Started life on a hobby farm in a small town in British Columbia, Canada. Here, she gained education on critical matters such as how to discriminate between goat turds and black jelly beans at Easter egg hunts. When she was in grade five, she resolved to one day write a book and now, in her forties, she’s putting the final touches on her first novel and has recently launched a blog, normalizingnicole.com—procrastination is one of her strongpoints. Proud to be a Canadian, mom, wife, university student advisor and woman (the latter, despite the f@#$ hot flashes of early menopause), she reflects a lot on the gifts and struggles that come with entering midlife. She refuses to accept that aging is a downhill tumble, but rather, a powerful leap into the mosh pit of life where we can offer invaluable wisdom (and some hot bottom-lip-biting dance moves, to boot).