Other people get great ideas in the shower. I get mine frying bacon.

I don't know why. Maybe it's the mesmerizing sizzle. Maybe it's the fact that I'm just a captive audience for so many minutes - watching, flipping and adjusting the slices so they don't scorch - in a peaceful kitchen so early in the morning.

And it's not brain surgery.

So there I stand, sipping coffee, and I can hear the kids giggling downstairs and the dog causing trouble in the other room but here in…

I've been wanting to write a Thanksgiving post for a few days now, and I've had some trouble starting. Not because I have so little, but because I have so much. Now, if you had told me a few years ago I might have this problem, I likely wouldn't have believed you.

Because I was angry. And sad. I had lost my sister, my journalism career had ended, and all my pets died. It wasn't a good year, to say the least.

My creativity, my saving grace, disappeared. Just…