Blog Posts by ForbesWoman

My best boots had seen their day. It was time to toss them. But like memories, I can't seem to let them go.

By Joanne Tombrakos

I've been thinking about the Boots. It started before I went to see Love, Loss and What I Wore. The play, a series of sketches and stories about clothing, accessories and the memories they trigger, is another act of brilliance on the part of Nora and Delia Ephron; a must-see for women. If you're like me, you'll start thinking about your own list of what you wore.



--The lemon yellow A-line dress with the mandarin collar, puff sleeves and white piping my mother made for me. I wore it on our class trip to the Metropolitan Opera to see Tosca.



--My white go-go boots that I couldn't afford in real leather and that made my feet sweat, but I wore anyway because they made me feel so cool.

--The purple suede hobo bag that I thought I might die if I did not own that my brother bought me one Christmas at A&S.

--The hand-painted tuxedo shirt I bought at the end of

Robyn Okrant followed all of the queen of media's advice for one year and says, ''It made me really sad.''

By Jenna Goudreau

Chicago-based yoga teacher and performance artist Robyn Okrant had a silly idea: What if she spent the entire year of 2008 doing everything Oprah Winfrey suggested? Would she find happiness? Would she achieve Oprah's female "ideal" without domestic help and on a yoga instructor's budget? It was something no one else had done before. She decided to go for it.

Blogging daily about her experiences on LivingOprah.com, Okrant, 37, completed every task that Oprah personally assigned or backed up on The Oprah Winfrey Show, in O magazine and on Oprah.com.

This week, Okrant's book about the experiment, Living Oprah, is out. The tell-all follows her as she makes do without paper towels, gives herself a makeover, redefines her sex life and adopts a kitten. By the end of 2008, she'd spent almost $5,000 and had committed to 57 ongoing Oprah challenges, as well as countless

By Diana Altman

One unfortunate reaction to Novacaine results in a very important lesson: Beauty is skin-deep but shocked stares are worse.

Imagine yourself at an important meeting. You've prepared material that took months to research and your ideas are innovative. This is the best work you've ever done. You stand before the board in an appropriate and flattering outfit and speak in a way that you know is attractive. You are used to being greeted warmly because of your intelligence and beauty. People like to pay attention to you. But in an instant that can change. Here's what happened to me.

I left the dentist's office after a long wince-provoking appointment and headed down 57th Street to buy myself a new lipstick as reward. I expected the numbness in my lips to have worn off by the time I arrived at Henri Bendel. Maybe I'd let myself get caught by a salesperson who would progress from rubbing lotion on my hand to fussing with my face until I'm so oozy I buy another eye shadow.

I

Why are we still asking stupid questions about working mothers?

By Katie Allison Granju

I recently ran across a Pew Research Center study in which women with children were asked whether they would "prefer" full-time, part-time or unpaid work, and not surprisingly, most women said they would prefer part-time work.

Well, duh. Wouldn't pretty much everyone prefer not to work full time, if all options were actually an option? Seriously, if you asked everyone in America--men, women, parents and non-parents--whether they would prefer to work eight hours or more a day, five days per week, what percentage of people would tell you that they would voluntarily choose to work 40 hours instead of 20 hours? But when mothers say they would prefer to work part time in a study like this, it's held up as indicative of some kind of societal trend illustrating working mothers' dissatisfaction with their lots in life.

Then I dug up another Pew study from 2007 where parents were essentially asked

It's a new year--a new decade. Top celebrities and lifestyle gurus share their best advice on how to make the most out of 2010.

By Jenna Goudreau

The Christmas tree is drying out. The holiday leftovers are just about gone. New Year's Day is nearly here and, like many others, you're starting to ponder the changes you want to make in your life.

The beginning of a new year provides fresh motivation and an energetic desire for change. But it's hard to get started, and harder still to keep it up.

ForbesWoman has gathered experts at the tops of their fields--from Suze Orman and Dr. Sanjay Gupta to Jillian Michaels and Paula Deen--to pass along their secrets of success. They detail what you need to know to jump-start your best life.

Career

Dee Dee Myers, former White House Press Secretary to the Clinton administration and author of Why Women Should Rule the World, on women at work:

One of the most important things for women to do to help their careers is to ask. They need to ask for more

If your top New Year's resolution is to shed pounds (and whose isn't?), here's the best advice for keeping the holiday pounds off.

By Sara Reistad-Long

'Tis the season to avoid temptation. An abundance of parties have food and drink flowing your way this time of year.

According to The New England Journal of Medicine--which has published a surprising number of studies on holiday eating habits--if you're of average weight, you can expect to walk away from all that eggnog and Bûche de Noël about a pound heavier. But here's the real jaw-dropper: The journal also reports that most of us never shed that one pound gain, and separate studies show this poundage accounts for 51% of our annual weight increase.

From that perspective, the holidays look an awful lot like some kind of diet playoff--shine here and you're on a roll; falter now, and you've got some serious training ahead of you this spring.

In Depth: Focus On Your Figure

"One plus with the holidays is that you know ahead of time

Expert tips that will keep your vacation time (and your career) intact.

By Meghan Casserly

Taking some time off this holiday season may be more important--and harder to manage--than ever. Many layoff survivors are left juggling multiple roles with added responsibilities, making a long weekend or more time away from the office seem like the quickest way to send your livelihood into a tailspin.

But with a bit of forethought and some careful planning, you can enjoy your holiday--and a healthy career in 2010. Here's how in six easy steps.

Clean Up

Avoid mental clutter by setting a good example on your desk. "It is possible to clear your desk quickly so you can get home for the holidays," says Julie Isaacs, professional organizer and founder of The Uncluttered Home a New Jersey organizing service. Try this: For each piece of paper you handle, decide whether you're going to:

--Toss it (recycle or shred)

--Pay it

--File it

--Act on it

"Remember, the last thing you want to do when

The ugly truth: The more attractive you're perceived to be, the more you earn and are respected.

By Laura Sinberg

If you want to get a raise or a promotion, you might want to throw on a pair of heels and suck in that belly. Your looks can help--or hinder--your chances of getting a well-deserved promotion, regardless of qualifications, especially in a sour economy when advancements are few and hard to come by.

Women who advance most at work, studies agree, are more attractive, thinner, taller and have a more youthful appearance than their female colleagues who are promoted less often.

A landmark study from Cornell University found that when white females put on an additional 64 pounds, her wages drop 9%. And according to a 2007 paper from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there is a statistically significant "wage penalty" for overweight and obese white women. ("Previous studies have shown that white women are the only race-gender group for which weight has a statistically