The secret to success, to parenting, to life, is to not count up the cost. Don't focus on all the steps it will take. Don't stare into the abyss at the giant leap it will take. That view will keep you from taking the next small step.

A writer writes. If you want to be a writer, write.

When in doubt, take the next step.

Some people hate funerals. I find them comforting. They hit the pause button on life and remind us that it has an end. Every eulogy reminds me to deepen my dash, that place on the tombstone between our birth and our death.

When I was 41, I found a lump the size of a grape in my right breast. I ended up bald, sick and exhausted from surgeries, chemo and radiation treatments. Ah, but I got to live.

If baking is any labor at all, it's a labor of love. A love that gets passed from generation to generation.

Family is more than DNA, more than who we used to be, more than we can imagine we will become.