Nadine Feldman, Author

celebrating strong female characters and whatever else strikes my fancy

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Check Out the Old G.A.L. Project

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We are leaving our Seattle-area vacation for hot, hot Houston today. Our final stop on this tour was a visit to San Juan Island, where we see deer every morning on the B&B property. We have also sighted Orcas, eagles, harbor seals, foxes, and more. In the fresh air and sunshine, I have gotten some much-needed rest, allowing new creative ideas to emerge.

In the meantime, as I expand my Twitterverse, I have run across a number of blogs that touch on many of the topics that I will, but in different ways. I thought Thursday would be a good day to share those with my readers.

One that I have read recently is the Old G.A.L. Project (as in Get A Life). Our blogger has retired and is looking for life after the job. She’s looking for love, seeking her passion in life, and trying to lose weight–subjects we can all relate to. Some posts are funny, while others are touching. I’m going to follow her journey, and I invite you to do it, too.

Getting Kids to College: The World Tour

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For many women, midlife signals the end of 24/7 mothering as children leave the nest. This month, our Wednesday feature blogs will focus on letting go and preparing for the next stage of our lives…along with the identity changes that come with it.

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Sending a child off to college can awaken fear and dread in the hearts of moms everywhere. In our case, though, we had little time to think about it! My husband has twins, a boy and a girl, who enrolled at two different universities, one in Texas and the other in New York.

As an aside, people always assume that twins would want to go to the same school, but ours are polar opposites in personality, and they share little in common other than their mother’s womb. Sarah planned to study art at Parson’s School of Design, and Joe’s interests run toward emergency management.

I had already learned lessons about raising twins: first, you can’t learn from your mistakes in parenting, so each twin gets the benefits and curses of our parental learning curve. Mine in particular was steep, as I met them in their senior year of high school, with no prior parenting experience. I think we all did remarkably well, considering…but that’s another story for another day.

We had already been through college applications, prom, and graduation, but entering a university added its own challenge. They both needed to show up at school at the same time! This triggered an elaborate plan I now call The World Tour so that we could give them both a proper send-off.

Henry flew to New York with Sarah while Joe and I caravanned on a drive from Houston to Arlington, Texas. Joe checked in to his dorm, helped by the upperclassmen of UT-Arlington who volunteered to help new students get settled, so my job was more symbolic, one of “being there.”

Once Joe was settled in, I flew from DFW airport to New York, where Henry picked me up. He had helped Sarah move in to her dorm, and we attended a Parents’ Weekend program at Parson’s, where we learned, primarily, that universities don’t talk to the parents due to privacy laws. We had the odd sensation of getting nudged out of their lives—a necessary but not always easy adjustment.

On Sunday, Henry and I flew to DFW, where we had lunch with Joe, allowing Henry to give his son the official send-off. Then we drove back to Houston. On the way, we learned that Henry’s mom was in the hospital, and we started to get a taste of life in the Sandwich Generation…again, another story for another day.

Since that time, Joe’s and Sarah’s schedules have not converged in the same way again.  In the years that followed, they had slightly different timetables for moving in and moving out. Thank God they graduated at different times! We are now getting used to their status as young adults, striking out on their own, and The World Tour has gone from stressful event to part of the family lore.

Book Discovery Tuesday: The Best of Everything After 50: The Experts’ Guide to Style, Sex, Health, Money, and More

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In an enthusiastic, likeable tone, author Barbara Hannah Grufferman guides us cheerfully through the maze of what we need to know after age 50. She has researched her work, getting advice from doctors, dermatologists, and other professionals so that we can look and feel our best. Reading The Best of Everything is a bit like chatting with your best gal pal, but with solid medical and financial information. After 50, we can still look and feel fabulous!

Grufferman is committed to her own health and fitness and runs in marathons. In The Best of Everything, she describes her running regimen, designed to keep those older joints safe.  She helps us avoid the middle-aged spread that isn’t, as it turns out, as inevitable as we might think. She keeps us on track for scheduling the appropriate medical tests at the right time, and even provides tips on caring for skin, from moisturizers to plastic surgery.

More than anything, Grufferman distills a lot of wisdom into simple terms. Some sections may not interest you. For example, I skipped over the plastic surgery stuff. I happen to like my wrinkles and scars, and I think my face is far more interesting with some lines on it. However, I do believe in a woman’s right to choose, whether it has to do with her womb or her face, and let’s face it—we can’t ignore our aging. Better to discuss our options and make informed choices.

The Best of Everything After 50 is, overall, a comprehensive guide. As with any complex subject, though, it has its limits. You will not get tips on empty nesting, dealing with sandwich generation issues, or how to cope with a difficult menopause from an emotional perspective. I don’t see this as a criticism, though. She has kept a clear focus to her work, and no one book could cover everything without getting clunky.

For women just starting to face the topic, The Best of Everything After 50 provides a great beginning and information that every woman needs to know, and Grufferman’s gift for distillation makes this book a must-read for initiates to this profound, exciting, and sometimes frustrating time of life.

Good Morning, Monday!

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As I write this, I am sitting in a bed and breakfast on San Juan Island in Washington state. The battles of Washington D.C. are far, far away, and I spend little time on my computer each day to get upset yet again about the goings-on, or lack thereof. Outside a fountain provides a peaceful flow of water, and downstairs, a hearty breakfast is cooking.

We spent a few days near Mt. Rainier. I hiked while Henry biked (the 154-mile RAMROD bike ride). While there, we found several snow-packed areas that caused us to rethink our hiking plans.

After a few more days in Seattle, where we visited friends and family, we  arrived on the island yesterday afternoon.  Eager to enjoy the sunny day, we found a hike with enough climbing to require poles. After spending months in Houston’s blistering heat, the cool, fresh air provides a welcome respite.

We ate dinner on the northwest side of the island, where we watched the sunset and the nightly ritual of retiring the flags. This ceremony honors the flags of Great Britain, Canada, and the United States, whose influences and histories converge on this tiny island. I got a lump in my throat as I watched the ceremony. I love my country, in spite of the politicians who seem hell-bent on destroying it.

Today we will look for Orcas and visit a lavender farm…apparently the lavender is in bloom, and I’m told it’s spectacular this year. What a delightful surprise!

This week begins the new version of the blog. We’ll spend a lot of time this month exploring empty nesting, but we’ll also discuss some great books that help us navigate midlife needs and challenges. Have a great Monday!

Tuesday Book Discoveries Preview

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August is around the corner, and along with it, the new A Woman’s Nest blog! Tuesdays will be a discussion of books, videos, etc., of interest to women in the prime of their lives.

Coming up, some of the books I’ll be discussing are:

The Best of Everything After 50 by Barbara Hannah Grufferman

Fierce Medicine by Ana Forrest

New Menopausal Years by Susun Weed

The Making of an Elder Culture by Theodore Roszak

In all of these books, there are plenty of ways to find health, vitality, and fulfillment in our 40s, 50s, and beyond. I have also chosen these books because they can help us not only live fully ourselves, but to influence the culture and society around us. We Baby Boomers intend to remain visible in our elder years!

If you have recommendations, either comment here or send me an e-mail at nfeldman@gal-in-sky.com.

Good Morning, Monday!

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Starting next week, A Woman’s Nest blogs will appear more often, with book reviews and feature articles of interest to women at midlife and beyond. Our theme for August will be “Back to School,” which means, for many women of our age range, “Back to Empty Nest.” This challenging but liberating time can propel us into the next phase of our own lives. Hopefully you’ll find the information useful as A Woman’s Nest moves into its own exciting new chapter.

Good Morning, Monday will be a regular feature, less structured than some other posts, and will provide a casual wake-up to the week, mostly by discussing the weekend.

This weekend we went to the movies and saw Horrible Bosses. I know the movie gets high marks on Rotten Tomatoes, but I found it disappointing. While the actors did their best, and I chuckled a few times, I felt like I was being hit with a sledgehammer throughout the movie. Am I turning into a grumpy old woman when I say that “back in my day” we had the classic horrible boss movie: 9 to 5? We watched it later in the day just to feel better and chuckled all over again as Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, and Dolly Parton gave us the ultimate boss revenge fantasy.

I have loved going to the movies for as long as I can remember, starting with family trips to the drive-in when I was very young. Movies, plays, books, and songs have all fed my love of the written word. Seldom, though, do I see women like me characterized in movies. Certainly, Meryl Streep continues to truck along, turning in amazing performances of all types. Diane Keaton, in Something’s Gotta Give, gets to be sexy and desirable post-menopause. Annette Bening and Julianne Moore, playing partners in The Kids Are Alright, leave their facial lines visible for all of us to see. Funny, though, that I can rattle these roles off so easily. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were so many richly drawn female characters over 40 that we couldn’t think of them all?

Who’s your favorite over-40 actress, or what’s your favorite over-40 female character?