On Tuesday night I went to see the new movie Embrace which is an incredibly powerful documentary about the struggles that so many of us face around body image. It discussed the ways in which women are sent messages that their bodies are not good enough and the cycles of self-loathing and shame that build…
Over the past few days I have been having a lot of conversations with people about how overwhelmed they are feeling. I have come to think that for many of us September is a month of unexpected overwhelm. Here’s my best guess as to why September can be so brutal: for many of us September…
Each year I take a 24-hour break from my family to go on a hiking adventure with a great friend of mine, who also happens to be named Jessica. In years past we have hiked a 14,000-foot mountain and braved 60 mile per hour winds on rocky terrain (definitely thought I was going to get…
This is our dead week without school, camps, or travel plans and it was supposed to be a fun and highly productive week full of adventures with my boys and major things getting crossed off my to-do list. I had a vision: we were going to explore new playgrounds and go for bike rides, we…
A month or so ago I did a cooking demonstration and workshop where I talked about easy ways to integrate healthier alternatives into your daily diet. One of my props for that workshop was a jar of store-bought marinara sauce. Now, as many of you know, I usually make my tomato sauce from scratch, but…
If the forecasters are right, we here in the Washington, DC area are about to get socked with a blizzard that is expected to leave 2 feet of snow in its wake. This will likely shut things down around here in a big way for at least a day (probably more knowing this crazy city)….
It’s true. Cooking can feel like a burden sometimes. It can feel like yet another thing that has to get done in the day, another obligation, another chore. And yet we also all know that eating home-cooked foods is better for our health, our wallet, and our emotional well-being. So how do we reconcile these…
Over the winter holidays I was lucky enough to get to spend a week with my whole family in Colorado. This year, as all of us gathered together, a good number of us were preoccupied because of various transitions we are going through. Despite that preoccupation, though, we all launched into our favorite activities with…
We all know the benefits of family dinners— less picky eating, lower risk of obesity and eating disorders, higher academic achievement, lower risk of teen pregnancy and substance abuse, the list goes on and on. And we all have that idyllic idea of what it should look like—perfect table manners, no tension, everyone together, beautifully…
Warning: This story contains injury, floods, smoke detectors, yelling and tears. And no pizza. Last week was a rough one at our house. My husband had major deadlines that resulted in his working late every night, including one almost-all-nighter (he got 2 hours of sleep, can we just call that an all-nighter at our age?),…