You see that photo? Those are the three mopeds we rented recently on what was possibly the most fun afternoon we've ever spent as a family.

Those four hours were 30 years in the making.

I was barely out of college...

It started out like any other day. Isn't that the way every "I got fired" story begins? Well, add me to the list.

It had been the usual tornado of a morning. I got up early, kissed my work-at-home husband and sleeping toddler goodbye, and picked up newspapers on...

I don't know about you, but if I was the mother of eight children and had the gumption to homeschool them, I'm not sure I'd be too concerned about whether there were chemicals in their bath products.

PJ Jonas was, though. She vowed to...

"What day will I die?"

That's a question my toddler had for me once upon a time, and remembering it makes my heart break all over again.

It reminded me of when I'd been about her age, asking my mother if everyone had to die. My mom was honest. She...

When our daughter was little we used to go on Sunday walks. That was our church. We took plastic bags with us and filled them with litter from the side of the road, then dumped them in a trash can at a park near our destination downtown. Then we got...

The entertainer John Tesh was once quoted as saying he's really not that busy.

If the host of the syndicated radio program Intelligence for Your Life didn't feel squeezed for time, I figured the rest of us could learn something. He joined us...

Every time I notice the school bus pulling up in front of our house to pick up the neighbor kid, I stop. I stop, and I watch it until it's out of sight.

It reminds me how quickly life is whooshing by. I don't want to miss it.

When I was fresh out of college, supervising a dozen or so telephone company technicians, I held a weekly meeting.

Why?

Someone told me to do it, so I did it.

I can't remember what the focus was. Something about safety, if memory serves. Maybe the latest change to our...

I love interviewing Rich Gallagher, an expert on customer service, because his advice applies not only to customers but to everyone else you cross paths with. Rich's new book is The Customer Service Survival Kit, but I think it's misnamed. The Relationship Survival Kit is more like it,...

Is Bobby Knight ever hurt by what's said about him in the media?

That question lodged itself in my brain about 15 years ago when I was hosting a radio talk show on a station in the small town where I still live. The show was called Hodgepodge, and...

It took me several weeks to decide to buy a $4 pretzel. Every other Saturday, browsing the mall and savoring still another mouth-watering sample, I contemplated my choices. There was quite the array. Eventually I settled on Parmesan, with honey mustard on the side.

I spent more time deciding on...

"That was a fast 17 years, huh?"

It was a question for the mother of one of my daughter's friends. Katie and I were on a grocery run last summer -- the summer between Kate's junior and senior years of high school...

"What do you like about piano?" I asked my daughter a few years ago when we were on our way to register for her ninth year of lessons. "Being able to say I haven't quit," she told me.

Uh-oh.

"What do you not like about it?" I continued. She didn't...

When I was in high school I read a poem -- entitled "To My Grown-Up Son" -- by Alice E. Chase:

My hands were busy through the day, I didn't have much time to play The little games you asked me to, I didn't have much time for you.

I'd...

Once upon a time I heard a news story that went something like, "A family went to sleep while the dryer was still running. The automatic shutoff malfunctioned, the dryer overheated and caught fire, the house blew up, and everyone died."

To that I say, "Good luck making yourself...

To inspire people to find work they love, and live without regret.

I used to think that was the goal of my talk show. And it is, but there's something more basic going on.

The goal of my talk show is to learn something. The more focused I am on...

"So. How's Potpourri?"

That's what my uncle wondered at a family gathering many years ago.

Potpourri?

Did he mean... Hodgepodge?

Yes! Hodgepodge. That was the name of my first radio talk show. Thirty minutes of bliss (well, for me anyway) Monday through Friday -- talking to everyone from city council...

"Which side is yours?"

That's what the new manager at the restaurant where I worked as a cocktail waitress wanted to know. There were two of us waiting tables during happy hour -- a gal named Jen, and me. For a while we thought it was going to be...

Once upon a time, I was on the dance floor with my college boyfriend. It was at a disco -- remember those? -- and I thought I was doing an OK job of imitating the moves of the people around us.

Wrong.

In a trivial but oddly defining...

You've probably seen them: the panic-stricken faces on men on the eve of some holiday. They're in line behind you at the florist, or the jewelry store, or even the convenience store. They know they're expected to come through, yet again -- and with what?

What could possibly be the...