Body
Build a strong and vibrant body from the inside out. Your body is your foundation, the starting point of all your adventures. By honoring your body and making deliberate choices about exercise and nutrition you pave the way for greatness.
Body
Tips For Fitting Fitness Into Your Busy Days
Finding time to exercise is a constant battle for busy, working folks like you. We all know the health benefits of exercising, and we also know how much better we feel mentally when we make time for ourselves to get in a workout. Sometimes we wake up early and trade an hour of sleep for [...]
A Closer Look at Yoga
Fifteen years ago, frustrated after tripping over the step in aerobics class yet again, I tried yoga, a new class being offered at my gym. I never took another aerobics class. I am now one of sixteen million people in the United States who regularly practice yoga for physical fitness, mental wellness and spiritual growth. [...]
From the Seed to the Belly; Insights and Practical Tips on Eating Whole Foods
Eating well is about enjoying the texture and flavors of real, honest food and being grateful for a simple yet rich gift. Coming back to simplicity and consciously eating wholesome food is nourishing to our body, soul and senses. Rather than being a particular regime or diet, eating whole foods is about bringing color, variety and [...]
How Trail Running Changed My Life
An Interview with Sarah Shrader. Sarah Shrader, endurance runner and mama to three boys from Grand Junction, Colorado, talks with Sparrow Magazine about the healing effects of trail running. SPARROW: What draws you to running? What draws you to trail running specifically? SS: I started running at a pretty dark time in my life. I [...]
An Introduction to Natural Healing Products
Faced with an itchy rash, a scratchy throat, or a painful sunburn, most of us head straight to the drug store. However, you may already have some simple, all-natural remedies hanging out in your refrigerator or cupboards. My own health struggles have taught me some interesting lessons about the lengths I am willing to go [...]
Mind
Play With Paint and Be Free
From small beginnings come great things. -Proverb If you’ve ever watched a young child paint, you’ll see a complete lack of inhibition. They don’t stop and think, “Hmm, what am I going to create today?” Most of the time, they jump right in, grabbing the brushes, paints, and crayons – whatever they can get their [...]
A daily meditation practice: What has worked for me, and why it’s hard.
With my eyes closed in the smoky pre-dawn air, I sit tall and draw a deep breath and exhale. Incense tendrils weave in and out of my mind as thoughts appear and dissipate like the summer morning fog hanging over the nearby bluffs. And yet, my eyes are drawn to the glowing clock on my [...]
Finding Your Voice Through Photography
Everyone sees the world uniquely. Photography, at its heart, revolves around capturing your view of the world and sharing it with others. No matter your level of technical knowledge, you have an experience, you have something to share. My journey in photography began at a young age with the encouragement of my parents. I imitated [...]
Praying is Saying Thank You
“If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is thank you, that will be enough.” – Meister Eckhart As I pulled the car through Mount Auburn Cemetery’s ornate, oddly Egyptian-influenced gates, I looked in my rear-view mirror and saw that Grace and Whit were each turned, looking out of their respective windows. [...]
Nest
Loving the Home You Have
A few weeks ago, my husband and I and our two boys were setting out to a children’s birthday party. My husband offhandedly commented that he thought the home we were going to was one of the big fancy houses in the hills above our town. My strong reaction surprised me—I teared up and suddenly [...]
Healthy, Eco-Friendly, and “Normal”
“You’re letting him eat a Sun Chip?!” Joe’s voice resonated at the neighborhood picnic. As a new father who had watched his wife carefully shop for organic food and BPA-free bottles, he was horrified when she casually gave their 15-month-old son a corn chip, brought by another parent, which was neither organic nor all-natural. When [...]
Sticks and Stones and Sun-Bleached Bones: Encouraging and Preserving Your Child’s Nature Collection
It’s possible that being a pack-rat is genetic. My grandmother was a pack-rat, and so is my father. Though I denied it for years, I must now admit that I, too, am a pack-rat, and the evidence that my children have inherited this trait is mounting. My daughter was three when I discovered the oatmeal [...]
Tips for Raising Financially Responsible Kids
Kids need to know what money is and what it does; a basic financial literacy is crucial to their success. Better for you to instill values about money in your children before the world does. I have several tips for how to raise financially responsible children, but first, a quick story to illustrate one of [...]
Streamline Your Grocery Shopping
Before I figured out how to streamline my grocery shopping list, I used to walk a mile weaving from one side of the store to the other trying to fill my cart with all that my family needed for a week. And I just don’t have time for that anymore. Although I love my life, [...]
De-Clutter Your Life
“Simplify, Simplify, Simplify” –Henry David Thoreau So much of our identity is tied to our material possessions; our homes, our clothes, our cars and our gadgets. We identify ourselves through these items instead of through our actions. We end up spending so much time and money caring for our items, storing them, maintaining them, that [...]
Connections
Time Outside
We weren’t always an outdoorsy family. But a few years ago, we made a conscientious decision to become one. When people ask how transitioning ourselves into an outdoorsy family has changed our dynamic, I think of the easy, generally happy chatter and story telling that happens when we’re outside. The kids love to pretend they [...]
The Importance of Grandparents
Sometimes everything you need is right where you left it. In the days following the birth of my first child, I remember feeling like my world was rocked in a way other parents can certainly appreciate. Desperate for an anchor, I found myself searching for a way to ground myself and my son to my [...]
Mom and Magnolia: Learning to Play Guitar
I have many moments when I get a great idea and decide that I want to be the next famous singer, pilot, runner, or hula hooper. Whenever I get a new idea for something that I want to try, I get really excited and think: I am going to be so awesome. In these first [...]
Finding Community in the Arts
I am an artist. It took me awhile to say that out loud. Here I am, though, a working artist. I not only create and sell my jewelry, but I’ve branched out into painting and making zines. I also run a large local arts organization. How does someone who quietly tinkers with beads and metal [...]
Flight
Start Your Own Adventure: How I Stopped Waiting and Started Running
How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live. ~Henry David Thoreau Nothing ever happened to me. How was I supposed to be a writer if nothing ever happened to me? Okay, okay. Some things happened to me. Sometimes I got poop on my hands when I [...]
The Making of a Flash Mob or, How To Jump Off A Cliff In Three Easy Steps
When the time came, I stood up from within the small crowd. I put my bow onto my fiddle and started to play. I was nervous, incredibly so. But I knew the song; I could play it in my sleep at this point. My first notes sounded shaky. Inside my head, a frenzy of thoughts: [...]
Leap Before You Look: A Published Writer’s Key to Creativity and Success
First action, then inspiration ~ those are the words that drive me whenever I am looking for that elusive muse called inspiration. I’ve learned that if I show up first, whether it’s at my computer, a meeting, or a workout, she will most likely show up too. After all, one of my favorite quotes is [...]
Taking a Leap into Art, Creating a Life I Love
As I sit here writing, it is a murky, grey day in London. But the sparkles on my page, glittery remnants from past art projects, shine brightly, a more accurate illustration of how I feel about my life than the London sky. The sparkles remind me that exactly eighteen months ago, I took a weird [...]
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