Lee’s grandmother is old, not too healthy, and Lee’s parents take care of her. This is hard. That is the easiest way to express it. It has specifically taken a toll on Lee’s mother since she is taking care of her own mother. It would make her life so much easier if she had a mobility vans to move her mother in and out of the van. It would also be great if the van was NMEDA certified.

When it comes to getting equipment, anything from wheelchairs to walkers, Lee’s mother needs a way to get what she needs with a minimum of stress. That is what NMEDA is offering. They are not direct vendors. Instead, they are a non-profit database of dealers that meet certain qualifications.

One of the important pieces of this is that all of the dealers are part of their Quality Assurance Program (QAP), which is a nationally recognized accreditation for dealers of adaptive mobile equipment. Their philosophy is that, for a customer to be satisfied, the dealer must have a systemic approach to quality. Yes, they want to sell only quality products.

Knowing that the equipment is certified to be the highest possible quality is one of the best ways to lower the stresses of being a caregiver.

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For most of us parents, the words wine and parenting go hand in hand. Yes, I am being funny in one sense but factual in another. Parenting is a hard job so sometimes, after we put the kiddies to bed, we like to open a bottle of something nice and have a glass. I like reds since I can convince myself that they are good for me. In reality, what is good for me is the time that I am giving myself to celebrate another day of parenting. Always remember to celebrate the day.

Guest post written by Lesley King

I think that when you get your makeup done for a special event, it’s important to get some of the makeup to go with you in case you need to touch up. I went to a wedding once and cried during it. I had my makeup done and didn’t have any mascara that I was wearing before with me. To say the least, the pictures of me from the wedding after that were not flattering.

I told my daughter yet and she agreed that what we should do is get her makeup done and buy the stuff so she could recreate it on the big night. She thought it was a great idea, the next step was looking for a beauty look she wanted to recreate. We were both online trying to find the perfect prom makeup look for her when we saw some tips on how to get rid of debt. I was glad to see them because I’m in debt and feel like I could really use some help to get out of it.

We found the perfect makeup look with Camille Belle that she wants to wear for her prom. She has the same skin tone and coloring as her so I’m sure she’s going to look great with it.

When it comes to muscle pain and joint aches, our family has some understanding. Lee has fibromyalgia and our oldest has all kinds of joint pains associated with arthritis and general achiness. Generally they take over the counter ibuprofen for their pain but after a while this can get bad on their stomach and the long term effects of taking this medication all of the time can be pretty bad.

So Trivita makes something that might just be something useful in my family. Apparently it is a good tasting drink so my finicky daughter will drink it and it is made of natural ingredients. The stuff is called Nopalea and it is a daily supplemental drink that has antioxidants which are scientifically proving to be good for inflammation. Besides the good effects on the joints, it is also showing to be good for digestion and body detoxification.

Right now they are offering the drink for free. All you need to do is pay for the shipping which is less than $10. You can order by calling 1-800-203-7063. This seems like a good idea. I figure, it can’t hurt to try it out. Especially if it is free. Free is my favorite price.

We were an infertile couple until we weren’t. We spend years trying to get pregnant. These were some of our hardest years. We did not have a lot of money. We were not poor but we were just getting by. So when doctors are talking about in-vitro and safety of egg freezing, we just kept wondering if our insurance would cover it. Of course, all of these doubts and fears come while the female has tons of hormones pumped into her body so that every question feels like an attack on her existence as a mother.

When we were in the process, Lee had a lot of bad side effects from the medication and hormones. There was a huge amount of blood, delusions and fevers, and she would experience brief spontaneous blindness. Yes, she would go blind for anywhere from five minutes to about twenty minutes. That was not fun. The delusions and fevers were not much fun either. I would lie in bed and hold her down because she thought that she needed to go somewhere.

Of course this was the days before internet. We did have all of the information that we do now available at our fingertips. Now I can look up “safety of egg freezing” on Google and find all kinds of information. I can go right to the National Institute of Health’s website and find information about infertility right from the United States government.

But we were young and naïve at that time. It never occurred to us that we would not be able to have a baby the old fashioned way. Then, we it was explained, we felt that it was our duty, or maybe our burden, to survive all of the hardship that comes with infertility and prove ourselves worthy of being parents. Now we know better but back then it sounded like good logic.