Maybe the song is right: What the world needs now / is love, sweet love. Love is wonderful. I’m a huge fan of love. But hear me out: Love can be complicated and fraught. Love can bring us together, then turn right around and tear us apart. There’s a song about love for almost any situation, and they’re not all good.

“No, see,” we said, interrupting her, “there were two dozen eggs — 24 — and there’s one missing from these cartons. That makes 23 eggs. There’s one missing.”

Okay, it wasn’t really the middle of the night — but it was late, considering that my husband and I have recently decided that, unlike Cinderella’s carriage, which returns to its original pumpkin state at midnight, we turn into pumpkins much earlier, somewhere between 8:30 and 9.

Out of habit, because bedtime was always such a ritual when the kids were little: bath, jammies, teeth, story, my husband and I have developed our own routine, and even our own vernacular concerning the end of the day. 

But when they were little, my wife insisted that every treacherous death-dealing outlet be blocked from the grandkids’ imaginative explorations. I actually wrote about it once in my column, long ago.

It is a big job, and my sister and brother-in-law are doing a lot of the heavy lifting, by virtue of them living nearby. In their spare moments, of which they have very few, they go to Mom & Dad’s house and pick up boxes to take to the donation center. They offer moral support. The job of sifting through a lifetime of belongings is not only physically strenuous, but each unopened box holds the potential of releasing a flood of memories, good or bad: a letter from a long-gone relative; Mother’s Day cards on brittle paper with “I love yous” scrawled in crayon; a serving bowl that brings back a long-forgotten detail from their wedding day.

Spring brings the chance for us to add a few new things to our garden. Much like adding new items to the inside our home, adding something new to the outside of our home will often add interest and brings joy. Thankfully, plant growers and hybridizers have spent years researching and developing new plants for our yards. Often times these plants have been growing in trial gardens across America as a way to ensure that when they are planted in our yards, they will thrive.

Adam Smith devised “The Law of Supply and Demand” in 1776 to explain why some things are expensive and other things are cheap.

Sir Isaac Newton came up with “The Three Laws of Motion” in 1687 to explain why objects either sit still or move around.

There were nights I couldn’t sleep, worrying how we would pay for school fees and music lessons and clothing for our children. Something had to change. 

Ten years ago next month, we made a big change: we moved into a house half the size of our previous home.