Some inspiration to start your weekend ... Cindy Joseph's second act

Cindy Joseph, a pioneering over-50 model, has started a makeup line called Boom. How can a self-respecting Beauty Boomer not want to celebrate that? View the video and enjoy!

Happy weekend, everybody!

Blissdom, budgets, and baby boomer beauty

This is what 53 looks like.
(Photo by Rachel)

OK, guys, I know I'm way behind on my Blissdom recaps, but I've been so tired. First I go to Nashville and exhaust everyone by blabbing my fool head off to anyone who'll listen.

Then I come back and have to scale Mount Washmore. (For the non-English-majors: I did laundry. Lots of it.)

Then there was a Girl Scout meeting to teach the wee tots about budgets. (A true case of the blind leading the blind. I'm just sayin.)

The whole time, my head was in a whirl. Lack of sleep, excitement, blabbing, Karaoke, and cocktails will do that to me. But on top of those, something has been percolating.

Partly it was seeing hundreds of Tea Party types at the Opryland and wanting so badly to give them a makeover. Partly it's someone at Blissdom advising us to blog our passions--the things we'd be thinking about even if we weren't blogging. And partly it's seeing so many women who need a nudge. They've been focusing on careers, graduate school, or children, and they look up and ten years have gone by and they have no idea about style. Their bodies, complexions, and hair have changed, and they don't know what to do about it.

I've been thinking about this for a long time. Five years ago, I went to a college reunion and was shocked at the way so many of my classmates had just given up. They didn't color their hair. They didn't even style it. They didn't use makeup. They didn't worry about what kinds of clothing would flatter them. And this wasn't the politics of frumpiness. They had given up.

Then and there I vowed never to give up. "As God is my witness," I vowed to my friend Liz, "they'll have to pry my lipstick out of my cold, dead hand."

So I'm going to start blogging about midlife beauty and style. How to take our hard-won wisdom and discernment and use them to defy the aging process.

I'm going to start with a 30 day series: Turn back time in 10 minutes a day.

While I cudgel my brains thinking of 30 days worth of posts, do me a favor and think of questions. Or just tell me this is a good idea. Or tell me where I should be doing it. Should I put it on Poppy Shops? Or start a new blog? And does "baby boomer beauty" sound as dorky as I think it does?

Help me Obi Wan Invisible Internet friends! You're my only help!

Orgy Night ...

... and it's not what you're thinking at all, so cut it out. If you're looking for pervy stuff, go check your email. If you don't get enough pervy spam to keep yourself sufficiently occupied these long winter evenings, let me know, and I'll forward mine to you. OK?

No, dear reader, the orgy I speak of is the vast pile of new books and toys I accumulated today, plus the fact that my New Favorite Television Show will be on tonight. (See previous entry.)

So in addition to watching "How Clean is your House?" I get to read my new library book, Fer-de-Lance, by Rex Stout, which only happens to be the first Nero Wolfe mystery, that's all. And being the geek that I am, I fully expect to read through all of the rest of the Nero Wolfe mysteries, in strict chronological order, because that kind of thing makes a geek really feel alive.

And as if that weren't enough enjoyment for a single evening, I get to also flip through two new magazines, Esquire and Shop, Etc., both of which look very promising, as well as a copy of InStyle magazine's Getting Gorgeous which is just like an InStyle magazine except there are no ads, how cool is that?

And if that's not enough, I have a new jar of bath salts and three new pairs of shoes. And don't break out into a nervous sweat or start to drool or anything, but one of these new pairs of shoes is a pair of ponyskin leopard print pumps by Casadei with a tiny keyhold opening near the base of the toes and a teeny little leather bow, a slightly rounded toe and killer four-inch stiletto heels. They are so totally Honey West that I may wet my pants. I realize, dear reader, that you probably have no idea what I'm talking about, but for Baby Boom women, that is an image that resonates powerfully. We all were in thrall to Honey West. Trust me on this.

So after reading my new books and magazines and watching my new favorite teevee show and taking a long bath with my new bath salts, I'll probably spend some time admiring my new shoes, and maybe even taking them for a test spin around my bedroom.

Hmmm, on second thought this is actually starting to sound kind of pervy, so I'd better shut up now before I embarrass myself.