There are so many ebbs and flows in life, but when you're raising small children, your family means everything.

Even, today, when people tell me I'm beautiful, I do not believe a word of it.

~You know how parents rattle on to you about, 'Oh, you won't believe your life will never be the same,' and you think, Why can't these people just get over it? All they're doing is yakking about their kids. It's such a bore. And then you have kids and you just want to do the same thing.~

On a fundamental level - I know so many women in their 30s who didn't get married, or they did and it didn't work out, or they didn't have children because they were trying to get their careers going, or because they were expected to be independent, plus have a family. They didn't feel secure enough.

Tall, sandy blonde, with sort of blue eyes, skinny in places, fat in others. An average gal.

But I had a very traditional background as well. My parents are neat people.

I spent the first fourteen years of my life convinced that my looks were hideous. Adolescence is painful for everyone, I know, but mine was plain weird.