Home for the Holidays: The Latest News About Today's Boomer Grandparents; and 'Rightsizing Your Life' With the Right Surroundings

Hearth and home. It’s what alot of us are thinking about these days, in the midst of holiday celebrations. But how comforting is home? How does it suit us? Does our living space accommodate the way we live today? Those are some of the questions we pose on Boomer Radio in the Nation's Capital this Wednesday, December 26th at noon. According to Emmy Award-winning television producer, radio journalist, author and Boomer and senior coach Ciji Ware, in midlife, we make important discoveries about ourselves. Frequently, a typical discovery is that accumulating more "stuff" doesn't necessarily make our lives better. With the goal of "creat[ing] new surroundings that will profoundly impact the way [we] feel and behave", Ware suggests that we ask ourselves a few questions: "Where do I want to live now?...How can I build a meaningful, happy life...without a lot of stuff weighing me down?" Ciji Ware, author of Rightsizing Your Life: Simplifying Your Surroundings While Keeping What Matters Most joins me to talk about how to "rightsize" our lives. She outlines the seven critically important steps that can help us to get started to create the kind of environment we want and need. (rebroadcast of November 26th interview)

Just as we Boomers have transformed American life on nearly every front, from music to religion, the same has occurred as we enter grandparenthood. What can Boomer grandparents expect in this new stage? And what impact might our experiences have on the rest of society? These are a few of the questions that will be posed to my guest, Jackie Bartolotta, Director of Market Intelligence for Focalyst, a leading Boomer and Mature consumer research company based in New York City. Focalyst and the online resource website, Grandparents.com have just released the results of their new joint study, which highlights the "mindset...spending, media and behavioral habits," of today's grandparents.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007
TAKING THE GUESSWORK OUT OF GIFT-GIVING: FOR OTHERS, AS WELL AS OURSELVES

Every year alot of us are uncertain about what to do about gift giving. On today's edition of The Heather Taylor Show, Boomer Radio in the Nation's Capital, we’ll hear from two Boomers who've taken the guesswork out of giving. Involved in completely different careers--law and philanthropy, their stories tell us alot about what it's like to be a Boomer in the 21st century.

Belinda Reed was a veteran prosecuting attorney on the verge of burnout when she found answers in coursework at a very special kind of school. Those answers ended up having an impact on her professional and personal life. She joins me to talk about how studying applied healing arts at the Tai Sophia Institute changed her life. She's now "transitioning from prosecution to mediation and restorative justice, using [her] skills as a lawyer and [her] tools from AHA (Applied Healing Arts) to doing victim-offender mediation." (http://www.tai.edu/) (aboutresolution@yahoo.com)

In our first segment, the focus is on the kind of gift that keeps on giving. Like the ones at Heifer International, a nonprofit organization that helps end poverty and hunger. The organization, in existence since 1944, accomplishes its mission through charitable giving of livestock and basic materials in 800 projects spread over 50 countries. Ray White, Public Information Director for Heifer International, joins me to talk about how Heifer International strives to "change the world this holiday season," and year-round. He'll offer tips on finding unique holiday gifts for those on our holiday shopping list. (http://www.heifer.org/)

Holiday Gift-Giving: A Cooking School Transforms Lives; Games that Yield Brain Fitness: Child's Play?; Holiday Decorating: Easy and Budget-Friendly

Boomer Radio in the Nation's Capital welcomes you into the holiday season with three interviews designed to help get you into the spirit.

-- At 12:05 p.m., meet Liesel Flashenberg, a social entrepreneur who's president of Through the Kitchen Door International, a DC area nonprofit "dedicated to empowering recent immigrants and low income adults and at-risk youth" as she talks about the mission of this nonprofit, and her surprising and satisfying career change in midlife.

-- At 12:25 p.m., Kunal Sarkar and Michael Scanlon, co-founders of Lumos Labs, a San Francisco-based company formed as the result of the founders' "desire to promote better brain health". Their brain training program focuses on "engaging brain games and exercises."

-- At 12:45 p.m., Tynesia Hand-Smith, co-owner of Metro Design Interiors in Washington, DC offers suggestions on how to spruce up your living space for the holiday season--without alot of effort, or budget-busting investment.

A Personal Shopper Can Make Holiday Shopping Easy; and Staying Fit and Healthy in the Holiday Season and Beyond

Edutainer is what Dr. Pamela Peeke calls herself--part teacher, part entertainer--helping those of us with a lot less wherewithal to find ways to make healthy eating (ie. portion control, sigh...) and regular, physical exercise a routine part of our everyday life. And she does it remarkably well. Fight Fat After Forty, and Body for Life for Women had spectacular runs--both made it onto the best-seller list. Her most recent title, Fit to Live The 5-Point Plan to Become Lean, Strong & Fearless for Life picks up where these two books left off. The physician, Pew Scholar in nutrition and metabolism and clinical assistant professor of medicine joins me in the second part of the show to talk about her new book.

HOLIDAY SHOPPING MADE EASY: FREE HELP FROM A PERSONAL SHOPPER

In the first segment, tune into hear the fascinating story of DC-area Boomer,
Patrice Vales-Macarie, whose journeys first took her to Paris and New York for a modeling career. After marriage, children and ten years of homeschooling her children, she returned to fashion--her first love. Today, as the in-store Personal Shopper for Lord & Taylor's, Vales-Macarie competes with the best of them. In fact, this past April, she was selected as the winner in a Washington Post personal shopper competition.

C-SPAN's Nearly 30!--Stories from Co-Founder, Brian Lamb; Best-Selling Author's Tips on Getting "Free Money"; Maine Rocks in Off-Season

Bringing passion to the table can make a world of difference in how well we thrive at work. This week's guests hale from different career paths, but one thing all have in common is the passion for the work they do: Brian Lamb, co-founder, CEO and Chairman of C-SPAN, Debra Bruno, accomplished writer for a whole host of newspapers and magazines, including The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe and the Wall Street Journal, and Matthew Lesko, Entrepreneur and best-selling author all join me for what promises to be a lively look at passion on the job.

Can C-SPAN really be nearly thirty years old? Apparently it can. Since 1979, the Cable Satellite Public Affairs Network has been airing gavel to gavel, in-depth coverage of political and public affairs matters to viewers. It's grown from one network to three: C-SPAN, C-SPAN 2 and C-SPAN 3. An FM radio station and online presence add to these network offerings. Brian Lamb, co-founder, CEO and Chairman of C-SPAN joins me to talk about what it's meant to him to bring "democracy to television" and how much has changed since the first televised segment.
(12:05 p.m.)

Debra Bruno is special reports editor and a columnist at Legal Times, a magazine based in Washington, DC. but she also writes essays and articles for a whole host of newspapers and magazines, including The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe and is a regular book reviewer for the Chicago Sun-Times. She joins me by phone to talk about her recent travel article, in the Wall Street Journal on "what to do and where to eat and stay during the off season in midcoastal Maine," and about preparing her grandmother's reirloom recipe for ravioli at holiday time. (12:25 p.m.)

Matthew Lesko, best selling author of over 100 books on how to find free money from the government joins me in the studio. We'll discuss his successful twenty-five year career as an
entrepreneur and how wearing his distinctive question mark clothing reflects his passion for the work he loves doing. (12:38 p.m.)

"Rightsize" Your Life This Thanksgiving

Hearth and home. It’s what alot of us are thinking about these days, particularly as we happily ease into our upcoming Thanksgiving celebration. But how comforting is home? How does it suit us? Does our living space accommodate the way we live today?

According to Emmy Award-winning television producer, radio journalist, author and Boomer and senior coach Ciji Ware, there often comes a time in our lives when we make an important discovery. It's that our assumption that the more "stuff" we have the better is flat wrong. With the goal of "creat[ing] new surroundings that will profoundly impact the way [we] feel and behave", Ware suggests we ask ourselves a few questions: "Where do I want to live now?...How can I build a meaningful, happy life...without a lot of stuff weighing me down? Ciji Ware, author of Rightsizing Your Life Simplifying Your Surroundings While Keeping What Matters Most joins me to talk about how to "rightsize" our lives. She outlines the seven critically important steps that can help us to get started to create the kind of environment we want and need. My interview with Ciji Ware begins at 12:05 p.m.

There's No Place Like Home...: In Search of Lost Ravioli Recipes

Laura Schenone's wonderful new book, The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken, A Search for Food and Family, is a lot of things, a woman's quest for family and recipes, certainly, but it's something more. On some level, Schenone seems to be like so many others of us in midlife, a bit like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz--full of longing, the desire for something authentic. In Schenone's case, though instead of the challenges along the yellow brick road, hers were to seek [her] own culinary roots.."[a] desire for an inner life where advertising could not reach. Desire for religion. Time was running out." Join me between 12:05 and 1:00 p.m. for a conversation with Laura Schenone, and for an opportunity to receive a copy of Laura's book during an on-air book giveaway. (email: theheathertaylorshow@yahoo.com; WMET 1160 phone line: (866) 369-1160.)

Winning Strategies for Skin Care

Call me a Romantic, but it seems there's nothing quite so endearing as a husband who's concerned enough about his wife's unhappiness that he willingly seeks (and finds) a solution. In the case of Ben Kaminsky, the Montreal-based pharmaceutical and dermatological chemist whose challenge was discovering how to eliminate the unwelcome skin problems his wife experienced as a result of hormonal changes. Kaminsky has spent decades researching skin care, and offers some compelling solutions about how to reverse the effects of aging on our bodies. His findings are included in his new book, (co-written with his son, Howard), Beyond Botox , 7 Strategies for Sexy, Ageless Skin, Without Needles or Surgery." For me, one of the biggest surprises in the book was this: a whopping 80% of our skin problems are avoidable, and reversible through lifestyle changes. Only 20% are genetically linked. To learn more, check out the interview I had with him Wednesday, November 7th, on www.heathertaylorshow.com.

November Show Previews

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2007 NOON TO 1:00 P.M.

DISCOVERING THE SECRETS
OF BEAUTIFUL SKIN--AT
ANY AGE

Think we Boomers have to subject ourselves to invasive and costly treatments like Botox to get healthy, youthful skin? Not according to chemist Ben Kaminsky, whose Beyond Botox, 7 Strategies for Sexy, Ageless Skin Without Needles or Surgery offers "the first skin care book by a pharmaceutical chemist, with insider information from the front lines of the beauty industry...[Kaminsky] upends much of the conventional wisdom--as well as some current theories and trends--about skin care..."

EXPLORING NOTIONS OF LOVE, LUST
AND INTIMACY IN MIDLIFE

Frank, poignant essays make up the collection of prose about Boomer love and sex in Over the Hill and Between the Sheets, Sex, Love and Lust in Middle Age. Consulting magazine editor and adjunct professor of journalism Gail Belsky edited this volume of essays and joins me to talk about them. Among the 20+ writers included in the collection are, Jacqueline Mitchard, Susan Cheever, Joyce Maynard and Marion Winik.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14 NOON TO 1:00 P.M.


HOW A QUEST FOR
A FAMILY RAVIOLI RECIPE
CHANGED ONE WRITER'S LIFE

Laura Schenone's attempts to retrieve her great-grandmother's recipe for ravioli took her on a remarkable journey. In her memoir, The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken, A Search for Food and Family, Schenone, winner of the James Beard Award for A Thousand Years Over a Hot Stove: A History of American Women Told Through Food, Recipes and Remembrances, chronicles her trek through the "gritty landscape of New Jersey's industrial wastelands...to the dramatically beautiful coast of Liguria--homeland of her ancestors--with its rapturous pesto, smoked chestnuts, torte, and most beloved of all, ravioli, the food of happiness and celebration."


WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 21 NOON TO 1:00 P.M.

THANKSGIVING EDITION

"RIGHTSIZING" YOUR LIFE

According to veteran print and broadcast journalist Ciji Ware, if you're like a lot of other Boomers beginning to think about how you'll be spending your bonus decades, some of the questions you'll ask may include, "Where do I want to live now?...How can I build a meaningful, happy life...without a lot of stuff weighing me down? Join me for a conversation with Ciji Ware, to discuss her fascinating new book, Rightsizing Your Life, Simplifying Your Surroundings While Keeping What Matters Most.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28TH NOON TO 1:00 P.M.

C-SPAN CREATOR BRIAN LAMB

If you're a fan of C-SPAN, be sure to tune in to my conversation with the man who helped found the TV network, and serves as its chief executive officer. (12:05 p.m.)

FREE BOOKS!

Be sure to tune into The Heather Taylor Show, Boomer Radio in the Nation's Capital, Wednesdays 12 noon to 1:00 p.m. for a free book giveaway! Here's what's in the lineup:

-- The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken, by Laura Schenone "is a story of the comedie and foibles of family life, of love and loss, of old homes and new--and of the mysteries of pasta, rolled on a pin into a perfect circle of gossamer dough." (Note: I interviewed Laura a few years ago about her fascinating book, the James Beard Award-winning, A Thousand Years Over a Hot Stove: A History of American Women Told Through Food, Recipes and Remembrances (Norton)

-- Over The Hill and Between the Sheets, Sex, Love and Lust in Middle Age, editor, Gail Belsky "Both women and men candidly and beautifully write onn how sex has evolved during their mid life years."

If you're interested in receiving one of the two books, call into the show on Wednesday, November 7th between 12 noon and 1:00 p.m. (ET). The studio number is (866) 369-1160. For more information, email us at htshow@yahoo.com.

"PERSONALITY-BASED RETIREMENT"; AND THE END OF EMPTY NEST SYNDROME?

Welcome to the debut of The Heather Taylor Show, Boomer Radio in the Nation's Capital Blog! The new, hour long radio broadcast on Wednesdays from 12 noon to 1:00 p.m. is the DC area's only radio show created especially for the nearly three million Boomers residing in DC, Virginia and Maryland. Experts predict Boomers will live longer lives. What will we do with those bonus decades? What's next?--That's the question we ask (and answer!) on The Heather Taylor Show, Boomer Radio in the Nation's Capital.

Each weekly edition of the show features authors, journalists and other newsmakers covering topics like health, fitness, money, careers, retirement, travel, entertainment and lots more.

"What could be scarier than ghosts and goblins on Halloween?"

It's the question we asked this week on our Halloween edition of Boomer Radio in the Nation's Capital.

Which of these answers pushes your panic button?

- Not having a retirement plan
or
- Watching your last child leave home and realizing that the nest is empty

Halloween notwithstanding, my two guests quickly took the scare out of either question.
Starting with a co-author of the book, My Next Phase, The Personality-Based Guide to Your Best Retirement (Springboard Press), Randy Burnham, psychotherapist, psychologist and co-founder of My Next Phase, a retirement planning company. stressed the importance of self-assessment. Knowing our social, planning, and stress styles, according to Burnham, can keep us from "flunking" retirement. Questions to help determine what kind of person each of us is include What are your social, planning and stress styles? Your personality, not your bank account, says Burnham, hold the key to a successful retirement.

If someone told you that after your child leaves home could be the most joyous, life-affirming, energizing time in your lfe, would you believe them?

Social psychologist and journalist, Carin Rubinstein, author of the book, Beyond the Mommy Years, How to Live Happily Ever After...After the Kids Leave Home (Springboard Press) says yes. Thirty million mothers between forty and sixty years old are about to face childless households for the first time in decades, she says. Those post-mother years can be a time of great transition and joy. Her book, based on a 1,000 person survey offers a clear and well-researched guide to living life with confidence.