To rest easy, my mother always said she had to see where her babies, no matter how old, laid their heads at night.

With that in mind, Grady and I made a trip to Urbana-Champaign, Illinois to see where son Jack was now living. If you remember the past few months, he graduated from Ohio State University, got married, accepted a new teaching job at Illinois State University, and moved to suburbia.

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It may seem too early to start planning for Christmas. But for us retailers, it is late. Most retailers buy their holiday stock in January, with a late fall delivery schedule. Though FAB doesn’t have all its holiday inventory on display yet, we still need to start planning our advertising campaigns, buying ad space, and ordering print material for our December mailers.

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Kerry McCoy and French Hill

We’ve had 5 months of a writer’s strike, 2 months of talks with auto workers and, according to CNN on Wednesday, more than 75,000 employees of Kaiser Permanente walked off the job, marking the largest healthcare worker strike in US history. And don’t forget, the actors are still on strike, and after this week’s brouhaha in Washington, I guess you could say the House of Representatives are too, creating the biggest chaos and a potential government shutdown.

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You know how, when you go to parties, the ice breaker between strangers is either sports talk or what-show-are-you-binging? It seems we are all looking for tips on something new to watch, and finding something that both you and your spouse enjoy can be challenging. There is no way my husband is going to watch Bridgerton; and I’m not watching Ozark.

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I am so tired of the “F” word being overused. I feel like it has been stolen from me. It used to be one of my favorite words; the flair in which I used it was an artform, or so I thought. Like the younger me, this unmentionable word was rebellious, even against the law in public. But, now, it is repeated over and over …

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Everyone laments about all the negative news these days, but you can’t really blame the media. They are only serving up what we humans like to hear. I must admit, when CBS’s Nora O‘Donald starts her feel-good segment at the end of all her Evening News, I get up and leave the room to start dinner.

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In 2007, I turned 50. For my mid-life crisis, I pondered a facelift, a boyfriend, or a new car. I opted for a used, 5-speed, convertible Mini Cooper. Driving it, with the wind blowing in my hair, it checked all the boxes: fast, fun, and dangerous.

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Why is New Year’s Day so full of optimism? It’s just another day on the calendar; or is it?
On New Year’s Day we close the books on business, Christmas, and the Winter Solstice. Though the days from January through March are often cold and snowy, they are also getting longer and brighter, so it feels better; like a time for self-improvement, a time to plan for springing into action.

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