Mom had often complained that I'd thrown away her bag collection when I helped her move. So, for her birthday, we gave her a gift of gift bags... and she cracked up.

I'm a saver. Every time my inbox mounts to the limit of 4,000 emails, I move a few...

This is the first segment of the serialized chapter "Starter Marriage" from my new memoir, Confessions of a Worrywart: Husbands, Lovers, Mothers, and Others.

Starter Marraige, Part 1

1965. One of my least evolved relationships was with Saul, my first husband. His dimpled cheeks and large, almost...

Sexual relationships are important to healthy marriages. But not every healthy marriage is the same.

Sex therapist Laurie Watson, author of Wanting Sex Again: How to Rediscover Your Desire and Heal a Sexless Marriage, has helped thousands of couples rekindle their desire. Recently, I...

I like Oprah not Opera.
Country not Classical.
I prefer Silence to any Music at all.

I choose Breakfast at Tiffany's over My Dinner With Andre.
I'm all about Story, not at all about History.

Some words whose meanings I never retain
Are insipid, insidious and...

What makes a marriage successful? What can be done to rebuild your marriage after an affair? Valentine's Day, despite the Hallmark hoopla, offers an opportunity to reflect on how to be happily married.

Recently, I interviewed Victoria, who discovered her husband was having an affair. She decided she wanted to...

Should you split the bill?

This story about saying what you mean when paying or splitting the bill makes me sad. (Is it only worrywarts who experience recurring snapshots from the distant past that still make them sad?)

Years ago, my parents went to dinner with...

I never prayed for Steve to win the election, only to keep our sanity intact.

With President Obama's inauguration, my thoughts turn to election night of my husband's campaign for the U. S. Congress.

1992. Family and friends stream into my husband's campaign headquarters to await returns. The...

'Tis the season to obsess... about New Year's resolutions. For a worrywart, it is challenging to come up with just one resolution when there are so many choices, so I have selected several from my 2012 grab bag to inspire you to worry less and indulge more in 2013.

Like President Obama and everyone else, I am heartbroken for the families of the murdered children, teachers, and others in Newtown, Conn. last week. And I'm worried about our society in which this kind of massacre happens with alarming frequency.

By now the news has been so saturated with this...

While watching the 2012 political campaigns unfold, it reminds me of my ex's 1992 race for U.S. Congress. As a worrywart I multi-minutiae-worried my way through the entire campaign.

Here is my story of one of many details I focused on:

My husband, Steve, sets up headquarters to launch his...

There is no question that it is a luxury to even have the choice to be a stay-at-home mom. When my first daughter was born, I was a working mother, a stockbroker for Morgan Stanley making more money than my lawyer husband. I began working at home for a few...

For me, the dreading begins the Friday before, when my daughters, brimful with anticipation, arrive home with the crafts they have made at school. If history repeats itself, only two of the three gifts will be intact by Sunday, Mother's Day. What do teachers do about children who...

Who knew we were marathon women?

On an ordinary afternoon in 1998, Eliza, my sixteen-year-old daughter, plopped her backpack at my feet, waved a brochure so close it grazed my nose and declared, "I'm signing up for the Marine Corps Marathon. I'll be running with a group that raises money...

There's a lot to learn during a week in New York.

I learned I can go far north or south on dedicated bike lanes. And once a day someone grouses at me for wheeling crosstown on the sidewalk, not that I blame them.

But I do blame the guy who...

I'm drowning in junk, buried in boxes, suffocating with stuff. It doesn't surprise me that all these metaphors point to an untimely end.

There would be irony in getting snuffed out by my stuff, since one of my biggest worries happens to be that I'll drop dead and my children...

Season 8 of "The Family Vacation" has ended. Back from The Hamptons to their everyday lives are "Family Vacation" stars: the exes -- since 1998 -- Steve and Susan (yours truly) and their three twenty-something daughters.

Let's take a look back at Season 1, Summer of 2004.

"The whole family's...

At dress rehearsal with its stomach-turning surprises, like having to dance onto stage, I asked myself, What was I thinking when I agreed to this? At first it sounded like fun to be one of nine storytellers in a Valentine's Day show, Sucker for Love.

But I had not...

At first, it all seemed like a big adventure: Stepping into Hurricane Isabel at 1 a.m. with two pajama-clad teenage daughters and one dog in tow. Then, basking in mini-celebrity the following morning when neighbors gathered in small clusters to gasp at the damage. And finally moving in with my...

During the first half of my fifties, I visited my parents in Florida a few times a year for a few days at a time. Then a friend, whose parents had died when she was in her early twenties, convinced me I should visit my folks more often.

So...

I've been annoying ever since my three daughters (current ages 23, 24, 28) were old enough to tell me so. How annoying am I now? Let me count the ways.

Annoying by repeating myself:

"Mom, you're so annoying! You've told me that ten times!"

Annoying with too many questions:

Just...