Life Happens

From the 2005 Pulitzer Prize—winning columnist Connie Schultz comes fresh, clever, insightful commentary on life today: love, politics, social issues, family, and much, much more. In the tradition of Anna Quindlen, Molly Ivins, and Erma Bombeck, but with a distinctive voice and sensibility all her own, Connie Schultz comes out of the heartland of America to get you seeing, feeling, and thinking more deeply about the lives we lead today. “You might spot someone you know in the stories here,” writes Connie. “Maybe you’ll even find a glimpse of yourself. Yes, each of us is unique, but life happens in ways that bind us like Gorilla Glue.” In Life Happens, Connie shares sharp, passionate observations, winning our hearts with personal thoughts on a wide range of topics, from finding love in middle age to the meaning behind her father’s lunch pail, from single motherhood, to who really gets the tips you leave and why as the war in Iraq, race relations, gay marriage, and wwhy women don’t vote. In a more humorous vein, Connie shares her mother’s advice on men (“Don’t marry him until you see how he treats the waitress”) and warns men everywhere against using the dreaded f-word (it’s not the one you think). Along the way, Connie introduces us to the heroic people who populate our world and shows us how just one person can make a difference. Charming, provocative, funny, and perceptive, Life Happens gives us, for the first time, Connie Schultz’s celebrated commentary in one irresistible volume. Life Happens challenges us to be more open and alive to others and to the world around us.

A moving account by Auma Obama about her life in Africa and Europe, and her relationship with her brother, Barack Obama. While her younger brother Barack grew up in the U.S. and Indonesia, Auma Obama's childhood played out at the other end of the world in a remote village in Kenya, the birthplace of the siblings' shared father. Barack and Auma met for the first time in the 1980s, and they built a lasting relationship which lead to travels together in Kenya, research into their family history and finally Auma's support for her brother's political career and eventual bid for the U.S. presidency. Auma spent sixteen years studying and living in Germany, moved to England for love, and gave birth to a daughter there. The tension between her original and chosen worlds and cultures was a constant challenge, and eventually Auma returned to Africa and worked to support young men and women in shaping their futures. In And Then Life Happens, her candid and emotional memoir, Auma shares her own story as well as recollections of and experiences with her famous brother, who says about their first encounter: "I hugged her, we looked at each other, and laughed. I knew right then that I loved her."

Parker Cruse despises cheaters. It might have something to do with her boyfriend sleeping with her twin sister. After a wedding day prank involving a strong laxative, that ends the already severed relationship between the twins, Parker decides to grow up and act twenty-six. Step One: Move out of her parents' house. Step Two: Find a job. Opportunity strikes when she meets her new neighbor, Gus Westman. He's an electrician with Iowa farm-boy values and a gift for saying her name like it's a dirty word. He also has a wife. Sabrina Westman, head of a successful engineering firm, hires Parker as her personal assistant. Driven to be the best assistant ever, Parker vows to stay focused, walk the dog, go to the dry cleaners, and not kiss Gus-again. Step Three: Don't judge. Step Four: Remember- when life happens, it does it in a heartbeat.

It happens to every family. Things are humming along smoothly when suddenly they realize that life is not just a bowl of cherries. An unlooked for event, crisis, or trial threatens to upset the balance of all they consider normal. How will they ever survive and how will they ever get things to return to normal? Is it even possible? What if constant change and adaptation is what “normal” really looks like? In Life Happens Taralyn and Teresa Clark explore life realities and provide much-needed information gained from decades of experience to survive and ultimately thrive in spite of life challenges.

Nathalie Brisebois has lived through many difficult challenges, but has found a path to health and happiness. In Life Happens, she shares the story of her experiences battling multiple sclerosis. For years, living with remittent-recurrent multiple sclerosis dictated who she was and what she did. Brisebois describes her journey battling the many devastating physical and mental effects of this chronic, degenerative disease and the ways that it influenced her work, her family, and her entire being. But in Life Happens, she tells how she began looking for options and a way to heal herself, addressing alternatives such as nutrition, yoga, meditation, vegetarianism, and living a simple life. Filled with tips, suggestions, and ideas for living with and battling a chronic illness, Life Happens communicates a message of inspiration and hope, of looking for what you want in life, of never giving up, and of finding and being at peace with your life.

Author Alivia Cahill learned that people are not merely reflections of their life experiences; they're reflections of their perceptions of, and reactions to, those life experiences. Henry David Thoreau said, "It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see." What's more, the response to what is seen can change life forever. This compilation of personal experiences illustrates how Alivia's unhealthy responses to a harsh environment shaped her life in many ways. Years of stewing quietly and bottling up negative emotions about life's adversities led to decades of self-abuse and devastating physical dis-ease. Fortunately, experiencing unconditional love and acquiring profound knowledge about the mind-body connection eventually led her on a path to wellness. Life Happens follows Alivia's agonizing journey of creating dis-ease and working towards healing, which sparks the motivation to make better choices in the face of hardship. The traumas described and lessons learned encourage a positive view of life's obstacles to be adopted to grow from them and allow them to positively shape the body, mind, and spirit so that wellness may be experienced, instead of simply dreamed about!

Life Happens-Enjoy the ride. Life Happens is full of impactful moments that shaped the life of one woman. She has experienced the loss of family, friends, and her own childhood memories. She will take you on a journey through her life experiences and share what she learned along the way. She shares her greatest joys and her struggles through her most traumatic experiences. There were times she felt God was over estimating how much she could handle, but she never lost her faith. She did stray away from God; there were times she even ran away, but deep down she always felt his presence in her life. You will get to know Tonya Strahan as you enjoy the ride-the ride she calls Life. She lived a life that was normal to her, but as she grew, she realized that life could be better. She learned that although struggles may come her way, how she reacted to it was the key to happiness. She has lived, experienced, and overcame with faith, hope, and love. She hopes her reflections, throughout her life, inspire and encourage you to press on and fight the good fight with faith and more self-love. Being misunderstood drove her to try harder, to be better for those around her until she realized it's not about them. It's not about how others perceive you or what they think about you. They can think you're a purple polka-dotted dinosaur, but it doesn't make you a purple polka-dotted dinosaur. She had to learn that the hard way, but in the end, she learned to love others where they are, but most importantly, to love herself. That is the key to learning how to enjoy the ride. For more information please visit: www.tonyastrahan.com

They were like sisters, until everything changed one summer night. Fourteen years later, they find themselves living in different countries with no communication. Anna has landed her dream job and is living a fast-paced life in Dublin, Ireland. When she’s diagnosed with a serious disease, she is forced to take on the biggest challenge she has ever encountered. Mia has found the love of her life and is living a glamorous life in Vienna, Austria when she finds out what happened to her old friend. Circumstances bring the two women together again, but is it too late for them to rebuild what they had? What really happened all those years ago? Together they embark on a journey to confront their pasts, and on the way they acquire life-changing insight and new perspectives. Life Happens is a touching story about friendship, career, and the biggest question of them all—why do so many of us avoid change until faced with hardship?