Helen Middlebrooke is proud of her Pennsylvanian roots. She grew up in Catawissa above the ìcrick,î where her mother fed her such hyphenated delicacies as pigs-in-a-blanket, potatoes-on-the-stove, and shoo-fly-pie. Since being uprooted from Catawissa in 1975, she has moved nine times. Places she has called home include Philadelphia and Wilkes-Barre, Pa.; Belleville, Illinois; Fort Collins, Colorado; Taberg, New York; Naples, Maine; Aberdeen, South Dakota, and currently, Toto, Guam. Helen has a degree in journalism and sheís worked or written for newspapers in most of the places sheís lived. She began writing ìIn the Middleî in 1996 for the Aberdeen American News, after the death of Erma Bombeck left a hole in the Sunday Lifestyle section. The column continued in Aberdeen until the Middlebrookes moved back to Guam in 1999. Since August 1999, the column has appeared in the Pacific Daily News on Guam. A devotional book based on the columns, "Lessons for a Supermom: Devotions from the Middle of Life," was released by Barbour Books in May 2002. . Helen is married to Michael, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service. They have nine wonderful homeschooled children, whom you will know only by pseudonyms because we donít want to overexpose them on the Internet: Max, 18; Butch, 16; LuAnn, 13; Jake, 11; Alvin, 10; Leslie, 8; Samuel, 5, and Hallie, 2, and Coda Jean (CJ), 6 months. Plus they have a dog, Bootsie, and a yard full of chickens that belong to the neighbors.