“Come on in, sit down. Can I get you a cup of coffee?” I could almost hear Anne Bardsley saying that to me as I read her new book, How I Earned My Wrinkles: Musings on Marriage, Motherhood, and Menopause. In fact, I could swear midway through I could hear her offering to pour me a glass of wine, as well.

Anne explains in the Introduction the source of the many tales she tells about–well, marriage, motherhood, and menopause. She is an inveterate note taker:

I have a library of journals where I jotted down memories and snippets of conversations I wanted to remember. Actually, I’m not really that organized. They aren’t so much journals on a shelf as they are a collection of paper napkins, matchbook covers, and restaurant menus stuffed in a drawer with my scribbled notes and tidbits of memories. Sometimes an idea will come to me and I’ll write it on the back of a supermarket or bank receipt. I now have a vast collection!

Take your choice of tales to read–from”A Weighted Matter,” a discussion of the wisdom of vaginal weight lifting, to “Oh, Those Seven Pounds,” about her granddaughter’s birth, to “Two Old Gals Gone Wild,” which tells of the Virgin Islands getaway she took with her oldest friend. There are over fifty (!) chapters to choose from, on every topic imaginable in the world of a midlife woman.

I read my copy on Kindle, but you can buy How I Earned My Wrinkles in paperback as well. If you’re an Erma Bombeck fan, you’ll certainly recognize Anne Bardsley as a kindred soul.