Shelly Mateer

For many people it is the biggest transaction of their life – buying a house. Homeownership is also a huge part of the still-alive-and-well American dream, though it may seem …

I had seen too much, yet somehow still had not seen enough. They were calling me back to Washington, D.C., yet I knew I belonged where I was. The truth …

Just the thought of calling a person I don’t know gives me a case of the nerves. There’s something about talking, as opposed to writing, that just brings out the …

I remember when I graduated from the University of California, Davis with a degree in international relations. I would inevitably run into some recently graduated engineering student who would ask …

Life is Too Short to Stay Stuck or Hidden.  Ailish Keating perhaps knows this better than anyone. About seven years ago, she developed a large lump in her breast that …

Staring blankly at the computer screen, I wondered for the umpteenth time how to explain that Jennifer Garner doesn’t really work at CIA Headquarters, that her character doesn’t actually exist, …

There it is, in the pit of my stomach.  A creeping feeling, perhaps best described as a feeling of dread, has crept over me each day from as early as …

I can still hear the click-click-click of her flip-flops as she swayed down the hallway. I can see her clear as day, in her white blouse and long wrap-around Thai …

What happened to our memory? When the events of September 11th occurred, it changed the world. It was a horrible change, but it did bring some unity to our country. …

Some of my earliest childhood memories are of digging in the dirt in our yard. I would spend hours digging up worms and huge rhinoceros beetles, as well as unearthing …