On my fourteenth birthday, I woke up to find my parents gone an d a note on the kitchen table that said: "At the hospital."

I am busy making Easter baskets: one for my 39-year-old son and one for my husband. My son’s treats come from Trader Joe’s because he...

The other day I came home to find the. men I hired to build my patio sitting in the backyard looking at a stump. This was not a normal stump. This was giant, Paul Bunyan, Big John kind of stump.

When I was little my parents packed my brothers and sister and me into the back of a huge station wagon every August, and off we went to Palm Springs. There was no air conditioning in the car or the budget hotels where we stayed. It was 110 in the shade if we were lucky. The kids shared one room and our parents the other. I understand now that we weren't well off.