I’ve been thinking a lot lately about things that matter and things that don’t. Well, at least, things that don’t matter that much.

One week ago I returned from a 10-day trip. I was facing plenty of catch-up “to do” on the home front. (You know that drill.) I was very, very glad to be home—but was all too quickly consumed by my to-do lists: loads of laundry, an empty refrigerator and pantry, email pile-up, household maintenance calls, beds that needed changing, bathrooms screaming to be cleaned—all this and much more. Sound familiar?

I’ve been hanging out with a lot of moms lately. It’s one of my favorite things about Fall. I get to speak at various Mom to Mom groups as they start their year. This month I’ve been with moms in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, New Hampshire—and Dublin, Ireland!

No, the moms I met in Dublin weren’t actually in a Mom to Mom group. You guessed it—Woody and I were visiting our daughter. And, of course, our granddaughter :) And it seemed that everywhere we went there were “mums” (as they say) and babies.