Segullah

Mormon women blogging about the peculiar and the treasured

How To Be Happy

I live in New York City with my husband and our three children. When people find this out (friends from outside the city) they usually respond in one of two ways: Option1, “You are so lucky. Do you love it? That’s awesome.” Option 2, “How long do you have to stay there? I don’t know [...]

Speaking the Truth

My oldest son turns 17 tomorrow—yes, on Valentine’s Day—and already my heart is aching at how soon he will be gone. Just yesterday he was running home from school, blonde bowl-cut hair flying, snow boots carrying muddy puddles into the kitchen and skidding to a stop to wrap his arms around my waist. “I missed [...]

Living in a fishbowl

I’ve never been a private person. The only time I ever got called into the bishop’s office as a teenager, it was for mooning a van full of our ward’s young men on the way home from Youth Conference. When Leslie and I were college freshmen, we never closed the shades to our dorm room [...]

Reproaching ourselves at Christmas time

Yesterday we pulled the boxes down out of the attic and performed in reverse the ritual we went through exactly a month ago: garlands rewound, ornaments rewrapped, Christmas stories packed away for another year. My mom always waited until after the New Year to pack up the Christmas decorations, but I was starting to feel [...]

syn·er·gy

noun 1. The interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects. I remember learning the definition of this word from my freshman writing teacher, first year, first semester at BYU. She had us write. A lot. Every week we read, wrote [...]

So, where are you from?

My dad started a new job in Connecticut in 1979, and he and my mom moved their little family to a Cape Cod cottage, a couple of blocks from Lordship’s Russian Beach. I was four, and I doubt they knew it at the time, but they had picked the perfect place for children to grow [...]

The Know-It-All

My story is no different than any other.  I grew up Mormon, in Utah.  I was the Laurel class president (Beehive and Mia Maid too).  I went to BYU.  I come from pioneer stock on one side and pioneer + alcoholic stock on the other (beware, this leads to a compulsion to force feed others [...]

Recognizing Answers

We had an amazing Relief Society lesson yesterday. We talked about Elder Bednar’s talk, “Ask in Faith”.

Article discussion:Keeping Attendance

Yesterday, I left my husband in charge of the kids, and went to church early for choir practice. When choir was over, I sat down in a pew, saving it for my family. At 9:00, when the meeting started, I was still sitting solo in the pew. 9:15 came and went, and I found myself [...]

Upcoming anniversaries…

Next week, my son Isaac will turn four. A week later, we’ll celebrate a first anniversary. The first anniversary of when Isaac got sick. He woke up that morning perfectly healthy, and by late afternoon, he couldn’t walk. When I took him into the doctor the next afternoon (thinking the whole time that he probably [...]

Can I Sit On Your Lap?

Yesterday was a crazy day. In fact, by the end of most days lately I feel frazzled and think, “Aaah, I had a crazy day.” My new baby is now almost seven months old, my three-year-old son keeps telling me he’s a big little kid, and tomorrow my oldest daughter starts kindergarten.

What’s in a Name?

“Cadmus – too heavy. Caesar – too Roman. Cailan- too common. Cain – too damned. Caldwell- too last-namish. Caleb – Hey, I think I like that name.” I looked up at my husband over my bulging stomach and the Best Baby Name Book resting on top. His mouth was wide open. “What do you think?” [...]

The Anniversary Party

Last year at this time, I was in a frenzy. My dad’s parents were a month away from celebrating their sixtieth anniversary, and my grandma wanted to have a big party. A really BIG party. She decided it would be fun to have the shindig at a little place about an hour down the road [...]

What is wrong with food?

It was so hot. The dashboard felt like I could fry an egg on it. So I stopped at 7-Eleven for a drink. When I saw the Slurpee machine…I. fell. in. love. Slurpees always remind me of home. My mom owned a bookstore in the small Utah town where I grew up and across the [...]

Roots

“If a non-member family moves into your neighborhood, don’t just automatically assume that they are different and that you can’t associate with them. Listen to the spirit and maybe it will tell you to be friendly. You may be able to give them something so precious that will completely change their life.” Quote from a [...]

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