less leslie

Everyone’s packed for this, our final trip of the month and cheer season, to Virginia Beach. Everyone except me. I just … can’t … do it. Love Virginia Beach, and the beach itself is a beauty. Last time I was there, there was some sort of kite festival, and I saw the most amazing, colorful…

KFC wants us to eat breasts for breast cancer. Until I saw KFC’s “Buckets for the Cure” campaign, I’d always been in awe of the Susan G. Komen marketing machine. There are even power tools with the signature pink ribbons. A few months ago when I was looking for my 2010 At-A-Glance monthly calendar, there…

This morning, I wanted cinnamon toast. Four pieces, for starters. I wanted to toast four pieces of bread, slather them with butter, sprinkle with a mixture of sugar and cinnamon and set them under the broiler. Can’t even recall the last time I made cinnamon toast, or even wanted it, but there I was, craving…

Sandra Boynton, report to UC San Diego. There’s a new study out by, hmmm, let’s say OBVIOUS MAN, that says people who eat a lot of chocolate are more likely to be depressed than people who eat less chocolate. These UC San Diego researchers found that people diagnosed as “possibly depressed” by psychiatrists ate 8.4…

Just got in from a nine-hour drive from Orlando, including a trip to Raleigh-Durham International to pick up Skyler (who flew in with the coaches and team); a pit stop at the house to unload the van; then dropping the van off at Enterprise; stopping by the bank to get cash to pay the guy…

Before leaving North Carolina, I spent the previous 12 hours driving all over town, taking care of all the last-minute business every good procrastinator is known for. I made a few pit stops at the house, but all meals were on the run, and that was frustrating: The weekend hadn’t even begun and already I…

I’ve spent the past 12 hours driving all over town, taking care of all the last-minute business every good procrastinator is known for. I’ve made a few pit stops at the house, but all meals have been on the run. The weekend hasn’t even begun and already I’m sick of road food. So I’ve spent…

Wednesday is the unofficial day for health news in the U.S., and if you believe everything told to us this morning, we’re all as good as dead. First, the sugar report: Eating processed foods with added sugar is putting everyone at increased risk for heart attacks, strokes and diabetes. If this isn’t surprising to you,…

Dr. Dorothy Irene Height died Tuesday morning at age 98. Best known for her ongoing fight to right civil wrongs, I’ll always remember feeling honored just to be in her presence. In my 20-plus years as a newspaper and magazine journalist, rarely have I ever cared about the star status of the many celebrities I’ve…

The headline would be more impressive if I hadn’t been sitting on a 19-pound loss for the past three weeks or so. While some of you took me out to the woodshed for stating at the beginning of April that I was concerned about how stress would impact my weight-loss goals this month, I really…