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New Dreams Archives - All The Single Girlfriends

Happy 2013 .. On Your Terms

Jan 1, 2013 by

Happy 2013 .. On Your Terms

As 2013 opens its door to us we stand on the threshold of seemingly unlimited possibilities. However, as  I watch the rain drops fall (and think thank goodness it’s not snowing in Atlanta!)  it seems like I’ve been given a small gift to begin the new year. With the gray clouds overhead today I don’t feel a need to go and do. There will be time to think about that  in the 364 days to come. Today is for taking a small breath, to listen to the quiet, to be satisfied with the now without the pressure of achieving goals. There will be time to think about that in the 364 days to come. Happiness comes in unexpected ways. Today it’s a rain drop. Tomorrow it might be something that drives career success or the nurturing of...

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It’s A New Day!

Apr 23, 2012 by

It’s A New Day!

This weekend has been a reawakening of my life. Friday, I had my lap-band surgery and all went really well.  Now the real work begins.  Truth be told, I’ve been holding back on so many emotions.  I feel like I have to say good-bye to old friends like pasta, bread and fried food.  But then that makes me wonder about why I would have thought them my friends. My friends would not hurt me or look to console me in a way that would threaten my health.  My friends would support me and help me make good choices.  So now I have to delve into the world of my food addiction and try to understand exactly what the attraction was/is all about. I think of it as my 12 step program to health.  First…admit...

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Five Days and Counting

Apr 16, 2012 by

Five Days and Counting

In five days my life changes.  No, not the bit 6-0 just yet, that will happen soon enough. I’m talking about my bariatric surgery.  On Friday, April 20th at 8:45 am, my life is going to add a new tool to its arsenal.  I’m excited and nervous at the same time. I’ve been wrestling with my emotions since making this decision.  I thought I’d blog about it on a weekly basis, but what I really did was sort of let work take over my life and push this reality onto the proverbial “back burner.”  Not to push the food analogies too far, but it’s simmered and now is ready to be ingested. So down to reality…all sort of things are running through my mind.  Will I ever eat bread again?  What about a cocktail?...

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Table Set For One

Apr 10, 2012 by

Table Set For One

I didn’t always live alone. I grew up in a home with a mom, dad and sister. Then there were college roommates, the boyfriend, after college roommates and now of course Max .. do you count your dog? In between there was living alone .. which can be quite wonderful and no more lonely than living with people. Last week I said good bye to a special roommate, my nephew Scott. Scott moved in with me and Max last March when his job took him from Boston to Atlanta. I must admit I had a few concerns about sharing a house with a 21-year old. However, more often than not, life takes you down roads unexpected. The year with Scott was a delight.  It was fun sharing day-to-day living, watching the Food Network, playing...

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How I Can’t Lose What I Don’t Want...

Jan 11, 2012 by

How I Can’t Lose What I Don’t Want

“Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.”  Kris Kristofferson, “Me and Bobby McGee“ Here we are again, at the start of a new year.  Last year at this time, I was contemplating quitting my corporate job to find my way in the world of being an entrepreneur.  Self-determination and freedom to grow the creative part of myself beckoned.  Terror tried to bar the way, but it lost its power to imprison me when Dave died.  Sorry, Terror.  You have to come up with something scarier than a balance sheet to stop me now. This year I can easily count what I’ve gained.  I got a rough and tumble education in the ways of small businesses.  I made a whole new community’s worth of friends.  I learned to read a balance sheet, plan...

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The One Thing I Will Do In 2012 Come Hell or High Water!...

Jan 3, 2012 by

The One Thing I Will Do In 2012 Come Hell or High Water!

We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day. ~  Edith Lovejoy Pierce This quote from Edith Lovejoy Pierce seems particularly relevant for an online community, since of course, each new post begins with a blank page. On All The Single Girlfriends our posts wrap around the stories of our life experiences. Often they reflect our dreams, joys, hopes and sometimes our sadnesses. Our Gf authors are amazing and I wondered how they were going to fill the blank pages of their 2012 books .. what did they want to do in 2012 .. come hell or high water!   Debra Pearlman ~ Resolutions … been there, broke that.  I’d rather say that I’d focus...

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That Gratitude List: Item #1 is becoming a writer...

Dec 26, 2011 by

That Gratitude List: Item #1 is becoming a writer

Here it is the holiday season. And no one over-40 gets through it without work, the emotional kind, I mean.  Ministers, spiritual coaches, and therapists worth their salt all tell us that work goes a lot easier if we start with a gratitude list.  Yeah, really. Well, that gratiude list really does trigger an internal paradigm shift – going from poor-me to lucky-me.  At the top of the list I put something that I have been wrestling with since 1975.  That’s my decision to become a writer. Had I not made that decision I might have become a rich, powerful woman.  After all I had the intelligence, stomach for risk-taking, and drive to take that great leap forward into investment banking or even being a security analyst. But, it dawns on me more and...

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Holiday Challenges For Dieters

Dec 1, 2011 by

Holiday Challenges For Dieters

Holiday time is always a challenge for dieters but this year is especially hard for me. I managed Thanksgiving fairly well until most of the guests went home.  Then the “sneak” eating commenced.  I thought, “well, just a taste of Sheila’s apple pie won’t hurt….” but she made two different types of apple pie so that was two pieces.  Of course, there was Laura’s amazing brownies with an Oreo cookie in the middle and when else do you get to have pumpkin pie.  Before I knew it, I’d had 4 desserts and felt like a fool.  Resolve to eat better tomorrow. And I did start the day well.  I made good choices when I went out for breakfast with friends.  I kept “on-track” while driving up to my rental property in upstate New York...

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Plan B: Turning this-isn’t-working into that-could-work...

Nov 28, 2011 by

Plan B: Turning this-isn’t-working into that-could-work

Who hasn’t surrendered to the reality that the original strategy, tactic, and/or educational investment wasn’t panning out?  With such a volatile economy disrupted by technology, we’re all finding ourselves stumbling or even stuck.  Yet, it’s been tough to admit that, yet again, Plan A didn’t work.  We feel foolish.  Our confidence is shaken to the core.  And we just want to relocate to an emerging economy like Nigeria which is growing at about eight percent.  Could be that we will have more luck there. Serial entrepreneur David Murray sucks out the drama from failure.  His book “Plan B” chronicles how few plans yield any results.  And that’s it’s primarily through constant course correction, sometimes radical, that we can finally hit some home runs. Murray presents the riveting example of why Facebook is going gangbusters and MySpace...

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Stilettos at Sixty

Sep 5, 2011 by

Stilettos at Sixty

For many, turning sixty means crossing something lofty off their bucket list.  Maybe they attempt an athletic achievement, or take a vacation at a far-flung destination, or revisit their childhood neighborhood. I did none of that on my birthday. First, I don’t have a bucket list. It would just depress me. But besides that, I did something much more pedestrian for my sixtieth – I decided to start wearing high heels. When I turned 35, I became an enthusiast of Erno Lazlo products, spending my mornings and evenings religiously splash, splash, splashing to protect my skin. At 45, I invested in a personal trainer, committed to having a better body than I had at 35.That program unfortunately ended with a ruptured disc and a week flat on my back. For my 50th, I forgot...

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The Expense of Joy

Aug 8, 2011 by

The Expense of Joy

There ought to be some joy in all this. Dating in middle adulthood is all confusion.  Everyone I meet has been wounded, one way or another.  The formerly married endured divorce, the never married endured someone who left or whom they had to leave.  Everyone fears vulnerability.  They question whether the benefits of partnership are worth the potential expense. I’m not saying dating in young adulthood is any kind of picnic by comparison.  I remember it as an anxious, stressful endeavor; the part of my life that causes me to say things like, “Every boyfriend I ever had, except for my late husband, made me miserable”.  I did, in fact, marry Dave because he didn’t drive me crazy.  He made me calmer.  I saw this when I picked up a journal I’d written in...

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I Hope Happiness IS Contagious

Jun 29, 2011 by

I Hope Happiness IS Contagious

Friends and regular readers of my writing here and at Lipsticking know that I’m going through some major adjustments with my mother.  Fiercely independent. Unwilling to ask for help. Unwilling to accept help. Well, that explains me…but it also explains why my mom ended up where she is…in an assisted living home here in Albuquerque, with multiple major ailments. So sad. Too late. She simply can’t live alone anymore. (She’d HATE my telling you this.  She considers someone asking her where she went to high school a major invasion of privacy (!?)  More about that – generational differences and various conceptions of social interaction in another post.) All that said, Mom is doing amazingly well, adjusting to living with seven other women, in a city she never liked, in a home she didn’t choose,...

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