directions, shoulder width apart. Straighten up, keeping back and head straight. Pause, lower the weights back down. Do 3 sets of 15.

*Shrug - The wheelbarrow requires strong shoulders and back. A shrug move helps to strengthen this area. Hold a dumbbell in each hand. Stand straight, lift shoulders only, as high as possible, keep arms straight, pause, then lower. Do 3 sets of 8-12.

*Cardio- Any sort of cardio increases endurance and gentlemen, I’m sure it’s no surprise to learn that the ladies appreciate it when you are able to take your time.

Image credit: All Posters.com

Tonight, after a night out carousing (we’re currently on a girlfrends getaway), my best friend related a story about how, once upon a time, as she was young, she would love to pick dogweeds and put them in her hair.

“They looked so pretty…but later I realized, they smelled really bad.”

I wonder if that may be symbolic of the mistakes ALL of us keep on making in our relationships…going for the guys that are wrong for us, and are bad for us, but yet, we are attracted to anyway.

Why do we insist on doing this to ourselves???

I’m sad. Sad for me, sad for everyone in a situation where they know they need to search for something better, and yet keep on getting hung up on the same bad choices, time and again.

Image: Sxc.hu

People are buzzing these days about the pop singer Rihanna and her boyfriend Chris Brown. Brown has been charged with assaulting Rihanna. Soon after the incident, she apparently got back together with him.

Rihanna has become the public face for domestic abuse, as her story is all-too common. According to one source, domestic violence, “is the most common cause of injury to women ages 15-44.”

Suffering abuse is bad enough. But it also changes the way women behave in relationships from that point forward. If women stay in a bad relationship, they are “likely to stop trusting their own perceptions and become passive” in everything from friendships to relationships.

The effects of abuse don’t end when the physical violence stops. Women need to remove themselves from these types of situations, and most of all they need to know that they didn’t do a thing to deserve them. Nothing. Women typically second-guess themselves and try to accommodate, so it’s their nature to want to please and get along. But they need to work against this instinct, and value their worth.

Rihanna, this beautiful and talented young women, needs to know her worth. If you could give Rihanna a message right now, what would it be?

Maybe you too saw the Oprah’s on Hormones?

It occurs to me, watching all those angry, frustrated, fed-up women. . .

Perhaps it is only hormones that makes women put up with so much of everyone’s shit.

Maybe, when we’re in our mid-to-late late 30s, 40s, and 50s - we’ve had enough already.

Perhaps it’s the lack of estrogen that makes women finally stop. Putting up with the world’s shit, I mean.

No kidding.

Its evidence of God and Santa if any was ever needed.

Bratz will no longer be on the shelves after Christmas, the courts ordered the molds broken! The name can no longer be used.

More info over at Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me

Image source: Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me

Can I just say this?

We keep hearing from heads of state, political candidates, senators, congressmen, businessmen, mainstream media and Wall Street that the United States is suffering from a labor shortage.

I call bullshit.

Look across the dinner table and see that beautiful wife? See your brazen sister, your wise mother and the really smart neighbor?

She’s not just a “SAHM.”

She has a masters degree.

She has a doctorate degree.

She’s got 10 to 20 years of experience in the labs, in the newsroom, in the office, in the market, on wall street, in the classroom, in virtually every sphere of industry that exists.

Women hold half the knowledge and a very high level of training and experience, not to mention the creativity and ingenuity this country needs.

This country is FULL of skilled and knowledgeable women who are waiting to be invited back into the workforce.

What are they waiting for?

Family-friendly working conditions and equal pay.

Instead of claiming they have to move their operations overseas or import workers for a qualified workforce, employers would be wise to look at the resource right in front of their face: WOMEN.

Qualified and educated women who are worn out from sexual harassment from coworkers, pregnancy discrimination, lack of family medical leave, working hours that extend 2 crucial hours past the school day, lack of sick days, etc.

Solution - employers should stop being so attached to the workplace policies and the rigid 40 hour work week that shut half their qualified workforce out and invite the women back.

They’ll come.

Visit Momsrising.org for information about what kinds of specific workplace policies will lure women back to their industries.

Am I the only one who pretends I’m Bill Gates watching those Apple commercials? How does Bill Gates feel watching those commercials?

It makes me giggle because it’s true. It’s sooo true.

And it’s about freaking time they included some women.

OK - I just love that they called her genius instead of geek. Not that I don’t love the name, Geek Squad. I so do. I just love that they were presumptuous enough to use the word Genius.

Ever read news and go, “Well, duh. It took them long enough to get there?” I recently had a conversation with Jeanne Connor Dessert. She’s struggled with endometriosis.

Endometriosis is a painful, chronic disease that affects 5.5 million women and girls in the USA and Canada, and millions more worldwide. It occurs when tissue like that which lines the uterus (called the endometrium) is found outside the uterus.This misplaced tissue develops into growths or lesions which respond to the menstrual cycle in the same way that the tissueof the uterinelining does:each month the tissue builds up, breaks down, and sheds. Menstrualbloodflows from the uterus and out of the body through the vagina, but the bloodand tissue shed from endometrial growths has no way of leaving the body.This results in internal bleeding,breakdown of the blood and tissue fromthe lesions, and inflammation — and can cause pain,infertility, scar tissue formation, adhesions, and bowel problems.

Obviously this is terrible to undergo. But, what is really upsetting to Jeanne and others in her support group is the way their pain has been dismissed by the medical community because it is of a feminine nature. Many go decades having their condition undiagnosed because their pain is completely dismissed by doctors. I hear similar stories from women about predominantly female pain diseases like fibromyalgia. 

Oh, I totally get that. During my first birth when my entire labia was severed and required about 25 stitches it was excruciating and I had to literally throw a temper tantrum before my OB/GYN would give me pain medication. “I can only give you 15,” she said. I felt I would have gotten more sympathy,empathy, compassion and medicine had I severed my finger. When the intern ripped through the stitches (to figure out why I had pain - uh, I just pushed a human through my vagina and my labia had to be reattached) there was no “fix” available and I was told I’d have to wait until the next baby to repair my mangled labia. And as the second OB/GYN ripped 25 more stitches out of my most tenderest skin without pain medication or a local anesthetic after my second and last child, I thought, “Why do they allow psychotic sadists to become obstetricians?”

As I could barely sit with my poor pained pudenda, my husband went in for a vasectomy. I noticed a huge discrepancy within the medical community when compared to men getting vasectomies. He was given a valium, a local anesthetic both during the procedure and the removal of stitches and a big bottle of refillable pain medication. Not to mention my undying gratitude for permanently preventing my vajayjay more heinous pain. They even gave him porn to make the semen testing process enjoyable. 

Why?  

According to an article, Women, Men and Ouch! the Painful Truth by Cathleen Medwick in O Magazine there is a very real difference in how the medical community perceives pain and treats it in women versus men.

In other words, this is not just a hysterical perception of mine and Jeanne’s this is a documented fact. Medwick talks about how difficult it was for her mother, who was dying of breast cancer, to get her pain treated or even garner any sympathy for it.

Medwick interviewed pain guru Jeffrey Mogil, PhD, director of the pain genetics laboratory at McGill University in Montreal. Mogil has apparently done something unheard of and revolutionary - he includes females in his pain studies.

That’s right. The scientific community has traditionally excluded women under the erroneous assumption that “females show too much variability in their responses due to hormonal cycling,” according to the article. 

Mogil is revolutionary because he noticed that women made up the vast majority of clinical pain patients. And so he thought to study them. (Am I the only one screaming, It’s 2008, what the hell took you so long? That’s a nose on your face.)

In his research he has discovered that women and men have a different genetic makeup and they experience pain differently. He believes, according to the article, that there are actually different neural circuits for men and women. He says this means that treating women with pain medication which is effective for men is not going to treat women’s pain adequately. Visa versa. 

Since most research excludes women, he believes, that’s resulted in inadequately treating women’s pain by using medications that were made for men. He also says women have a documented lower pain threshold. Saying that not only are women more likely to report pain, but we experience it as more painful. Other species do too, he says, citing female rats that flinch more than male rats responding to the same stimulus.It has recently been shown that estrogen influences pain sensitivity. Male rats given the hormone flinched in more pain than they did without the hormone. Testosterone, when injected in the female rat, reduced the response to pain. 

Women feel pain more acutely and yet:
Women are still twice as likely as men to be under-treated for pain.