Ward Envy – Part II

“It seems like the more we try to live the gospel, the more trials we have. Why ?” I will never forget Beata’s question while I was studying in Poland last summer. Dr. Whipple and I gave our best Sunday School answers, but our words felt empty and our hearts ached for her pain. My mind went back to [...]

Singular Opportunities

Today’s post comes from Ellen Patton, born and raised in Van Nuys, California and moved to Boston 21 years ago sight-unseen. She has loved living in New England since that first day when she said, “this apartment is OLD”. Her hobbies are late-night baking, antiquing, reading books and magazines, sewing, quilting, exploring in New England, [...]

Twitter as teacher

Last week, I took on the task of unpacking my book boxes and filling the new bookshelves. As I separated the volumes into fiction and non, I flipped through a few of the titles. I opened George Eliot’s Middlemarch and noticed that the first paragraph extends halfway through the second page of text, it suddenly [...]

UP CLOSE: Living Single– Happy Singledom

As a full-time graduate student at Westminster College and communications professional, I try to make the most of my time. I currently do communications work at a medical education agency in the Salt Lake valley, as well as pro-bono development and communications for Blue Sky Music Camps. When I am not writing papers, organizing social [...]

I love you, but not like a Sister Wife

Last week in Sunday School we studied Doctrine and Covenants Section 132. Our instructor read verses 1-4, explained “those are the verses about polygamy,” and accepted exactly one comment from the class. “If anyone else wants to talk about it,” he said, “they can discuss it out in the hall.” So, are we out in [...]

When I wear old shoes, I raise my focus

Summer’s winding down. To that, I say bah. It’s always too short. I could do with one more beach day, one more book to read, one more day trip, and I’m up for finding one more reason not to embrace the finality of a looming Labor Day weekend. A few weeks ago I salvaged binders, [...]

Call For Blog Submissions: Up Close September & October

What makes Blog Segullah unique? The rich perspectives and experiences of many different voices. We need your stories. We are currently looking for submissions for: September: Death and Dying: Loss of Loved Ones (spouse, child, parent, friend) We live in a death avoidant age. It is something most of us don’t encounter very often and are quite uncomfortable with. [...]

The Fascinating Girl

Take with me, if you will, a little trip down memory lane. It’s 1975 and I’m lying on my lavender ruffled bedspread in my lavender bedroom, hair tucked behind my ears, reading my favorite book and marking my favorite passages. At fifteen, I study this book daily, copy sections of it in my diary, memorize [...]

The Best Work on Butcher Paper Ever

My son was called into school for his Kindergarten assessment test, and like all teachers of small children, his had a project for the mom to do in the other room. She had me trace the outline of my son on a piece of butcher paper and left me with four tempera paint colors to [...]

Well, I really want to be married.

This Up Close: LIVING SINGLE post comes from the energetic and entertaining, Sheryl. She grew up in Virginia and currently teaches school outside Washington, DC. So when I was first asked to write this post, I thought to myself, “Seriously? I’m being asked to write a post about being single? I’m only 26! I guess [...]

UP CLOSE: Living Single– For a Reason

When people ask Lisa where she is from, she says she’s from heaven. She currently lives in Arizona where she’s working on a Ph.D. in educational psychology. Previously she taught elementary computers where her students nicknamed her Miss Giggles. She loves elephants, quilting, running marathons, and reading children’s literature. Throughout her life she’s frequently been [...]

The Winner is…

Random Integer Generator Here are your random numbers: 23 Timestamp: 2009-08-22 19:57:40 UTC Congrats to cms, who was comment #23. cms, send me your info, and we can get Emily’s book out to you. Thanks everybody!

Really? I mean, Really?

Overheard while wandering through Borders with my husband: Young 20-something with a Twilight t-shirt on: “Umm, do you still carry any Twilight umbrellas? I saw them here last week.” Employee of Borders: “Yeah, I’ll walk you over. They’re here in this display.” (walks her to a large Twilight display) Twilight girl: “Wow! (looks at display) [...]

UP CLOSE: Living Single– One Brief, Pure, Shining Moment

Julie R. returned to teaching after taking a hiatus to earn an M.A. in Popular Culture. She teaches high school English and Composition, and Media Studies classes somewhere in middle America. When she isn’t at school, she’s teaching piano lessons, baking, watching movies, or hanging with her family. She blogs when she can at Welcome [...]

I’d Write Creative Nonfiction If I Knew What the Heck It Was

Note: This piece is a discussion of the literary genre of the personal essay. While I’ve posted it here on a blog, what I’ve written is not a good example of the genre of the blog post. For one, it’s waaaaaay too long. Hope you enjoy it anyway. One of the things we want to [...]

Hooray! It’s a giveaway!

We’re giving away Emily Watts’ new book, “I Hate it When Exercise is the Answer”. I just finished it, and it’s everything you’ve come to expect from Emily Watts. She’s warm and funny, and reading her new book is like talking to an old friend. This book actually has very little to do with exercise, [...]

Speechless

I have a friend who was just diagnosed with cancer. We no longer live close to her (we moved last year), and I heard about it from a mutual friend. I don’t think my friend wants to be viewed solely as a cancer patient, as sick, as dying. And while most of us are sick [...]

Ask, Receive

About halfway through my mission, my zone leader and his companion accompanied us on a day of missionary work. I always felt awkward about this, in part because it looked like a double date, and in part because I felt like everything I did was being judged and evaluated. And I always had that “I’m [...]

UP CLOSE: Living Single– Hello are you out there?

Living Single is the UP CLOSE focus topic for August. Perhaps we didn’t advertise this fact very well? Perhaps there are gorgeously written submissions hiding in a forgotten inbox? Whatever the case, we know our single readers are out there. And we know you have something to say. Please, please write your thoughts about single [...]

Ask an author: Emily Halverson

Today we’re spending some time with the fabulous Emily Halverson, a Segullah staffer who edited the book Life-Changing Moments, which was recently published by Walnut Springs Press. Here’s her intro, in her own words: I live in a city also known as the Protestant Vatican, the Athens of the South, and the Buckle of the [...]

just show up

I’ve made a mess of things. Really, truly. Please read this and make a mental note of WHAT NOT TO DO. Last Sunday my oldest son received his patriarchal blessing. Can you imagine how I’ve anticipated this day? Ben is a brilliant, sweet, astonishingly mature kid who will clearly change the world. And I could [...]

My Cake Doctrine

It seemed crazy, riding a camel up a moutain at midnight. Helpless, six feet in the air, I tried to tell myself that the camel didn’t want to die any more than I did. I listened to the sound of the pebbles as they spilled down the drop-off cliffs, and echoed as they bounced down the rocks [...]

Making a Memory

Twenty-one years ago this August, I stood at the gates of the Salt Lake temple for the first time. I was thirteen, visiting Utah as a tourist, and totally obsessed with the brides and their photographers, perched in nooks and alcoves and on steps in every corner of the temple. My sister and I ran [...]

UP CLOSE: Living Single– Titanic Tears and Ministering Angels – Just Another Day Really

If you’d like treat yourself to wonderfully honest, poetic writing from a red-headed Aussie, visit Selwyn’s Sanity. Selwyn is the mother of two boys and is in the middle of a divorce. What more shall I say? I’ll let her writing tell her story. Last night I watched Titanic for the first time. Apparently I [...]

Summer’s Envy

I do NOT want school to start. Right now, we’re swimming in the pool every afternoon, we’re leaving rooms messy, we’re reading on the patio in the evening shade. We’re licking Popsicles, dancing to U2 waaayyyy past bedtime, going to week-long bug camps, scout camps, girls camps. We just got back from a fantastic drive-across-the-country [...]

This is My Brain on Children

Linsey, her husband and five kids live in Draper, Utah. She loves being a Mom, Wife and Hairdresser. She has a healthy obsession with Diet Dr. Pepper, celebrity gossip, shoes, purses and hair dye. If her kids are occupied and she isn’t tweeting, facebooking or blogging, she can be found in her family room, sitting [...]

I’ll Have a Miniskirt with a Side Order of Cleavage

I found myself furtively staring at the family across the aisle from me on the airplane. The boys looked just like mine as they played their Nintendo DSs, but their yarmulkes and tzitzis gave them away as Orthodox Jews; as did the long-sleeved shirt and long skirt of the mother, a pretty woman who looked [...]

To Read And Write

Perhaps it is my turn to be just a reader, to lose myself in words—to sink and to let myself sink, to surface only when naturally I’d find myself floating upwards toward light and bubbles, a surface with more clarity: Toward my own writing. I’ve had a very silent couple of weeks. The scratches of [...]

Crushes: Unappreciated Delicacy of Youth

“Oh new love!” my friend Kelli pined, “It’s so exciting. I miss it! I have to enjoy it vicariously through you. Really, I love being married, but I miss the ‘falling in love’ part, it’s so fun.” She begged for more details, downright giddy, as I recounted some episode from my “crush-of-the-month” on our way to work. [...]

Testimonies, War, and Cherry Picking

Every time a certain older gentleman in our ward (I’ll call him Brother G.) gets up to bear his testimony, I inwardly roll my eyes. All around me, I see fellow ward members slump in their pews as they brace themselves, eyes already glazing over. It doesn’t matter if the meeting is running over and [...]

How To Be a Proper Spinster

Today’s Up Close:Living Single post comes from Courtney, who enjoys long walks on the beach, sunsets, picnic lunches, holding hands in the rain, but hates being set up when the qualifications of the male in question are that he is single, still breathing, and LDS–so let’s just not go there. She received her B.A. from Utah [...]

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