In her new book, Perfectly Imperfect: A Life in Progress, Lee Woodruff writes with wisdom and humor about raising four children, her marriage to ABC anchor Bob Woodruff and what it feels like to be a woman trying to juggle it all. Theirs seemed a storybook existence — the talented and handsome couple, the four darling children — until one horrible day three years ago in Iraq when the vehicle in which Bob was riding was blown up by an improvised explosive device. In their widely acclaimed first book, In an Instant, Lee and Bob wrote with eloquence and candor about their struggles through Bob’s recovery from his traumatic brain injury. Now, with the same clarity and humanity, she chronicles her life as a wife, mother, daughter and friend. Lee’s ability to find humor in the least likely places will keep you reading and laughing to the end. I confess to complete and total prejudice. Lee is the sister you’ve always wanted, the girlfriend to whom you can tell anything. At ABC she is worshipped for her strength and candor. I adore her. I think you will, too.

CYNTHIA: I want to start by saying I had no intention of reading the whole book. I thought I’d read the first chapter, maybe something in the middle, but you completely captivated me. The collection of essays is so compelling, each one so different, and yet your wonderful voice shines throughout. How did you decide to write it?

LEE: You know, what really happened in the first book, In an Instant, when I turned it in, it was about 800 pages or so, and so much had to get cut away in that process to kind of keep to the story of Bob’s injury and the family’s recovery. And what I realized was, there was really a second book, and in that second book is the whole sort of woman side of life, and all the many roles that a woman has in her life — as a sister, a girlfriend, a daughter, maybe a mother, maybe a wife or lover. It’s a book sort of like an orange, and each of the sections that make up the whole are different slices of our lives. And hopefully some are funny, and hopefully some are more poignant.

CYNTHIA: I want to say that Bob, your husband, writes in the introduction that "You move effortlessly between humor and sorrow, joy and pathos, almost as if she’s not one person but many." Women play so many roles in their lives.

LEE: We do. We do so much more, I think, in life than even we realize. And we move through the different chapters of our lives as we get older. And I really, honestly, like to think that the very best chapter is where we are right now in our lives — and this is true for all the women of wowOwow, as well. Everything that we have learned coalesces into this moment in time. It almost feels as if all the little pieces of getting older and becoming a woman and getting your first period, and realizing that your parents don’t hang the moon — that they’re fallible — all of those things move us forward into this kind of time when we’re very empowered and we can look back and forward in our life at the same time.

CYNTHIA: You know, it’s interesting. I’m with you. I really like this stage of my life. Are you happy at this point in your life?