Middle-age

Let’s Take a Hike

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Lady-slipper

Lady-slipper

It’s a beautiful spring day, the kind with just enough crisp in the breeze to start out with a light jacket, just enough sun in the sky to later slip it off. The Appalachian mountains call me this time of year. On the forest floor lady-slippers and trillium bloom yellow and pink, while high above, tall trees re-sheathe their limbs in green. Fat robins rustle in the nearby brush. Sun-dappled shade filters through the canopy, lighting a flame azalea on a far hillside, making it look for all the world like the mystical, ethereal burning bush.

I grew up going camping with my family and Girl Scout troop, and more and more in recent years I’ve sought again the solace of the trees. Or maybe I’m seeking more smarts—science tells us that time spent in nature both reduces stress levels and improves cognitive function. Elizabeth Kwak-Heffernan, in a May 2012 article in Backpacker magazine, cites a University of Rochester study (2010) that showed even 15 minute nature walks gave rise to a greater sense of “vitality”; she also describes an environmental neuroscience project that shows how “exposure to nature causes significant, measurable changes to the brain” that “let you think more clearly, focus more acutely, and perform to your maximum cognitive ability.” Continue reading →

FsFTB Has a New Gig!

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I’m thrilled to announce Forty-Something First-Time Bride is now a Real Bride Blogger for bridebook magazine!

Bridebook is a great resource for Virginia brides, and they highlight real weddings in every issue. I’m excited to share more stories about marrying at mid-life with their readers.

I’ll be writing for bridebook once a month, in addition to my regular posts here. My first piece went up on their site yesterday–click on the title below to check it out!

It’s hard to believe that our wedding is just four months away. Read on for a tale of some serious (and not-so-serious) mother-daughter bonding.

MomandMeMothers, Daughters, and Wedding Dresses:

A Middle-Aged Bride Shops for “the One.”

 ♥ ♥ ♥

If you missed my first dress adventure, check out Funny Story About My Dress… here on Forty-Something First-time Bride. And for a bit more backstory on my mom–that lovely lady in the photo above–try A Mother’s Dream in honor of the wedding that wasn’t.

Funny Story About My Dress…

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Not long after Steve and I got engaged, people started asking about my wedding dress: had I looked for a dress yet? Did I know what kind of dress I wanted? When was I going to go shopping for my dress? Those who knew me well knew, enthusiastic fashionista that I am, that finding The Dress would likely be at the top of my bridal to-do’s.

I hemmed and hawed in response to their questions. Of course, I’d thought about it. Yes, I had a pretty good idea of what I liked. Then as fast as I could, I’d change the subject.

Because the truth was that buying a dress wasn’t just at the top of the list. It was already checked off.

Temptation strikes

True confessions: I bought my dress before we got engaged. Continue reading →

The Secret to a Happy Relationship in 140 Characters (or Less)

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Right…
Happy!

One of the best pieces of relationship advice I’ve ever gotten: when facing or anticipating conflict, ask yourself, “Do I want to be right, or do I want to be happy?”

I’m not entirely sure where I first heard this advice. I associate it with my brother and think it may have come from a seminar he once encouraged me to take (so maybe chalk that one up as the seventh lesson learned from him). But asking myself that question—both in the split second between sensing irritation and potentially snapping in response, as well as in cooler moments contemplating what matters most in the knotty matrix of desire and decision that is a relationship—has spared me and those I love pointless arguments and thus needless heartache.

Don’t get me wrong: I like being right. I am a woman of strong opinions, with an Energizer-bunny brain that never stops thinking, sifting, testing, wondering (even when I wish it would so I could sleep). I’m also a scholar of rhetoric, so I understand objectively what makes for a powerful, ethical argument. I’ve got a good arsenal, and I know how to use it. Sometimes I’m kinda glad I can’t get into an argument with me. Continue reading →

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Venn I Look at You… Steve Speaks

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Every so often fiancé Steve offers his take on mid-life marriage.  Here, his thoughts on why it’s good to have some differences.

In a previous post Sandee joked that for nerds like us, drawing a Venn diagram on a whiteboard at the wedding might make a better unity ceremony than mixing sand or lighting candles. The overlapping circles motif shows up on a number of patterns for wedding invitations or save-the-date cards, where I’m sure it’s intended to portray wedding bands overlapping.

wedding ringsBut a Venn diagram is not a bad way to look at what happens when “two become one.” A “Venn Diagram” shows the relationship between two sets, A and B. The area of overlap represents the things that A and B have in common, or the intersection of A and B. The total colored area is the union of A and B, or all things encompassed by either A or B.

Venn diagramI imagine most couples spend some time pondering the things they have in common and the things that make them different. I’m curious about how much overlap works the best. If your circle barely touches your partner’s circle, you have almost nothing in common. That has to make communication difficult and suggests there are not many things you would enjoy doing together. Why be a couple, then? On the other hand, if you overlap too much, it means your partner is only slightly different from you, and perhaps doesn’t bring much to your life that wasn’t already there. I think most healthy couples’ relationships fall somewhere in between. Continue reading →

Not-So-True-Love Tuesday: Poly- wants a what?

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Every so often, I delve back into my dating past to share a story of those “BS” (Before Steve) days.  It’s always an exercise in extreme gratitude.

“Jeremy,” the firBroken heartst man I met on Match.com, lived in a small town in North Carolina. Largely because of the distance, we traded online messages for a couple of weeks before getting together. Jeremy’s emails were smart, witty, and flirtatious. One day he sent me a lyrical note describing the silver crescent moon flanked by Mars and Venus he’d seen in the early morning sky, a hopeful sign that made him think of us.

When we finally met, he hugged me and told me I was even cuter in person than in my pictures. But things felt out of sync. In person, both of us were quieter, more reserved than our online personas. Dinner was okay. On the road to visit my parents in Georgia, I stayed at Jeremy’s apartment that night, while he slept at his buddy’s house down the road.

When he arrived the next morning to go to breakfast, he caught me absent-mindedly perusing a bookshelf. With more animation than I’d seen from him up to that point, he asked, “Did you see anything that scared or unnerved you? Because if you did, you can ask me questions.”

I hadn’t, but I hadn’t been looking that closely. I shook my head no, and gave the shelf one last glance as we headed out the door. No “DIY Guide to Murder” or “Bombbuilder’s Manual” I could see. Did I want to know? Continue reading →