I recently joined the church choir. I should mention here that I don’t really sing. Oh, sure, I do a pretty good Dolly Parton imitation, and I LOVE singing in my car to everything from Aerosmith to Air Supply, but that is not, as far as I know, the same thing as being a trained singer.

Thanksgiving the holiday has changed a lot since 1621.

Sarah Palin’s long-awaited book “Going Rogue: An American Life” went on sale this week. The former governor of Alaska and 2008 running mate to Republican presidential candidate John McCain has been nothing short of a lightning rod for attention, and the release of her book has only further fueled the fire.

I’ve been hearing voices lately. And they’re not inside my head. They’re loud, persistent, disembodied voices emanating from the inanimate, and it’s creeping me out.

After enduring hell on earth, little Tabitha Gee now thrives amid at least three blessings. The 4-year-old is out of the hospital and will recover from her injuries, the only survivor of a quintuple murder that wiped out most of her family in September. 

How would you feel if you lost your job to a cartoon character? That's kind of what happened to noted sportscaster Al Michaels. Michaels is the famous voice America has been hearing on Monday Night Football for years. Next year, he'll be broadcasting Sunday Night Football on NBC. And he'll have that NBC job all because of a cartoon character named Oswald the Lucky Rabbit

We have three full years before Dec. 21, 2012, arrives, yet there’s already a growth industry in what movie critic Richard Corliss calls “disaster porn.”

When teaching a child, providing information or giving a directive, keep it simple. Young children process information very well when it is clear and precise.

Few things can be both as satisfying and infuriating as sleep. When you’re really tired, nothing is better than sinking into bed, closing your eyes and letting the world drift away until your alarm goes off. Sometimes, however, it’s not so easy; sometimes sleep decides to elude us.

I ran into a Friday the 13th-esque moment of bad luck on Friday the 13th.

Weekly financial Q&A, with items on The Legacy Drawer and land purchases.

I have always been the guest at Thanksgiving, never the host, which was good news for me and also the people who didn’t have to attend Thanksgiving dinner at my home and ingest turkey that was so dried out you could put it in a pipe and smoke it, or so undercooked it could still gobble. The truth is, I’m not a great cook.

As any experienced parent will tell you, the longer you can keep your kids watching PBS, the better. Once you move on to commercial television, it’s all over.

I believe all elected officials should take office on Christmas morning so we can greet them with a child’s wide smile and not the guilty, greenish grimace of the just-into-the new-year adult. Besides, if the new officials take office on Christmas morning, everyone can go to church right after, which is a darn good idea. I have advice for the newly elected officials, those chosen by an ever-diminishing pool of voters to fill the vacuum, I mean to serve the people.

If I were going to give any advice to a politician, it would be not to touch anyone. Don’t even touch your spouse; there’s a chance it might be interpreted as code for an act of terrorism. Just ask President Obama or Florida Gov. Charlie Crist. Both have taken a beating recently for showing what some might consider good manners but others consider blasphemous.