Eliana Osborn

A new, exciting trend is to have food pantries for college students. I talked to an AmeriCorps volunteer running one of these centers and she was matter-of-fact about the need — and how little is being done. Today’s college students may be young and single, living la vida loca. But more and more are what we call ‘nontraditional’: slightly older, employed full-time (or close to it), supporting a family, a veteran, etc.

Hunger for nontraditional students doesn’t mean surviving on ramen: It means they are not the only person in the household who's in need.

Now that I’m a mother, I’m much more sympathetic to a woman who just couldn’t take it anymore. Not saying I’d leave my kids in a parking lot and hope for the best . . . just saying that I can understand the impulse.

Being a person of faith isn’t cool. It is very personal to me and not something I like to talk about a lot, which goes counter to the whole idea of ‘sharing the good news of the gospel.’

Standardized tests are taking over the world. I can say this because it is true. Like a creeping vine that seems attractive and charming at first, tests appear to be reasonable for the data and direction they can provide.

Look, Connect Four is not a good game. But it can be over quickly, which is pretty great.

My Life on the Road (or MLR) is not what I expected...the idea of not waiting for experience to come to you permeates the book.

After years in apartments that should have been condemned, even these sad restroom facilities were vast improvements. And so we stayed, the husband and I, vaguely embarrassed when guests stayed over and commented on the bordello vibe of the bathroom.

Then we had a kid. No working bathtub suddenly seemed like a big deal. And the functional bathroom spaces weren’t places you’d want to hang out. There’s a lot of bathroom time once you’ve got tiny humans. (You’ve been warned.)

Help.

Sick of hearing about your friend's perfect pregnancy?Give one of these amazing gifts at the baby shower and you shouldn’t have to worry about this anymore.

A haircut is a whole lot cheaper than therapy or tattoos or a round-the-world plane ticket.