Blog Posts by Spinsterlicious

At a dinner party with some "friends" a few years ago, there was a longer than necessary conversation about "what's wrong with Eleanore" (me) because I'm not married and I have no kids. I'm a spinster. A pretty amazing one, but a spinster, nonetheless. An active participant in the conversation was a woman who had just gone through her third divorce. Apparently I was the only one in the room who thought the conversation should really have been about "what's wrong with Sharon?" I'm thinking to myself, "Why does this woman keep getting married?"

I am fascinated by this notion that marriage is still thought of as a must-do in modern-day society. It's not. At least it shouldn't be. Same thing with children. There's no reason why every adult should procreate and I know that we can all think of an example or two as to why this is true.

Here's the real truth: Marriage and kids are not for everybody and we should all stop acting like they are. What I mean by this is that, despite

My friend, Lori, and I have an ongoing lighthearted disagreement about being single. She likes to say "I'm not Spinsterlicious because I don't like being single." I always laugh because whether she likes being single or not, the reality is that she is. Whether single by choice or circumstance, I believe a woman owes herself a great life, and part of that means making the most of whatever space you're in at the moment. That's what being Spinsterlicious means to me.

And what's funny is that Lori, in so many ways, is living the Spinsterlicious life. Her life is full and she readily takes advantage of the things that being single, free and unencumbered have allowed her. Recently, she traveled to Cuba alone. A very Spinsterlicious move. I asked her to write about it.

So, here, in her own words is the guest post from Lori "Don't Call Me Spinsterlicious" F.:

Hearing of my solo trip to Cuba, Eleanore asked me to contribute to her blog about the joys and travails of

In my reader survey recently, a number of respondents expressed a desire to see more product reviews and more posts about things and experiences I enjoy. So, today, we kick off the first of what I hope will be regular blog posts about things I come across that make me smile. It'll be called "Fab Friday Finds."

Lips

• In the past month or so, I've encountered 3-4 women at different social events who were all wearing a beautiful matte red lipstick. Their lips --and, therefore, the rest of their face-- looked so good that I asked each one what brand of lipstick she was wearing. What a surprise to learn that they were all wearing the same one. Given how many red lipsticks exist in the world, what are the chances that each woman was wearing the same? And, yet, they were. Clearly I had to have it. This was too much of a coincidence. So I dashed over to the MAC Cosmetics store in my neighborhood and picked up a tube of Ruby Woo Retro Matte Lipstick. Red red lipstick is

Recently, I was a guest on The Kari Adams Show, which pertains to all things dating, relationships, single life and how to find your perfect partner.

Kari and I hit it off immediately and had a fun conversation about "living a delicious life" as a single woman.

Here's the video. It's 25 minutes long, so grab a drink, get comfy, watch...and then comment! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7oQUBzPLNU&feature=plcp

One of the first chapters of my book, The Spinsterlicious Life: 20 Life Lessons for Living Happily Single and Childfree is about my belief in the importance for spinsters to maintain a sense of adventure. We are unencumbered and free from many of the responsibilities that wives and mothers have, and we should take advantage of it. There's nobody to tell us what to do...or not do.

Part of being Spinsterlicious means we don't have to live a routine life. In most cases, our time and money are our own and we can spend them however we want. We are free to try something different, change it up, have some fun...all without worrying about the impact it will have on our non-existent husband and kids.

Earlier this year, I found myself sharing this advice with a single friend of mine. She had the misfortune of losing her job and her lying boyfriend in the same week. She didn't know what to do with herself. While she saw this as a double whammy of bad luck, I saw it as a

Last week I received an interesting email from a reader about some of the dynamics behind being childfree. She has observed that women who have chosen to be childfree often feel the need to profess how much they love and enjoy kids, but that they just don't want any. Her question was: "Where are all the women who actually don't like kids? I can't be the only one." She went on to say, "There seems to be a belief that not liking kids = bad person. The fact that I have a college degree, have been gainfully employed since high school, volunteer to feed the hungry at Thanksgiving...all of it is brushed aside as meaningless because I don't like kids. I also wouldn't want an elephant, because it doesn't fit into my lifestyle."

I'm sure she's not the only one who doesn't like kids, either. I've come across a few. I've actually uttered those words myself, usually half-jokingly. Half-jokingly because there are lots of kids I do like...just not all of them. Since I don't really have a

This has been a fantastic week. It's my annual pilgrimage to Martha's Vineyard, an island off the coast of Massachusetts. Every year I rent a house with 4-5 Spinsterlicious girlfriends and we beach, eat lobster rolls, drink cocktails at breakfast, and hang out at the club like we're still young and carefree.

While here, I had the good fortune to do two readings and signings for my book, The Spinsterlicious Life: 20 Life Lessons for Living Happily Single and Childfree, one at the private home of a dear and generous friend, the other at the Oak Bluffs Public Library.

Whenever I'm doing an event where I'm reading from my book, I like to engage the audience by having them share their stories. A very popular topic of discussion is what the single women in attendance enjoy about being single. Regardless of whether they're single by choice or happenstance, there's usually something good about it.

One of my favorite new stories was told just the other day. A

Every now and then I'll read or hear someone say something along the lines of "women aren't nice to each other", "I don't trust women", "women are always in competition with other women", and, of course "women are bitches". And we're all familiar with the concept of mean girls (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mean%20girls).

There probably is a modicum of truth in these sentiments, and sometimes maybe more than a modicum…but I didn't see any of this last week, even though I was in the company of 4000 women, most of whom I didn't know. I attended BlogHer12 (http://www.blogher.com/blogher-12), a conference of mostly women bloggers, and it was pretty amazing on lots of levels: the speakers, the information shared, the camaraderie, and the fun.

One thing that was amazing for me is that I went at all. I hate conferences. I'm terrible at networking which is one of the things one is expected to do at a conference. I'd rather stick needles in my eyes than walk