Do you remember the thrill of getting behind the wheel for the first time as an independent driver with a brand-new license tucked in your pocket or purse? Do you recall volunteering to do errands for your parents, just so you could drive the family car? Did you, like me, pick up a friend – or two or three – and zip carefree to the beach or out for an ice cream?

  Back in the “good old days,” as soon as you thought you were ready to take the test, you just went in and took it. Some people,

“Hysterics doesn’t seem to be the way to go,” says Mrs. Robin Alberg, recalling a personal meltdown when one of her children acted up in the middle of South Dakota. It was so bad, says this Seattle-based home-schooling mother, that she even threatened to cut short their long-anticipated six-week summer road trip. In her talk at this May’s Torah Home Schooling Conference, in Baltimore, the humorous Mrs. Alberg recommended various constructive strategies for self-care to counteract the common, albeit happy, stresses of home schooling.
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  This was just one of many fascinating presentations at this year’s conference,

When I hear of people who have decided to change careers, I really relate. Those of you who know me as a writer for the Where What When and other Jewish magazines probably don’t realize that I was supposed to be a health care administrator. Soon after I finished graduate school, however, I decided to pursue my passion for writing – which I have felt since I was eight years old – and combine it with my fascination with the medical world. Rather than work in a hospital, as I had planned, I embarked upon my literary career – first

I write this aboard AirTran Flight #299, returning home from a very short but sweet visit to my snowbird sister and brother-in-law, in Boynton Beach, Florida. A twoday megadose of summer-in-February spent at their retirement community gave me a taste of retirement living as well as of Florida’s sunlight and vibrant color. Indeed, I saw people wearing fuchsia, sunny yellow, and teal in the middle of the winter. I snapped pictures of pink flamingos in the Wakodahatchee Wetlands, heard the screech of deep green parrots in the palms, and combed the inky blue Gulf Stream beach for exotic seashells. I

You may have noticed crews hard at work, this summer, building decks and other construction projects around town. Perhaps you took a double-take upon noticing their tzitzis T-shirts bearing a large Star-K logo. Those young men were part of Project Build, a summer program of the year-round Chananya Backer Memorial Institute (CBMI).

  CBMI, one of the few programs of its kind in the nation, is an innovative teen mentoring initiative that perpetuates the memory of Chananya Backer, a”h, a 16-year-old Baltimorean who died tragically five years ago from injuries sustained in a car crash. The program aims to avert

GG is definitely my oldest friend, ever. She also happens to be one of my most closest, most vivacious, witty, intuitive, insightful, interesting, and fun friends, as well. I have been blessed in my life to have many close friends who can boast these same traits. What makes this friendship different than any other I’ve experienced? In great part, it’s because GG is old enough to be my great-grandmother!
You would never know that GG is a nonagenarian-plus. She does not look it, nor does she act the part. I try