Stories About Midlife Romance

Madly in Love or Just Mad?

Danger Ahead: Valentine's Quiz

Lovers beware. I took a Valentine’s Day quiz to learn if my husband is “still utterly and totally in love.” The results? Let’s just say Handsome Hubby and I didn’t “ace” the test. In fact, it should have come with a warning: Danger Ahead!  Read more

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Ready to Holiday Party Hearty? Hardly!

A List of 7 Middle-aged Excuses Not to Party

Ready to Party Hearty? Hardly!

‘Tis the season to party hearty. But I must admit, now that I’m middle-aged, I not much of a party kind of gal. I’m more of a hot chocolate, asleep by 10:15 social clod.

So, what’s a sluggish middle-aged muddler supposed to do, now that the holiday party season, like a horde of ravenous locusts, has arrived? Hibernate in a cave? Take a vow of silence and retreat to a Zen-like monastery until January 2? Drag my sorry, sweat-suited derriere out the door and socialize till my cheeks ache and eyelids droop?

This year, I’m planning ahead. I’ve prepared a List of Seven Perfectly Plausible Middle-aged Excuses to Get Out of Holiday Festivities. Read more

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I Say Phone. You Just Phub

Phone Plus Snub Equals Phub. SOB!

I Say Phone. You Just Phub

Do you know someone who spends too much time on their cell phone? Silly question. Of course, you do. Do you spend too much time on your cell phone? Of course, you do. Confession: I do too.

According to one study, people typically touch their phones 47 times per day! Now that’s scary! And the number jumps to 82 times per day if you’re between 18 and 24 years old. Scarier still. Read more

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Diet Daze, Praise and Prays

Cabbage Soup by the Bowlful

Diet Daze, Praise and Prays

I’ve got religion! And like all religious zealots, I speak of nothing else. My new-found religion is not a traditional religion, nor is it New Age hippy, dippy. My new religion is my new diet. More specifically, it is my new-found diet success! Read more

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Restless at the La Jolla RLS Confab

Travels with Handsome Hubby

Restless at the La Jolla RLS Confab

You’ve got to hand it to Handsome Hubby: He is a master at making a girl “an offer she cannot refuse.”

“Come with me to La Jolla for the weekend,” he said with that sweet, husky voice of his.

“Just for fun?” I asked suspiciously, knowingly.

“Well, sort of,” he said, starting the famous HH hem-and-haw dance. Read more

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The Art of Conversation, Marriage Edition

The Art of Conversation, marriage edition

Handsome Hubby and I are approaching our 32nd wedding anniversary, and I must say we’ve really got the art of conversation down to a science. The renowned Navajo code-talkers have nothing on us. With just a few words, HH and I can decipher (and deride) each other’s meaning perfectly.

Here are a few true-life conversations from our household that I bet you’ll recognize.

Conversation 1

I say: “What about those forms I needed your help with?” reminding HH about this or any long-ago request I’ve made.
HH says: “Hum, it rings a bell.”
HH is hearing: Blaring alarm bells.
HH is thinking: “Mayday. Mayday. Marital iceberg ahead.” Read more

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Nine Questions for Lasting Love

Tinder for Talkers

A famous psychological study developed 36 questions to fast-track intimacy and connection. Ha! That’s easy. A glass of cheap merlot and low lighting can do that for most people. But lasting love? Well, that requires a whole different set of questions.

And to help with that, from the vantage point of a middle-aged many-years married, I’ve prepared a list of nine queries young lovers should consider before saying their “I do’s.” Read more

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Online Surfing Danger Ahead!

Beware of Bots!

Surfing Danger Ahead

There’s surfing danger ahead! Not in the water, but online. Take a quick look at an ad for an anti-aging skin cream, and that product will haunt you on the Internet until you die and decompose.

Blink your eye and consider a brief fling with glitter eyeliner, as I did earlier this summer, and you are forever branded as part of David Bowie’s glam squad!

Peruse a winter white wool turtleneck sweater in January, and come July, you’ll still get urgent notices to “Hurry, there’s only one still in stock!!”

Five years ago, amid a foot problem, I considered buying orthotic heel lifts. Thankfully, the foot problem resolved itself, but orthotic ads track me on the Worldwide Web as diligently as sharks stalk their prey. Read more

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Mid-life Marital Thrill: Is it Sex or is it … ?

Screams, Cheers, and More

Mid-life Marital Thrill

Some couples grow bored with each other, retreating to separate corners of the house, separate activities, and silent, resentful boredom. Not Handsome Hubby and I. We’re finding joy in a new, intense mid-life marital thrill. It involves strange new pleasures –  Read more

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Website Wedded Woes

Handsome Hubby is Not Amused

Website Wedded Woes

Sure, he thought it was fun for a while. Sure, he liked being called Handsome Hubby in my Muddling through Middle Age blog. In fact, he liked it so much he even started signing emails to me “HH.” But now the fun has ended and Website Wedded Woes have begun!

HH has taken umbrage at my blogging about him and our marriage. Read more

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