Mm-hmm.

So I'm a quilt maker, and I make quilts with words and symbols pieced into the design.

They say things like, "Bloom.

Come as you are, you're lovely.

If not now, when?" When I got divorced, I had been a stay-at-home mom, and I thought, "I'll turn my hobby of quilt making into a paid profession, and I'll go on the quilt lecture circuit," which didn't exist, but I didn't know that, and it's a good thing I didn't know it.

But I wanted to make myself stand out in my field, and there are a million quilters, and there's quilt shows and quilt talks and quilt seminars all over the world all the time.

So again, here comes quilts with words pieced into the design.

Mm-hmm.

What was the column you wrote about? What type of column is this?

Well, so I was this motivational speaker illustrating my talk with quilts that had words and symbols pieced into the design.

And so those are my first two books.

They're adult picture books, short on words, long on pictures.

So it's a picture of 12 quilts.

So after the first book had like a series of vows you would make to yourself as you're starting a new portion of your life.

For me, it was divorce.

I love Big Irv.

Tell me more.

Yeah.

When I was, it was really after publishing my second book that I realized I like to write, [laughs] which is a crazy thing, and I started to write a slice of life column aimed at being single in midlife, and I syndicated it to little newspapers, regional newspapers all over the country.

And, and so high-I Need a Man's Pants to Wash is a compilation of the first 52, the first year's worth of those columns.

But what it was was, you know, so I'm exploring singlehood at age 42 is when I got divorced, and I'm saying, "I know you don't wanna be single, but you can do it," so I'm your rah-rah cheerleader.

I've always been your rah-rah cheerleader.

It, life is difficult, but you can do it.

Right.