Two weeks ago, I was camping and about to lose my ever-loving mind when I walked into a bathroom stall and saw two words etched into the wall in front of the porcelain latrine: YOU’RE PRETTY. It immediately changed my mood. Not because I suddenly thought, You know what? I AM pretty. It was because…
When I lived in Ukraine, it was freezing cold! And I don’t mean Utah in January, dry, better grab a coat cold. I mean a kind of cold that I still remember twenty years later. My very first night there, I was overwhelmed, far from home, and so cold that I cried myself to sleep. I swear…
Apparently the first recipe in Sips, Suppers & Stories is a dirty chai that contains neither coffee nor caffeinated tea, which feels like an appropriate way to begin. I love chai. Warm, creamy, spicy chai is one of those drinks that makes me want to put on a sweater even when September is still pulling…
The First Chicken Pot Pie I Ever Ate I vividly remember sitting at Marie Callender’s with my family after a funeral of some sort when I ordered chicken pot pie for the first time. I don’t remember whose funeral it was, which feels like information I should probably know, but I DO remember the pot…
I want to influence you to build a beautiful life right where you already are. Not the life you will have someday when things are easier, but this one. There is so much good already sitting in front of us, and I want to help you see it. I want to help you mend your…
Okay, homemade mayo. I put this off for way too long because it sounded like one of those things that requires too much from me. It does not. It takes about two minutes, and once you do it once you will feel a little silly about how long you avoided it. I know I did….
I come from a family rooted in tradition. Our traditions take many forms, from big family gatherings to recipes to silly little things we do year after year. Some are meaningful, some are ridiculous, and some have been around so long I’m not even sure any of us remember how they started. But I really…
I was nine years old when I begged my mom to throw this picture away. I thought I looked fat. That was the whole reason. It is the first photo I can remember looking at and thinking, wait, is that what I look like? She kept it anyway. I am so grateful she did. It…
9 years ago, I had the coolest experience The kind you can’t plan. In 2018 I was in the thick of motherhood with three little kids at home, endless messes, and no breaks. One day I left the house just to leave the house. It had probably been a week or two since I’d gone…
I finished the first draft of Lydia, which I knew was approximately step 10 in a 5,000-step journey. I’ve published two books before, a children’s book and a cookbook, along with multiple digital downloads, so I’m not completely new to publishing. But this feels entirely different. There is a rather enormous distance between “I wrote…
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