On the Road Again

Spexy Lady is on the road again leaf peeping. For many who live west of the Hudson River
New York is synonymous with the bright lights of Broadway and Times Square, but an hour away tucked in the hills along the Hudson are some of the most scenic spots for viewing the Fall Color Palette. Bear Mountain Park is SL's personal favorite with its spectacular vistas from the Perkins Memorial. Happy Trails, my friends!

BEING SINGLE: It's Highly Underrated

Being engaged or married for over 30 years consecutively, the thought of being single after the great divide was terrifying. Spexy Lady's over-abundance of confidence and moxie turned quickly to mush.

Who would take the trash out on an icy winter night? Who would hang the pictures or replace the light bulbs in 10 foot ceilings? What would SL do if she heard a bump in the night and the dogs slept through it? And worst of all, how could she go out and eat by herself at night instead of pulling up to the nearest fast food drive through.

It didn't happen overnight: this "independent and proud of it" lifestyle. It took gazillions of minutes, untold glasses of wine, lots of boxes of Kleenx and a tiny circle of friends cheering her on to her
eventual comfort and enjoyment of The Single Life.

As the world has lost the ultimate proponent of the single girl, Helen Gurley Brown who died this week at the ripe old age of 90, commenting on SL's own Single Girl status couldn't be more timely. But this Single Life is a far cry from The Sex Godess HGB wrote about in the early '70s.

This life is about finding your joy, your strength, and letting life unfold, rather than waiting for the knight in shining armor to drive up in a BMW convertible.

Taking out the trash? Got it down. Just bundle up and wear boots. Light bulbs? Got a really tall ladder. That bump in the night? Keep the lights on all night and got a loud Rottweiler mix rescue pup. Dinner alone? Working on that one. Delivery works just fine.

Thank you Helen, and good-bye from all of us single girls from the '70s who idolized you!

Single and Still Spexy after all these years!

THE LADDER DIARIES YR 2: Walking The Tight Rope

Once again, the WSJ's report on "Women in the Economy" takes a long look at how women in the C-suite manage to have it all, and do it all. For most working women, mothers and wives, the truth is you can't have it all, all of the time. Sorry Helen Gurley Brown, but we need to get real. Kids get sick, husbands travel, mom and pops are hundreds of miles away, the nanny disappears without warning just when you have to give a big presentation, etc.

Rising up the ranks to the coveted C-suite is no easy feat for women, particularly those with children and husbands. Every day is like walking a tight rope. Keep the team happy, the boss happy, the hubby happy, the kids happy, the BFFs happy.

Before the ranks of corporate America level out the male-female playing field at the top, that tight rope needs to come down. The Work-Life Balancing Act needs a complete makeover.

Thank you WSJ for the Wrap-Up. We've heard it all before--make work-life flexibility part of the corporate culture, encourage "senior women to reach out to younger women", celebrate the success stories of women who've succeeded at the juggling act, and "provide tools for managers" to create work-life policies that retain not repel key employees and middle managers on the rise.

In a perfect world smart, talented, educated women would move through the channels, up the chain of command, and into the C-suite with the helping hands of their mentors and their supportive husbands who enjoyed flex-schedules, worked from a home office, or who could carve out their afternoons for all the ballet lessons, soccer games, and hockey practices kids ages 3 to 18 cram into their schedules. Even better, according to a CNN report, this perfect world would include women who own and run multi-million dollar companies, making time-off a natural perk of the job, along with having a full-time nanny as a member of their salaried "staff."

In the real world, the choices for women aren't about what careers are family friendly, but what positions on the corporate ladder are.  My suspicion is that more and more young women will see the benefit of creating their own perfect world, becoming their own boss, and building their own C-suite. Walking on the high wire will be an option, not a necessity in this perfect world. To this, SL says "Amen sister!"