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September is now well underway, and with it the feelings of change and renewal. Camp and vacations have ended, and everyone is either heading back to school or back to work. Growing up in Los Angeles, I remember the excitement of going to the local stationery store to purchase new school supplies. As young as the age of 12, I had to study the entire September issue of Seventeen Magazine before buying any new clothes. When I got older, I thought I would get similar advice by reading Vogue, but, well, I found it to be way too intimidating.

To me, September feels significantly different than any other month. I think that's because change is occurring on an organic level -- the sun, after reaching its solstice in June, is setting earlier and lower each week; the leaves are beginning to change color; and the weather is getting cooler. So I plan to take advantage of these shifts in nature and make some of my own shifts.

On a personal level, I've decided to make a change too. I've begun the daily habit of taking vitamins. Not mega-doses, mind you, but at least a multi-vitamin and another supplement or two each day.

A lot of talk exists among singles about how women are evaluating men for their financial stability. I've addressed this issue in my article "Money, Honey." But what I've found just as disturbing, is men judging women based on the age of their ovaries.

Aside from men evaluating women on the obvious externals -- you know, like how much she looks like Barbie, or not -- I've been hearing more and more about how the only criteria that men are using to choose a life partner is her perceived ability to produce children.

While I could talk for a long time about what men and women should be looking for in a partner, I'm just going to say this(which should be obvious, but unfortunately frequently it is not): Age has not been conclusively shown to be a factor in a woman's ability to get pregnant and bear children. There are many women in the world who are in their "childbearing prime" (ages 16 - 30) who are infertile. The reason for infertility is frequently unknown. In addition, there are many women who are over 35 years of age who very easily can bear children.

All in all, ovaries are very funny organs. They can be a big mystery, even to scientists. So I suggest that all singles work on judging one another by focusing on the qualities and characteristics that are known to contribute to a loving and gratifying relationship. Why not give it a try?

If I combined all of my personal and professional experience as it related to marriage, I couldn't come up with a better analysis of what it takes to be in a happy marriage than the one that Mari L. Clements, Ph.D. identified in her new study, The Good Marriage: How and Why Love Lasts. Read a synopsis of the study, which is published in the August issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family.

Clements emphasizes that how a couple handles conflict, and their ability to engage in positive interactions with each other, are two of the major factors predicting marital happiness. She and her colleagues studied 100 couples over the course of 13 years.

It's hard to believe that it was just a year ago this month that I launched the Focused Points email newsletter. Wow! The year sure went fast! I started to wonder what originally inspired me to churn out a twice a month newsletter; in other words, what was I thinking?!

Truthfully, I had determined that I wanted and needed to grow professionally. Being a psychologist, especially one in private practice, tends to be a lonely profession. While I had always felt it a privilege to be invited into the private lives of the people I treated, the relationship was (and should be) one-sided. If I didn't seek out relationships with colleagues, I could be working alone for many hours at a time.

There are ways to gather information about your dating partner without sounding like you're conducting an interrogation. Here are some questions and areas to pursue, in an easy-going, comfortable manner, that'll help you determine if you share a similar life path and goals.

Pay close attention to information about your dating partner?s family background and dynamics.

I received a lot of feedback from the various people who visited my re-designed website prior to its debut. Some people said it was helpful & informative and easy to navigate, while others said that it was too busy, too confusing and overstuffed with information. Everything that was said sounded valid, and I reacted accordingly -- of course I will change this; yes, I will change that. Why? Because I wanted to please everyone, make them like me and my website, in the hopes that if I did, they would visit often and tell their friends.

As I was about to implement everyone's recommendations, I stopped & asked myself -- who am I really supposed to please? If it's everyone who gave me feedback, then I know I'll end up feeling like a rubber band, pulled in every direction. But if my goal is to please myself, then I can pay attention to my own instincts and judgment in deciding how to best provide valuable insight and information to singles looking to find and create a life partner relationship. And in addition to trusting my instincts, I will pray that I continue to get it right so that I'm able to help as many people as I can who come to FocusedCoachingServices.com and spend the time learning how to use the site's (easy!) navigation.

My husband recently gave me flowers. The truth is, he brings me flowers every week (usually on Fridays), but last week was different -- he gave me a bunch of my most favorite flowers, stargazer lilies. For those of you who don't know much about flowers, these beautiful lilies have many shades of pink, and have an extremely strong fragrance, which I happen to love. The lilies also tend to last a long time -- usually more than a week -- because each stem has many buds that open gradually over time.

So I've been enjoying the sites and smells emanating from my flowers all week long. But then someone came over who didn't like the lilies' scent at all. This reminded me that not everyone is going to like all of the things that I like. That's the reason why, for example, there are a skizillion perfumes manufactured and marketed every year. When I went perfume shopping for Mother's Day with one of my daughters, we had a difficult time finding a scent that we could both agree that Grandma would like, and perhaps even love.

Just like shopping for perfume, or buying flowers, who you choose to be your life partner is a very distinctive, individual process. No one can tell you what to like -- you have check your own "nose" to determine that. Not that I'm comparing people with perfume or flowers; well, not exactly (!). But there's enough similarities in the process where you have to trust your instincts to identify what's right for you.

One of the issues that I recently heard about was whether or not singles should go into their relationship history with whomever they are dating in the present. I believe that this can be dangerous. If you reveal all (or some) of what went wrong in your previous relationships, you run the risk of creating an unflattering image of yourself in your current relationship. As you describe and discuss the failures and rejections that you experienced, your date is given the opportunity to begin to imagine you as a failure. And how good can that be??