Segullah

Mormon women blogging about the peculiar and the treasured

Making a Difference, Being Remembered

I have always wanted to make a difference. Sometimes this desire has had its roots in pride and selfishness; other times it has been purely altruistic. Sometimes it has led me to do desperate things. For example, in the first few months after the birth of my second child, it seemed that all I did [...]

Exceptions to the Law of the Harvest

Four years ago we planted a little orange tree in our backyard. We were told to expect fruit anywhere from 3-5 years later. Last year, at our three-year mark, we eagerly watched the tree for signs of fruit and there it was: one solitary green ball that slowly turned orange as Christmas approached. After Christmas, [...]

One Line a Day

This January, determined to regain some of the journal-writing prowess of my younger days, I bought a One-Line-a-Day Memory Book. “I can manage one line a day. Piece of cake,” I told myself as I clicked on the “One-click-to-buy” Amazon button. Well, we are now 34 days into 2012 and I have managed only one [...]

Singing My Praises

I don’t sing in the ward choir. I don’t even sing particularly loud during sacrament meeting. I was blessed with a good ear for music—I can tell when something is off-key and not right. When it’s my children playing the piano while I make dinner, I can easily call out from the kitchen and direct them [...]

A Letter to My Fellow Conference Attendees

Dear fellow attendees and presenters at last week’s Western States Literacy and Rhetoric conference, Thanks for an intellectually stimulating weekend. I enjoyed many (but not all!) of the sessions I attended and I’m glad for your feedback on my own paper. I’ve been thinking, though, about the awkwardness that followed my answer to your questions [...]

Looking in the eyes, looking on the heart

So far in my short journey into parenthood, I have struggled in particular with one of my children. Although this child is extremely bright and cheerful, I don’t understand many of his/her (used to protect anonymity!) choices, I don’t “get” his/her motivations or reactions. Because of this, I’m often frustrated with this child. It seems [...]

My Stint as a Cherry Sorter

You may not know this, but I have not always led the glamorous life that I do now. My very first job, in fact, demanded early morning risings, long hours, and repetitive and sometimes back-breaking labor, all with little respect and fairly low wages (on second thought, this is sounding oh, so familiar to my [...]

His Wonderful Works

The summer when I was 14 years old, my family made one of our many treks to a national park, this time the Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. I don’t remember many details of the trip—I’m sure I snagged a window seat (asserting my power as the second oldest), I’m sure as we drove [...]

What’s more American than corn flakes?

In grade school one year we put on a patriotic performance, in which I was one of the lucky girls chosen to be Lady Liberty and in which we sang with gusto the song, “What’s More American.” Anybody remember that one? . . . “What’s more American than corn flakes, the fourth of July, or [...]

Prayer Threads

As a child, I loved listening to my dad pray. From an early age I could tell from the inflection and the cadence of his voice that he was really speaking to another person. As a result, despite insisting, as a teenager, that there was no such thing as knowing something spiritually, but that instead, [...]

Recipes and Remembrances

  This afternoon I made two dinners to bring to a hoping-to-have-her-baby-any-day/hour/minute-now woman in our ward. Her two-year-old daughter is allergic to eggs, cheese, and peanuts, so I dug around in my recipe box for a while before settling on teriyaki chicken and rice and chicken pot pie. After putting my one-year-old down for his [...]

Who’s the fool?

I loved practical jokes in my past lives, the lives in which I didn’t have to clean up the aftermath of the forest of discarded Christmas trees propped up in the snowy front yard, and the lives in which I did not mind waking up at 5am to saran wrap cars or help make synchronous [...]

Sustaining in patience and faith

I was around age 11 when I first knew that the Church was true and that the Lord speaks to us through His prophet. It was a Sunday afternoon and I was bored—we weren’t allowed to watch TV on Sundays or play with friends and most of the family was napping or reading. I sat [...]

It’s a Mad Friday

So how about a little fun this Friday? Of course, as an English/writing person, my definition of “fun” might be different from yours. For my version of fun, you’ll need to start by brushing off your mad grammar skills and filling out this list: 1. Adjective 2. Item of clothing 3. Adjective 4. Exclamation 5. [...]

New Years Dreams

I love to plan—events, birthdays, holidays, vacations, weekends. You name it and I like to plan it. Thanks to my penchant for planning, a new year, with its accompanying push for goal-setting and resolutions, is a fun time for me. I plan what I want to learn this year, what I want to accomplish, where [...]

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