Am I the only one who is madly in love with President Uchdorf’s talk from the General Relief Society meeting in September? He spoke about a topic that I don’t believe I’ve ever heard addressed by a General Authority before: creativity.

My husband and I sat next to each other in bed and stared at our laptops. “I’m not answering that email! You do it!” he said. “No way. You’re the priesthood authority. You do it!” I snapped. Then silence.
The email? Just a friendly invitation to our son’s baseball team dinner next week. On a Sunday. [...]

The appeal of Halloween is easy to see.  It revolves around one of the most magical themes of childhood: free candy.  I had a slavish, almost pathological devotion to sweets growing up.  It drove me insane, INSANE, to watch my sister parcel out her Halloween candy stash.  She would eat one piece per day to [...]

My dad was a convert to the church. He joined when he was 19 and the next year served a mission to Chile. He married my mother in the temple and was always very devout while I was growing up. Scripture study and prayer every night, PPI’s on a regular basis, that sort of thing.
We [...]

Of all the churchy things I think about, the one that causes me the most head-scratching, the most furrowed brows is not polygamy, or mothers being told to stay home and raise their kids, it’s the white shirt.  As in white shirt, tie and suit. 
Not being a man, the white shirt thing has not always [...]

I live in Central Texas and in case you live under a rock and hadn’t heard, there’s a storm a-brewin’.  Hurricane Ike isn’t expected to have a huge impact on this part of Texas since we’re a four hour drive from the coast.  Mostly a bunch of wind and rain.  Maybe a tornado.  The hurricane [...]

Got a baptism coming up (or a wedding or your parent’s anniversary)?  Then you definitely need a video of all those growing-up, growing-old photos.
This auction is for 50 photos or slides turned into a DVD (complete with music, titles, the whole shebang).  Normally most places charge $1.50 to $3.00 per photo for this service, so [...]

Do you have any DVDs, video games or CDs that skip and stutter or simply won’t play? Then I’ve got just the thing:
10 of your discs completely resurfaced. Not just cleaned, but given an entire facelift. Just about any scratch can be removed. Discs will play like new again. How [...]

I have six children and these days that’s very unusual. I don’t live in Utah currently, but I did until last year and even there six or more kids is kind of uncommon. Most sane people stop at four. Occasionally you find a fiver out there. But very few mothers in their 30’s have more [...]

Growing up I spent the majority of Sacrament Meetings thinking about my children-to-be. As a teenager I would instantly tune out all speakers and think about baby names, how beautiful my five daughters would be, what they would wear, and how fabulous our life would turn out.
I don’t have to tell you that the [...]

Last week I was at Target minding my own business. I came around a corner and beheld a sight which hit me like a bucket of cold water: back-to-school-supplies. We’re just barely hitting our summer stride and it’s already time to think about it ending? We’re thick in the middle of popsicle-eating and complaining about [...]

Does the poem “The New Colossus” ring a bell?  It’s more commonly known as the poem on the Statue of Liberty. Here is a snippet:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”
 It’s a lovely poem.  But I’m not really crazy about it.  Especially the part [...]

Last week a friend of mine returned to Texas from her first visit to Utah in almost twenty years. When I asked her how she liked it, her first response was, “I’ve never seen so many fake boobs in my life!”

Remember the old Primary song called, “The Prophet Said to Plant a Garden”? No? Neither do I. But several years ago my daughter loved to read the Primary Songbook before bed, so I got to be pretty familiar with all the lesser-known ditties, including that one.
Right around that same time we moved into a house [...]

I follow a familiar pattern: I pick up a Martha Stewart magazine at the grocery store (usually the Halloween issue. I love that holiday and nobody knows their tricks and treats like Martha); I like what I see so I subscribe. Then for 12 months I am blessed to behold Martha and her [...]