The column "Find Your Buried Treasure" appears weekly in the Chanhassen (MN) Villager. This column was published on December 9, 2010. I had a weird dream the other night. I was talking with someone who looked like an NFL linebacker, but he was actually a basketball player. He said, “Tell your daughter that she’ll be alone a lot when she’s on the road. Make sure she’s prepared for that.” I told him it wouldn’t be a problem, because my daughter does a lot of work by computer and is used to being alone when she works. On the road, she’d have her laptop with her and that would keep her from getting lonely...

The column “Find Your Buried Treasure” appears weekly in the Chanhassen (MN) Villager. This column was published on August 26, 2010. When I was in my mid-20s, I always had fun sending birthday cards to my friends on their 25th birthday. Inside the card, I would glue a quarter and a penny, and then write around and between the coins so the message came out, “Happy quarter of a cent-ury.” I was in my 30s when my husband and I belonged to a church group that included several couples who were a bit older than we were. I remember when one of the women was getting set to celebrate her 50th birthday. We gave her a card, and I thought about using a half-dollar to wish her a happy half-century, but that didn’t seem to express the same type of sentiments as it did at the 25-year mark. That was just fun and a bit clever. This felt more like I was reminding her of how old she was getting. So I just wrote a note wishing her a happy 50th birthday. And I saved myself 51 cents...

The column “Find Your Buried Treasure” appears weekly in the Chanhassen (MN) Villager. This column was published on August 5, 2010. Her name is Esperanza, which means “hope” in Spanish. And if I knew the Spanish words for grace, compassion, humor, wisdom, and thoughtfulness, they would be good names for her, too. She’s my husband’s aunt, and we usually see her only about once a year, at the family reunion picnic that takes place every summer. Most of the relatives on this side of the family still live in the Chicago area, and we’re not able to see them as often as we’d like, or as often as we used to. So it’s a joy to reconnect with everyone at the picnic, and I especially enjoy catching up with Esperanza...