"Writes in Peoria" just doesn't have the same ring...

As some of you may know, my husband is in the finance business here in NYC. It's been a crazy couple of days here. And although I know lots of people at Lehman, my husband is not one of them. Still, scary times for the investment world. My husband has lived through a meltdown before, back when he was a young, bright-eyed analyst at Drexel Burnham Lambert. So showing up for work one day to find your stuff in a box is always been something that he's entertained as a possibility.

This crisis did prompt a discussion about the priorities in our lives. Number one by a wide margin: family. As much as we love living in Manhattan, we could be happy most anywhere, doing most anything. Just saying that out loud made me feel better--much more secure. Everything else can fall into place after that.