Judy Dedmon grew up in a military family. Her early exposure to different cultures, foods and ideas influenced her world view. Learning how to not pack up and move every two and half years has proved to be one of life's great challenges. Now that she's managed to live in Dallas for 22 years, it's possible that she has conquered the restlessness of her early life. The same cannot be said of her career choices. Well in to her fifties, she is still open to new opportunities.
In January, after twelve years as a stay-at-home mom, she started a program in health and nutrition at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and in July, she will be a Certified Health Counselor. From first grade to Law School, she attended 18 different schools, graduating from Oglethorpe University with a degree in History and Political Science before going on to graduate school.
She earned a Master's degree in Library Science in 1973 and a law degree in 1977 both at Emory University. Four years at the Department of Interior practicing Environmental and Real Property law somehow led to a fifteen-year stint at Fannie Mae.
After three years in the legal department, she moved into management. She served almost ten years as Senior Vice President of the Southwestern Regional office in Dallas, overseeing 250 employees and over 300 lenders in a ten state region. She retired in 1996 to spend more time with her family.
During her stay at home years, she got reacquainted with her husband and children, took up exercising, polished up her healthful recipes, and erased the effects of fifteen years in corporate America. Judy wrote a book, not yet published, but there's plenty of time. She volunteered for her sons' schools, her community and her church, and organizations including Children's International Summer Villages and Boot Camp for Goddesses. She joined three book clubs because left to her own devices, she reads books the world will not long remember. And because old habits die hard, she travels the United States and the world.
When we were kids, finding women in the history books was a tough job. Not many were there to find. Now we've had a string of female Secretaries of State, women astronauts, and two women on the ballot for Vice President of a major political party. Women are finding their way into the history books, and tracking the progress is the National Women's History Project (www.nwhp.org).
Paul Sanberg may be the guy who unseats Juan Ponce de Leon when we think of the fountain of youth. His work with stem cells and cord blood is poised to revolutionize brain health and repair.
Andrée Putman, the acclaimed French designer and interior architect, once said, "I love America, and I love American women, but there is one thing that deeply shocks me......American closets. I cannot believe one can dress well when you have so much."
Sometimes one phone call can change your life. Robin Sachs never anticipated the impact of the call from an art director she'd worked with before. He told her he was developing an ad campaign and he wanted her to take photos of Jewish Family Service (JFS), a nonprofit in Dallas.
I'm a sucker for lost manuscript stories whether it's a brilliant piece of literature such as Suite Française by Irene Nemirovsky or the fun read of a Red Leather Diary by Lily Koppel. The back story of When Washington Was in Vogue grabbed me: lost manuscript with initmate, first-hand details about Washington DC's black high society in the jazz age. I couldn't put it down.
How's your posture? No really, this is important. Paul D'Arezzo, an emergency room physician for over twenty years, has been studying how people move and what makes them age. A lot of it comes back to posture. How we stand reveals a lot about how well we'll function as we get older.
Julie Hersh surprised me the first time she read her work. This woman, who looked to me a lot like Jackie Kennedy Onassis, had written a riveting account of her depression and attempted suicide.
The notion of a hardwired brain can be a handy excuse. The brain can be blamed for a lot that would otherwise be seen as lack of initiative. Well, watch out fellow procrastinators, Norman Doidge is in town to set the record straight. Actually he was in town last week, and I was lucky enough to get a ticket to hear him at the University of Texas - Dallas Center for Brain Health's annual lecture series called The Brain: An Owner's Guide.
Do you have the perfect gift in mind for your Valentine? Looking for something beyond red roses and chocolate? Take a peek at what the Girlz have planned for their significant others.
You can have the mental equivalent of a six-pack. According to a study done at the University of Vancouver, an hour or two of weight training each week improves cognitive function in older women.
Dig out that fabulous red dress. Pull on those red cowboy boots. Grab that flashy red leather jacket. Today, February 5, 2010, is National Wear Red Day®. It's not just for Valentine's Day anymore. I may not look like Christina Hendricks wearing a gorgeous form fitting Carolina Herrera red dress, but I can show my support for heart disease awareness in my own way!
Some people are born to dance. They have the grace, rhythm and physique to delight the observer. I am not one of those people. Returning me to my seat after a dance at a sales and marketing meeting, Scott, one of my employees suggested I'd do better to watch in the future. When the instructor at a yoga retreat announced a Nia dance class, I planned to follow Scott's advice and watch. What a mistake that would have been.
It's official. A beautiful woman has the power to turn men's brains to mush. A psychologist in the Netherlands initiated a study after talking to a stunning woman reduced him to such a state that he couldn't tell her his home address. Results of the study proved just what he suspected: men use so much of their brain function trying to impress beautiful women that they have little left over for other tasks.
On a recent Sunday walk on the Katy Trail, what appeared to be a healthy, fit woman in her thirties, came speeding toward us on a weird contraption. We all stopped to watch, and she pulled over and offered us a ride on her vehicle. Karla, of course, jumped at the chance to try it out.
Judy: Amy and Karla started the new year with a tap of the reset button. They went back to the toughest and most restrictive version of the elimination diet to verify their assumptions. They've zeroed in on several foods that affect the way they feel and sleep.
Big, bulky, and often candy striped, Hula Hoops are the least likely implements of aerobic activity. I loved my Hula Hoop when I was a kid, but I never imagined it would be reborn in the twenty-first century as a fitness trend called hooping or hoop dance. Great for cardio and core strengthening, the new, larger weighted hoops firm and tone muscle and burn body fat.
I broke my foot a couple of years ago by falling off my shoe. A simple break, it took way too long to heal, and kept me from my regular morning walks for the first time in over ten years.
My first ice skates cost fifty cents. Used and in pretty bad shape, they were one of the best gifts ever. We were driving from Ft Knox, Kentucky to Seattle where we'd catch a flight to Fairbanks. My father, who had been transferred with the Army, went to an auction with my uncle when we stopped in Colorado for a visit, and came back with a pair of skates just my size. Those fifty cent skates got a good work out that first winter we lived in Alaska.
Most people go to Hawaii and come back with a tan. Susan O'Brien went to Maui on vacation and came home with a new vocation. She and her husband met Renée Loux, host of the Fine Living network's It's Easy Being Green, who gave Susan a copy of her raw-food cookbook, Living Cuisine: The Art and Spirit of Raw Foods. Susan put her novel aside and by the time she got home had committed to a whole new lifestyle.
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