Grace Osterbauer was a 24-year-old bride-to-be when she took her first cake-decorating class, and the impulse compelling the Texas beauty to make that $35 investment remains today, now a 40-year-old mother of eight. “I wanted to make the Catholic events of our lives super special,” she said. Grace and her husband, Paul, are both frugal, […]

Looking back, the son that was born to Leopald and Anna Maria Mozart on a Tuesday evening in late January seemed to arrive with fully formed symphonies bound up in his tiny body, waiting for ink and instrument. At age 3, the toddler nicknamed Wolfgangerl was identifying thirds on the clavier and by 5, he […]

Lena Dunham is not done confessing. That’s the headline of The New York Times Magazine profile just published about the actress-turned-memoirist, and it couldn’t be more apt. Though I’ve never seen an episode of her highly rated, super-raunchy, nudity-filled HBO show “Girls,” I consider Lena something of a cultural case study, given how often she […]

When my cousin Emily moved into a one-bedroom apartment in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood this June, it marked her 10th home in five years, a residential whiplash involving sweat, tears and 11 roommates. But it was also a notable first: Emily’s first time living alone. Six hundred square feet, all hers. Where to begin, what […]