Every time I get scared or feel like I'm not going to be good enough at something, I say that mantra to myself. "Pretend you're good at it."

I am the Wizard of Oz of housewives (in that I am both "Great and Terrible" and because I sometimes hide behind the curtains

Writing is my therapy. In addition to my real therapy. God knows where I'd be without it. I'd probably still be at my last job, working in HR at a religious organization. I was horribly miscast.

The first thing I do when I come home is check the refrigerator for cats because I'm convinced that if one dies, my husband will hide it in there because I don't cook and so I won't see it. I do drink Cokes, though ,so technically he should hide the corpse in the oven. And now I need to start checking the oven.

A house should look lived in, and I consider it clean as long as I don't stick to it and it doesn't give me cholera.

I have trouble getting approvals from my heath insurance company for basic antidepressants. And I have the best plan my agency has. I can't get high off this stuff! I'm not going to sell it! Getting my medication is critical. It's me saying, "I just want to live." And their response seems to be, "We agree that it's a matter of life and death; that's why we're declining it." Every time I get a cold, I have Tylenol with codeine coming out the wazoo. But the medication I need to live? Nah.

the most terribly human moments - the ones we want to pretend never happened - are the very moments that make us who we are today. ... You are defined not by life's imperfect moments, but by your reaction to them.