by PrincessLeah_Mom

[In the interest of purging ourselves of all the bad chi that collects over the course of a year, we offer the following post by one of our stressed-to-the-breaking point readers (we know there are many of you!). PrincessLeah_Mom describes herself as the mother of 5 children: boys-11 and 6, girl-5, and twins, boy and a girl-3. She is a SAHM with an extremely supportive husband, but after the following experience, she is seriously thinking of switching careers! Now’s your chance to commiserate and cathart (no, that’s not an actual word). Let us bring out our worst stories of 2005, and start off the New Year with all of last year’s last straws behind us!]

We had a lousy week—Monday, my twin son came down with a fever and cough. Tuesday, his twin sister starts coughing, and to top if off, she goes outside to play and trips, hurting her wrist really bad. So, it’s off to the Urgent Care Center! Luckily she only had a sprained wrist, but they put her in a splint. Wednesday, I call the doctor to try and get my kids in for flu shots. (For us, for many reasons, flu vaccines are a must.) It turned into the biggest, most ridiculous mess! (more…)

Josh introduces himself : I am 22 years old. I attend BYU right now as a freshman. I was born in korea. I grew up in New York until I was 17 when i joined the Marine Corps as a 17 year old. I went to Iraq in 2003. I served in Okinawa Japan for a year. For the rest of my enlistment I was stationed in 29 Palms, California, issuing supplies with 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion. I have one older brother, matt. I aspire to get a degree in political Science some day and perhaps go on to get a masters or doctorate. I am a conservative religious Republican I think but it irks me to think that puts me in the same group with people like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.

Josh is also happy for people to contact him directly. Emails can be forwarded to him via any of the FMH bloggers, although Emily and Rebecca are the best bets right now as others are out of town. (more…)

The following was submitted by JBS:

A couple of years ago, our bishop paraphrased one of the leaders of the church commenting to the effect that:

Family home evening or scripture study conducted by the worst, most dysfunctional family is superior to any meeting conducted by the best auxillary.

He did not remember the source, but thought it might have been M. Russell Ballard.
I’ve been waiting for the actual quote to surface, and finally googled it, but without success.
It feels true to me. Does it ring a bell with anyone out there? Who said it (or something like it), where and when?

by Seth R.

Hello all! I’ve been lurking about on FMH for a while now commenting on the posts of others. Lisa must have noticed how much free time I seem to have, and challenged me to put up something of my own for public comment. So here’s my first attempt (hope I don’t get in trouble for it). First, the title …

Some of you may remember this phrase. This was how our charming President Reagan viewed the general welfare-beneficiary population. Parasites living off the largess of their government host while enjoying most of the benefits (to some degree or other) of modern life such as DVD players, car stereos, hot water … that kind of stuff.
(more…)

First of all. If you haven’t voted for me (me me) and us (GO FMH) and LisaB too (ra ra), then you really should. Because I bet we can win this thing, we should of course because we’re the best!*

Yes, this means you, my brothers & sisters, my hometeachers, my friends, and at least half the ward reads this thing which means that you should be voting for me right now. Go. Now.

And no, I’m not ashamed (thus the title of this post).

*(also vote for J. Stapley, fabulous fMh web designer, and writer of Women and Priesthood post extraordinaire)

Okay . . . you’re back, next item of business.
(more…)

I’m pretty sure you can offically call yourself mature when you discover that you think Santa is totally H.O.T.

No, I’m not a warped sicko (well, probably). It’s just that my husband played Santa yesterday, and I found the whole persona very . . . hum . . . engaging. Ho ho ho.

And in other news.

We have a new Book Club book Pedestals and Podiums:
Utah Women, Religious Authority, and Equal Rights
by Martha Sonntag Bradley. You have plenty of time to do the hold/interlibrary loan thing, which I would highly recommend because it’s spendy. Here’s the Signature Books Link.

And finally, After much deliberation (not really) we’ve decided that the following week (or so) will offically be GUEST POST WEEK . This will be fabulous as, First, we have a guest post backlog (sorry guest posters), and second, I’m going to be out of town, and most everyone (except Emily, who will be our admin and general hammer for the week) will be MIA.

So happy holidays, much love to feminist Sisters everywhere.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have never made a personal choice with the intent to belittle someone else’s choices. No, strangely enough, I make choices to satisfy my own (and my family’s) needs, wants, and understanding of what Heavenly Father wants of me/us. I’m pretty sure that most of us make choices with the same things in mind. So why, then, does it seem that we are so very often bothered by the choices of others? (more…)

I love learning about other people’s traditions, so thought I would share my favourite English Christmas ones with you…

Christmas for me starts in October. That’s when (some!) English women are making their Christmas cake. This is because to keep it moist you ‘feed’ it every week - traditionally with brandy, but I usually use cranberry juice. It’s an English tradition that I love doing every year. One of many. I have especially enjoyed them more whilst living in the U.S. Bringing that feeling of home adds to the excitement. (more…)

Andermom writes:

We are often led to believe that Heavenly Father has intricate understanding of how His words and recorded scripture will be understood by each individual. We are taught certain scriptures are worded and placed ‘just so’ so that when we turn to our scriptures for help and guidance we will find words that will ’speak’ to us and carry special meaning, guidance, or comfort for very personal problems.

If that is true (and I believe it is) then the converse also holds. He must understand how his words will be misinterpreted, taken for granted, abused, and construed to mean something far different than intended. Logic would assume that the benefit for everything He has said, and caused to be written, must outweigh the negetive things that will happen. It was Christ who said “Cast not your pearls before swine…” Along that same thread Heavenly Father and Christ have shown themselves to be very adept at hiding doctrines and meanings in parables and symbolism so that the ’swine’ and the unprepared among the readers and listeners will not be given something to abuse or misinterpret.
(more…)

I thought it best to start a new post. Adding bits to the old post would just get too confusing, I hope it doesn’t complicate commenting too much. Sorry, but I don’t know how else to handle this with so little time to finish a thought process.

I just realized I’ve been avoiding writing this post. My comments are all over the bloggernacle as I read anything anyone else has written in my valiant attempt to neither go to bed and get some rest nor write a post on Joseph and Emma and Polygamy and Lies. (As luck would have it there’s a lot of great stuff out there, check the sideblog.)

It’s not that Mormon Enigma has shaken my testimony. It hasn’t. Honestly I don’t even feel moderately jiggled.
(more…)

I’m not going to have time to post my thoughts our our book club book Morman Enigma: Emma Hale Smith until later this afternoon. But I’m hoping people are dying to post their thoughts and I wanted to open some threads so people could start. I’m opening two seperate threads because I figured that there was a lot of great stuff that wasn’t polygamy and lies, but we might not get to it if I didn’t make it a seperate discussion. (more…)

This is a thread to discuss everything about Mormon Enigma that isn’t Polygamy and Lies. I’ll be posting my thoughts this afternoon.

Some quick thoughts, I was very interested in JS’s initial ideas of what RS should be. And very impressed by where ES took it from there. Hum, I gotta go . . .

Update:

Okay, I don’t know how to do book reviews, nor do I know how to lead a book discussion because I’ve never done either nor even been in a book club, so I’m just going to do my own things, deal with it.
(more…)

Just a quick plug for an inspiring film. It’s out on video. If you haven’t seen it, rent it. Not sure how a Catholic viewer would feel about it, nor do I know the history well enough to know how accurate it is. But it was inspiring to me.

[This post is by way of lending a bit of understanding and hope, along with promised prayers, to a friend who has been through a lot. M, I hope your mom is doing okay, and I hope you will be okay soon, too.]

My Mother cries. She is not typically heroic in any way. She does not wear brightly-colored spandex, she does not swoop in to save the day, she does not ride off into the sunset. She has one bright-yellow nightgown, but she doesn’t wear it much. She has grown too weak for swooping, and she can’t bear the sun long enough to ride off into it. The day is rarely saved. Instead, it is spent in bed, recovering from the latest round of failed heroics. (more…)

by Michelle Jordan

As a mom of three youngsters, I’m always happy to find movies with positive role models, both male and female. One of my favorite sources of female heroines for young children is Studio Ghibli, the anime studio of Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki. I’m not a great fan of Princess Mononoke (too violent for my taste) or Spirited Away (too strange and scary for my kids so far), but I love a lot of his older works. My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and Laputa, Castle in the Sky are favorites of my kids, and I enjoy them too, especially the first two. They also enjoy The Cat Returns and I just love Whisper of the Heart. I haven’t had a chance to see Howl’s Moving Castle yet, but plan to as soon as I can. (more…)

I really liked Quimby’s comment about the extension and importance of housekeeping skills in the developing world in particular. I think the same can be said of the importance of early mothering skills.

I reflected in the breastfeeding incident thread that I believe the mothers’ room at church to be the place in LDS chapels where some of the most important work of the kingdom is done. New mothers and babies are welcomed. The rite of passage to motherhood including birth and adoption stories are shared and integrated. Baby showers, playdates, and moms’ nights out are arranged. Parenting exasperations and joys are shared, advice requested and given, different approaches discussed, tips about second-hand stores, preschools, etc. passed on. It’s LLL for Mormons!

When our new chapel was built, I heard rumors that some of the stake leaders (women included) commented that they didn’t want to make the mother’s lounge TOO comfortable for fear that young mothers would “take advantage of it” and skip their meetings “just to chat” instead of taking care of their business (nursing, diaper changing) expeditiously and returning to their meetings. Heaven forbid mothers should bear each other’s mothering burdens, too! Well, no great harm done. In spite of the physical discomforts and disadvantages (stinky diaper pails included), the mothers’ room remains a haven, a community center, even sacred space. (more…)

I hope you have your books because it’s time to crack them open and get a’ readin’.

I’m about a third through this one, and I’m just getting to the challenging (polygamy and lies) stuff. So we’ll see how that goes.

This is the first scholarly church history type book I’ve ever read (a gasp shatters through the bloggernacle). I’ve been upfront from the beginning that despite the fact that I started this blog, I’m no expert on anything Mormon, nor feminist, nor even housewifish. And I’m a bad speller too. (more…)

I got an email about this today. Great idea, IMO.

Every year Amnesty International sponsers an Amnesty International Holiday Card
action. People get generic holiday cards (those that do not specifically name Christmas or Hannukah, etc., but simply say Happy Holidays or Season’s Greetings or are blank), and write a brief note in them, such as the standard Amnesty International phrase: You are not forgotten. You can send the cards to people on a list of selected prisoners of conscience for this year’s campaign

(more…)

Well, I guess I’m officially back from my little hiatus. Notice said hiatus was considerably shorter than it should be, and no, I’m not even remotely done with all my stuff. But I have no self-control. So hi!

While I was gone, we had a particularly enthusiastic influx of troll vomit. Including the diligent reappearance of several suppa-trolls who are apparently so dazzled by the crumbs of our feminist attention that they go to a lot of work to spread their vomit in our general direction. (more…)

[This post has been rolling around my brain for some time, but a recent crop of posts and comments has spurred me to finally finish and post it. Here goes nuthin’.]

When I was a very young child, I could never separate my first name from my last. When asked my name, I would carefully and proudly pronounce each syllable, the family name following swift upon the heels of my given name, as if the two names were one and I could not bear to stop only half way through. Both names were then, and they remain, crucial aspects of my identity. There was never a question (for myself or for my husband) of whether or not I would change my name when we married. My name is too much a part of me to trade in at this late stage. But this post is not about keeping names (go here for that discussion). This post is about using them. (more…)