03/27/07 - Talia Grey's work place is decorated with a mash of chiffons, stained glass, oversized chandeliers -- anything that could spread aesthetic loveliness throughout a home. She fancies her 9 to 5 occupation.

03/27/07 - Why bother with gloxinia? Beauty is worth the fuss There is an old saying that "a want ain't necessarily a need." I try to remember this on swings through some favorite shops, and to help reject the seductive displays in favorite catalogs.

03/20/07 - Ruth Knowles will tell anyone who will listen that having a colonoscopy saved her life.

03/20/07 - Wearing dampened clothes wet with rain and sea spray, Taylor Armstrong spent the last hours of her cloud-filled adventure with her boyfriend, John Tetlow, on Hampton Beach's deserted shores.

03/20/07 - Back to Sleep practice still vital In 1992, the American Academy of Pediatrics launched the Back to Sleep campaign in an effort to decrease the rate of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

03/16/07 - Memories of green food haunt me. I -- along with my brother and four cousins -- all had mumps on my seventh birthday, which happens to be St. Patrick's Day.

03/16/07 - Homer Simpson once said "Here's to alcohol, the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems."

03/13/07 - Brentwood Country Store. It took Dow and her husband two weeks to revive the store to the pleasantly rustic space it is now.

03/13/07 - Our office manager wore a worried frown.

03/13/07 - Steaming pots of sauce bubble and spatter on the stove in the large demonstration kitchen at The Atlantic Culinary Academy in Dover.

03/06/07 - The simplest, everyday errands are a struggle for Diane Gerlarheau, a sufferer of CMT (Charcot-Marie-Tooth) disease, a neurodegenerative disease similar to multiple sclerosis.

03/06/07 - Forced to endure the dictatorship of Nazi Germany throughout his childhood years, Dieter Froehling left his German homeland for the United States with his wife and children in 1957 at the age of 25.

03/06/07 - I keep catching myself lately as I start to make a lunch or coffee date, my favorite way to visit and catch up with friends.

02/27/07 - Now that Chinese New year has begun (on Feb. 18) I have just one question on my mind -- "chi fan le mei you?"

02/27/07 - About 20 years ago, Sean Caughran embarked on a solo road trip from southern California. He made it to New Hampshire and traded the sunny skies of SoCal for the four unpredictable seasons of New England, and made his home on the Seacoast.

02/20/07 - Sara Klenz went on a whim. After the 21-year-old visited the parents of her boyfriend in New Hampshire last December, she packed her bags and left her hometown of Denver a week later. She arrived in Dover on Dec. 1.

02/20/07 - American homes are fast becoming centers for electronic entertainment and information. More than 90 percent of American homes have televisions and VCRs. Close to 70 percent have a computer.

02/13/07 - Last summer after Matt O'Reilly, 21, ended his college career early at Colby-Sawyer College and moved out of his parents' Milford house, he found himself a home in Newmarket.

02/13/07 - Go into any retail store in January and you cannot help but notice the screaming pink and red blitz of Valentine's Day approaching.

02/09/07 - February's the month for love. It's also the month I like to make my husband squirm. Newspapers and TV commercials carry ads for chocolates and jewelry. "Oh, look; there's another one," I point out. "Valentine's Day must be coming up."

02/06/07 - Braving the cold in a fleece hat, which looks like it's lined with authentic teddy bear fur, University of New Hampshire senior Patrick Nearing spends his days walking through campus.

02/06/07 - At this time of year, I expect to hear many sounds in my neighborhood, including scraping shovels and plows. But not once in 25 winters had I heard a lawnmower.

01/26/07 - If I weren't moving to New Jersey for a new job, I'd have a calendar-full of things to do this week. I might attend a charity book sale, hear a local band cover classic pop songs, or hear a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist speak about his investigative reports from Iraq.

01/26/07 - The first time your baby gets sick is a kind of rite of passage for new parents that might be right up there with spending the first night home alone with the baby from the hospital.

01/19/07 - I don't have children (yet), but I enjoy playing with other people's kids. The sound of a child giggling always makes me laugh, and after a while I forget about the stresses or trivial worries in my life.

01/19/07 - If one were to believe the way the media portrays dating patterns between men and women, one would think that men over 40 are only interested in women much younger than themselves.

01/16/07 - It was on their first date in college that Ralph and Tara Leo first talked about adopting children.

01/16/07 - Daniel, Getenet, Matthew and Kirubel Leo line up on the couch for their photograph.

01/16/07 - Nearly 158,000 hours elapse from birth until the age of 18. That is a lot of time spent parenting.

01/05/07 - You don't have to sit in a classroom to learn about history, discuss literature or acquire a new skill. Each week around the Seacoast you can attend a lecture, go to a museum, take a cooking class, or even learn how to dance the tango.

01/05/07 - So you're single, totally unattached, and you've decided it's time to meet someone new. Well, you should be happy to know this is the best time of the year to try.

01/02/07 - Lesley Kimball is the librarian with a reputation, who has a fetish for getting into other people's business and spouting off.

01/02/07 - An online survey last year invited response to a question posed by theoretical physicist Dr. Stephen Hawking: How can the human race survive the next hundred years?