Lifestyle Articles

As a former beauty editor (I covered the topic on-staff for Allure, Elle and InStyle, and was People magazine’s first-ever beauty editor), I’ve been writing about health and wellness for decades. (And I wish I had followed all the advice I learned along the way!) I’ve also written about a variety of topics from parenting (for The New York Times, and Parents Latina) to interior design (for Dwell, ArchitecturalDigest.com, BHG, and House Beautiful). As a contributor to Martha Stewart Living, I was lucky enough to write about nutrition, home decor, crafting, art, and making an impact on the world. And as the Articles Editor at O, the Oprah Magazine, I was able to shine a light on women making the world a better place, explore anti-racist actions we can all take, and profile elders who survived challenging experiences—from the Holocaust to Jim Crow segregation—and went on to thrive. My favorite part of this kind of reporting and writing is interviewing the experts and learning from them—and also discovering the rituals we all follow in our own daily lives. Here are some recent lifestyle articles, and, at the bottom of the page, a couple of cover stories that are oldies but goodies.

Recent Articles:

I love talking to brilliant people who know exactly what they are doing. (It makes such a nice change from one’s own life!) So I was thrilled to once again write the BHG Color Stars (2025) feature for Better Homes & Gardens’ June, 2025 issue.

Historic baptismal fonts. Snakes painted over nude men‘s NSFW bits. Cell-phone-signal-blocking floor tiles. The 550+ year-old Sistine Chapel has a lot going on, especially during Conclave. Read all about it in this article for HouseBeautiful.com in May, 2025.

I see your Generational Design Trauma and I’m here to Name It, Claim It, and Reframe It. Answer the question Do You Suffer from Generational Design Trauma? in this article for HouseBeautiful.com from May, 2025.

What do Jackie Kennedy and Gen Z have in common? The pink Princess phone. I took a design deep dive in Gen Z Is Obsessed with Pink Princess Phones and We Know Exactly Why for HouseBeautiful.com in March, 2025.

Science meets psychology, with a little superstition thrown in, here in How to Manifest Like You Really Mean It, According to the Experts, OprahDaily.com, February, 2024.

When the devastating Los Angeles wildfires decimated entire neighborhoods, I tried to offer some helpful info for HouseBeautiful.com, including Every “Important” Item You Need to Take With You in an Evacuation, A Reckoning Is Coming for Homeowners’ Insurance, and This Fire-Fighting “Mist” Is How Some Homeowners Protect Their High-End Properties, January, 2025.

Move over, Narcissists. Pop Psychology has a new super-villain, and I wrote all about him (yes, it’s usually a him) in How to Spot Dark Empaths for OprahDaily, January, 2025.

Busybodies, have I got news for you: Your Neighbors Are All Watching Each Other’s Ring Videos—Are You in on the Chat? HouseBeautiful.com, January, 2025.

So, I’m learning a lot about sexual health, thanks to fascinating assignments from OprahDaily.com. Two teachable moments: Maybe You Should Be Doing Fewer Kegels and 5 Reasons Sex Is Better After 50, December, 2024/January 2025.

If you don’t have anything nice to say, come sit right here by me. 12 Things Guests Are Secretly Judging You for Having in Your Home, HouseBeautiful.com, December 2024.

I asked designers the burning question How Early Is Too Early to Decorate for the Holidays? for HouseBeautiful.com in November, 2024.

I found speaking with Sadia Zapp to be both informative and informational for Oprahdaily’s article I Was Diagnosed with Breast Cancer at 36. Here’s What I Want All Young Women to Know in October, 2024.

Designer Noz Nozawa talks “funsie” drawers and fun decor in this article, which appeared as Embrace Color in the September, 2024 issue of BHG.

So many useful tips on interior design. So few rooms in my NYC apartment. I loved learning from the experts—Better Homes & Gardens’ BHG Color Stars 2024—for this piece, which appeared in the June, 2024 print issue.

I asked the experts, “Isn’t Every Relationship Kind of Codependent?” for Oprahdaily in May, 2024.

Bandanas. Bikinis. Beehives. I consulted AI and actual living, breathing branding pros to find out why Megan Markle gave her brand a name that feels so…off in Experts Reveal the Problem with Megan Markle’s New Lifestyle Brand for Housebeautiful.com.

I laughed, I cried, I called my mom. Read the wisdom based on by some amazing mothers, shared by their daughters in I’m Turning into My Mother! And I Feel Great About It, which appeared on Oprahdaily in May, 2024.

Bandanas. Bikinis. Beehives. That’s what “American Riviera Orchard,” the name of Meghan Markle’s jams-plus brand, evokes for me. I had such fun interviewing branding pros about this mouthful of a name for Experts Reveal What’s Wrong with Meghan Markle’s New Lifestyle Brand for HouseBeautiful.com in April, 2024.

One of my favorite things about my job is interviewing people who inspire and astound me. I got to do that while writing 10 Ways to Find Joy While Living With Metastatic Breast Cancer for this April, 2024 Good Housekeeping article. I’m willing to bet you’ll be inspired, too!

You learn something new every day! And I learn a lot of somethings new when I’m researching articles and interviewing experts about MacGyvery/adulting topics that don’t come to me naturally. Some of those I’ve written for USA Today’s Homefront Solutions include How to Pack Your House in Under a Week—And Keep Your Sanity, How to Pack Dishes for Moving, and 7 Warning Signs It’s Time to Repair or Replace Your Roof, all of which were published in Spring, 2024. More grown-up homeowner topics: 18 Ceiling Fans Top Designers Swear By, and When’s The Last Time You Cleaned Your Pillows, both for The Buyside at the Wall Street Journal online.

I mean, I love a feel-good story. Learning about newcomer kids gain confidence through chess makes me want to take up the ancient game and hug every student I know. Read all about the life-changing initiative that is The Gift of Chess on Week& in this March, 2024 article.

Nothing makes you feel more like a hunter-gatherer than having to work for your food. I had the best time learning why oysters are the Zen buddhists of the mollusk world at an oyster-shucking class at NYC’s Mothershuckers. Read all about it in How to Shuck an Oyster in 5 Simple Steps on Week&. And be sure to scroll down for the fun oyster facts included in this February, 2024 article; it’s got everything from Shakespeare to hot vegan debates.

If you feel like you need a boost, but you don’t do “affirmations with jazz hands,” as one of my sources calls them, have I got some mantras for you (courtesy of wiser folks than myself). Check out Positive Affirmations for People Who Don’t Do Positive Affirmations, a January, 2024 OprahDaily.com article.

Obviously, the best present you can give an engaged couple is a copy of my book, Lucky in Love: Traditions, Customs & Rituals to Personalize Your Wedding. But that is far from your only option! I interviewed designers, celebration experts, and chefs to come up with the 24 Best Engagement Gifts for the Happy Couple for The Buyside at the Wall Street Journal online in January, 2024.

Writing holiday cards? Beware the rogue apostrophe. Before you get started, maybe pour some mulled wine and skim my December, 2023 How to Avoid These Christmas Card Faux Pas—According to the Experts piece for HouseBeautiful.com

Move over, Happiness. These days, social scientists are all about Awe, an emotion that might just make you live longer and better—and is easy to find, even in tough times, if you know where to look. Start with Totally Awesome, an article I wrote for the December, 2023 issue of Real Simple.

It all boils down to “I see you, and I love you.” For a more detailed script, check out What to Say When Someone You Love Is Hurting for OprahDaily.com.

I have a new pilgrimage site I want to visit—a temple of lost luggage bargains in Scottsboro, Alabama. Read all about it in This Might Be the Most Unique Store in America, for HouseBeautiful.com

2023 is The Summer of Self-Love (according to me and Oprah anyway)! Writing What Are Your Self-Love Languages for OprahDaily brought me Delight and Encouragement. I’m still working on Boundaries, though…

I’m not a couples counselor. But I’ve interviewed a bunch of relationship experts to learn how A Hug May Save Your Marriage (and other science-backed love hacks) and which Simple Questions Are Relationship Superglue for OprahDaily.com.

Please don’t go. Not until you’ve pondered these six Questions to Ask Before Calling It in this January, 2023 article on OprahDaily.com.

From home decor color combos to DIY holiday wreaths, I’ve written about it for BHG.

Apologies are great; verbal tics less so. I interviewed therapists and etiquette experts to glean 5 Things to Say Instead of I’m Sorry for a December, 2022 piece on OprahDaily.com.

You’re welcome for the ideas in this December 10, 2022 article for OprahDaily.com: 8 Responses to “Thank You” That Mean (Even) More Than You’re Welcome.

I left my heart (and my daughter’s umbilical cord buried in the front yard) in Miami Beach. And I love what artist Flying Knight is doing to shape the look of the city. Read my July 8, 2022 Town&Country profile of her here: Miami Beach Gets a Witty Makeover, Courtesy of Pop Deco Artist Flying Knight.

Is there a nice way to say “I don’t want to sleep on your floor?” or “my kid just peed in your pool?” I interviewed etiquette experts and a psychiatrist to get the answers to these and other summer bummers for the May, 2022 issue of Real Simple and found the experience not just informative and funny but also a little revelatory (turns out, regret and shame are not the same thing!). Read all about it in Sticky Situations: Solutions to Your Summer Etiquette Conundrums.

Smart swaps for living greener? The sassiest octogenarian in the land sharing her red rice recipe? How to (finally) organize your desk drawer? I got to write about all this and more as a contributing editor to Martha Stewart Living, a gig I loved. Join in all the fun here.

I learned so much about pickleball, and Olympic politics and policies, while researching Pickleball Gold: Does the sport have what it takes to be a contender? for InPickleball magazine’s second issue.

I loved talking to brilliant designer and fellow passionate philhellene Andria Mitsakos, founder of Anthologist.com, about global decor, sustainability, and Greek craftsmanship for A Globetrotter’s Guide to Pivoting During the Pandemic.

My write-up of the soul-stirring cultural celebration that is the redesign of the Megaros Mansion, the West Wing of Greece, was published in six different languages in eight international editions of ArchitecturalDigest.com, as well as VogueLiving in Australia, CasaVogue in Brazil, and CNNStyle.

One of the most profound and enjoyable experiences of my magazine career was interviewing elders who withstood harrowing times but continued to live with joy and love for the very last monthly print issue of O, the Oprah Magazine. The article, called “Amazing Grace,” includes profiles of a woman recalling her experiences being raised by her great-grandfather—who had been enslaved—and building a life and career under Jim Crow segregation, a man who survived the Holocaust and became a Hollywood legend, an activist who grew up in a Japanese detainment camp, and a polio survivor who was reminded of her childhood fighting the disease during this latest pandemic. Spending time getting to know these heroes was an inspiration for me during Covid quarantine and a definite career highlight.

I graduated college with a degree in Folklore and Mythology, so I was thrilled to write about The Power of Rituals for the November, 2020 issue of Health magazine.

As the mother of a nine-year-old daughter, I was so inspired by the eight trailblazing women we covered in a feature on The New Girls Network that I edited, and wrote part of, for the April, 2020 issue of O.

While quarantining in our New York apartment in Spring, 2020, I was able to write about women entrepreneurs supporting each other through the pandemic for Oprahmag.com.

As a Latina-by-marriage, with a beloved suegra of my very own, I was thrilled to write this article for Parents Latina, which appeared in the September, 2018 issue as “We Heart Abuela.”

I got to write about one of my favorite topics—reading—for “A Novel Idea,” the Changemaker column in Martha Stewart Living‘s September, 2018 issue. I always say I’m a promiscuous reader, and it turns out it’s almost impossible to get too much of this good thing.

I started composting in response to the November 2016 election—with the government going so horribly wrong, I felt that I needed to do something as an individual to help make the future, if not better, at least less dire. That conviction grew even deeper as I researched this piece for Martha Stewart Living which gave me the opportunity to interview Zero Waste advocate Lauren Singer of Trash is for Tossers. She’s an inspiration; check out her YouTube videos on sustainable living which demystify everything from buying in bulk to composting to secondhand shopping. Here’s the online version of my “Waste Not” feature on her, which kicked off the magazines inspiring Changemaker column, April 2018