From Jacquie M: We finished zoom seminary today with a little doctrinal mastery game. Not sure if I read it here or not but thought I’d share. I matched up Christmas carols with the doctrinal mastery scriptures and they had to guess which one it was and defend their opinion. For example: Jingle Bell Rock […]

I had a fun time with this lesson.  I felt like I had a clear focus, which gave me a chance to really push my lesson home.  I do wish I had more time to polish it, but I spent the day Monday Christmas-ing up the house for my daughter, and didn't realize I hadn't […]

I'm really not the superstitious type, but wow, twenty thirteen has proved a bad year for us.  Also age thirteen was a bad one for our son, though I suppose that's to be expected: ah, middle school.  But wow, this has been a lame few months.  I'm just plain tired. Last week I made an […]

Put “Stuff” in small brown paper bags—1 item per bag, one bag per student plus 1 extra bag. Items can be small things like a pencil, chap stick, a pkg. of Kool-aid or hot chocolate, a scented candle, a comb, a bookmark, a piece of candy, a highlighter, anything from good to ridiculous. I always […]

Eleven-year-old Rebecca stared out the bus window but didn’t really see the houses passing by. The after-school bus commotion raged around her but didn’t interrupt her troubled thoughts. If I don’t get an A on the final history report, I won’t get an A in history. That means no honor roll. It’s not fair. I’ve […]

Mom, why do we have to pull these old weeds, anyway?” Vanessa whined, pushing back the hair from her sweaty forehead. “Weeds, weeds, weeds! It’s such a waste of time. They’ll just grow again next week, and I’ll have to pull them up all over again.” She stabbed the trowel into the dark brown soil […]

More than 2,000 years ago Mary and Joseph traveled to Bethlehem. Joseph tried to find a place for them at an inn, but there was no room. They found a stable where Mary could give birth. This was the first Christmas. There were no large family gatherings. There were no decorations. There were no brightly […]

Well, it's been forever since I blogged. Naturally. Lemme sum up what's been going on: pulled off the ward Christmas party, got snowed in for 3 days in the biggest December snowfall on record in the DC area while Jared was stranded out of town, survived Christmas after my family decided to come up last […]

Adapted from April Gohier, “Remembering,” Friend, Nov 1998, 3 I feel my Savior’s love, The love he freely gives me (Children’s Songbook, pages 74–75). Susan flopped onto her bed. She lay back and looked at the poster on the ceiling of Meggen and her. Her mother had taken the picture of the two of them […]

Sold well over 1000 Be Strong cards *today*. Whoa. I'm not sure what happened, but I am now down to just about 400 left. That means I've nearly sold out in just 4 days. Guess I better reorder -- again -- even though I said this was the last reorder. I hope these cards are […]

It's not about Big Love -- it's about TOUGH LOVE. Hehehehe. http://www.nypost.com/p/blogs/popwrap/first_look_tlc_family_armor_PeN5BO... More Mormons on TV! We're just quirky enough to be "reality" TV, but wholesome enough for Prime Time. Honestly, the show sounds boring to me. But so did Dirty Jobs, and that has turned out to be a gem. Mike Rowe is my […]

Bishop told me in my PPI Sunday that I am about to be released in a couple of weeks. He even asked me for my ideas on who would make a good replacement. Huh? It was kind of weird. I almost wish he hadn't told me, because now I'm having trouble focusing on the calling. […]

The BBC apparently says most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. (That seems ridiculous to me.... Anyway.)http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100.shtml Instructions: [Copy and paste into a new note on your profile.] 1) Look at the list and put an 'x' before those you have read. 2) Tally your total. 3) Put in a […]

Conversation about why DD was hot during her bout of stomach flu: Mommy: What do you think causes a fever? DS: Maybe it's because all her cells are moving around fast and causing friction. Or maybe her nerves are getting hot like a wire that gets hot when too much electricity goes through it. DD […]

AWStats says Mormon Share had over 10,000 visitors on Saturday, and nearly 8,000 on Sunday. I'm a little suspicious of those results. Heretofore, 7,000 has been the most I've had in one day. I don't really have a good way to gauge it myself, because I got sick with the stomach flu on Saturday. I […]

It's impossible to believe, but the website was up overnight under heavy load. Nearly 5,000 visitors yesterday and over 3,000 so far today -- yay! Jared has been working very hard to fix all the problems we've been riddled with over the past few weeks. He's also moving us to a faster server, but it's […]

I'm still so frustrated! We can't get the settings right on the server. Jared is doing some more research now to see if he can figure out what to do. I am _so_ ready to have this finished. He did get all the old forum posts imported last week. The phpbb2drupal module was actually pretty […]

I started a long, beautiful post about our trip to Disney World, which was lost when Firefox crashed as I was scrolling down to save it. I am just not meant to blog about vacations, I guess. Then the website was totally down for several days due to some error on Jared's part. The site […]

President Thomas S. Monson, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints President Monson was born in 1927 in Salt Lake City, Utah. As a boy, he participated in sports activities. He also decided, without having been asked, to cut the lawn of a widow and leave the yard looking much better. As […]

We put in the last 100 daffodil bulbs plus the 50 "blue" bulbs I ordered. I cleaned out three of the raised beds. The fourth is covered with junk and the middle one has strawberries in it that I want moved. I may wait until spring to transplant them, since that's when I'll be cutting […]

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding (Prov. 2:5). When I was a small boy, my brother and I often walked five miles to the ranch where my father worked. In the summer it was hot and dusty. As we trudged along, sweat dripping from our faces, […]

I have decided that presidential elections are like that TV show Survivor. The best candidate never wins, because the other contestants attack them and beat them down early in the game. The worst candidates get ignored. So what you're left with is the mediocre middling candidates without any major flaws: not _too_ good looking, not […]

President Ezra Taft Benson has said, “The Book of Mormon brings men to Christ. The Doctrine and Covenants brings men to Christ’s kingdom, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ‘the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth’ ” (Ensign, May 1987, page 83). Unlike the Bible, the […]