By Margaret Plouff – Contributor, Natural Wellness
The beginning of a new year, ahhh, a time for fresh starts and new fresh energy. Time to move forward with grace and improved health, strength and vitality. The holidays were a time to indulge, and did we enjoy that! Now we have a choice to implement new healthy habits. It’s time to take exquisite care of ourselves, really show lots more self love.
It’s a time for reflection as winter draws us into this special time of year. The days are shorter, the weather gets colder. Your body really needs some nourishment right now. [...]

By Jennifer Urezzio, Contributor – Spiritual Affairs
It was the day after Christmas. I stopped in the grocery store to pick up some necessities and was confronted with the Season of Love.
Giant pink and red hearts filled the aisle. I was surrounded by heart candies and heart cards and everything one would need to create the Season of Love. And yet, what is truly needed to create love in your life doesn’t come in a box, bag or card. It comes from within.
Most relationships fail because we are looking to that individual to complete us, to fill an empty hole that [...]

By Susan Keats, Contributor &  Seize-the-Day Propagandist
Greetings from my after life.
I’m not dead yet, by the way, but I had a glimpse of my death recently and I realized, upon considering it, that I was completely unprepared to have it arrive so soon. Why is it that sometimes we need a good kick in the teeth every so often to get us to sit up and pay attention?
My kick came in the form of cancer on a routine mammogram. There’s nothing like a good cancer diagnosis to push you into a state of acute awareness. Hello, this is your WAKE [...]

By Audrey van Petegem, Senior Editor
Happy New Year!  I am very excited about this year! I am turning 50 and I am truly embracing it! Here is a video about my plans for this year:

By Anne-Marie Kovacs, Chief Wife

I didn’t know a soul when I first moved to the Chicago area over two years ago. It was an opportunity to get out of my comfort zone and get out there to meet new friends and make professional connections.
One of the things I did was join the Taproot Foundation, an organization that matches business professionals with nonprofit organizations, providing them with essential business services on a pro-bono basis. For example, my team’s “client” was a statewide housing coalition that advocates for the availability of decent and affordable housing (such an essential service in these times). [...]

By Jennifer Urezzio, Contributor – Spiritual Affairs
It’s so cliché to do an article about the New Year, and yet clichés are clichés for a reason – because of the wisdom those formulas hold.
As the year draws to a close, you will find yourself naturally reviewing the year and remembering what you “wished” to accomplish. I believe review and reflection is good for the Soul. Judgment is not and we tend to judge what we did or didn’t do this year.
The first step of transformation is to make a different choice. So let’s help you create some different choices around how [...]

By Marjie Killeen, Contributor- Midlife Wisdom
If you follow my video posts here at The Succulent Wife, you know I’ve been having a midlife crisis. But hooray! As 2011 winds down, I now declare it officially over. Yes, my big 5-0 birthday creeps ever nearer and my son is heading off to college in the fall, but since I’ve addressed many of the issues that come with this age and life stage, I have to say I’m feeling damn good.
Middle age can be a sweet, sexy, and liberating time of life. Check out this short video where I pass on a [...]

By Audrey van Petegem, Senior Editor
Thank you to 2nd.MD for providing me with a $200 stipend to test-drive this revolutionary online medical service.
Some of the best ideas stem from personal necessity and 2nd.Md definitely fits this criteria. The founder, Cliff Phillips, and his wife needed to speak to an expert regarding their youngest child’s health issue when she was only four months old. They had to wait six agonizing weeks to meet with a specialist. It was because of this experience that Phillips knew that there had to be a way for patients to immediately ‘meet’ with a specialist one-on [...]

Throughout the pages of The Succulent Wife, you will see numerous articles about companies and products that contribute to making this planet a better place to live on. Whether it is about helping the environment or about helping each other, we are always passionate about sharing their stories.

Thus, this Gift Guide is near and dear to us. The ideas shared here show us that we can all be conscious shoppers, make our gift recipient happy and, all at the same time, also greatly impact the life of someone less fortunate. It becomes a win-win for everyone. And it’s so easy [...]

By Margaret Plouff – Contributor, Natural Wellness
Recently, new research has revealed the importance of the “Sunshine Supplement.” According to the Vitamin D Council,
“Vitamin D deficiency is a world-wide epidemic, with recent estimates indicating greater than 50% of the global population is at risk.”
Vitamin D is necessary for:

Retaining bone density
Maintaining body’s immunity against heart disease, cancer
Preventing muscle wasting and osteoporosis
Aiding the body’s absorption of calcium
Relieving depression

An ideal way to get vitamin D is having twenty minutes of sun exposure on your face, chest, back and arms. Sounds nice this time of year in the northern hemisphere!! You can get your week [...]