Excerpt of the Day: "The Available Parent" by Dr. John Duffy

Teenagers.  Just the thought of your sweet baby becoming one of those moody, rebellious, distant creatures can be terrifying.  But it doesn’t have to be.  Dr. John Duffy’s The Available Parent shows readers how they can begin to enjoy a healthy, satisfying, exciting new kind of relationship with their teenagers.

Take a look:

They look so different, don’t they, than they did when they were younger? Many of those soft, gentle, rounded features of childhood have been replaced with angles, edges, muscle, height, and hair. As preteens and teenagers, they seem pointier somehow. The face that for years wore a perpetual smile now carries something heavier in the brow, something more thoughtful or sullen. You fear loneliness or depression has befallen them. And the way they look, that’s just a part of it, isn’t it? They act differently, more self-conscious, moody, unpredictable, and concerned. Definitely less joyful. And then there’s the way they relate to you. What happened there? Your life together to date has been nearly blissful in comparison, filled with fun and laughter, learning and sharing.

That sharing part, that really seems missing today. They really don’t seem to want to talk with you or share with you at all. They seem distant and avoidant. Their bedroom is a vault, filled with secrets and answers you no longer feel privy to. You find yourself in the paradoxical position of grieving the loss of someone very much alive, someone you hear snoring, talking on the phone, or tromping to the bathroom upstairs. You feel evermore powerless and afraid. All their lives, you have heard and read about the horrors of adolescence, but always felt that your family would somehow get a pass. But here you are. Yet you know, deep in your heart, that it doesn’t have to be this way.

You are right.

If any of this resonates with you, you are right. Even if it has been this way for years, even if the same dynamic played out in your relationships with your parents, and their relationships with their parents, you are right. It does not have to be this way. I am writing this book because I have seen families change. I have been fortunate in my work to witness teenagers and parents reconnecting, doing so in healthy ways, ways that set the stage for growth all around. Yes, parenting an adolescent can be difficult at times, but

I know that with the right tools, and a dramatically different way of perceiving these years, you can recapture your bearings and find the joy again.

Now, I’m not sure why we as a culture feel the need to hold tight to the dread of adolescence. Perhaps we find some comfort in the idea that everybody feels this way about teenagers, so it must be true. Maybe it provides us with an excuse when things go wrong—“Well, like the books say, she’s crazy. What can I do?” Either way, I think a change in point of view, in which we see our teenagers as the extraordinary individuals that they are, will make parenting them far less daunting and far more enjoyable. For everybody.

Heart-Healing Advice Can Help You Live "Happily Even After"

Heart-Healing Advice June 2012 Carol Brody Fleet has helped thousands of people across the country in her work with Widows Wear Stilettos by providing tools, wisdom, and even a friendly shoulder to cry on, teaching people how to deal and how to heal. Now, millions have the opportunity to see and hear her wisdom as she hits the airwaves, featured on Great Day St. Louis and a live web chat on Widowed Village. She will also appear on Conscious Discussion Radio on July 10th, and The Cindy Laverty Show on July 20th. Come see Carole in person atWarwick's in La Jolla on June 28th and at Camp Widow West Coast in San Diego on August 10th. Happily Even After  A Guide to Getting Through (and Beyond) the Grief of Widowhood by Carole Fleet "What a comfort to know that while no one wants to 'need' it, there is a book that will help widows in a unique, compassionate and con- temporary way. Encouraging a smile while tackling tough subjects and providing necessary support and education, this book will be in- valuable to those so badly in need." —Lee Woodruff, Family Contributor, ABC News' Good Morning America; New York Times #1 bestselling author, In an Instant… and Perfectly Imperfect More · Buy Carole Brody Fleet  "Carole has written what I consider the widows' bible. She shows us the way to 'good grief,' and I will be recommending this book for years to come." —Linda Hawes Clever, author of The Fatigue Prescription

Viva Editions, an imprint of Cleis Press, 2246 Sixth St., Berkeley, CA 94710

Excerpt of the Day: "The Fatigue Prescription" by Linda Hawes Clever, MD

It’s a Monday.  You’re tired, stressed, working on autopilot with fantasies of your warm bed filling your head.  There’s a pile of tasks at work and a pile of chores at home.  You know you should get started on them but you’re just so tired.  That exhaustion (not to mention abandoned work) carries on to Tuesday, carries on to Wednesday, carries on to Thursday, and even carries on to the ever-fabulous and promising Friday.  You live in a constant haze of energy drinks, coffee, energy bars, and energy shots and suffer the caffeine crashes that follow.

Not anymore.

Renew your energy, health, and life with The Fatigue Prescription.  Linda Hawes Clever, MD, Clinical Professor of Medicine at UCSF and founder of RENEW, provides a straight-forward guide to taking care of your whole self.  Filled with easy self-assessments, informational charts, and sound advice from a physician who healed herself, this book will help you avoid illness, reset priorities, and most importantly, regain your health and happiness.

Convinced? Not yet?  Well, here’s an excerpt for your sleepy eyes:

No wonder you’re tired! You have wants and needs. You want to get a lot done and you want to do it well. Your family and friends need and expect your attention. So does your checkbook. You also have plenty of shoulds and ought tos. You should be an informed voter. You ought to get some exercise. And for goodness sake, you want to see a good movie sometime soon! In your rare quiet times, you realize that you want to be better than busy. You want some time to think and plan. You want some peace and quiet without feeling guilty and selfish.

This book puts your closest buddy—you—into the driver’s seat, moving out of the rat race and into fatigue-free good health.

How?

In medicine, we try to determine the cause of the symptoms— the diagnosis—and then we can design the appropriate treatment: the remedy. That is what I hope this book does for you.

In this chapter, you and I will sort out the whys and wherefores—some of the reasons you have accumulated so many demands and commitments, what these relentless responsibilities are, and what they may be doing to you. You’ll give your energy bucket the onceover and come up with a couple of favors you can do for yourself. After discussing two important qualities—courage and pride—the chapter wraps up with a preview of the Fatigue Prescription and its four steps.

Later in Part One, since this is the diagnosis section, you’ll do your own checkup and see the Prescription’s benefits. Soon you’ll be well positioned to launch into the remedy. Part Two, The Renewing Remedy, uses the Prescription’s four steps to help you reconnect with your values and discover what you really want and how to get it. You’ll see how others have renewed their bodies, spirits, and energy. You will get some quick tips and ideas for long-term maintenance.

Why all this emphasis on you? Because you are important! And it is not selfish to take care of yourself. It is self-preservation so you can do what you want to do or must do. You are the one who can best take care of yourself. No one else can do it as well, and no one else cares about you as much.

By way of example, and to help you start understanding the challenges you may face and the way you may approach them—and why—let me tell you about a young musician. She was trying to make a living by patching together jobs as a church choir director, a high-school rehearsal accompanist, a greeting card designer, and a piano teacher—all while she was thinking about a new career, hunting for a full-time job, dealing with family demands, and dating an interesting guy. One day she came home to find her low-rent apartment flooded with sewage. The manager said he would fix the drainage system, but when the apartment flooded for a second time, her spirits hit bottom. She was angry, and she felt betrayed. She caught a cold, snapped at her friends and students, and cried. Anybody would! She was stuck, however, with no money, a tight schedule, and lots of distractions. She was determined to fix the problem but didn’t want to add a disruptive move to her situation. So she enlisted her father’s help. He checked the plumbing and made firm recommendations to the manager. She persuaded the manager to pay for the cleanup so she wouldn’t have to call the health department. When the dust and goo settled, she had an after-the-flood-get-together. Her grit and network got her through.

Where do you get your grit, and how do you develop your network? What about your drive, even your tastes and preferences? How did you get so much on your plate that you got exhausted and, perhaps worse, stale? Nature, nurture, combinations, circumstances? All of these, most likely.

Excerpt of the Day: "Crazy Little Thing" by Liz Langley

Plenty of books offer advice about how to find or keep love.  But Crazy Little Thing unveils the science behind the insane things we do for love and lust.  Don’t be fooled, this isn’t your grade school science book.  Liz Langley offers a hilarious, confounding, too-strange-to-be-anything-but-true look at the control our chemicals have over us.

Have a look:

You Are Here: The Layout of the Brain

Why you’re reading this book is your business, but chances are you liked the cover, identified with the subject matter, and decided to investigate further.

How you’re reading this book is a much more difficult proposition. The brain is incredibly complicated. There are a lot of things you’ve found murky in your life, like algebra and David Lynch movies, but these are simple compared to the three pounds of material that has enabled you to pick up, open, and read what you’re reading.

Yep, that’s all that keeps you going: three pounds of neurons, synapses, glia, and various other squishy oddments housed in a protective skull. A gallon of milk weighs more than everything that enabled Handel to write Messiah.

And I’m sure I’m not the first person to observe that the only thing the brain can’t seem to figure out is itself; hence the inevitable “What was I thinking?” when it comes to love and other endeavors.

One of the people helping to figure out why we do the things we do is Dr. Joseph Shrand, an instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and medical director of CASTLE (Clean and Sober Teens Living Empowered) at the High Point Treatment Center in Brockton, Massachusetts. I originally wanted to interview Dr. Shrand about the adolescent brain, but he took the time to describe the basic layout of this intricate organ in plain terms, which was pretty beneficial for a tourist like myself. Like the old announcements that told people where they were arriving on the elevator (“Fourth Floor: women’s apparel, camping gear, pets”), Dr. Shrand explained the brain to me from the bottom up.

“The brain is a very clunky organ that has evolved over hundreds of millions of years—and humans, we never threw anything away. We just built one chunk of brain on top of another,” he says. I can’t help thinking of Hoarders and my brain insisting, “No! I’m keeping my prehistoric ability to kill a rabbit with a rock. It’s perfectly good and I might need it one day!”

The first level of the brain is the brain stem, which is, Dr. Shrand says, “the most ancient part of the brain, responsible for heart rate and breathing and sweating and all those things that happen automatically that we’re not aware of. The brain stem really has to be ready to go at birth.”

The brain is made up of neurons, which have long offshoots called axons, and the insulation around these axons is called myelin—Dr. Shrand compares it to the insulation around an electrical wire. The reason babies don’t walk but “squiggle around” is because the motor part of their brain is not fully myelinated, “so even though parts of the brain are functioning, they may not be functioning at a fully mature level.” The brain develops with us.

In fact, check out this beautiful finding from Pilyoung Kim of the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland: The brains of new mothers grow, not greatly but significantly, in the areas responsible for “motivation, reward behavior, and emotion regulation,” reports Emily Sohn on Discovery News. The brain is reconfiguring itself to respond to its new role, and on top of that, the mothers who are the most gooey and gushy about their babies have the biggest growth. “These are the areas that motivate a mother to take care of her baby, feel rewarded when the baby smiles at her, and fill her with positive emotions from simple interactions with her infant.”

Excerpt of the Day: "The Power of WOW" by Lori Bryant-Woolridge

Looking to get your sexy back, to feel good in your own body in the place you stand today?  Welcome to Stiletto University!  With Lori Bryant-Woolridge as your instructor, you’re sure to find your sexy and become more confident in yourself.  The user-friendly, nine-week program in her book The Power of WOW breaks down that elusive WOW factor — and then gives you proven techniques to elevate your esteem and maximize your sensuality.  And isn’t that what we all want?

**stilettos not required

Here’s a look at The Power of WOW:

“I want to be less self-conscious and more comfortable in my own skin.”

“After finding out about his affair, my self-esteem has been shattered. I want my sexy back, not for him, but for me.”

“I wish I could be more aggressive when it comes to sex, but I don’t want to seem loose.”

“At forty-two, I want to truly enjoy sex with my mate.”

“Between kids and work, I don’t have the time or energy to be sexy.”

“I want to feel sexy and confident in all aspects of my life, not just the bedroom.”

“I seem to be projecting the wrong something, because I’m still manless.”

“I’m tired of being alone.”

Sound all too familiar? Kind of like the conversations you and your girlfriends have been having for years? Since you’re reading this, I’m guessing you’re feeling somewhat lacking in the sensuality/sex/romance departments of your life and you’re looking for a remedy.

Well, happily, you’re in the right place. And kudos to you for even picking up this book, because admitting to yourself that you’re not on top of your game in the womanly wiles department takes courage. I’m mean, we’re supposed to know all this stuff, right? How to be sensual and alluring and dynamite in and out of bed.

Like her.

You know who I’m talking about. Ms. Thing. You’re sitting in a bar minding your own business, thinking you’re looking cute and hoping someone else is going to think so too. And then here she comes. She sashays confidently into the room oblivious to the fact that all eyes, including yours, are on her. She’s wearing the perfect little black dress (the one you’ve been searching for but always see on some other woman) and strutting over to the bar in a way that makes every body part sway with come-hither appeal. It’s a walk that brings men to her side and sends women into private places to practice. You feel both jealousy and admiration toward this diva. Talk about paling by comparison. Suddenly, you don’t feel so cute. And of course, she sits down right next to you and instead of ordering the cocktail du jour like every other girl in the room asks for some drink you’ve never heard of.

On closer inspection, you see that she’s more striking than beautiful. More sensuous than sexy. Of course, within minutes, some Chris Rock-looking guy is elbowing you out of the way to get to her. You watch her handle the admirer, graciously accepting his compliments with a “you’re-so-sweet- but-this-is-never-going-to-happen” smile and sending him back to his friends thinking he’s Denzel Washington. You realize then that the key to her irresistible charm is confidence. This is a woman who is totally at ease with herself. A woman to study and emulate, not envy.

She has the power. That indefinable “wow” that seems to inhabit a lucky few and evade the rest of us. But you want it too. But where did she get it? And where do you start?

Excerpt of the Day: "The Lazy Gourmet" by Robin Donovan and Juliana Gallin

Let's face it, cooking can be intimidating.  We don't all have Thomas Keller's talent (not here), Martha Stewart's ingenuity (who does?), Gandhi's patience (nope), and Charles Manson's free time (yeah right).  But thanks to Robin Donovan and Juliana Gallin and their book The Lazy Gourmet, you don't need to be a classically trained chef to make creative and sophisticated meals.  With all these tips, tricks, and recipes, you're sure to please anybody.

Have a taste:

From the day the two of us met—as college students moving into a big drafty Victorian in Santa Cruz, California—we bonded over food. There were seven women living in the house, including science majors, banjo players, artists, and athletes. We were all very different, but the one thing we agreed on was food. We each contributed a set amount of cash to the food fund each week, and we took turns shopping and cooking dinner. Of course, we were barely out of our teens, and on student budgets, so the food was anything but fancy, but it was good enough to bring the seven of us—and a nightly assortment of friends, boyfriends, classmates, and random hangers-on—together around the dining room table most nights. There were, of course, plenty of frozen gnocchi and burritos, but there was also “homemade” calzone using store-bought pizza dough; a legendary rich, cream-based corn and tomato soup adapted from a recipe in the Moosewood cookbook; and one July evening, when turkeys were inexplicably on sale for an irresistible price, an entire Thanksgiving feast, complete with bread stuffing, green bean casserole, and pumpkin pie. At best, there were homemade pierogies from someone’s grandmother’s recipe. At worst there was a terribly misguided sauté of nopales (Mexican cactus) that, to our dismay, even half a bottle of soy sauce couldn’t save.

While we shared food costs and cooking duties—and a love of eating—our culinary knowledge was anything but equal, with Robin and Juliana toting opposite ends of the line. Robin, on the one hand, grew up in a food-obsessed family where the primary topic of dinner table conversation was where and what the next meal would be. Having grown up watching (and helping) her mother, a professional restaurant critic and accomplished cook, prepare dinner each night, cooking came naturally to her; she was simply comfortable in the kitchen, not intimidated by complicated recipes or exotic ingredients.

While Robin inherited her mother’s kitchen prowess, Juliana, in contrast, cruised through childhood blissfully delighted when meals magically appeared in front of her. While she did master the Toll House cookie at a tender young age, she was generally more interested in eating than cooking. Pringles, candy bars, and four-star meals were all welcomed with equal enthusiasm. Frankly, she never gave cooking much thought until early adulthood, when she was ready to start preparing meals for herself and others. She was beginning to develop an appreciation for good food, but chalked the gourmet cooking abilities of others up to innate magical powers that she simply wasn’t lucky enough to possess. She watched with bemusement as friends like Robin took seemingly random piles of meat and produce, mysterious powders and liquids and transformed them into feasts that caused awestruck guests to burst into spontaneous applause. She wanted to be able to impress friends with dinner party spreads they would still be talking about months later, but she was resigned in the belief that she wasn’t cut out to be a cooking whiz.

After college, Robin worked at a series of day jobs in the book publishing industry, and devoted the majority of her spare time to indulging her foodie urges. She devoured food magazines and television cooking shows, took cooking classes, and mastered complicated techniques. Both zealous and disciplined, she became known for her willingness to spend an entire week before a dinner party infusing oils, brining meats, and scouring markets throughout the greater San Francisco Bay Area in search of just the right ingredients. Eventually, she justified this devotion (read: obsession) by becoming a professional food writer, finally getting paid to ferret out delightfully minute culinary details for magazine and newspaper articles and develop recipes for her own cookbooks.

Juliana became a graphic designer and continued to passively enjoy the stellar culinary offerings of the San Francisco Bay Area. While part of her always coveted her friends’ cooking know-how, she couldn’t imagine putting in the time, energy, and training she thought would be required for her to learn to cook great food. Eventually, though, it began to dawn on her that some of the most elegant, beautiful, and memorable meals she encountered—those that made foodies swoon, squeal, and beg for recipes—were also some of simplest. A surprising combination of unlikely ingredients, the use of fresh herbs, or a dash of a special vinegar or infused oil were often the things that elevated a meal from decent to stunning. After years of befuddlement and self-doubt, Juliana had finally discovered a startling concept that changed the way she approached the kitchen: cooking great food can be really easy.

Over the years, the two of us frequently crammed ourselves into one or the other of our tiny, ill-equipped San Francisco apartment kitchens to cook and eat. As our lives became increasingly complicated and busy, more and more we both found ourselves looking for kitchen shortcuts that wouldn’t force us to skimp on flavor. We’d make excited phone calls or send urgent late-night emails to share new recipes for super delicious dishes, recipes that were “so easy!” Some of those recipes became legendary for us, like the ridiculously simple balsamic syrup that could transform the most mundane ingredients into culinary nirvana on a plate, or the egg and asparagus sandwich that earned one of us such a reputation at her workplace that we now refer to it as “THE sandwich.”