A lady full of energy!


What would be the best way to introduce this week's lady? Well, a quote from her web page does the job very well: "Hi. I'm Patti. I'm a baby boomer who's still amazed I survived the '70's! I'm a hopeless DIYer and love any project that stretches my creative muscles. I'm interested in more things than I have hours in the day to pursue. I have an insatiable need to learn and am happiest when I'm Googling." Her community has a lot for women our age, so go to her site and find out more: ttps://www.womenoverfiftynetwork.com/about/ 

Name: Patti Huck

Age: 63

Occupation: Writer, motivator

Family: My husband (the love of my life), daughter 38, son 37, and five grandchildren

Lives: Washington State, USA

You seem to be highly motivated. Have you always been that way? What motivates you?

Thinking back, I guess I have always been that way. What motivates me? Being faced with a challenge, whether it's a self-imposed challenge, or one that life has thrown at me. I've always loved to learn, and was that annoying child always asking "why?" I'm a highly emotional person, a little defiant, and very independent. I tend to throw myself into projects that I'm passionate about. I'm very driven and have always loved a challenge.

When I was a child, I had pretty significant asthma that interfered with a lot of normal childhood activities. Although I knew what my allergy triggers were, I often ignored them in an attempt to be "normal" like the other kids. I'd desperately wanted a pet, but was deathly allergic to dogs and cats. There was a night my mom came in to kiss me goodnight and found me in a full-blown asthma attack. She couldn't identify what triggered it until a cute little kitten that I'd smuggled into the house and hid under my covers peeked it's little head out.

I continued to push my limits throughout my childhood and into high school. I remember hating my Civics class and my grade reflected it. My dad challenged me to work hard enough to just pass the class. His challenge excited me, and was the motivation I needed to not only pass the class, but receive a final grade of an A.

When I married and had my two children, I fell madly in love with them. I vowed, like most new mothers, to become the best mother I could possibly be. My husband's work took him out of town for months at a time which put a strain on a marriage that was already precarious. He had been gone during the majority of the challenges I was faced with during our marriage. 

Over a 5 - 6 year period we almost lost our son to meningitis, my mother passing from leukemia at 51, my father suffered a fatal heart attack two years later at 61. I was alone when I underwent surgery for cervical cancer with an uncertain prognosis. My love for my children was my motivation to keep pushing forward and gave me strength.

You are running a website called "Women Over Fifty Network". What is it, and how did it begin?

Women Over Fifty Network is a network of women over the age of fifty who come together to inspire, support and celebrate each other.

A few years ago, my daughter and I created a website called organized CHAOSonline (https://organizedchaosonline.com). We both are list-makers and love to organize. We are also DIY'ers and love discovering cleaning hacks and great tips. Most of our readers were more my daughter's age, so the blogs we wrote spoke to that age group. 

After a couple years, I missed "my people". I wanted to write about things that interested my age group and develop relationships with women my age. But I wanted my site to be different from others I'd seen. I didn't want to just speak at other women, I wanted to have two-way conversations with them, and I wanted to find ways for them to all connect with each other.

My vision was to have women over fifty from all over the world have a place they could go where they knew they were accepted. I wanted them to be inspired to try new things, learn new skills, make new friends. I wanted all of us to celebrate each other's successes and accomplishments, no matter how small, and a place they could get support and comfort when struggling through difficult times.

What makes Women over Fifty Network different from other "lifestyle blogs"?

I wanted Women Over Fifty Network to be a different website than just one where I write blogs to you. I love all my subscribers, but at first they're just a faceless name. I want to know my subscribers. I want my subscribers to know each other. We all have our age in common. I want Women Over Fifty to feel like a women's club where we all get together and become friends. I want all my subscribers to know each other. 

I am forever coming up with different ways to make that happen. I ask readers to write in and share their stories about reinventing themselves in hopes of inspiring other readers. What they have gone through and how they survived may be exactly what someone else is needing to hear right at that moment.

We have a Pen Pal Exchange for subscribers. After completing a profile, women are matched with other profiles and become pen pals. Some great friendships have come from this.

I have recently requested that any subscribers who have their own blogs let me know. I will be featuring their blogs in upcoming blog posts. This gives those bloggers exposure and it also lets other subscribers get to know a fellow subscriber.

I also am continually searching for information, products and other over 50 bloggers to share with my readers and ask for their feedback. I encourage communication on our Facebook pages, and love when I hear from my subscribes through email or messages. I am passionate about bring women of the Baby Boomer generation together to lift each other up, celebrate and be proud of the strong, resourceful, fun, independent women we all are!

On your website you wrote: "My passion is to provide resources and teach skills to motivate, educate and inspire women over fifty to move them closer to realizing their dreams. I believe it's never too late to live the lives we've always wanted." Would you say that women in general aren't very good at promoting each other, and don't often end up actually doing what they dream about doing?

Yes and no. Although times have changed and women are no longer considered the weaker sex, I do believe that our generation sometimes still holds on to that old school stereotype, and oftentimes it's the women themselves. I've thought about this a lot. One theory I have why we don't end up doing what we've always dreamed about is because we may have created our 'bucket list' at a much younger age, and then life happened. Maybe when we have the chance to revisit our list of dreams, most of them have now lost their appeal, and we don't have a back up list. 

For some, that can cause a feeling of resentment that they've' missed the boat'. Thinking their dreams are no longer attainable, it can cause complacency and laziness. That's when people can become more and more closed off from the modern world and become an "old person", not willing to learn new skills, try new things, or meet new people.

When we have nothing in our lives that we're looking forward to or are excited and passionate about, our world becomes smaller and smaller, and all we can do at that point is to resort to doing only the things we already know how to do. For a lot of us, that would be cleaning house, cooking, and other household chores. How boring is that? That leaves a nagging or depressing feeling that life has passed us by.

It sounds like you're a woman on the go. With all that you're involved in, where do you get your energy?

I think I've always been kind of hyper. I love being outside, and when I'm feeling well, I love to golf, ride bikes, and do other outside activities. I have recently made a commitment to better health. I have started walking every day, and a friend and I are doing a plank challenge. We time ourselves, take a screenshot of our end time and send each other the results.

The biggest change to my life though is having recently discovered pure therapeutic exogenous ketones. I drink them twice a day and quite honestly they've changed my life. Just like wanting to share the benefits of massage for women with fibromyalgia, or just women in general, I'm sharing the benefits of pure therapeutic exogenous ketones. There is medical evidence emerging every day of how they help different conditions, one of them showing vast improvement in Alzheimer's and cognitive function.

I won't go on and on about them here, but there is a 4-minute video that explains in non-medical fashion how the ketones work in your body that I'd be glad to share with anyone who is interested. Just friend me on Facebook and send me a message.

You asked about passion? I am ABSOLUTELY passionate about getting the word out about this amazing product!! In just two months my mood has changed, I've lost 15 pounds effortlessly, I have 3 X the energy and I haven't had a flare of fibromyalgia since I started drinking them. I've also noticed that I'm able to focus better and don't have the "brain fog" anymore that is so common with fibromyalgia. Science has also determined that they have anti-aging properties. Woo hoo!

It's easy to get stuck in routines. With stressful lives, just taking up a new interest can be overwhelming. Any last word about how to get started if one feels that way?

It's interesting that you asked me this question. Not long ago I was looking for ways to change my sleep schedule to allow me to be more productive. I found the advice: Start changing a routine with just one thing. I was in the habit of staying up until 2:00 - 3:00 am and then waking up late the following morning immediately irritated that my day was getting a late start. Here's what I did...

My "one thing" was to make myself go to bed ½ hour earlier. I used a method that Mel Robbins originated and explains in her book "The 5 Second Rule". She claims that to get yourself to do something you don't want to do, aren't used to doing, or are afraid to do, you you just count down quickly from 5 to 1. When you reach 1, you immediately do that thing without thinking about it. So when I was sitting at the computer at 2:30 am and remembered I wanted to start going to bed earlier, I immediately counted 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and got up, turned my office light out and went to bed. Once you start counting, you just do that thing. No excuses. No matter what.

I've used it to get myself out the door for my walk on cold mornings, and find myself counting down in other situations before I even know I'm doing it, I guess we subconsciously know the things we're going to drag our feet on. Try it - it works!

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