Growing up in Kansas City, I was always neat, the teacher's pet, know-it-all type.

I'm constantly on the hunt for insights about happiness or ideas about how to be happier - which probably makes me a somewhat tiresome companion at times.

Often, if there's something that I want to do, but somehow can't get myself to do, it's because I don't have clarity. This lack of clarity often arises from a feeling of ambivalence - I want to do something, but I don't want to do it; or I want one thing, but I also want something else that conflicts with it.

Whenever I'm trying to decide how to spend my precious time, energy, or money, I ask myself a series of questions. 'Will this broaden or deepen my relationships?' 'Will this contribute to an atmosphere of growth in my life?' 'Is this a way to 'Be Gretchen?' and 'Will this help connect me to my past?'

A family spirit is not always synonymous with family life. Bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh makes for brothers, sisters and relatives, who may be as distant as strangers in a foreign land.

You don't really know what your children are made of until the mommy engine of the family shuts down, and they are forced to step up and become the care-takers.

Life is always a problem. The fact that I'm on the radio saying that I don't necessarily see hope does not relieve people, does not relieve my son, does not relieve children, of the responsibility to struggle.

Tell me, who doesn't want to have a family to extend himself/herself?