If baking is any labor at all, it's a labor of love. A love that gets passed from generation to generation.

Cooking involves a deadline and hungry people and ingredients that expire in a week. It's stressful. Cooking happens on the stove and on the clock. Baking happens with ingredients that last for months and come to life inside a warm oven. Baking is slow and leisurely.

Back when I was dating, the dreaded C word was Commitment. As soon as most men found out I had a child, they ran. If I ever got close enough to say the words, 'I love you,' they ran faster.

It's easier to forgive those who hurt you than those who hurt the people you love.

As much as the Pulitzer is the hallmark of journalism, I think what I love the most is when somebody says they took my column and it's in their wallet. I have had people open their wallet and show me a corner of a column.

Bakers get excited over aprons. I love the soft cotton ones with pockets like my gramma and mom wore. They always kept a hankie tucked in one pocket, which wasn't sanitary, but was comforting to the child who needed a tear or nose wiped.