Stories by Jennifer Hansen
RSSVision in overalls cultivates riddles
LITTLE ROCK — It hadn’t been much of a winter, but it was a windy, cold afternoon. Just in from walking the dogs, I was making a cup of tea when a breeze shifted the steam from the cup. As I turned to see if the door was open, a familiar sparkle in the air caught my eye. Mrs. Appleyard was glimmering in. Continue reading...
Drive-By Shooting Reported
SPRINGDALE — Police are investigating a drive-by shooting reported on Braxton Drive on Friday night.
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Mindset spawns a legacy to honor
LITTLE ROCK — Family legacies come in many forms. They can be financial or intellectual, positive or negative, healthy or unhealthy. One of my family’s most valuable and positive legacies is a mindset; a curiosity and desire for self-exploration. Improbably, the author of that mindset was my cowboy grandfather. Continue reading...
Humor brakes perilous road rage
LITTLE ROCK — When my children were in elementary school, road rage became a familiar term. Continue reading...
Meaning of time changes yet again
LITTLE ROCK — Once again, time has started to mean something different. There has never been enough time in the day, but now hours and minutes are richer than they used to be. In a world saturated with information, our brains adapt. They have to; this is the only world we’ve got. Continue reading...
Rolling with the letdown punches
LITTLE ROCK — Before Christmas, Marc and the kids made it clear they wanted me to take some time for myself over the break. The idea was to go out to Marc’s farm, kick back and relax. I was happy to oblige. Sure enough, as soon as that carefully constructed plan unfolded, both my children got sick. Continue reading...
Can trio resolve to excel? It’s paws-ible
LITTLE ROCK — Home late one night from work, I entered the kitchen to find our three dogs waiting for me. As usual, Baron and Duchess instantly claimed all my attention. But as soon as my coat was off, it was our oldest dog, Duke, who insisted on escorting me to the couch. Apparently, my pets had New Year’s resolutions to discuss. Continue reading...
Real gifts transcend material trappings
LITTLE ROCK — When Mrs. Appleyard shares something, it’s usually a hot cup of tea, a quiet suggestion or the serendipitous leaf, bird or snowflake to punctuate her wisdom. Continue reading...
Best gifts in threes already received
LITTLE ROCK — Not all the gifts are under the tree. Continue reading...
Outing dissolves angst of overload
LITTLE ROCK — After a whole year of an ocean between us, spending time with my daughter still feels like a special occasion. Continue reading...
Mastering a loved hobby can fulfill life
LITTLE ROCK — Talent is lovely, but without practice and discipline, it’s only vaguely rewarding. Combined with discipline and study, however, a skill can be a significant component of happiness. So practice what you love and see where it takes you. Continue reading...
Spirit of ‘holiday’ arrives for meal
LITTLE ROCK — Just as I was feeling a little lonely with my husband out at the farm and my son at a friend’s house, a text from my daughter asked if I’d like to join her and some friends for coffee or dinner. Better yet, I replied, why don’t you all come to my house and I’ll cook? So that’s what we did. Continue reading...
Practicing gratitude feeds faith in future
LITTLE ROCK — Early last summer, I began a daily morning practice of writing down 10 things for which I am grateful. The first 10 “gratitudes” that come into my mind or heart go on the list. Since my mornings start early, morning coffee makes the list often, as do my family, good dogs and having a job. Continue reading...
No more waiting for the right time
LITTLE ROCK — After four years together and more than a year of being engaged, marriage was something Marc and I were seriously discussing. Continue reading...
Moment of caring means so much
LITTLE ROCK — If I have an unscheduled lunch at work, I usually hit the cafeteria line and head back to my desk. Once in while, though, it’s nice to find a quiet corner where I can just relax and eat quietly. I’m not looking for silence or solitude, just a small break in the day. I mean, it’s a cafeteria, not a church, right? Continue reading...
Habitual happiness has perks for health
LITTLE ROCK — It’s human nature to focus on the negatives in life. Continue reading...
Tips tip pays off for getter and giver
LITTLE ROCK — A few months ago the kids and I went to dinner at a local restaurant. Our waiter was pleasant and attentive, so when the meal ended I gave him two nice tips. The first was in cash; the second was what I call my waiter speech. Continue reading...
Instant messaging annoying yet useful
LITTLE ROCK — “Texting teen saves the world,” I told myself, as my son paused in our conversation to answer a text message. Seconds later, he rejoined the conversation where it stopped, unfazed by the fact that he’d just mentally put me on pause. Continue reading...
Shushing our way to a loving world
LITTLE ROCK — When I was small, my parents argued often. We children headed for our rooms whenever they got started. I’d find the quietest place I could, usually my closet, and then — safely out of their earshot — I’d tell them to shush. With my ears covered I’d take a deep breath and make a long “sh” sound, holding it for as long as I could. Continue reading...
Garden is place to bury remorse
LITTLE ROCK — The beautiful thing about repetitive tasks is how they bring us to contemplation. On this night, my chore was ironing, and my thoughts were in the past — not the happy past. Two weeks of wrinkled clothes waited in a nearby basket, and many years of memories seemed close at hand. Continue reading...
PEOPLE & PLACES
Williams Marks 98th Birthday Continue reading...
Dinner and diet: How to do both
LITTLE ROCK — Working mother’s dilemma: The family needs a good meal at night, so you make sure they have one. Tired, relieved to be home, you sit down and join them for the tiny bit of time you have together. They fix their plates, you fix yours. Continue reading...
We don’t finish job so much as ‘ship it’
LITTLE ROCK — It would be lovely to have all the time, resources and energy we need to perfectly complete our work, but that’s rarely how the world functions. The real world requires compromise. To be any kind of achiever, at some point you have to release your work to the scrutiny of others. Continue reading...
If taking in girl, 17, a trial, verdict is joy
LITTLE ROCK — Four years ago I took in an unofficial foster child; a classmate of my daughter’s who came to live with us shortly before her 17th birthday. As I write this, we’ve just celebrated her 21st birthday. The next day she is headed back to college, where she has a straight A average, a career plan and a happy life. Continue reading...
Balance the key for kids, parents
LITTLE ROCK — If your children were born between about 1978 and 2001, they belong to the generation known as Millennials. This generation has been indulged, but they haven’t been shielded. Their formative events include Columbine, 9/11, and the Enron debacle. They’ve seen the hard and ugly side of life on You-Tube. Approximately 40 percent of them have divorced or single parents. Continue reading...
Parents who hover extend adolescence
LITTLE ROCK — If you’re actively parenting children over the age of 10, you’re parenting Millennials. Also known as members of Generation Y, your children and mine belong to the best-educated generation that’s ever lived. They’re steeped in technology you may not even understand. They’re tolerant, passionate about causes they believe in, and confident they can manage the world better than we have. Continue reading...
Finding bright spots eases path to change
LITTLE ROCK — In their book, Switch, How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, Chip and Dan Heath use the example of a rider on an elephant following a path to describe how people resist or adapt to change. The rider is your brain, the elephant is your emotions, and the path is the new direction you want to follow. Continue reading...
We working parents toggle between jobs
LITTLE ROCK — Every weekday, working parents slit the fine ether between worlds and move from one plane of existence to another. When we leave the office and go home, whether the distance is measured in miles or steps, we divide our day between two distinct realities. Continue reading...
Joy is a busy day with the children
LITTLE ROCK — On the perfect first Saturday you spend with your daughter who hasn’t been home in a year, everyone — including Mom — sleeps late. When you get up it’s still cool enough to have coffee outside. While you and your daughter visit, the three dogs play with extra energy, incredulous that the girl who pampered them finally came back. Continue reading...
Success comes in tiny bites, with help
LITTLE ROCK — Everyone has something he’d like to accomplish or change. In his book 59 Seconds, author Richard Wiseman gives brief overviews of the best approaches to a multitude of challenges. His conclusions are bite-size chunks of research-based advice anyone can use. Continue reading...
Plaid luggage totes a well-timed lesson
LITTLE ROCK — It was a Saturday afternoon and I was cleaning the house. No longer could the dust bunnies and dirty windows be ignored. (Actually, the windows could have been ignored, but the dust bunnies were taking over.) It was time. Continue reading...
Optimism is an act of will, not heredity
LITTLE ROCK — You get up in the morning and brush your teeth. You close the garage door when you pull out of the drive. You sneeze and say, “Excuse me.” All these are habits. Continue reading...
Not chopped liver, but we’ll take a bite
LITTLE ROCK — The dogs were lonely. They wanted more attention but my life had gotten super busy and something had to give. Unfortunately for Duke, Duchess and Baron, what gave was time with me. Continue reading...
Strategies to whip a fear of eggshells
LITTLE ROCK — When you grow up fearful of making any move that might incite the powerful adults in your life to anger — a condition I call walking on eggshells — you have a tendency to repeat that situation in your adult life. Continue reading...
Those eggshells eventually crack
LITTLE ROCK — Over dinner about six weeks ago, a friend and I shared stories. Most of them were about the irony of two mature women with our breadth of life experiences still feeling hesitant about asking for what we want. Continue reading...
Humility leads list of lovely virtues
LITTLE ROCK — If you parent and if you are relatively whole psychologically, then parenting transforms you. It has to, but not always in the ways you expect. Around the time my oldest turned 21, I started working on a column about my experience in this concept of transformational parenting. That column is still unfinished. Continue reading...
Remembering to say thanks: I needed that
LITTLE ROCK — The calendar pinged on my office computer. Deep in work, I ignored it. I had no more appointments that afternoon. Continue reading...
After a tragedy, in time, healing
LITTLE ROCK — There is no answer I can give, no deep understanding of the recent horror that will satisfy. What can be worse than a mile-wide swath of fury bearing down on you and your family? This is hell, and within it is the nightmare of the human condition ; the randomness of death, the sucking up and spitting out of innocents. It is unfathomable. Continue reading...
Amazing grace, how sweet my son
LITTLE ROCK — My son and I are in one of those grace periods that occur in the pauses of parenting, when the energy gathers for the next big growth phase. It’s as though we get to coast for a little while, as if our relationship is taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. Continue reading...
HEART & SOUL: Maintaining grace under fire pays off
LITTLE ROCK — We all have rough spells, and my fiance, Marc, was going through one. First it was the renter who couldn’t pay because he was too sick to work. Continue reading...
HEART & SOUL: Depression in teens calls for loving chat
LITTLE ROCK — When children are young, parents joke about situations we can’t imagine facing. We cringe at the thought of them driving, dread them dating, and feel sad picturing them heading off to college. Next thing we know, we’re teaching them to parallel park, the doorbell is ringing on Friday night, and our baby is packing what she’ll take to the dorm. Continue reading...
HEART & SOUL: College entry often triggers depression
LITTLE ROCK — When you’re young, unsettled and uncertain of the future, college can be a tough place. You’ve escaped from the halls of high school and your parent’s rules and control only to land in the middle of a new social order you have to navigate. At the same time you have professors who expect a high level of independent thinking and personal responsibility and roommates you’ve never met who now share your space. Continue reading...
HEART & SOUL: Eritrean cabbie jump-starts a trip
LITTLE ROCK — For my son’s first college interview and tour, I planned the trip in pieces, trying to be as frugal as possible and still get us everywhere we needed to be. That didn’t go so well. Continue reading...
HEART & SOUL Dogged devotion is warm, fuzzy gift
LITTLE ROCK — The soft snuffling of a dog nose at my door was accompanied by the unmistakable sound of Duke settling himself as close to it as possible. Continue reading...
HEART & SOUL: About heartstrings and hearth things
LITTLE ROCK — We spend years accumulating only to reach the top of that hill, switch gears and start paring down. What was it all for? Continue reading...
HEART & SOUL: Teaching empathy means showing it
LITTLE ROCK — Recently, the number of articles discussing empathy in children and teens has increased dramatically. Continue reading...
HEART & SOUL: Simple approaches to teach complexity
LITTLE ROCK — Facing a barrage of major news stories, parents know their children have some information, but we don’t always know which facts — or rumors — they’re hearing. Given the gravity of recent world events, consider reminding your children of two things that can help them understand this rush of news without causing them unnecessary worry. Continue reading...
HEART & SOUL: Doing vs. planning keeps life positive
LITTLE ROCK — Sometimes, my day doesn’t go according to plan. Many days, there is no plan beyond what must-get-done. But on days when I have the leisure to make a to-do list, no matter how clever or exhaustive it is, it’s rarely completed. My children tell me that’s because my lists are unrealistic, and during a visit with my daughter last week she shared an ingenious technique she uses to keep herself feeling good about all she’s doing without worrying about what’s not getting done. Continue reading...
HEART & SOUL: Sleepy girl nods off, and time melts away
LITTLE ROCK — The 9-year-old next to me was very well-behaved, considering the flight from Atlanta to Amsterdam was almost nine hours long. After trying and failing to figure out what language she and her parents and were speaking, I gave up and asked. Continue reading...
HEART & SOUL: Navigating life one 3-by-5 card at a time
LITTLE ROCK — When my son was younger, our biggest conflicts weren’t over the things he did, they were over the things he didn’t do. To be specific, they were over the things he forgot to do. Now that he’s a teen, little has changed. Continue reading...
