At the end of last month I volunteered to do the final gratitude post in this month of Thanksgiving. At the time I knew that this day would be a couple of days after my trip home to Utah. I envisioned that I would be mostly unpacked from a fun-filled, love-filled holiday trip.  I’d be [...]

There is a river near my childhood home. It runs swift and deep and wide. If you have only ever lived in the west, try not to think of rivers like the ones that run out of the canyons, but instead go google an eastern river (try the Mississippi). If you live anywhere east of [...]

I have new Visiting Teachers. To my horror, I immediately begin avoiding them.
Sis.M, in church: Hey, I’m your new visiting teacher!
Me: Great!
Sis.M, in church: So, we should get together…
Me: yeah, uh-huh. excuse me, gotta find the kids.
Instead I found my current, uh, I mean former, visiting teacher.
Me: They [...]

I stretched back, luxuriating in the warm water, watching the stars through rising steam, and reflecting on the wonderfully nourishing evening I had just spent with a group of friends. After sharing a potluck dinner (tabouli, garlic bread, hummus, fresh fruits and vegetables) outside on a beautiful late summer evening, we took turns sharing books, [...]

Last Thanksgiving I was 11 weeks pregnant.  And on bedrest.  And terrified I would lose my baby.

It was nothing apparently dramatic. In fact, it was more on the order of “suddenly she realized” as in badly written fiction.
Roll back to 2001. We were living in Silicon Valley, and the internet bubble had burst. Richard G. Scott had said in conference that the gospel invariably led to peace and [...]

Bear with me, friends. This is my maiden voyage into the blogosphere, and I’m liable to make any number of blogging faux pas and breaches of etiquette. I apologize up front. First on the list: my grandmother. Gramma, I apologize that I’m fixin’ to talk politics in public. Please know that your son is a [...]

Melody Newey subtitles her poem “Be Still” as a psalm, which is so interesting to me. I usually think of a psalm as a prayer (although, and I had not realized this before looking it up, psalms are supposed to be songs set to music): David praying for mercy (Psalm 57), or deliverance (Psalm [...]

Guest Post from Andrea R. To read more from Andrea, go here and here.Every morning I wake up and wonder if E has died in the night. I walk to his room and listen, waiting to hear the sound of his labored breathing and cough and hoping for silence. He coughs, and [...]

I’m a Mormon who reads and a Mormon who writes, but I haven’t purchased LDS fiction from a bricks-and-mortar bookstore in almost a decade. Of course, I moved to Minnesota in 1998 and didn’t move back to Utah until 2006, so that’s one explanation. And I haven’t stayed away [...]

Ever heard of the Freegans? I heard about this alternative lifestyle several years ago, and have been fascinated by them. I don’t agree with all their politics, and, I should state upfront, I do not have one scintilla of compunction to actually join them in their minimalist and dumpster-diving life. There are parts of their [...]

I made a real-life actual new friend this month. And I’m not talking about a book I resonate with, or a new drug for PMS, or some fabulous gal I trade blog commments with (though how I love you, kiss kiss.) No, I actually started hanging out with another mom from the school, [...]

This is a guest post from Adri. She is the mother of two, wife of one-der-ful and enjoying life in the shadows of one big, beautiful, rugged mountain. She blogs at The View from Where I’m Standing.I took the kids to our local children’s museum on Friday. We recently bought a membership, which [...]

Everyone has a blog these days. Or at least one out of three people (according to no polls or official stats that I know of) blog. It is the new self-promoting scrapbook in this modern world. It is an open-invitation journal, slightly edited for general public consumption and mostly intended to portray a certain personality. [...]

Announcing the Heather Campbell Award for Excellence in Writing, Segulllah’s annual essay contest! And our Annual Poetry Contest! We want to read your stories! And your poems! And we hope you use more restraint with your exclamation points than I have done in this post!!!

A few weeks ago, I realized that if I didn’t amend my current intake of multiple spoonfuls of Nutella for breakfast, Banana mit nutella for lunch, and bread mit Nutella for dinner, I might just explode. Or, at least not fit into my formal gown for the Marine Ball. Either way, it would [...]

That’s all Shannon Hale asks of herself right now . She’s the LDS Newberry Honor-winning author of several young adult fantasy novels (and Austenland). I am a big fan–I love her polished, lyrical writing, and I love that she’s an LDS mother taking care of her kids and her passion for writing at the [...]

Seriously. This is what I always think, as I’m reading the funny things your kids say. And I do mean the stories, as well as the actual pictures, since there’s something so immediate about blogging. And something so universal about the concrete details of a child’s life. And something so political about [...]

Lisa is a new member of our editorial board.  This is her inauguration post at Blog Segullah.  She lives in Highlands Ranch, Colorado with her husband and five children ranging in age from 1 to 17.  She married the love of her life, Bryan, at the tender age of twenty, followed him wholeheartedly to BYU [...]

Another Guest Post from Andrea R. Thanks! Again. When my husband and I first were married, we talked about a lot of things. We’d go to movies and then spend the evening discussing and critiquing them. One year, we saw every movie that had been nominated for an Academy Award. We [...]

Hey, it’s November. Time to pull out the gratitude talks! It’s time to talk about gratitude, have lessons about gratitude, and send cards about gratitude. It’s time to blog about gratitude! It’s time to offer thanks for the beautiful fall weather, the football season, our sweater collection, and the very large bird we’ve sent to [...]