This is a love story about a couple who found each other a little later in life, after their kids were grown, after their first marriages ended, after life threw a few unexpected twists their way.

But it’s also a love story about books. Children’s books, specifically.

First, the couple.

Katy Coffey is a delightful, hilarious, artistic ...Read more

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Doug Ruch, 55, with a graying beard and breathless positive energy, knows two things for certain:

One: He’s going to die — and not later, but sooner.

In January, Ruch was gobsmacked to be diagnosed with Stage 4 metastatic prostate cancer and told that, without the kind of aggressive chemotherapy and other treatments ...Read more

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Chicken owners from across the Twin Cities have been known to dump fowl on Miranda Meyer‘s St. Paul doorstep in the middle of the night.

Outside her house on Hatch Avenue — yes, St. Paul’s “chicken lady” lives on Hatch Avenue — neighbors stop and watch the birds strut toward feed scattered near Meyer‘s black ...Read more

In an astonishing occurrence, all of my Superbells Pomegranate Punch calibrachoas came through the winter of the weekly polar vortex. OK, I’ll admit I did take some to the garage. Those in the heavy pots that I left outside have come through with an incredible display of beauty.

Superbells Pomegranate Punch is like the garden’s version of ...Read more

In online dating, I often see two competing factors:

1. People genuinely want to meet someone great (or at least they think they do).

2. People are lazy and don’t take the time to do online dating well … or at all.

This conversation happened to a client of mine (the woman in this exchange) on Bumble:

Her: Do you still drink iced coffee ...Read more

Dear Anna,

I was 23 when I finally got my own place. There was this attractive guy who lived down the hall from me and we had some flirty exchanges that eventually led to a hookup. Just a one-time thing, and afterward we'd only exchange quick hellos if we ran into each other. A few months later, I met my current boyfriend, who I've been with ...Read more

A visit to the emergency room is no fun for anybody. But older people face challenges that can make a tough situation worse.

The lights, noise and endless activity can be confusing and even trigger delirium. Slick floors pose fall risks, as do hospital beds that can be hard to get in and out of.

Some emergency departments, however, are taking ...Read more

PART II of II

Dear Kid Whisperer,

I am the principal of a private, secular K-8 school. Every year that I have been principal, the behaviors start out fine in the fall, and slowly deteriorate after that, no matter how hard we work at it. They are particularly bad in our middle school. Some of our programming involves having class meetings when ...Read more

Q. I need advice. When I met my ex-boyfriend, he said he was divorced, but I found out that he wasn’t divorced, only separated. He said he was going back for the kids; he has two. But he also wanted to continue to see me. I told him to make up his mind. He chose his wife. Now, there’s an even bigger problem. I found out I am pregnant with a ...Read more

I have come to the realization that I do not have the time nor patience for all the high-tech innovations designed to make my life more marvelous. I have all the marvelous I can handle right now.

This morning, I replaced a burned-out kitchen light bulb. It was 9:16 when I started the process. Replacing the old bulb took less than a minute, ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS -- Olivia Cashman hopes residents planning some home improvements will consider some “wood from the hood” or even a sink from a recently deconstructed library.

As household budgets are increasingly stretched thin, salvaging used materials from a recent demolition is a good way to keep renovation costs down.

Cashman is the ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA -- It was afternoon at the convent, and that meant bingo.

A dozen elderly women, some in wheelchairs, others with their walkers pushed aside, studied the triplets of cards in front of them. A life-size cardboard cutout of Pope Francis, newly deceased, waved beneficently down at them.

“Call the right numbers!” joked Sister ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — When the University of Minnesota offered to let me experience what it’s like to die, naturally I said yes.

Aren’t we all morbidly curious about the undiscovered country, as Hamlet put it, from which no traveler returns?

Except this time, happily, I would get to return because it would be a virtual death, an experience in a ...Read more

You scream, I scream, we all scream for …

Beer!

Well, I do when the grandkids aren’t around. But when they are, we all scream for ice cream. My screaming happens when I eat it too fast and get brain freeze, which I would get even if I were marooned on the blistering sands of the Sahara Desert without food, water or a heaping cone of ...Read more

Food bank shortages caused by high demand and cuts to federal aid programs have some residents of a small community that straddles Idaho and Nevada growing their own food to get by.

For those living in Duck Valley, a reservation of about 1,000 people that is home to the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes, there’s just one grocery store where prices are ...Read more

Spend any time on FinTok (the personal finance corner of TikTok) and you may have heard of a “no-buy” month, which is a budgeting challenge to not spend money on certain discretionary purchases for a month. Whether you eliminate one spending category in particular or cut discretionary spending altogether, the point of a no-buy challenge ...Read more

CHICAGO -- Every morning, right before the kids line up to enter the school at Hibbard Elementary School in Chicago's Albany Park neighborhood, Micaela Ortiz Arredondo is already waiting for them, their breakfast in hand, ready to welcome them in.

“Buenos días, mijo. Good morning,” she tells each student as they take their meal, some ...Read more

According to Bankrate’s 2025 Money and Mental Health Survey, almost half of U.S. adults (47%) say that money has a negative impact on their mental health. Nearly half (47%) of those say debt is one of the leading causes of this negative impact.

Unfortunately for Americans, debt is so common that it can be easy to dismiss or see rapid debt ...Read more

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Attention, Louvre Museum: It might be a good idea to keep Seamus Liam O’Brien away from the Mona Lisa.

Otherwise the St. Paul man might be tempted to paint a bright rubber duck somewhere on the famous painting and add his signature to da Vinci’s.

O’Brien is a scenic artist, sign painter and muralist with fine arts ...Read more

On a drizzling Saturday night, a herd of teenagers dressed in floor-length gowns and fitted suits enter a hotel ballroom through a blue and gold balloon arch. It's prom night for Pasadena's John Muir High School.

For the students whose graduating year was upended by the Eaton fire, the evening feels particularly monumental. About 175 John Muir ...Read more