I think we had our puppy about a week when I realized I may have slightly underestimated the amount of lifestyle change. I knew I’d have to go back to work at some point, and our four-month old miniature goldendoodle couldn’t spend an entire day in a crate.

Summer was in the air at the Crestwood Community Center last Saturday — even if the temperatures weren’t.

St. Louis’ newest professional sports team, the Battlehawks, play their second home game at 4 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 29, at The Dome at America’s Center. The tailgating? It may already have started.

For Valentine’s Day — our 30th consecutive mid-February holiday dinner together -— I got wine, chocolate covered strawberries and a hubcap. And none of it landed Tom in trouble.

Colleen Hagerty Haug’s first real job began in 1975 at age 12 at a North County florist owned by “my sister-in-law’s brother-in-law.”

It was one of those January-thaw days, warm enough to let the puppy frolic in the backyard, but not warm enough long enough to clean up the leaves, sweet-gum balls and other natural debris that had been accumulating over the winter.

“When a wide receiver is getting ready to catch, their eyes get bigger because they’re about to get the football.”

Beware of falling iguanas.

My seventh grade language arts teacher, Sr. Mary Lou, was a master of grammar. Rules were rules —  taught by demonstration, memorization and then practice, practice, practice, in the form of a daily sentence she’d write on the board for us to diagram. 

This week, Americans are watching network television again, waiting to see who will emerge as the greatest Jeopardy! player of all time. 

For as long as I can remember, Christmas Eve ham served as the base of our New Year’s ham-and-bean soup. Perhaps somewhere along the line, I picked up that beans and pork are supposed to bring good luck if consumed on New Year’s Day. Plus, beans are a good foundation for a Keto diet that pro…

When this decade began, I had a flip phone, a digital camera and knees that didn’t hurt every time I climbed the stairs. I also had a driver’s license proclaiming hair of brown and weight of less than 150, and only one of those was an exaggeration.

In March of 2018, Jennifer Golden entered a Long Island hospital near her home in Suffolk County, New York, for what doctors initially thought was a gallbladder issue. She had it removed, but days later was back in, hearing things like “your blood seems off” and “bone marrow test.”

Every year, on the night before her kids’ birthdays, Ria Sharon would write a letter.

Our first Christmas card arrived this week, a nice photo montage of the family of a college friend. Oh sure, we keep in touch via text. We like each other’s posts on Facebook. We see each other at the occasional group dinner or wedding, and it’s like we never left.

In March of 1957, developers Louis and Milton Zorensky opened the region’s newest suburban shopping center on 48 acres at the corner of Watson and Sappington roads, a big sprawling outdoor mall.

We always seemed to arrive just as the gravy was simmering, on all those Thanksgivings of the 1960s and ‘70s when my grandparents’ home was holiday central.

Tom and I tell ourselves this story over and over: The day in April 1994 when we brought our baby, whom we named Matt, home from the hospital. Tom set his carrier in the middle of our family room, and we stared at him and said, “Now what?”

It seems like a good idea: An extra hour of sleep every first weekend in November as we switch our clocks from daylight saving time to standard time. Sixty extra minutes under the covers just as the weather’s getting colder.

Well, I stepped in it.