After re-imagining breakfast without cereal, the next step in your day is lunch. How do you do quick and easy lunches without sandwiches? One solution that a lot of people use is leftovers: just put whatever you had for dinner into a Pyrex container and skip off to work. But what if you ate…
Author: Amy Rogers Hays
Welcomed into a Safe Haven: Reflections on Jim and June Young
The summer when I was 12, my family drove up to New Hampshire for a week. I remember knowing that the people we were going to stay with were my parents’ friends and mentors from college. My family had just moved to New Jersey and now we were no longer too far away to…
Advice to Future College Students: 10 Things I Wish I Had Done More
As the back to school catalogs are pouring into my little steel mailbox, the cable sweaters and matching notebooks tell me that Fall is just around the corner. This Fall is my first fall as a teacher’s spouse with Evan starting student teaching in only 12(!) days. It’s also been a full ten years…
A Place to Be Yourself: Reflections on a Sophomore Dorm Room
One part of cultivating creativity is that you need to feel safe enough to take risks and be yourself. You have to make a space in your home and your heart to feel free to be you and to write, or paint, or dance, or just be. When I think of spaces like that,…
An Elimination Diet: Figure Out What Foods Are Making You Sick
Elimination diets first became popular within the medical community in 1941 when physician Albert Rowe published Elimination Diets and the Patient’s Allergies. They have declined in popularity as blood tests have become available because blood tests require considerably less patient effort. But as our understanding of the complexity food intolerances and allergies has increased, blood…
The Cultivated Life: Reflections on Rocks & Tree Roots Part Two
Today is the second half of the two-part series on the image of the rooted tree as a metaphor for how we grow and face challenges. In the first part, we talked about the use of garden and tree imagery in the book of Colossians. Tree roots take up nourishment for the tree, help…
Getting Good Sleep: Routines and Resources for a Good Night
Sleep is one of those things that you don’t think about much until it’s gone. But when a big event is looming, a stressful season strikes, or sickness robs you of your z’s, suddenly sleep becomes an important riddle to unravel. But, like they told you in high school psychology, sleep truly is still…
The Cultivated Life: Reflections on Rocks & Tree Roots Part One
Last week I was invited to share at my church’s women’s ministry brunch on their theme for the year: the cultivated life. It was a sweet time of reflecting together on the tree metaphors in the book of Colossians and how we’re growing through the hard things we face. I would like to continue…
Homemade Deodorant For Sensitive Skin: Bentonite Clay and Baking Soda
After stopping using shampoo, the next stop on the hygiene-crunchy-train was deodorant. This was the first time that I read somewhere that a fairly ubiquitous product (in this case, antiperspirant) could have a negative effect on health (in this case, slow your metabolism) and decided to switch it for something with fewer chemicals. Deodorant…
Being a Grown-Up at the Delaware Beach
Last Friday morning we got a late start heading out to the beach. I find that determining when you set out is a pretty common tension on vacation days. On the one hand you want to get an early start, to stretch day out, and soak up the sun. Then on the other hand,…
Flourless Chocolate Cake: A Simple Recipe for Celebrations
Here’s the recipe for the flourless chocolate cake I mentioned making before the 4th of July. It’s my go-to cake to celebrate. It’s made an appearance for my goddaughter’s first birthday and celebrating the beauty of a regular Saturday night visiting best friends. I love really good chocolate, and this recipe is all about…
Choosing To Celebrate The Beautiful & The Good
When I was little, Fourth of July celebrations were marked with red and blue frosted cupcakes, little plastic flags in the lawn near the lake, potato salad and wet towels, before mosquito bites and 9:30 fireworks. It was easy to smell that mix of slightly burned hotdogs, sunscreen, and lake water and celebrate. …
Summer Reading: 10 Modern Fairy Tales
As Evan and I prepare to head to the beach with thousands of other Mid-Atlantic citizens this weekend, I thought it would be a good time for another installment of 10 favorite summer reads. Today’s list is 10 modern fairy tales. These are single volume works similar in tone and cosmology to my 10…
Growing Up With Trees
I have always loved trees. They mark time with their silhouetted bare branches, budding fragrant blossoms, cool shady leaves, and firework finishes. For Christmas, I got Evan Sibley’s Book of Trees, and we’ve been marking off slowly the ones we’ve seen on hikes and mountain vacations. I have always been drawn to stories about…
Simple Breakfast: 10 Minute Eggs & Sausage Paleo Scrambler
I have always loved breakfast. It makes sense since I’m a morning person. I was that kid at a sleepover who woke up a 6 am and had to sit around quietly for hours before anyone else got up. I read some strange books in friends’ basements. But, whether it’s at 6 am or…