Eliana Osborn

My husband is worried about stigma, about Owen feeling different, about epilepsy being part of his identity. Those are sweet concerns, really. And I get it — I love the kid too. I’d never want to make his life harder in any way.

The most important things my mother taught me included work from Neil Diamond, Billy Joel, Wham! and Whitney Houston.

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.’

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.

I’m proud of you right now, even with all the sadness. Proud of you for heading to rehab, leaving the kids, the man, the house — all of it — to get on top of things. Doing it instead of just thinking about it, talking about it even, hemming and hawing? That’s pretty badass.

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.

Perfectly Karaoke Or Lip Sync A Song: You may think this is less important than the other items on the list. You are wrong.

We take weekend turns. He does vacations and summers. Literally. He takes them away. It is great.

I’m not alone in being troubled by how people suddenly disappear in life, right? That’s essentially why the internet was created. You may have heard rumors about Al Gore inventing it for military purposes... Lies!

Kirk Cameron in all his Growing Pains glory was the ideal crush. Unthreatening, goofy, good kid with very reasonable weekly conflicts. And a good smile. Always been a sucker for that.