Not too long ago, a friend of mine was preparing to go on maternity leave when a coworker asked her, “Are you looking forward to your vacation?” You wouldn’t believe the outrage that spewed forth when she shared this coworker’s comment on Facebook. “Yeah, right, like going through labor & delivery is like lying on…

I have a confession to make. When it comes to feeling good enough in my life, a big portion of my feeling of self-worth has always been centered on the way my body looks. To say I’ve been on a lot of diets in my lifetime is a wretched understatement. If there has been a…

It’s Monday night. After an hour and a half of chopping, boiling and grilling (spaced in between missing-toy-train-reconnaissance missions, broken Lego disaster recovery and multiple buffering incidents with the Thomas the Train movie on Netflix), I have successfully finished preparing dinner. I have cedar-plank grilled salmon for the Professor, wheel pasta at the request of…

I have a new rule for time management in 2016, and it’s a rule I plan to follow for the foreseeable future (or maybe even forever). This new scheduling rule is not a resolution or even a goal. Instead, it’s a guideline I can follow to align my schedule with my true self. It’s not…

When I was single (a time that spanned almost three decades), I had many opportunities to spend Christmas and New Year’s Eve (not to mention Valentine’s Day) alone. It’s not fun to literally count down the seconds until you watch everyone around you kiss the person they love when you don’t have said person. During…

It was 12:45 a.m., and my husband, Lancelot, and I were stuck in the Charlotte airport. Our flight to Dayton had been cancelled and we had been rescheduled for a flight boarding at 5:25 a.m. We were exhausted, starving and a bit stressed out, and our first thought was, “Where can we find a place…

I’m a planner. I’m a planner by nature, by necessity and even by profession, having planned and executed several fundraisers and events in my career. I’ve always considered it, if not entirely a perfect quality, certainly a necessary one. Now, I’m not so sure. When I wake up on a Saturday morning, my thoughts immediately…

Donald Trump has crossed a line. A big one. Though I’ve watched him for months in outright horror, sickened by all he stands for and dumbfounded by his popularity, his latest stunt has gone so far that it’s pushed me beyond outrage. I now find myself in a position in which I want to thank…

Our society loves sports, and so do I. We love rallying behind our chosen team in solidarity against a common enemy. It can bridge great divides among groups of people, bring unity, encourage teamwork and cooperation, demonstrate perseverance and encourage strength under pressure. We also really, really like to win. Is there anything sweeter than…

“Go Ahead – Buy it! You Deserve it!” When is a splurge worth it? And when is a splurge just an unnecessary extravagance? I’m writing this hours after booking my last-minute ticket to Indianapolis for the NCAA Big Ten Football Championship game. I’m a Michigan State Spartan alumna living in Denver – not exactly a…

My most desperate moment of thankgiving didn’t happen in November. It was a winter evening in 2003, maybe February or March, with the type of bitter, frigid cold that freezes your eyelashes and takes your breath away. I was in the middle of a quarter-life crisis at the time, having quit my perfectly great advertising…

I was recently reading a book by Gary Zukav, “Soul to Soul,” and I came across a few interesting passages about people-pleasing. In the book, Gary actually hinted – or maybe even outright stated – that people-pleasing was a vice, not a virtue. He grouped it in with fear, anger, anxiety and doubt as something…