A woman’s relationship with her hair stylist is both professional and intimate. Maybe that’s why it is so darn hard to say goodbye.  Another reason it’s hard to say goodbye? It’s just so awkward! Should she say something to the stylist? What should she say and when? Is it an option to disappear and not explain why?

“Every poem tells a story, and every poem is in some way about love,” says Rennie McQuilkin, author, teacher, publisher and founder of the prestigious Sunken Garden Poetry Festival at the Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington, Connecticut.

“Every poem tells a story, and every poem is in some way about love,” says Rennie McQuilkin, author, teacher, publisher and founder of the prestigious Sunken Garden Poetry Festival at the Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington, Connecticut.

By Mary Foley

Sisters send the best cards!  Like this one I just received from my sister Leslie (read it now if you haven’t yet).  Which got me to thinking about Valentine’s Day.  V-day stirs up all kind of experiences from deep loving feelings to lusty thoughts to private moments with chocolate.  

Even if that college happens to have a campus dotted with real marble columns and ivy covered walls, rather than one that simply exists in cyberspace, do we learn everything we need to know professionally there? Many professionals may in fact come away with a great deal of debt, and many high level skills, but not always the brimful he or she had expected to acquire. Luckily, many non-profit organizations support continued career development. I noticed that my own town’s Chamber of Commerce offers an empowering “W.O.W.” meeting each month.

I had the pleasure of joining this amazing social networking site just a couple of months ago, and I must say, I love it!  Pinterest is an online, photo-sharing board, where you can collect any and all things that you love, whether it be favorite recipes, hairstyles, clothes, fashion, health advice, kids crafts or fitness tips.  Basically, you collect data for your specified, self-created, board and you “pin”, or share it.  It’s really that simple.

We have been hearing quite a bit about “forty and fabulous” this year. Fifteen minutes of cosmetic application can transform our nearly forty or forty-something faces into more like twenty-seven year old ones. Last August I was amazed that the lip-gloss and eye makeup I had applied with great fervor to mimic the USA’s 2012 Women’s Olympic Gymnastics team palate was still on after I ran over six miles in ninety degree weather.

I hate lifting weights. Between my weak arms, the intimidating steroid pit at my gym, and you know the part where I actually have to lift the weights it just sends me over the edge. Luckily, my gym has a barbels class that I attend religiously (like lapsed-Catholic religiously) with my partner in crime - I mean my accountability partner, Sara.

A dozen charity-runs in Connecticut support honorable women’s organizations for this 2013 Mother’s Day Weekend, but all of those races are held on a paved course.  Why not give your tired legs a break from such pounding and run or walk-run on a beautiful cross-country course instead?  I know that runners like my own woods-avoiding mom are thinking, “hmm…cross-country course: roots, boulders, streams and lots of slippery debris that will trip me” but that does not describe the terrain for the two loop Hartford Marathon Foundation’s True Colors 5K.