I think I know almost everything. Even so, I believe if I googled one more thing or finished one more book or attended one more conference, I'd discover the truth. The ultimate answer. The pivotal secret. The knowledge that would allow me to sashay down a straight and narrow road with white doves fluttering beside…

I'm no more adept at exercise now than when this was published by the Milwaukee Journal Magazine 23 years ago. Unfortunately. I was in trouble. Electronic music crashed off the walls while fiercely determined women charged into place. Never had I seen so much Spandex. And bodies, bodies everywhere, in neon flashes and waves and…

When I grew up, all seventh-grade girls took Home Economics. No questions asked. Yes, we were encouraged to attend college, but not for any sense of personal ambition. The assumption was that we would all marry but might need a profession to fall back on in case the husband died young and we became sole…

Back when I wanted a career in journalism, this was my first serious piece for the Milwaukee Journal Magazine. When Reader's Digest reprinted it, I was astonished. I even received fan mail. Now that I have a teenaged daughter, I read myself with even greater interest. People say teenagers are no good. They make too…

Fifth graders have life figured out. Every spring my husband Cliff, an elementary school principal, invites his fifth graders, five at a time, into his office for milk and cookies. Information from these chats is used in the final assembly, attended by parents, to honor their children's time at the lower school campus. He says…

Almost no one has ever spent time in Oklahoma. Whenever people ask about my life, and I mention my time in the state, they nod and say, "I passed through once on my way to Dallas/Los Angeles/Memphis. Not much there." I can't disagree. The Indians, who were marched in on The Trail of Tears from…

I know she looks like a statue to you. But she has a story. It begins with Maggie's hardest year in grade school. The teacher was not adept at creating community spirit, so chaos prevailed. Whenever I volunteered to help with a classroom project, Maggie ran to me as I arrived and held on for…

I spend a lot of time at Target. It has socks and celery and Starbucks in one place. But more than simple shopping, I sometimes roam the store for inspiration, for head-clearing color. Because I spend so much time alone as a writer, moving mindlessly down their carefully arranged aisles of details has a therapeutic…

For me the jury will always be out on Facebook. I'm not really a picture poster of my morning walk or my pot of soup or my new shoes. Still, through Facebook I've been found by great people who have been absent from my life for decades. I've read some interesting articles I wouldn't have…

Children come easily into the lives of some people. That was not the case for Cliff and me. Armed with a wing and a prayer, we ended up on the roller coaster ride of international adoption in the 1990s. China had their rules. The United States had theirs. Our job was to send countless notarized…

I don't know that people can really be taught how to teach. Anyone can memorize strategies. Anyone can follow the Teacher's Guide. Anyone can give a multiple choice test. But what do you end up with? None of that accomplished what I thought ought to happen in a classroom. I once had a sophomore English…

Most families have some tradition they can't explain. I once read the account of a woman who always cut the end off a ham before cooking it. When her daughter asked her why, she answered, "That's what my mother did, so it must make it taste better." The daughter asked her grandmother, who replied, "My…

I resisted labyrinth walking at first. I thought it would be upsetting in the way that walking a maze, with its Point A to Point B prescription, made me panic. Finding my way through the tall shrubs was a living nightmare. I didn't know if I should turn left or right. My heart raced. I…

I don't know what it is about me. My presence, specifically my name, doesn't compute. I finally tried to create an author profile for the Goodreads page about Sweet Moon Baby: An Adoption Tale. I began clicking here and there, only to be told that HENRY was not an acceptable last name so I should…

If I were a better person, I wouldn't admit this. But my favorite part of Christmas happened when Maggie and Cliff returned to school after the holiday break. I didn't need another sack of flour or spool of ribbon. Nothing was left to mail. I sat down with a cup of coffee and listened to…

It's odd the things you don't think of when you adopt a baby. It never occurred to us that Maggie would be any less our daughter than a biological daughter would be. But now I realize people think all kinds of odd things about adopted children. My husband recently listened to a friend talk about…

When Cliff and I moved from Tulsa to Wisconsin, I wrote a Holiday letter to let everyone know how we were doing. It became a tradition. We aren't folks who get sales bonuses or athletic trophies to announce, and based on Maggie's trepidation through her finals, we won't be flying a valedictorian flag anytime soon…

When we moved to Minnesota from North Carolina, Maggie noticed something different about her new middle school. "There are lots of gay teachers up here," she said. We explained that her last school had gay teachers, too, but they had to keep it secret in order to hold their jobs in a narrow-minded community. She…