A new friend asked me that question a few months ago, and I started tearing up, because I realized that in the lunancy of life–working, tending to family, being a Gigantic Book Whore and the surprisingly difficult and time consuming task of making sure I had the right color lanyards for two very crafty 7-year-old girls–I hadn’t asked myself what makes me happy in way, way too long.

That question led to another question (AM I happy?) which led to a life inventory, which led to some renewed appreciation of what I have and have built and some adjustments, which I expect to be happymaking. If they are not, I hope to remember to ask myself that question again, and see what the answer yields.

It’s not rocket science (or even as hard as being a Gigantic Book Whore), and it invariably pays off big, but for whatever reason, I often forget to do it. In fact, putting it in my Google Calendar right this minute. Hopefully I won’t just blow off the beeping reminders, like I do the ones to go to the freakin’ gym already.

That’s why I’m glad my new friend Gretchen Rubin asked me that question (and what’s more, posted my answers on her fantastic blog that goes with her fantastic book, The Happiness Project). I admired her wildly successful book promotion from afar (Gigantic Book Whore, like Formerly Hot, is a designation only you can give yourself, but but both clubs are wholly nonexclusive) finally got to meet the lovely her.

Anyway, here is the the interview, and if I were you, I’d take the time to ask yourself that question. As for my answers, like everything else you do as a Formerly, take what works for you and donate the rest to Goodwill along with those jeans that don’t fit anymore, for all the good they’ll do you. There are plenty of other ideas on her site, and no doubt some of those will put a smile on your face.

Proud to be part of this crew of excellent mom bloggers!

It’s really hard to leave me speechless, but for once in my 43 years, I’ve got nothing to say but THANKS to all of you wonderful readers who went out and bought MY FORMERLY HOT LIFE and helped it make the list.

My incredible editor Marnie–that’s her holding the Formerly Wild sign in the book trailer–told me it’s #32, and although she’s never lied to me before, naturally I had to tell her to SHUT UP and STOP LYING because how could she not be lying? But she wasn’t.

So thanks, and please continue to spread the word, so that it inches up the list. In fact, if you tweet, please tweet this post or put it up on Facebook or tell two friends and ask them to tell two friends, and so on and so on and so on…it’s the Faberge Organics Shampoo technique of selling books, and I’m thinking it works.

Much love.

This book reviewer on Good Morning San Diego recommends MFHL for anyone over 35. Kinda like a mammogram, except funnier. It’s the last book she reviews–see it on the bottom of the pile?–toward the end of the clip.

This is a nice little Q&A series called In Her Heels, which is funny because heels are pretty  much a thing of the past for me. So: In Her flats.

(This was written for Powell’s, the Oregon-based bookseller.)

“There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did. To the best of my belief, our case was in the last aspect a rather common one.”

I first read Great Expectations back in ninth grade or so, and while I don’t remember exactly, it’s safe to say that the above lines went over my head — whoosh! — along with pretty much anything else that didn’t have to do with boys, Rick Springfield, boys, and ways to make my hair bigger. It was 1981, more than a century after the book was published.

Now it’s 2010 and I’m sitting here having a first-time author fantasy: Charles Dickens and I are chilling in some divey Victorian pub, throwing back a few, and bonding over this very topic. (I’ve worked out the whole time/space continuum thing and have paid him a visit. It’s my fantasy. Go with me on this.)

Dickens, naturally, finds me riveting, and, not for nothing, my hair is perfect. (more…)

Nice chat about women and moving into Formerly territory on Gayle King’s radio show–you can listen HERE.

I really enjoyed talking with this reporter–she asked all the right questions.

Click here for Part I

Click here for Part II

What us Formerlies still call WPIX!

Stephanie Dolgoff

In the car–and, sadly, nowhere else–I am Mixmistress Steph, DJ extraordinaire, and as such, I give my husband and kids an unparalleled musical education for which I know they are deeply grateful, even if they don’t show it. The sound track to every car ride that’s long enough for me to find my iPod in the bottom of my gigantic mom purse consists of random hits from the AM radio days of my youth, the few current uberpopular songs (mostly by Lady Gaga) that even I, a harried 43-year-old working mother of twins couldn’t help but absorb, and, of course, ’80s music.

The ’80s were when I was in high school and college, when, like every raw and angsty adolescent, I felt on some level that Simon LeBon and Natalie Merchant and even Ozzy Osbourne were living inside my head, shouting out all the raw and angsty things I wish I could express, and would have if I had talent and a recording contract. READ THE REST AT HUFFINGTONPOST.COM