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Here’s a shot of Janie Hendrix I took yesterday. (Here’s my Q&A with her too!) This pretty much says it all: She’s still carrying, stylishly, the legacy and love of her brother.

The Toronto Star is running an article today about the need for a “life plan for retirement.” Which, as the former editor of 50Plus.com I can assure you is probably a good thing – retiring can be stressful, even if that sounds crazy on a Monday at the office. But trust me, I was privileged to watch people make the transition and wow, was it hard for some.

But I have to say that coming up with life plans can be stressful in and of itself. It’s great to have goals – and you should definitely be sharing yours in our (shameless plug!) Firsts after 40 contest presented by RBC, so you can win $5000.

But for me I’m not sure it works that way. Right now it would be a stretch for me to plan what I really would like to do next weekend (as opposed to consult my list of what I need to do), never mind plot out my sunny retirement years. If I had to summarize my retirement plans they would be “never retire,” because I love the core of what I do. (And in fact, the Star article touches on that theme.) I know that one day I’ll probably feel differently, and trust me, I know I had better plan financially.

But really – I cannot see myself retiring in any traditional way. Maybe I need more hobbies. But I think I’ll have to discover them by accident.

After all, many of the best things in my life have come about not because of a plan but because of serendipity. I met my husband after I decided not to date for a year — and he was under a vow of celibacy at the time. One of my first jobs, working for WoodGreen Community Centre, was never a career move I planned and in the end wasn’t right for me – but I think it really made me a better person with a much better understanding of community and need and volunteering, things that bring me a lot of “real stuff” now. And my friends were almost all happy accidents of one kind or another.

I think right now in my life I’m actually working not to plan everything, but to be able to recognize a good opportunity when it arises.

What about you?

I’m really impressed by the Globe and Mail’s series on women in power, although some the video of talking heads bothers me because I can’t skim it easily. Also, the title of Part 1 – “Do we need women CEOs?” – raised my hackles a bit, because – heck YES. Check it out and come back and tell me what you think. Also let me know if you share it with your daughters and what they think.

Did you catch Jennifer Grey on Dancing With the Stars? I really have to agree with her previously published statement that her nose job wasn’t a good career move, because I always find myself second-guessing whether that’s really Baby from Dirty Dancing. And yes, she is, and yes, she’s 50 – and wow, those legs. Enjoy:

Since we’ve been talking about gossip, here are two other links to share.

Celebrity gossip can actually improve your health, says a new study. Do celeb health tales cause you to re-examine your health habits? I’m not sure this is true for me, but maybe I haven’t had the right condition yet.

And here’s Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, on how to stop gossiping.

From the New York Times : “New research finds that gossiping can be good for you — as long as you have something nice to say.”

I’m not quite sure that something nice is what comes to mind when we start talking about gossip. Right now it’s the Karen Owen story — what advice are parents supposed to give to their kids heading to university now, don’t make Powerpoint presentations of your sexual conquests and email them to friends that may make them viral on the ‘net? — or the Rutgers suicide, where a young man’s most private moments were broadcast with tragic results. This is gossip on a grand scale; personal peccadilloes broadcast to the world via electronics, with life-altering results. It’s hard to escape gossip tied to your online identity via Google – forever.

I have to admit I’m increasingly glad there just wasn’t the same ability for me and my friends to broadcast the kinds of stories we were telling in university. But I’ll also admit that I’ve not only read gossip on Facebook, I’ve gossiped about posts on Facebook. I may have grown up some and I might be a bit more discreet and much kinder, but I’m not feeling out of the woods on this whole gossip issue yet.

And yet the take home lesson probably is the same as our mothers told us back when you really dialed the phone: If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything. At least where it can be spotted by search engines. It’s just that it’s not as – interesting.

Do you think social media has changed the nature of gossip? Has gossip ruined anything for you? Or have you found a great way to handle it? Spill in the comments!

Robert Edwards of Britain has won the 2010 Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for developing in vitro fertilization. He worked with British gynecologist and surgeon Patrick Steptoe, who died in 1988. The Nobel medicine prize committee said 4 million people have been born using the technique since the birth in 1978 of the first baby conceived and transferred via IVF.

Certainly IVF is not without controversy: Besides religious and ethical issues around the procedure itself there has been controversy about the ages of women who conceive through IVF, and publicity for extreme cases such as the 67-year-old Spanish woman who gave birth to IVF twins and subsequently died at the age of 69. IVF opens up such a wide range of possibility for many people: couples suffering from infertility, same-sex couples, single parents, couples concerned about genetic conditions and even, as detailed in fiction in Jodi Picoult’s 2004 novel My Sister’s Keeper , parents seeking a sibling as a donor for a child who is ill.

At the same time and speaking as someone who has experienced fertility issues (although not pursued IVF personally) I can only really applaud researchers who are committed to extending possibilities for the rest of us to sort out. I generally believe that women are empowered the more choices they have with respect to both conception and preventing conception. So congratulations to Edwards!

This also provides me with an excuse to link to some infertility blogs. Infertility can be a strange world to be in: People who want to be parents, but aren’t. The internet’s provided such a great way for people to connect and exchange information and support. Here are some of my long-standing favourites:

So Close – Tertia not only has written about her experience with infertility and parenting but she’s also founded an organization that helps match egg donors with recipients in South Africa. Her post on how to be friends with someone suffering from infertility is a must read for those who – well, have friends suffering from infertility.

A Little Pregnant – Julie has to be one of the wittiest infertility writers out there, and she even provides visual aids from time to time, like those in her draft speech for RESOLVE.

Uppercase Woman - Now before you click, be aware that Cecily is a popular blogger and social media consultant not because she’s been a pillar of the infertility blog community (although she has) but because she also tells it like it is, which includes some swearing. She’s also a recovering addict. Don’t miss her post The Top Ten Ways Infertility Is Still In My Life Four Years After Becoming a Parent and Getting Off the Rollercoaster.

And for the clearing house for all things blog and infertility related, visit the the Stirrup Queen’s blogroll.

What are your thoughts on IVF or on how reproductive choice has changed since all of us were getting “the talk” in our teens? What are your thoughts for our daughters and nieces going forward?