Segullah

Mormon women blogging about the peculiar and the treasured

Post-Christmas Reflections

The new clothes and gadgets have all been put away (at least they’ve been moved up to the children’s rooms), wrapping paper and boxes are crammed in the recycling bin, and the sugar cookies and coconut bread and chocolates and the leftovers from Christmas Day have been eaten. After a whirlwind month of decorating and [...]

Peruvian Thanksgiving

November 21st, 1984. I’d been on my mission for fourteen months. I was working in Puno, high up on the Altiplano at 12,500 feet on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Besides Elder Moore—a culture shocked, baby-faced elder straight from the States whose sunburned nose was blistering in the altitude and whose stomach was in constant [...]

Slow Down

In the summer of 1999 my husband discovered that his business partner had embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars of company money and, worse, had double collateralized on a significant business loan and line of credit in my husband’s name. As the whole sordid mess came to light and the bank demanded immediate repayment of [...]

Judge Not–Or Should We?

Like many of you who were able to attend or watch the general Relief Society meeting last Saturday night, I loved listening to President Monson speak on charity at the close of the meeting. His remarks were loving, wise, and inspired. “Do [our] differences tempt us to judge one another?” asked President Monson. “Can we [...]

Good-Bye

Two days ago I sat in Primary and watched as my youngest child—my baby—received her Faith in God Award and stood at the front of the room, smiling, braces flashing, as the other Primary children sang, “If you’ll miss her and you know it, wave good-bye. If you’ll miss her and you know it, wave [...]

Splendid Isolation on Hinchinbrook

Day One “Welcome to Splendid Isolation,” says the large wooden sign posted over the dock. As our boat slows to a stop, I get my first up-close look at Hinchinbrook, the island just a couple of miles away from the Great Barrier Reef where my husband, our four children, and I will be spending the [...]

Teenage Dating–An Oxymoron?

Those of you who have teens and subscribe to the New Era know that this month’s issue is devoted entirely to teenage dating. When I handed the magazine to my eighteen-year-old son, he rolled his eyes and said, “Teenage dating—now that’s an oxymoron.” First, I was impressed that he used the word “oxymoron.” Then, I [...]

“Let’s Give It Up For Wayne!”

Several weeks ago I found myself standing in front of a crowded auditorium, speaking to hundreds of eager high school jazz players who had come to hear Wayne Bergeron, a Grammy-award-winning jazz trumpet player, instruct them. It was my job to introduce Wayne and to “pump up” the audience. “You know that I’m just a [...]

For Wick, With Love

Julie Wickens was my best friend all through elementary school and on into high school, until my family left Australia and moved to the U.S. in 1976 (that’s me and Julie in our fifth grade class photo; she’s fourth from the right; I’m fifth from the right—yes, the one with the attractive pig tails). She [...]

Sisterly Love

When I was a little girl I thought one of the happiest sounds I’d ever heard was my mother laughing with her six sisters. They’d stand around my grandmother’s kitchen, washing the dishes and putting away the Christmas dinner leftovers, laughing so loudly they sounded like the kookaburras that cackled outside my window every morning. [...]

The Rain Falls on the Just and the Unjust

Laguna Beach, 1993. As fierce wildfires fueled by 70 mph Santa Ana winds swept through the Laguna Canyon and hurtled towards their neighborhoods, several families in our Laguna Beach ward found themselves literally racing to escape the 200-feet-high flames. When it was over, the fire had claimed 366 homes, and, though most of our ward [...]

‘Tis the season to give each other goodies (but I really wish we wouldn’t)

I know that some of you out there enjoy giving and receiving neighbor gifts at Christmas time. In fact, right now you’re putting the finishing touches on your homemade, hand-dipped chocolates or your caramel macadamia nut popcorn balls before deftly wrapping them in cellophane and gold French ribbon and delivering them to snow-covered homes all [...]

Home for the Holidays: The Good Times Abound

I have a *friend* who, although she loves her family dearly, finds her stomach tightening and her left eye twitching when holidays and family gatherings approach. Perhaps it’s the added pressure of having to dust all those high shelves and wipe those fingerprints off of the walls (and cabinets and doors and chairs and floors). [...]

Ebbing Tide: Reflections on Entering Menopause

My eleven-year-old daughter, my youngest child, is losing her little girl look. In the last six months she’s sprouted out of her jeans and shirts, her legs suddenly long, her angles and straight lines softening into curves. She closes the door when she showers, asks me when she can start shaving her legs, and wears [...]

Flu’s Blues

It started with a few coughs and a sniffly nose. Within hours my son was shivering under a blanket on the couch. Body aches, headache, a raging fever that lasted for three days, and hacking, coughing and lots of whining followed. And that’s how the swine flu (excuse me, the H1N1 virus) arrived at our [...]

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