It seems that I had a life once, before children, but what I remember appears to me only in black-and-white. My drab life burst into full blooming color when I gave birth to David and Stevie. I also found my writer's voice through my children.

My first efforts at writing came from experiences with them. I'd get up at 5:30 a.m. to write about something pertaining to parenthood or I'd sit down at the computer after an exhausting day taking care of two boys both home from school sick. Either I could cry, or I could laugh and write about it. I chose the latter.

My first book, Beyond the Bake Sale, the Ultimate School Fund-Raising Book, was a labor of love. It sprang from the 10-plus years I had donated to fund-raising in my kids' schools. Not only did I develop some wonderful friendships, but I realized how building a sense of community through fund-raising could help every school out there.

So I wrote the book to share our ideas and the ideas of others engaged with their schools. I've received mail from England and Belgium about this book. It warms my heart to know that those hours working for P.S. 87 on the Upper West Side of Manhattan could touch people so far away.

From there I've made the leap into children's activity books that only a mother of sons could enjoy writing: Construction Vehicles, a href="dot.html" target="_blank">Rescue Vehicles and Cars and Trucks, among others, for Sterling Publications.

Even The Adventures of Amanda and Emily and the Secret of the Hidden Road is based on a lovely place we have always gone for several weeks in the summer.

As my boys get older, I have added another source of dealing with young people to my life: I teach Direct Marketing at The Laboratory Institute of Merchandising, the College of the Business of Fashion, as an adjunct professor while I continue to write.

My life is full, I'm never bored. But nothing pleases me more than a trip or even an evening spent with my husband, Larry, and our two boys.