Monthly Archives: October 2012

Product Review: Murad’s Vitalic Skin Care Line

30 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by in LifeStyles, Product Reviews, The Beautiful Life, The Healthy Life

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Three amazing skin care products from Murad‘s Vitalic Line: Energizing Pomegranate Moisturizer, Energizing Pomegranate Cleanser, and T-Zone Pore Refining Gel

Thanks to my Sicilian-Lebanese heritage, I’ve been blessed with Mediterranean skin. It has served me well for 56 years—I have no wrinkles or fine lines to speak of, my skin is rarely dry, and it has an elasticity that would make Gumby proud. You do know that there’s a ‘however’ coming, right?

The downside of a skin type such as mine is excess oil that can lead to the occasional pimple, and a tendency toward clogged pores. As blessed as I am to have the skin I have, it nevertheless strikes me as unfair that at my age I still worry about blemishes. Now that’s a First World Problem if ever there was one.

Stress tends to trigger my breakouts; in August and September, with stress levels high, four pimples appeared like four badges of honor on my face. In addition, my skin looked dull and tired—probably because I was feeling dull and tired. Then two things occurred that brightened my outlook considerably.

First, I went on the Digest Diet in September and lost ten pounds. I’ve blogged about my weight loss journey (I’ve kept the weight off, too) and as I noted, one of the side benefits to the diet was a new-found clarity to my skin.

Second, I changed-up my skin care routine. I’d used Bliss products for years and liked them just fine, but my skin seems to have outgrown them. My face just wasn’t feeling clean or bright. As luck would have it, I was given an opportunity to try three products from Murad‘s Vitalic skin care line. Let me tell you a bit about Murad.

Dr. Howard Murad is the man behind the company. A board-certified dermatologist and a member of the American Academy of Dermatology, he has devised something called the “Science of Cellular Water,” which looks at the ability of cell membranes to retain water within cells as the fundamental marker of youthful good health. Dr. Murad combined this with an approach to skin care he calls “inclusive health.” It’s no surprise that my dieting, in tandem with Murad products, resulted in glowing skin: internal care is one of the three pillars of Dr. Murad’s plan, with the other two being topical skin care and sense of self.

I was doing aces in the internal care component, which, according to the Murad website, “maximizes the body’s healing capacity through choices in food … that ensure it has the building blocks it needs to produce strong, watertight cells.” Admittedly, I still need to find time for those “sense of self”—activities such as facials and massages that also help to reduce one’s level of cell-damaging stress.

Here’s how my path crossed with Murad products.

When I was at the BlogHer12 conference in New York City, I attended a fabulous party sponsored by BOOMBox Network. The B(L)OOMERS PARTY, as it was called, celebrated the theme of beauty and wisdom, and brought together, in one sophisticated location near Bryant Park, a whole flock of women who blog about midlife issues. (I have so much more to tell you about this event, but it will have to keep for a future post. For now, here’s a photo from the party.)

That’s me on the right; to my left is Carrie Tuhy, co-founder of the Second Lives Club.

Many of the party’s sponsors were eager to meet with us to show off their latest and greatest products, samples of which could be found in the swag bags we received. Murad was one company that immediately caught my eye. Our gift bags included a sample kit of their Resurgence line of skin care products, which are designed to address the signs of hormonal aging.

When I got home I gave the products a try, but I sensed—correctly—that they weren’t what my skin needed. When I wrote to the representative I’d met at the party to let her know, she told me that another product line might suit me better.

She sent me three different products to try from Murad’s Vitalic Line, which was created to even oily and dry zones, clear clogged pores, and keep combination skin like mine in balance. Here’s what I promised Murad: if I was pleased with the products, I would write a review. There was no expectation that I would do so; I could have tried the products, hated them, called it a day, and you’d be reading something else right now.

But that’s not what happened.

The pomegranate-kissed products in the Murad Vitalic line are exactly what I’ve been looking for. I absolutely love these products. I love the way my face feels after washing it with the Energizing Pomegranate cleanser. Besides having a pleasant fragrance—something akin to pink lemonade—the cleanser leaves my skin feeling freshly-scrubbed but not dry. One of its main ingredients is witch hazel, a botanical used to produce astringents. That’s one of the reasons I feel so clean after using this cleanser—the witch hazel actually removes the excess oil from my Mediterranean skin.

After washing my face and neck with the Pomegranate cleanser, I gently massage the T-Zone Pore Refining Gel over my face and neck. The packaging tells me that I can expect the retinol in this gel to help improve my skin texture, tone, and radiance; the glycolic and salicylic acids act as an exfoliant to help clear my pores and imperfections; and the pomegranate extract neutralizes and protects my skin against free radical damage. Now I studied biology, not chemistry, but I’m sure that indeed is what’s going on. The proof is in the mirror.

I think my skin looks great! Now if Murad has something to unpack those bags under my eyes….

The third-step is the moisturizer, which is oil free and contains broad spectrum SPF 15 protection—a nice added benefit. I don’t use this moisturizer near my eyes, however; in fact, I’m still using the Renewing Eye Cream from the Resurgence line for that area. I’d love it if Murad would manufacturer an eye-specific moisturizer in the Vitalic line—maybe something that can reduce the puffiness under my eyes. The other two products I have yet to try are the Energizing Pomegranate SPF 15 Lip Protector and a Pomegranate Exfoliating Mask. It’s been a long while since I’ve treated myself to a decent facial, so I plan on purchasing the mask and give myself one at home.

Most Murad products are available at Sephora. Murad also has a line of professional spa treatments; if you visit the spa locator on their website you can find out whether there’s a salon offering Murad near you.

Please let me know if you have any questions about this review, or about Murad products in general. My glowing skin and I are happy to help!

Read this important update about Murad’s Vitalic skin care line.

Three Degrees of Celebrity Dog Whispering

25 Thursday Oct 2012

Posted by in Humor Me, What's the Buzz?

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Rigby Sue Sarandon can’t resist the Midlife Second Wife’s charms. Television image by Matthew Janas; used with permission of ABC.

You never can tell what each day will bring. One morning you’re driving to New York City to join the audience of Katie Couric’s new talk show as a member of her blogging crew, the next thing you know, Rigby Sue Sarandon, one of Susan Sarandon’s two sweet puppies, interrupts her grand entrance to make a beeline for you.

Once upon a time, no canine grapevine was quite as effective as the “Twilight Bark,” the alert system popularized by Disney’s classic animated film One Hundred and One Dalmations. But as social media has changed for humans, it stands to reason that the ways in which household pets communicate across great distances have also undergone a paradigm shift. Although I didn’t know it yet, something was afoot, and I suspect that Sandy, our Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, had a paw in what it was. She’s not much of a barker, but she does have her own Facebook page…

Sandy Rich is waiting for ‘Katie’ to come on. She heard that Susan Sarandon’s puppies were going to make a cameo appearance.

Rigby Sue and Penny Lane Sarandon, with their owner, actress Susan Sarandon, and their gracious host, Katie Couric.

…and the Sarandon dogs—Rigby Sue and Penny Lane—each have their own Twitter accounts. (Sandy has been clamoring to get on Twitter. She wants to parody the Honest Toddler by calling herself the Candid Spaniel, thereby cashing in on the adorably snarky tot’s popularity. I told her not to obsess over the commercial aspects of her brand—that she should instead focus on her art. She walked away from me.)

I imagine that somehow—whether by status update or tweet—a communication chain commences. Rigby (whom Sarandon acknowledged on national television has addiction problems—perhaps to Twitter?), ignores the stage manager’s directions and scrambles over to where I am sitting. Just as she is about to dive into my arms (I’m sure that was her intention), an ABC official scoops her up and carts her back to her owner. Rigby, although our time together was brief, I will always remember you…

…Just as I will always remember another celebrity dog whom I happened to meet (by coincidence? by canine social media intervention?) less than four hours later.

After taping ends, my husband and I leave the ABC Studios in midtown Manhattan and drive across the George Washington Bridge toward Tappan, the hamlet where he grew up. We are spending the night with one of John’s old school chums and his wife. In residence at Mike and Mary Jane’s are two dogs. One belongs to their adult son. The other, Ka’ala, is even more tenuously related—her owner is the best friend of their adult daughter. Ka’ala and I really hit it off. She brings me toys to inspect, sleeps outside our room that night, and is the first to greet me in the morning (after John, of course).

Now as far as I know, Ka’ala is not wired into social media.

Ka’ala, Hayden Panettiere’s lovable mixed-breed rescue dog, is one link in the chain of canine coincidence.

But her owner, Hayden Panettiere, star of the new ABC musical-drama Nashville, is.

Imagine the scenario: Sandy is posting status updates on Facebook, the Sarandon pups are tweeting, and Ka’ala, sensing—with the innate sixth sense of the canine—the chain of coincidence, logs into Hayden’s Twitter account to follow the action.

Is there a new Disney animated film somewhere in this scenario? Pixar perhaps? Pete Docter, call me.

So, to recap, let’s all play Three Degrees of Celebrity Dog Whispering!

Ka’ala is owned by Hayden Panettiere, who stars in Nashville, which was created by Callie Khouri*, winner of the Academy Award for her screenplay Thelma & Louise, the iconic film starring Geena Davis and …

… Susan Sarandon, owner of Rigby Sue and Penny Lane. Rigby Sue made an enduring connection with…

The Midlife Second Wife, owner of Sandy.

Wait—what? The Midlife Second Wife is not a celebrity? Look—please do me a favor. Don’t let Sandy know.

*Callie Khouri is also of Lebanese descent, and so am I, on my father’s side. But that’s another blog post.

The Midlife Second Wife on KatieCouric.com and Thoughts on Ping-Pong

23 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by in Transitions

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Oh hello. It’s me again, the Midlife Second Wife and Celebrity Dog Whisperer. (I promise to explain that designation in an upcoming post.) I wanted to let you know that an edited version of “The ‘L’ Word” has been published on KatieCouric.com as “Learning to Love Again.” If you have the time, I hope you’ll check it out. If you like what you read, by all means join the conversation and leave a comment on the thread. Or share it on your Facebook page or Twitter feed. If you don’t care for it all that much, that’s all right, too. All I ask is that you lift your hands slowly and carefully up from the keyboard. That’s it. Now stand—nice and easy. Turn around. Walk away from the computer. Go fix yourself a snack or something.

Did you have a chance to see the absolutely breathtaking Susan Sarandon on the program? It was a fascinating conversation about relationships and finding love after a divorce or breakup, and covered topics such as commitment, what it’s like for older women to date younger men, and ping-pong. (In addition to being an acting legend, Sarandon is something of an entrepreneuse; she’s co-owner of SPiN— a ping-pong social club in Manhattan with locations in Toronto, Los Angeles, and Milwaukee.)

I’m just glad that all I had to do for the show was be in the audience and send out live tweets. Having me up there playing ping-pong would not have made for good television.

Having seen the program twice now, I’ve come to the conclusion that the ping-pong segment is an apt metaphor for relationships. What do you think?

One final note: the segment featuring Dr. Terri Orbuch, the “Love Doctor,” was bumped in order to preview last night’s presidential debate. As soon as I receive word about a new air date I’ll let you know. If you’re on Twitter, I was live tweeting during the broadcast. You can find the tweets at [hashtag]katie or via my handle, [at]midlife2wife. A couple of my tweets are also featured on the show’s website.

The ‘L’ Word

20 Saturday Oct 2012

Posted by in Love, Midpoints, Relationships and Family Life, Remarriage, Transitions

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morgueFile image/KConnors photograph

NOTE: KatieCouric.com published an edited version of this post as “Learning to Love Again” on Monday, Oct. 22, 2012.

As many magazine articles, advice columnists, and situation comedies will tell you, it’s tricky being the first person in a relationship to say, “I love you.” Remember George Costanza? George was left holding what Jerry Seinfeld called a “pretty big matzo ball” because he failed to receive the much coveted “I love you return.” But what’s funny on television is actually quite terrifying in real life. It takes a huge leap of faith and nerves of titanium to say the “L” word first.

Take that terror to the tenth power if you’re divorced.

I know whereof I speak. After 26 years of marriage, my first husband and I divorced. Fast-forward six years, and I meet him. You know, The One. But let’s digress a moment, because playing with these numbers has given me an epiphany.

When I met The One, I was one year shy of my seven-year cellular renewal cycle—you know, that “Aha! Moment” your body supposedly has when all of its cells slough away, leaving you with an almost brand-new self. In truth, as Nicholas Wade wrote in a New York Times science article seven years ago, some cells—“the neurons of the cerebral cortex, the inner lens cells of the eye and perhaps the muscle cells of the heart”— remain unchanged. Now that’s what I call something of great constancy. The cellular structures of the brain, the eye, and the heart—three essential components in registering romantic love, if you ask me—remain constant. The cells in the rest of our bodies hit the refresh key, as it were.

Interesting. But the brain, eye, and heart theory didn’t pass the constancy test in my first marriage, I’m sad to say.

Then again, you never know. I like the idea of considering, given multiples of seven, that perhaps anything is possible. Believe me, I have mapped this out. I was married at 21 and divorced at 47. (Okay, so I’m a year or two off.) But everything did seem possible when I met The One, skipping along as I was toward my next seven-year cycle of renewal. The One and I had a lot in common: we made each other laugh, we sang lyrics from the Great American Songbook while cleaning up the kitchen after cooking together, and the attraction we felt toward one another left us in awe.

And then, two-and-a-half months into the relationship, it happened.

I did it. I’m the one who said it. After a hesitant sigh, he replied, as gently as he could, “I’m sorry. I’m just not there yet.”

Talk about your matzo balls. I could have opened a deli.

“Forget it,” I countered hastily. “I shouldn’t have said it. I understand what you’re saying/feeling/thinking.” (I was trying to fill in as many blanks as I could to cover myself.) “It’s all right.”

I wanted to believe that his reaction stemmed from emotional baggage. Our arms were filled with it. His divorce, however, was more recent than mine. I had reached the point where my baggage, as Dr. Terri Orbuch (The Love Doctor) says, could fit in the overhead compartment. Him? Not so much. He needed a skycap.

Or maybe it was something else. Maybe (Heaven forefend!) it was a case of “he’s just not that into you.”

And so he left, leaving me to wonder if I’d blown it. How could I have misread the signals? Everything pointed to love. All of the signs were there: the caring, the fondness, the intimacy, the long, meaningful conversations, the seeming trust, the genuine enjoyment in just being together. If that’s not love, what is?

I decided I wasn’t going to let this get to me. I was happy, he was happy. (He was, wasn’t he?) We had a date for the following evening; in fact, we had several events lined up into the next month. I wasn’t about to bring it up again.

Until one day I did.

“I blank you.”

“What?”

“I said ‘I blank you.’”

“What does that mean?”

“It can mean whatever you’d like it to mean. Fill in the blank. For my part, I know what it means but I’m not telling you. More cake?”

He laughed, and that was that. We were back on an even keel. “I blank you” became a running joke between us. He even started saying it to me.

The weeks flew by. Before I knew it, October was here, the month containing the second most dreaded Hallmark holiday (after Valentine’s Day) for single people: Sweetest Day.

I remember the scene as though it were yesterday. I had cooked dinner, something from my collection of Barefoot Contessa cookbooks. I bought him a maroon hooded Oberlin sweatshirt, not because he went to Oberlin, but because I did. I still lived in that quaint college town, and he loved its cultural vibe as much as I did. I wrapped the gift and bought a card. I presented both to him with a flourish. Here’s the card:

© Marian Heath. Used with permission and slightly altered, as it was the day I gave it to The One. Where would we be without Post-It Notes?

After he finished laughing, he became quiet. He looked at me across the table and said, “Marci, I’m not saying this because it’s Sweetest Day. I don’t “blank” you anymore. That’s silly. I love you.”

There it was. Four months after meeting him on Match.com, he told me he loved me. The matzo ball dissolved.

Four years after that first sweetest day together, we’re still celebrating. We’ve been married for two years. At the risk of tempting fate, by our seventh wedding anniversary, I fully expect the constancy theory to hold—my heart, my head, and my eyes will see what I’m seeing right now: He’s The One.

© Marian Heath. Used with permission.

RELATED:

‘When they Fall, they Fly’

“Outliers of Outloving”

“Secrets Of A Successful Marriage: Marlo Thomas And Phil Donahue”

“Secrets to a Happy Relationship”

 

The Midlife Second Wife Joins “Katie” as a Featured Blogger on Monday, Oct. 22

18 Thursday Oct 2012

Posted by in Love, Relationships and Family Life, Special Events, What's the Buzz?

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The elegant set of ‘Katie.’ The show is taped at ABC Studios in New York and syndicated across the United States.

(MONDAY, OCT. 22, 2012)—UPDATE: I learned late last night that the segment featuring Dr. Terri Orbuch has been postponed and will be rescheduled. When the producers announce a new air date I will let you know. Hope you can tune in to watch Academy Award-winning actress Susan Sarandon speak with Katie Couric and see both women engage in a bit of competitive sport!

The call came on a Monday in August, about a week after I had returned home to Richmond following the BlogHer conference in New York City. On the line was Brittany Jones-Cooper, a producer of Katie, Katie Couric’s new syndicated daytime talk show.

She and Couric had been at the BlogHer conference—Couric was featured in one of several keynote interviews, engaging in a lively discussion with BlogHer cofounder Lisa Stone, and issuing a clarion call for bloggers to participate in her new show. The television legend certainly came to the right place!

And, it would seem, so did I.

Back to that phone call. Couric’s producer had seen my blog, liked what I wrote, and asked if I could be in ABC Studios in New York on Thursday for a taping. Couric has employed several ingenious methods of integrating social media into her program; one way is to have two bloggers in the audience for each show. The theme of this particular program would be divorce.

Now as we all know, I happen to know a little bit about that subject.

And so it was that three days later, my husband John, who grew up about 20 minutes outside of the city, drove me into Manhattan. A bonus of the trip? We’d take some time to explore all of the landmarks of his youth—something I’d wanted to do ever since meeting him.

What a whirlwind! Just arrived backstage at the ABC Studios, still wearing my traveling clothes. TMSW got dressed and made up in record time!

I’m in the cobalt blue jacket, wearing a necklace and an Apple MacBook Pro. At my right is blogger Deesha Philyaw, of ‘Co-Parenting 101.’

You’re reading about all of this now because the program I was invited to attend airs on Monday, Oct. 22, at 3 p.m. on NBC12 in the Richmond market. You’ll want to visit the Katie website to check your local listings; in some markets the program airs at 2 p.m.

Katie Couric chats with the audience before the taping. Check out her gorgeous shoes!

The featured guest? One of my favorite actresses—the smart, sultry, simply ageless Susan Sarandon—as admired for her social activism as she is for her award-winning performances. Single after a long-term partnership with actor Tim Robbins, she turned 66 earlier this month; she shares her thoughts about commitment, relationships, and what it’s like to be an older—albeit steadily working—actress in Hollwood. Also on the show is Dr. Terri Orbuch, aka ‘the love doctor,’ offering useful marital advice—from a surprising source.

After the taping, Sarandon and her two dogs, Rigby and Penny, posed for pictures with Katie. Remind me to tell you a cute story about Rigby!

The colorfully-garbed audience of ‘Katie’

I’ll be tweeting LIVE during the broadcast beginning at 3 p.m. Eastern Time. If you’re not already following me on Twitter, please hop over to the next window and click “follow.”

The producer also asked me to write an essay for the program’s website about finding love after divorce. (I happen to know a little something about that, too.) KatieCouric.com published “Learning to Love Again” on Oct. 22, 2012. The post appears as “The ‘L’ Word” on this blog.

I hope you’ll have a chance to tune in or follow my LIVE tweets during the broadcast. Enjoy! And as always, thanks for reading!

Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid

17 Wednesday Oct 2012

Posted by in Humor Me, What's the Buzz?

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On a night when a new meme was born, one woman discovered the power of a new iPhone app. Would public discourse ever be the same?

And the Winner of ‘The Digest Diet’ Is …

15 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by in What's the Buzz?

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The recipes in this book are delicious and fun to prepare.

Isn’t it nice to start off a Monday with some good news? I’m ducking in very quickly to announce the winner of my giveaway. Congratulations to Mindy Trotta of Cambridge, Massachusetts! Your free copy of The Digest Diet, by Liz Vaccariello, will be departing the post office here in Richmond sometime this week. Watch that mailbox!

My thanks to all those who left comments on my blog post about the diet.

And in case you were wondering….I’ve kept all the weight off, even though I’ve reintroduced things I kind of missed—cream in my coffee, for example. But I’ll tell you something: I simply cannot eat the way I used to—don’t have the taste for it. And as Martha Stewart would say, “That’s a good thing.”

Have a great week, everyone!

Where I Come From

14 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by in Nostalgia, Transitions, What's the Buzz?

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The old Elyria Public Library, Elyria, Ohio

VIOLA:
What country, friends, is this?

CAPTAIN:
This is Illyria, lady.

VIOLA:
And what should I do in Illyria?

What should I do, indeed?

Readers, I come from Elyria, Ohio. When I first ran across this passage from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (Act I, Scene II), as an English literature major at Oberlin College—15 miles (give or take) southwest of Elyria—I smiled to myself. How, I thought, could Shakespeare possibly have known that, in truth, there’s really not that much to do in ‘Illyria.’

Aye, there’s the rub.

Elyria, like so many neighboring towns in Northeast Ohio—including that metropolis to the east, Cleveland—has experienced more than its share of brain drain. Not that I’m such an Einstein, but after my divorce I moved to my alma mater’s eponymous town. I had gone to school at Oberlin and by then had worked at the college for ten years. My diaspora-of-one was not just to save myself a 15-minute commute twice each day; it was to live my life in a community of like-minded people, with steps-away access to internationally renowned concerts and lectures, where I no longer felt as though I were a stranger in a strange land. What a thing to say about one’s hometown! But it was true. I felt I had outgrown Elyria, although in some ways it’s quite possible it was the town that had outgrown me.

I remember when the fine arts were a lively part of life in Elyria. My mother spent—no, volunteered—countless hours selling subscription tickets to the Elyria Community Concert Association. Many backwater towns sponsored similar cultural lifelines, and Elyria was a thriving hub on the circuit. I remember seeing opera legend Leontyne Price, the Vienna Boys’ Choir, Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians, the piano duo of Ferrante and Teicher, and many others artists perform live in the auditorium of Elyria High School. Imagine that: a town without a performing arts center nevertheless brought internationally respected artists to visit.

And I remember taking the bus downtown with my mother, browsing through any number of sweet little shops that sold fashionable clothes to “the smart set,” eating at any number of mom-and-pop restaurants or soda fountains, buying chocolate cupcakes at Gartman’s Bakery. I saw the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night at the old Capital Theater downtown, and bought my 45-records at Wagner’s Appliance Store. I failed to learn how to swim at the Elyria YMCA across from Ely Square. I’ve already shared with you my childhood memory of the old Elyria Public Library, pictured above. All those places are gone. The library, torn down, opened a modern, one-story facility on Washington Avenue, sometime in the late 1960s, as I recall. It’s still there, although now there’s a newer, larger, main library on the west side.

You know that a city is growing when one library isn’t enough to contain all the dreams of its readers.

Elyria was changing, and I was changing with it. All the shopping was now centered at the Midway Mall. If you didn’t drive you had to take a taxi to get there, because the buses had stopped running. All the downtown movie theaters—and at one time there were four—were shuttered. The Community Concert Association folded; people now drove south to Oberlin to satisfy their longing for culture, or north to Lorain County Community College, at the very edge of the city, where a lecture series and a performing arts series were gaining a foothold. (I actually began my college education there, and received an excellent foundation that prepared me well for Oberlin.) The point, however, is that there really wasn’t much of anything left in Elyria except for government offices, banks, and lawyers.

It made sense that as long as I was starting a new life, I might as well give myself a new city in which to start it. Oberlin was an oasis in the corn belt that rimmed the rust belt of Elyria.

I’m indulging in this reverie because today’s Sunday New York Times features a portrait of my hometown on its front page—the first in a five-part series. Dan Barry, a gifted writer and reporter for the New York Times, spent untold hours in Elyria, interviewing residents, business owners, and government officials—including my oldest and dearest friend, a woman who has remained in Elyria her entire life, never, ever giving up on it. She now serves as the city’s Safety-Service Director. Her passion for helping the city’s current administration turn the city around is inspiring. I hope that she—that they—can do it.

P.S. About the diner that serves as the lens through which Dan Barry views Elyria: After my second husband and I got our marriage licenses, in the fancy new justice center across from the square that also figures prominently in Barry’s article, we walked over to Donna’s Diner for lunch. Several members of the ‘Breakfast Club,’ also referenced in the article, were still there, lingering over their coffee. As is often the case with small towns, I knew several of them. I said hello, and introduced to them the man I was about to marry.

My Mother’s Voice

12 Friday Oct 2012

Posted by in The Healthy Life, The Writing Life, Transitions, What's the Buzz?

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I wrote an essay—the first of many I will write—about my mother’s slide into the quicksand and darkness of dementia. I published it on my blog, and the editors of BlogHer honored it with a Voice of the Year Award for 2012. I’m proud of this, but not solely for the reason you might think. I’m proud of this essay because it exists, because I was able to write it at all. I managed to descend into that frightening pit of despair and start to tell my mother’s story, to return her voice to her, to leave something of her to this world that she left 12 years ago. This was not an easy thing to do, and I will have to do it again and again and again, until her story is fully told, until her voice is finally heard. It will be difficult, and I know there will be times I’ll be afraid to continue.

She was an intensely private person, but in this respect I think she would want me to keep going. She would want people to know, because, sadly, she was one among millions who have disappeared into the maw of Alzheimer’s, and who will continue to disappear until a cure can be found. Maybe if enough stories get told, if enough attention is paid, something that might be enough will be done, and the disease (the irony of my word choice isn’t lost on me) will itself become a memory. It happened with smallpox. It could happen again.

According to Alzheimer’s Disease Research, a program of the American Health Assistance Foundation, more than 5.4 million Americans are believed to have Alzheimer’s disease; by 2050, as the U.S. population ages, this number could increase to 15 million. There are nearly 36 million people living with dementia worldwide, and this number is likely to increase to more than 115 million by 2050.

The essay, “‘Have You Met My Daughter?’ My Mother, Her Alzheimer’s and Me,” is one of 80 essays representing 80 bloggers included in the Voices of the Year anthology, published by BlogHer in conjunction with Open Road Media.

The anthology will be available for download (from Amazon and iTunes) on Oct. 30, but advance orders are available now. Here’s what Amazon says about BlogHer and the book:

BlogHer is a unique media company created by women, for women, and—most importantly—with women, women like those whose voices you’ll read in this collection. Each year, BlogHer—the largest network of women who blog—hosts an initiative to identify the very best work from across the blogosphere. Submitted by the community, selected by a committee, and presented at the world’s largest blogging conference, the pieces presented here have it all because women live it all—online and off. Humor. Inspiration. Food. Family. Style. Sex. Politics. Tech. Career. Dreams. BlogHer’s Voices of the Year reminds us of the transformative power of blogs to connect us all via powerful storytelling.

My thanks to Elisa, Lisa, and Jory—the co-founders of BlogHer—for envisioning this project, and to Donna Schwartz Mills, a member of BlogHer’s conference programming team, for helping to administrate it. I’m humbled by the honor, and honored that my mother’s story will reach a wider audience.

My Gift to You: A Chance to Win ‘The Digest Diet’

08 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by in Special Events, The Healthy Life, Transitions, What's the Buzz?

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The recipes in this book are delicious and fun to prepare.

Thanks to the good offices of Reader’s Digest, I’m happy to announce that I have a beautiful, jacketed copy of The Digest Diet to give away. Here’s how to enter:

Visit the round-up post about my Digest Diet journey and leave a positive comment. That’s your “entry form.” Just a few caveats, however:

  • You have to live within the contiguous United States;
  • There has to be a way for me to get in touch with you to notify you that you’ve won. If you’re not sure that I have your email and postal addresses, please go to the contact page (found above the masthead in the drop-down menu under ‘Who is the Midlife Second Wife?’), and send me an email with that information. (There’s no form to bother with, but that’s where you’ll find my email address.) I do not and will not share your information with any third party;
  • If I am unable to reach you by email to notify you that you’ve won, I will draw another name;
  • And of course, you need to enter by leaving a comment on the round-up Digest Diet post. (“Enter by leaving.” I like that. Think I’ll start a meme to that effect!)

I’ll pick the winner sometime this weekend, and announce it next Monday here on the blog. Good luck, everyone!