By SHARON RANDALL, Scripps Howard News Service

One of the hardest things about moving to a new life is staying in touch with the people you loved in the old one.
Three years ago, when my husband and I moved from California to Las Vegas, we promised to visit. But visiting is not the same as living nearby.

Once, when I was a little girl -- furious with my mother for refusing to let me spend the weekend with my grandmother, who would let me do exactly as I pleased -- I took a sheet of paper and numbered 1-10 to list the more important attributes of the kind of mother I would hope to grow up to be:

1. I would be pretty.
2. I would be patient.
3. I would always be nice.

Two stories, two different people, same advice.
Some weeks ago, I was at a big event where I knew almost no one. I'm usually fine milling among folks I don't know, but I'd had enough for one night and was headed for the door when I bumped into a good-looking "kid," nice dresser, late 20s, younger than my youngest.

Above my kitchen sink hangs a card that reads: "Sometimes life can be difficult. That's when it's good to have a mom."
The sentiment is attributed to a 10-year-old boy, but it was sent to me by my daughter.
I like that card a lot. I like to think she and her brothers still like having me around.

In my 25 years of writing for newspapers, I've been blessed with some rather interesting "gifts" from readers.
Most come in the form of notes or letters that make me want to keep writing, if only in the hope that I'll get better at it.

This is an Easter story, an old one. But Easter is a good time for making old things new.
In the town where I grew up, a lot of us were poor -- poor as the red dirt beneath our feet -- but we didn't seem to know it.
Folks who were "well off" never flaunted their wealth or allowed their children to do so.

There are some places that, when you arrive there, you just know you're in a good place.
The last time I told you to watch a TV show was years ago, a series called "Ed." Or maybe it was "Courting Alex." I forget which. I liked both shows, and I was sure you'd like them, too. That's why I told you about them.

Someone said that once you have children, for the rest of your life, you will only be as happy and healthy as your least happy, least healthy child.
I don't recall who said that or why, but I'm pretty sure she was somebody's mother.

Leaps of faith come in all different sizes, but big or small, they work the same -- you just let go and step off the edge.
That was one of many thoughts that crossed my mind as I clung to a platform 150 feet in the air, waiting my turn to go hurtling through the canopy of a redwood forest on a skinny little cable called a zip line.

People say things happen for a reason. But sometimes it's hard to say what the reason is.
I had a big fight with my sister. She called late one night driving home after she'd had a big fight with our brother.