Sanity Check first appeared in the Dayton Daily News (Ohio)  in January 2002. For more than ten years, the column covered everything from shredding pantyhose for stress relief, to the family dog joyfully dancing with flying eggs, to the day I realized I’d lost my lips. Sanity Check’s driving philosophy is that we all goof up... but laughing at those goof-ups with each other is a lot healthier than obsessing over them.

I wrote a lot about parenting and family life (the column began when our youngest daughter was 8 and ended when she was 18, the week she graduated from high school.) My husband, daughters and friends were good sports about being included in my weekly dispatches about suburban life, partially because I always made sure that I was the butt of my own humor (which wasn't a stretch. I goof up. Often.) Usually funny, sometimes poignant, with topics from my houseplants getting fleas to the day I realized my lips had disappeared, at its heart was the belief that the best way to survive the inevitable foibles, heartaches and goof ups of life is through humor, community and forgiveness.