Adriana Kraft

When it's time to heat things up...

baby boomers

Time for a confession #MFRWAuthor #BabyBoomers

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It’s confession time.

An author friend posted the question why do you write? on one of our author loops. As I pondered how to answer, I realized it’s so embedded in our own personal story that I couldn’t give a short answer.

Our readers know we are baby boomers. If they’re anywhere close to our age, they also know that midlife can bring a host of challenges in the bedroom. For us, that was complicated by health issues: A heart attack (in his forties!) for him, abdominal repair issues for me. Add onto that the fact I have three stepchildren. From the moment we married until our own son turned 20, I always had at least one teenager in the house. Time for sex? Interest in it? Not so much, for longer than I’d like to confess.

But neither of us was willing to give up. Our parents, it turns out, lived very long lives. Who, at midlife, wants to look forward to three or four more decades with no sex? We started looking for resources and found some great ones. We started watching videos – yes, Those Kinds of videos, in the bedroom, as a prelude to our own activities.

After a while we started saying things like “I’d like that story better if…” and “what would really turn me on is if she…”  As you might guess, we started setting down stories that better met our needs. Gradually we didn’t use the videos so much – we read out loud from our own material.

So why do we write? We want to save the world from boring sex.

Feel free to take a peek at our Swinging Lifestyle stories and our Polyamory stories and let us know if we’re succeeding!

Every step counts… #health #boomers #MFRWAuthor

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Are you interested in your health? How much time do you spend thinking about it on a daily basis?

More important, how much time do you invest in doing something about it on a daily basis?

When I was in my twenties, I probably didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about it, though through a quirk of fate (friends in college in the 60s) I’d already developed a daily exercise program.

We got excited about the RCAF routine and got together in the dorm halls (not co-ed, in those days 😊) most evenings to run through the 10 minute routine. It stuck with me. I liked what it did for my body – probably more motivated by what I wanted to look like than health concerns in those days!

But as I’ve grown older (Baby Boomer, here), my health concerns and activities have increased. Though each of my parents lived a very long time (95 and 101), both developed forms of dementia late in life: My mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and needed care for her symptoms for her last five years, during most of which time she didn’t know who I was (or her husband, either). My dad’s was more classic age-related dementia, and he continued to know me (the “blue-eyed” daughter), remembered raunchy jokes from his youth, and kept his assisted living staff entertained and engaged by laughing with them often. If I have a choice, I’d prefer his trajectory.

Fast forward to today: Each time a new link surfaces with information about preventing Alzheimer’s and dementia, I’m all over it in a flash. Whatever my genes have in store for me down the road, it’s clear a great deal is within my control. At the very least, if this is my future, I can delay onset and significantly decrease symptoms through how I live on a daily basis. And even if my genes aren’t poised to take me there, I’ll experience vastly greater quality of life through my remaining years.

So I’m going to take up blogging about it again. If you’re interested in what I’ve had to say about it in the past, you can explore the Stay Sexy column we published in 2013 and 2014.

My new series of posts will have the somewhat broader focus of overall health, though of course you can count on us to never ignore sex 😊. I’ll share tips, new research, what has worked for both halves of Adriana Kraft, what hasn’t, and opportunities for guests who have a similar focus. Drop us a line (use the contact button in the r.h. sidebar) and tell us what you’d like to blog about as our guest.

For today, I’m sticking to counting steps. FitBit has sold millions of step counters with its campaign about the benefits of walking 10,000 steps a day. Is the hype true? The answer, in general, is yes. A 2017 HuffPo article supports the benefits, with some caveats that are worth noting: slow steps don’t have the same benefit as a faster pace, and there’s no magic threshold at 10,000. More is simply better.

After researching step-counters, I invested in a FitBit Charge 2 (Mr. Kraft gave it to me last Christmas, actually). I love it. I always know where I am relative to my goals. What I especially appreciate is being reminded to move – at least 250 steps – every hour. I spend much of my day sitting at the computer (imagine that!). Not moving, it turns out, can be lethal.

What’s more, I’ve discovered that the bottom threshold, for me, happens at about 8,000 steps. If I get less than that in a day, I feel more sluggish, less energized, and less alert the next day (and Mr. Kraft is far more likely to beat me at WordStreak). I’m on much more of an even keel if I’ve reached at least that much, though my goal continues to be more. Every step counts.

What works for you? We’d love to hear from you, in comments below or via our email contact on the sidebar.

#Boomers and Hobbies #MFRWAuthor #Health

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Welcome to Week Six of the MFRW 52-Week Blog Challenge! This week’s topic is My hobbies (when I’m not writing).

By now if you follow us at all, you know we’re baby boomers, so it should come as no surprise that staying healthy tops the list of anything we get involved in. (Photo – biking in Palo Duro Canyon, Texas).

With any luck, I might need this body another three decades, and I’d like to be able to enjoy it! Our health, our hobbies, and our writing form the proverbial three-legged stool upon which everything else depends.

That may sound way too serious, but don’t worry, our first criterion for selecting a hobby is pleasure! If we don’t enjoy it, we’re not likely to keep at it, no matter how much it might be good for us  🙂 . Beyond being pleasurable, we hope it contributes to our health in some fashion, but even if it doesn’t, a major criterion is that it not be harmful.

Most of our hobbies involve physical activity: hiking, bicycle riding, dancing (ballroom and country/western), walking, mini golf, and golf (Mr. Kraft is a regular, I’ve just started lessons). We thrive on being outdoors, traveling, taking in new events and new scenes, any time the opportunity arises. (on the right, Hecata Lighthouse, Oregon coast; on the left, hiking in Sedona, Arizona).

We both have a few sedentary hobbies – as long as our bodies stay healthy, we’d like to have a brain to go with them, and there’s Alzheimer’s in my family tree, so I’m probably overly sensitive on this issue.

In addition to reading (goes without saying – we’re writers!), both of us enjoy several word games – scrabble, crossword puzzles, the WordStreak App and the WordBrain App among them. I might be addicted to Sudoku. I take on the challenging ones and have to limit myself to one a day or I’ll get nothing else done!

And where does writing fit in? We started writing erotic romance together as a hobby to keep our own juices flowing and follow the use it or lose it dictum. I’ll spare you the details about how our writing feeds our personal life (TMI and all that…) – let’s just say we hope it does the same for our readers!

We blog about health issues from time to time and are always looking for authors and readers to interview about their health stories – leave us a comment if you’d like to be on our guest list!

Curious about what other authors do when they’re not writing? Check out the posts below!

Focus #MFRWAuthor #Health

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Stay healthy? Here’s hoping! As we’ve been evaluating our purpose and focusing our writing and marketing energies after our three month break, we recognized that our highest value, what we prize most in life, is health. It undergirds everything else. Without it, none of the things we value and enjoy are possible.

We work hard to stay healthy. We eat a balanced diet, use fresh foods, and avoid excessive sugars. We spend at least ten to fifteen hours a week in some form of exercise, including core strengthening, weights and aerobics. We exercise our brains through staying curious, studying new things that interest us, traveling, learning new dances, working puzzles and playing brain games. No matter how hard we’re working, we take breaks, relax, get out and enjoy nature, and just chill. And yes, having hot sex is on that list.

When we were younger, I think we were more likely to take health for granted. Well into the second half of our lives, we know it’s a precious resource. We’re passionate about this, and we’ll be sharing more about this passion in future blog posts. Stay tuned.

A sample of what we love about staying healthy: Hiking at Bell Rock, Sedona, last January.

Adriana Sedona Hike 2015

Stay Sexy ~ Feed your Fantasies!

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Lacy-lips-smallDo you ever fantasize about having sex with multiple partners? Two hot guys, maybe, or maybe a sexy guy and a hot woman? Or swapping with another couple and enjoying a foursome? If so, read on!

 

 

The-Ultimate-Guide-to-Sex-Over-Fifty-200x300I’m devouring Joan Price’s latest book, The Ultimate Guide to Sex Over Fifty, and hope to post a review in another week or two. Meantime I ran across the following marvelous quote from writer/activist Carol Queen in its pages:

“Sex with many people is actually the most functional form of sex education for many in our culture. In a society that doesn’t value or take seriously the responsibility to teach about pleasure, many of us still derive our most profound understandings about our own sexuality on the hoof, in the street, on the prowl.”

The first thing that struck me as I read those words was that it’s what so many swingers tell us about the impact of swinging on their sex lives with each other. You might think that people who turn to swinging are sexually savvy and experienced already, and many are, but even so, in addition to the thrill of multiple partners, many are surprised that they discover nuances about their own sexuality and each other’s they weren’t aware of. Even more, they learn new activities, toys, and positions they haven’t thought to try.

We’ve spoken with swingers ranging from their thirties to their eighties. Their reasons for getting involved with the lifestyle vary, but almost universally, they report reaping so much more benefit than they ever anticipated, and they’re grateful (especially as they age) for the extra boost to their libidos and their enjoyment.

We began writing our Swinging Games series for similar reasons. In it, we follow a mid-life empty-nest baby-boomer couple who reach the decision to check out the swing lifestyle because the wife thinks she might be bisexual, but doesn’t want to leave her husband out of her sexual exploration. Thirteen installments later, they are still going strong, and you can check out the series at this LINK to see if it can add to your fantasies.

Meanwhile Stay Sexy, and have fun!

Stay Sexy ~ Do Something Different

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Want to stay vibrant, healthy, exciting and sexy across the life cycle?

Here’s what it takes:

Think differently.

Do something different.

Keep on doing it.

Not new, not earth shaking, not something I haven’t said in my own way, but I ran across it yesterday in a place I wouldn’t have looked for it.

I follow (and hardly ever miss reading) Bob Mayer’s blog – initially because I heard him speak with Jennifer Crusie and I read the books they wrote together, then because he was a pioneer in indie publishing, and because I started reading and love his solo fiction. Here’s a shout-out to Duty, Honor, Country and The Jefferson Allegiance. Great reads.

He’s a West Point graduate with a Special Forces career, and he draws on that experience to write his fiction and run his life. Truly. He’s been a traditionally published best-selling author, but he saw the wave of change coming and established an indie publishing house for his back list, his new releases, and a few additional brave authors. Lots of traditional authors got swamped by the wave – he’s still riding it, and thriving.

So when he says something, I pay attention.

The opening line to his blog yesterday was “If I’m not where I want to be, then I must change.” Exactly. How do we do that? We all have the same basic material to work with – think differently, do something different, keep on doing it. Not new. What was new (to me) was the meta-analysis: in order to make a change, it helps if we know which of these three steps is most difficult for us. Then we can focus our energy on figuring out why that step is our barrier, and doing something about that.

For me, #3 is the bugaboo: sustaining the change. My something different is my twelve minute morning workout. That means I have to do the same “different” thing every morning, and some mornings I just don’t feel like it.

I’ve learned I need a huge laundry list of reasons that can get me up off the couch and moving, a combination of sticks and carrots. Some mornings, frankly, it’s vanity. I really like looking trim and fit. Sometimes it’s my osteopenia – the fear of ending up someday in a nursing home with a broken hip. Often it’s the specter of Alzheimer’s – my gene pool is just loaded with good reasons to sustain the change. Right now I’m rehabbing  an injured knee, and if nothing else gets me going, the knowledge that I’ll have less knee pain later in the day works just fine. Sometimes, even, it’s knowing that I’ll be writing this Stay Sexy blog post every week: accountability. And on a really good morning, it’s just knowing how very good I feel all day when I’ve started my day with the core routine.

I’ll close with his closing words. I highly recommend reading his entire post.

“Sustained action equals change.  Sustained action is training.  Sustained action brings about new, healthy and productive habits.”

Have fun, and Stay Sexy.