The View from a Bridge

Today’s Up Close: Mothering post comes courtesy of Selwyn. She lives in Australia, where she inhales books and blogs, thinks too much, and constantly doubts her own sanity. You can catch more of her here. Once I was a tree. A tree content, standing entwined with another, leaves open and happily fluttering in the wind, watching bemusedly [...]

Summer’s Here and the Reading is easy

I need some help.

Down to an Art

Rose Datoc Dall is one of those brilliant women who seems to have it all figured out. She’s the proud mother of four great children. She’s a gifted musician. She’s beautiful and confident. She devotes free time to church callings and volunteer work at the local high school. She’s a fan of Segullah (and was [...]

the essence

My mom is dying. Just three weeks ago, I was moving my graceful bleeding hearts from pots into the shady side garden. My little Mary wore her stiff pink garden gloves and chatted with me as I dug deep holes over by the rose arch, “What’s this called? Is that a weed? Why are you [...]

Boys like smart girls (and other myths)

Boys like smart girls. Girls like Botticelli’s Venus, standing glorious, bright, capable, useful. Intelligent, practical, prodigious women were the idyllic sought-after prize or at least that was what my parents told me when I was growing up. It wasn’t until I got to college that I learned this was not true. Proof of this theorem. Newton’s law of coupling [...]

School’s (Almost) Out For Summer

This Friday my children will bid their teachers goodbye and sign yearbooks and clean out their desks and bring home pencil boxes and stacks of papers and, elated, they will fling their backpacks down in the mudroom, rejoicing that they won’t be going back to school until late August. And part of me will rejoice [...]

Goodbye Old Ward!

We’re getting ready to leave the ward that we’ve been in for a decade. To be honest with you, we never thought we’d stay this long and we never thought it would feel this short. When I moved in to the ward we’d been married just two years. Since that time I graduated from college, [...]

One Wild and Precious Life

Today’s Up Close post comes from Catherine Keddington Arveseth, a full-time mom, part-time writer. She has a degree in exercise science and a minor in English from the University of Utah. She and her family recently moved from Washington DC to Salt Lake City. Catherine reviews books for Meridian Magazine–we especially love her review of [...]

Mad Pride

There are people in various places in my life with mental illnesses. There are a also couple of people I love with autistic children, some with ADHD, some others with various developmental delays. So it was with keen interest that I read the following article. Then, only a day later, I read this. A quick [...]

Inheritance

I am in love with this poem by Darlene Young: Inheritance I got your jewelry, a couple of scarves, and an old dress I claimed just because it looked like you. But familiar though the earrings are, the scarf, the dress, the emerald pin, no matter how I squint into the past I can’t make [...]

“Your Mom Goes to College!”

A few Sundays ago, a group of us was brainstorming ways we could help the sisters in the ward live more providently in light of the current economic crisis. “Teach them to can!” a person offered. “Create a Relief Society recipe book!” another said. “Tell them to stop applying for secret credit cards and then [...]

10,000 steps

Our ward’s enrichment meeting this month was all about “A Healthier You”. I must say, it was excellent. Nothing namby pamby about it, and the RS even brought in outside experts to teach us stuff. A pilates class, a weight training class, and a cop to teach us how to defend ourselves and make our [...]

When Someone Hates Your Guts

I have a difficult relationship in my extended family. I’m guessing that too many of us can say that. Mine started nearly fifteen years ago, shortly after my marriage. It stemmed from a decision which I still feel was correct, in spite of the emotional havoc it has wreaked. We have not been able to [...]

I’m not a detail person (except when I am)

I am not a detail person. I don’t paint my toenails often. I don’t pull all the weeds. I rarely dust. I’m blind to the nuances that detail people take for granted: hospital corners on beds, ironed linens. Or, if I notice the nuances, I feel irritable. Surely that level of perfection is unreasonable. Right? [...]

Grandma Big

I first met my Grandma Small when I was seven, as my family and I disembarked from the ship that carried us across the Pacific from San Francisco to Sydney. All through our three-week voyage my mother had talked about our Grandma Small (“Small” is my mother’s maiden name), so I was unprepared for the [...]

Happy Day

Today I’m feeling the love of the Lord. A broad smile greeted me this morning as I woke to the sound of my toddler running down the hall toward my bedroom for a morning hug. I know he Lord has promised, “He who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious” (D&C 78:19), and [...]

Next to Godliness

Becky’s house is immaculate. Not just clean, but a place of wonder. There is no junk, no clutter; dust and crumbs are whisked away before they hit the floor or an unsuspecting tabletop. Her four children are all well-trained to hang up backpacks, jackets, towels; to stow away shoes and dirty laundry; to eat without [...]

Ward Envy

A missionary plunked out a hymn on an electronic keyboard in the cramped hotel conference room. Beata was the first speaker. She told us that her husband was out of work and she lives in a town where the Church just barely exists, but the gospel of Jesus Christ is her lifeline, the ray of [...]

Remembering Mom

Judy Kay Frome is the third of eight children and was raised on a small dairy farm in Wyoming. She has five children and three grandchildren and currently lives in Las Vegas, NV where she teaches fourth grade. Her writing has been published in the New Era and the Ensign and at http://earthsignmamawrites.blogspot.com/ It will [...]

My Heart Transplant

Today’s guest post comes courtesy of the delightful, Laura Day Lewis. Raised in the land Bountiful, she now resides on the Lewis “Farm” (complete with tractor, orchard, and some choice apple wallpaper) outside of Boston. She is wife to one, and called “Mom” by 3 boys, 1 girl, and a dog, who can’t get enough [...]

Dream Come True

In high school I had a BIG crush. Since my first days of having crushes on boys there has been a pattern. I’ve always gone for guys with a little extra flair for the dramatics. Following is a sampling of my past loves. Example #1: Ryan*, third grade. During sharing circle he talked about riding [...]

Looking a gift flower in the mouth?

Yesterday after church I engaged in the weekly ritual of lugging the church bag from the van to the kitchen and unloading it. In the bottom, underneath empty sippy cups, a wet dress and pair of underpants (don’t ask), a half-eaten bag of animal crackers, and a bracelet made out of pasta with a piece [...]

Giving back

My earliest memory: I was two years old. My mother was holding me over the kitchen sink, my stomach pressed against the edge of the countertop, her arm wrapped around me from behind, her free hand scrabbling frantically at my face. Fingernails—long, digging into my mouth. Scratching the back of my tongue, the top of [...]

My Mother is Better Than Your Mother

Some years ago, the drama of neighborhood relationships played out in a very public place – Mother’s Day Sacrament meeting.

An interview with Heidi Ashworth

Heidi Ashworth is the author of Miss Delacourt Speaks Her Mind, and writes the popular blog Dunhaven Place. Johnna is the webmaster for Segullah’s websites, and recently sat down with Heidi to have this conversation. Johnna, for Segullah: I’m a reader. Besides loving lots of books that I read in college or met through NPR [...]

(Don’t) Take Me Out to the Ballgame

I feel kind of bad saying this, but I really hate going to my son’s baseball games. I go occasionally, but most times it’s my husband, the baseball lover, who takes him. I’m the one who does the ballet and music classes for the other children. It seems to be a good division. Sometimes if we’re busy [...]

UP CLOSE: My Mother’s Legacy

Today we’re introducing a new feature at Segullah: UP CLOSE. Each month we will focus on a particular subject and discuss it in depth on Wednesday evenings and Sunday mornings. We welcome reader submissions for these posts. This month, predictably, our focus is Mothers(starting with Kathryn Paul’s fantastic post on single parenting last Sunday). The [...]

A Lucky Cow

It’s a phenomenon more puzzling than a Sunday crossword, but more certain than the stars. In fact I could set the compass of my last few years by it: the sticky whirl, the push and pull, the confusion and wonder of a mother daughter relationship. My mom and I get along great, but I’m no [...]

What the Ward Needs Now Is Love, Sweet Love…

Greet one another with an holy kiss. 2 Corinthians 13:12 Maybe I should move to Latin America, Southern Europe, or else maybe hang more with the country club set because I like cheek kisses (or the air kiss) and will go down on the record as being pro-hug. Maybe it’s reaction to living amongst generally [...]

Hide and seek

After several months of pronounced depression this winter, I finally sat down on the bed next to my husband and confessed just how bad things had gotten. “I keep thinking about death,” I said. “Death in general, or your own death?” he asked. “Both.” He paused. “Do you ever think about hurting yourself?” I hesitated. [...]

The Year My Son and I Were Born

About two years ago, I started trolling around various LDS blogs. Some were interesting, some were funny, and some were heavily doctrinal. There was one author I came across a number of times, and I was impressed with a number of things about her: she used her full name (a rarity in the world of [...]

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