When we think about New Year’s resolutions, we almost always aim them at the visible parts of ourselves. The outside self. Exercise more. Eat better. Save money. Get organized. Be happier. Spend more time with the people we love. All good things. But here’s the quieter question as another year begins: What about the part [...]

Over the next week I’ll be appearing on TV and radio talking about New Year’s Resolutions—how to make them and, more importantly, how to keep them. This isn’t because I have superhuman willpower. I don’t. What I am good at is setting myself up so success is the most likely outcome. That’s the secret. A [...]

It’s Christmas Day, and it is unfolding in a way I didn't plan. A few days ago, my daughter, her husband, and their delicious 13-month-old arrived, and almost immediately we fell into a rhythm—the sacred choreography of naps and bedtime, bottles and meals. The calendar was thoughtfully modest: one outing a day, just enough adventure [...]

This Christmas season, I’ve been visualizing the manger a lot. And I’m being more honest in how I see it. It turns out its not the tidy creche scene that I set out every year where the figures have on flowing robes and tidy hair and the manger itself has straw that I just bought [...]

Whenever I ease myself out of a social plan, my husband announces— with the smug certainty of a man who believes he understands cats— that I am an “inside cat.” He says it as if I’ve chosen a life of warm windowsills over humanity. Which isn’t fair. I love people. Truly. I just also love [...]