I’d like to share with you two snippets of wisdom that were extremely helpful to me when my house was full of children. They became a pattern of my life that is oh so helpful now that the house is empty. One is silly but it works. One is harder but it is transformative.

If my mom in heaven is even a little interested in what I am doing down here now, she would, with a smile, say to me, “Dear, are you planning on following your own advice?”

I remember years ago asking a friend to tell me when she thought I should start coloring or highlighting my hair. I had never been one to experiment with color. But then I had a child at 42 and didn’t want to look like his grandmother. It wasn’t for another ten years before she told me, “