Before I started chemotherapy treatments, I wrote down the best advice from doctors, family, friends, books, and survivors and created an 'Owner's Manual' to help me take care of myself. It would remind me that cancer is doable.

God never gives us more than what we can carry.

It takes tough love to order kids to step away from the iPhone or iPad during dinner or to take the devices away if they're interrupting and interfering with everyone else's pleasure at a movie, concert or other public event.

Even if you have nothing in your wallet, nothing can keep you from having a great summer. You can listen to crickets sing you to sleep, trace the Big Dipper, breathe in the stars, run through a sprinkler, host a cartwheel contest in the front yard.

A book store is a treasure chest. Every time you walk in one, you strike gold.

Choas will come, calm will follow, and then it will start up all over again. The secret is to savor the ride.

For me, being Catholic was who I was and who I am, just like I'm Irish and Slovak. It's just so ingrained in us.