I wanted a good relationship with my mother, and I realized I had a choice: Either I could spend all my time angry that she didn't give me the hugs I thought I needed, or I could understand that she hugs differently. It's not a spread-open-the-arms, 'come here' hug. She hugs by sheltering me from her worries.

Our happiness is certainly mixed in with the tragedies of life. You have to find the lemonade. You have to find the silver lining in the middle of everything that happens in life.

Starting at age four, my mom decided that she was not going to have an idle child in the house. So I started taking dance lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then I was in acting classes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and I was also modeling on Saturdays. And that was my childhood.

I was an only child for 16 years. I didn't realize it at the time, but that experience definitely turned me into a people pleaser. I always tried to do what was expected of me, and I constantly sought reassurance from the adults around me that I was doing a good job.

I wanted a good relationship with my mother, and I realized I had a choice: Either I could spend all my time angry that she didn't give me the hugs I thought I needed, or I could understand that she hugs differently. It's not a spread-open-the-arms, 'come here' hug. She hugs by sheltering me from her worries.

I cannot get into cottage cheese, and I've tried a lot. Yogurt is hard for me to eat, too. I have to hold my nose to get it down. There's something wrong with that.

When the time came for me to go to college, there was only one scholarship that my high school offered at the time and I didn't win that one, but that didn't stop me. I went on to college anyway. I worked my way through it and paid my student loans for 11 years.