Lorraine Mutschler, 63, married her high-school sweetheart in 1953 and spent the next 30 years raising a family of twelve children. She worked at various jobs before becoming a real estate agent in 1985, then resumed writing after they both retired in 1993. Her articles have appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette since 1996. She and her husband, Ralph, seem to have found the best of both worlds; living in Arizona for the winter and returning home to Pennsylvania in the spring, in time to see her garden (cover) in bloom. They have children and grandchildren blooming in both places.