Segullah

Mormon women blogging about the peculiar and the treasured

VT: Bane of my existence? Or blessing my life one plate of cookies at a time?

I ignored the telephone call three times. My answer to the call being along the lines of “of-course-I-haven’t-done-my-visiting-teaching, sister so and so!” And if I actually pick up the phone at this point, your kindness will make me feel bad and I will offer some excuse about how my energy feels low and you will [...]

Slipping Through the Cracks

As I listened to my ward’s seminary graduates speak in sacrament meeting a couple of weeks ago, I found my throat swollen with emotion and an unexpected love fill my heart for all the sudden girl/women who bore testimony boldly (or nonchalantly or emotionally or monotone) and who thanked their parents and teachers with an [...]

Buyer Be Noir

Buyer Be Noir By Linda Hoffman Kimball   It was a dark and stormy afternoon. The Massachusetts air hung low and dense, tinged with the scent of the sea and punctuated occasionally by the brutal screams of sea gulls. Thunder rolled and the wipers beat, beat, beat their ominous tattoo on my rental car’s windshield. [...]

It Was Good

Night begins to encroach upon the edges of my windows, and the slackening sun is orange and dull, but the front room is illuminated in its entire Lego-spilled splendor. And I am searching for a pacifier for the baby. He is clean and warm, in fresh jammies—extra soft from hand-me-down wear and the recent dryer—and [...]

The Saturday-Sunday Phone Phobia

I can’t be the only one who fears phone calls on Saturdays and Sunday mornings. You know the feeling: it’s Saturday evening, a phone number you don’t recognize crosses your caller ID. Is it time to sub for those Sunbeams? Mentally wrestle with a bunch of teenagers? Or, horrors, will you be giving a last [...]

Eat Dessert

Example of my side of a conversation held many times before: “Yes, I would like the dessert menu. Yes, I know I haven’t ordered my main. I would like the dessert menu at the same time as the main menu. Really. (Muttered aside to my Mum/friend/nearby stranger – Would you mind telling the lovely waiter [...]

They Should Not Contend

2 Nephi 26:32 And again, the Lord God hath commanded…that they should not contend one with another. My husband and I were raised in two different homes. That’s ridiculous, you say, we were all raised in different homes otherwise that would be kind of creepy. No, but really, on both philosophical and practical levels, our [...]

He and Me – Can We Be (Just) Friends?

I have lots of friends. I have friends I talk books with; go to movies with; friends I sweat on or near during Kung Fu; friends that know what I look like both when I’m feeling good and (especially) when the world is trying to kill me, the way I know how they look at [...]

When Two is Too Many

Beneath the rubble of Christmas morning, I chanced upon a small dolly, cozily tucked up to his armpits in a red and green felt stocking. I could call the gesture motherly, but I knew better by the skew of his striped nightcap, and then, by the presence of foil-wrapped chocolate Santas still underneath his feet: [...]

Running the Numbers

And the evening and the morning were the first day. I ran 200 fewer miles in 2010 than in 2009.  I read 25 fewer books.  I spent a lot of time doing things I don’t enjoy like moving, volunteering in classrooms, baking (mostly) unsuccessful allergen-free breads and goodies, hosting parties and play-dates, and cleaning.  I [...]

The Holdouts

It started Tuesday, after Cub Scout Pack, at a meeting with the other scout leaders and the Primary President. The president leaned over to me and asked, with a wince on her face, “Hey, could you play the piano again this week in Primary?” In addition to being a Webelos leader, I’m also the backup [...]

The Custodian of My Emotional Suitcase

Lisa Rumsey Harris teaches honors writing part-time at BYU. In 2006, she won the Heather Campbell Personal Essay Contest with her entry “Honor in the Ordinary.” She just completed her first novel, Watching Treasure Blume, all about a pear-shaped first-grade teacher with a family curse. Check out her world at www.treasureblume.com. My husband formally asked my [...]

On Halloween thievery

Some questions for all you Halloween thieves on this day of days: 1. Why does stolen candy taste much better than candy lawfully purchased? 2. What’s you’re preferred method of thievery? a. Carrying your own bag during trick-or-treating and claiming you have a sick kid/sibling/ niece or nephew back home b. Imposing an imperial candy [...]

I Don’t Have a Friend

Last Sunday I looked around the Relief Society room and realized that after more than a year in my new ward I don’t actually have a friend. This is a somewhat unusual position for me: I always have a friend, and if I don’t, I make one right away. My ward is mostly friendly, but [...]

Virgin lips

I was in ninth grade (late bloomer, me) and on a field trip to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. My friends and I attracted the attention of this guy, age sixteen or so, who had dropped out of school and spent his days hanging around the waterfront talking to people. A total loser, yes, but to fourteen-year-olds [...]

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