Randi Miller

He was, perhaps, the ugliest puppy I had ever seen. A shepherd mix of some sort, about three months old and probably 35 pounds, with a large black mask, a long curly tail, and the most enormous ears I'd ever seen. He looked very much like a baby donkey.

It...

We hear a lot about dysfunction and how experiences from our childhoods can influence our lives well into adulthood. I think this is true on both the positive and negative sides. People who grew up in healthy, loving families tend to continue that pattern into their own families as adults,...

We all reach a point in our lives where we develop a need for self-examination, to try to pinpoint the events that may be responsible for aspects of our personalities or relationship behaviors that we cannot otherwise explain. Is it because we so desperately need to place blame or have...

I've often compared dating to sales, for I do believe that if you want to see someone again, whether its a customer or a date, you had better treat them well. Everyone needs a plan.

But dating is far more complicated than all that, particularly if you're genuinely excited about...

I always wanted to be famous. The first song I ever learned how to play on the guitar was the Oscar Meyer Wiener song, self-taught by way of painstaking plucking of each individual note. I was 10 years old and fancied myself something of a genius for figuring out such...

I don't know about you, but I've never been in jail, and I never really gave it much thought before, but I'm pretty proud of that. It seems that this is just another source of pride that has become obsolete in our society, as now it is unusual to find...

There is always a next time. It always happens again. And no, they are really not sorry.

Red flags should be easy to see, but apparently, in spite of their crimson color and their ability to wave in the breeze, they cleverly escape the notice of those most in need...

It was difficult to explain to my 5-year-old nephew how Santa Claus accessed our house when we had a roaring fire burning in the fireplace on Christmas Eve. It was a legitimate question, and one we as adults had not considered. Then it hit us. We had a second fireplace...

Many of us have beautiful memories of Christmas as children... memories of magic and wonder, the thrill of knowing Santa Claus would soon be here, rushing off to bed so that we could pretend to be asleep (as if we could fool him into coming earlier).

Not only did...

All of the organized breast screening programs in Canada offer free mammograms to women aged 50 - 69. That's the extent of the eligibility requirement list.

To receive a free mammogram in the Washington, D.C. area, you must be over the age of 50 as well, but there...

When I was 13, I was crushed to discover that I was apparently now too old for trick-or-treating. After a lifetime of selecting totally awesome costumes for Halloween, I couldn't believe my ears when I was told that it was over for me. My time had passed, my glory days...

Everyone is going through something.

I learned this little life lesson quite a long time ago, as I clumsily moved through life carrying my four very tall and thick walls all around me like a refrigerator with legs. Nobody knew what I was going through, and for some reason I...

The last official weekend of summer has officially passed, and I am reminded of one Sunday a few years ago when my parents and I went for a nice Sunday drive, down through Chevy Chase and into Northwest Washington, just like we did when I was a kid. Once in...

When I was a kid, my mother always took me and my sister to Hahn's Shoes in the summer time to get new shoes for the coming school year.  We'd also go to Sears or Montgomery Ward and stock up on corduroy pants and stiff denim jeans that one could...