Average Visits per Day

Sep 2004 47
Sep 2005 615
Sep 2006 2,616

Unique Visitors per Month

Sep 2004 (no data)
Sep 2005 4,523
Sep 2006 41,906 (so far)

Thanks for all the traffic! I keep thinking the growth has to slow down at some point, I’m sure it does. But it’s certainly fun to watch.

I am a SAHM with an 8 year old, 6 year old and 2.5 year old in Washington state. I have a brand new schedule with two kids in all day school as of 3 weeks ago. My life now is way more fun and way easier physically than when I was a SAHM with two little kids. I’ve been there, done that, and if that is you now, take a look at what your future might be…… (more…)

TMD is a single male graduate student in a social science. He has comes from a part-member family, has been a member for a little more than five years, and has never lived west of the Mississippi.

Most but not all bloggernacle discussion about gender in the church and among church members focuses on formal status and role differences between men and women. There is much discussion of women and their lack of priesthood, and its implications—and much of this discussion comes from a questioning if not critical perspective. Similar dynamics are evident in discussions of the church’s youth programs. A central theme in discussions of gender difference, particularly among feminists, is that the church is too patriarchal and this is harmful to women at various stages in their lives.

But what of men in the church?

My experiences lead me to contend that among adults, the church as an institution and as a community is far less supportive of the average everyday man than it is of the average everyday woman. (more…)

6:30–7:00 a.m. Husband’s alarm goes off. Husband, who is, relative to me, a morning person, pops merrily out of bed and into the shower. (Early in our marriage he would try to sing cheerfully in the mornings and engage me in conversation. Now he knows better.) I wake up just enough to sprawl all over the warm place where he was lying and hug his pillow.

7:45 a.m. Husband comes back into the bedroom and kisses me goodbye, we exchange “I love yous,” and I’m vaguely aware that the outside door shuts. I hear the garage door open, and Pippen, our little Nissan Sentra, starts and drives off. Roll over and go back to sleep. (more…)

I’m a SAHM with a BA in anthropology and a minor in computer science. I have a 21-mo-old and a 3-mo-old (both boys). I write, and hope someday to publish a book, but not for a while at the rate I’m going.

Here’s my post…

I wasn’t sure I was going to send in a “day in the life” guest post, but after reading Julie Smith’s I decided I needed to. I read hers and thought, “Wow, she’s amazing. I wish we were that good, organized, etc.” And one of the reasons I wasn’t going to send in a “day in the life” post was because I don’t really want people to know how little we manage to get accomplished (and how bad a mother I am a lot of the time). But then I decided that maybe there was someone else out there just like me who was left feeling totally inadequate by Julie’s post, and maybe they needed to know they’re not alone. So here it is…

Most every day…
The toddler (21 mo.) wakes up at about 9:30. He cries enough to wake me up, and I drag myself out of bed. I go in the kitchen, get him a glass of juice and some dry cereal and take it in his room. I put on a kids video, give him the juice, and change his diaper. Then I leave him in there with the juice, cereal, and video, and shut the door behind me (he can’t open doors yet). I feed the baby (3 mo.) (he’s usually about ready to eat again) and then put the baby in his swing (or bouncer seat, or under his toy) and climb back into bed. (more…)

6:50 wake up… again. This always happens unfortunately.

7:00 make breakfast for thing 1 and 2 (ages 3 and 4.5) frozen waffles. Yes I do frozen waffles.

8:00 begin Monday Morning Cleaning. This entails cleaning 3 bathrooms in my new house. This is a change from the 1 I had to clean before. I clean my shower and shower at the same time. This is the type of multi-tasking that separates me from my husband. Strip the beds do laundry clean the baseboard dust endlessly and then vacuum. Begin mopping endless wood floors (a daily chore yuck)
Note: if this seems excessive let me tell you that I recently moved from an 1100 square foot apartment to a 2600 square foot home, so I still have that new construction high. It. Will. Wear. Off. (more…)

Once again we have a comment in the (mostly dead) Insanity thread that deserves more attention. Shane wrote this comment and gave me permission to post it here.

I am actually writing because I became inactive at a fairly young age in the church. I grew up with a strong testimony in the church. My parents divorced when I was in 8th grade. I fell into the wrong things and the wrong crowd.

After high school I joined the Marine Corps, tried to come back to the church with a very big want/desire. It felt sooo hard to come back into the church. I would go to singles wards and feel out of place and uncomfortable. At some point in time I have become and introvert and that makes it harder when you are not outgoing and not worthy.

I basically don’t want to be a lost soul. I know that there is nothing better than having the Spirit. I now work offshore as a commercial diver and am finding it soooo hard to come back into the church. Basically I am asking for advice/help on how to come back to the church for a guy in my shoes. I have no guidance, and am having such a hard time coming back to what I know is right.

I just don’t feel good about myself and pray that being a worthy LDS church goer would change the way I feel about myself. Sometimes I honestly feel like I am in a living hell. I don’t know why but advice and comments might really help me right now.

Next on my list is 102 - Jesus, Lover of my Soul

Music: Joseph P. Holbrook
Lyrics: Charles Wesley (brother of well known early Methodist, John Wesley)

(more…)

The day starts with prayer, a good habit I’ve gotten into in the six months since becoming baptized.

I sit cross-legged on my bed (I wonder if I’ll ever get into kneeling) and thank my Creator for a variety of things like His love and guidance, my abundance and friends, etc.

Then I ask for things specific to my currect situation (like Wednesday is “Please help me to be calm and patient when I visit my non-member and very liberal mother while she guilt trips me for being part of a church that is against gay marriage” Day) and then for general things such as to be kind and charitable towards people in traffic on the way to work.
(more…)

Tattertot posted this question on the (nearly dead) Insanity thread, and I thought it deserved a better answer than it would get there. (S)he’s given me permission to post it here.

This is my first time visiting this site. I found this post on a google search of “mormonism, return, inactive”.
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Ana’s Day

I’m a mom who works outside the home. This day was a really busy one, but unfortunately I can’t say it’s that unusual. It’s more or less par for the course. I can tell you that I did not get up early and make it to the gym the morning after this day. No way.

Oh, and all times are approximate, except the beginning and the end.

6:03: Stumble to alarm clock to shut off annoying oldies morning DJ. He is the only person who speaks English and does not speak about Jesus who comes through on my 20-year-old clock radio. Today is the first day in four weeks I am getting up this early. But I have to get up and get to the gym. A month ago I needed sleep more than exercise. Today I need exercise more than sleep, even though I stayed up late making coffee cake for a work breakfast.. How can I get these things balanced? How can I figure out how to get enough of both?
(more…)

This is an open post on last night’s general meeting–what did you like, what didn’t you like, what would you do differently or keep the same?

I managed to get myself to the church for the first three talks, but was required to go home during the musical number to feed my little Marigold–who’d been happily sleeping through the meeting, but when I called after the 2nd talk, the phone woke her up and she decided she was hungry. I listened to President Hinckley’s talk on the webcast.

(more…)

I sat in my new ward here in Austria today and felt frustrated. The ward is great so far, but I still struggle with one of those age old problems that comes with having young children. How to keep them quiet during Sacrament Meeting.

(more…)

Someone stole my Yoga mat. It was a lovely mat, nice and thick and extra sticky (I have sweaty palms) and those super cool straps that snap on for carrying. Dh gave it to me for Christmas last year. I am sad.

What kind of karma is that going to cause, I wonder, practicing Yoga on a stolen mat? Would you be peaceful on a stolen mat? Silly silly yoga thief.

Not that I really believe in Karma, exactly, sorta. Except I guess I do. Kinda, sorta. In a Mormon kinda way.

I recently overheard several conservative Christian ladies at my gym discussing Yoga. They have decided not to participate, having concluded that it smacks too closely to dangerous paganism for their personal comfort. I respect most types of spiritual decisions people make for their own lives and belief systems, this one included. (more…)

Julie Smith is the homeschooling Mother of three boys, ages 8, 5 and 1. She has an MA in Biblical Studies and likes to collect books. You can read more about Julie at Times and Seasons where she is a participating blog administrator.

Here’s what my life looks like.

(more…)

This one is not in the current hymn book, but was in the previous one - Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.

Music - American Folk Tune

Lyrics - Robert Robinson

You can argue Fount vs Font - I’ve found both all over the place, but since I learned it as ‘fount’, that’s how I’ve listed it!

(more…)

I’ve recently returned from a blessedly, beautifully, extended road trip through the four corners area of the American Southwest. The Western Girl who had been cooped up for far too long in the concrete jungle put the pedal to the metal and let loose with a more than week-long “ahhhhhhhh…..” Z and I ate up just shy of 2000 miles of open road, filled with a whole lot of beauty, silence, and mexican food (three things I find to be in short supply in good ol’ NYC).

But the best, most freeing part of it all was that I just didn’t care where we were going, or when we got there. Oh, sure, we had picked a general direction, brought along our maps, and had listed some sights we wanted to see, but there was no strict itinerary, no pre-mapped agenda, no strangling timetable. The whole experience reminded me of one of my favorite quotations (by Willa Cather), which has become a sort of a personal life philosophy:

“The end is nothing; the road is all.” (more…)

Next on my list is number 29 - A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief

Music by George Coles

Lyrics by James Montgomery

This song is on my list mainly because of the lyrics. I find it hard to sing this hymn or even read the lyrics without shedding a little tear. I especially like verses 6 and 7. (more…)

My dh — Dr. NO — recently attended a church meeting where the leaders discussed, among other things, the new statistic out from church-headquarters that estimates 70% of those raised in the church will go inactive/leave by the time they are adults. The stake leadership was obviously very concerned. Seems that the GA’s are too. Lots of discussion about what to do, how to strengthen the youth, how to reverse the trend. Very little of it productive.

Dr. NO came home quite disgusted about the whole thing. His take was this: if the 70% figure is true [remembering there are “lies, damn lies and statistics“] then the church is doing something Very Seriously Wrong and the normal ‘let’s find a new program/make new rules/ admonish the youth will be no more effective than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

I immediately thought of the famous quote: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” (more…)

Thanks Guests

Well, first, I’d like to give a great big thank you to all the many guests we’ve had lately. Thank you to Serenity Valley who will be guest posting for the next few weeks (and started out with a bang). And Thanks to Tanya Spackman who finished up guest posting last week. Great job!

Mystery Stats

We’ve experienced a mysterious surge in our stats starting on September 5th (two weeks ago Tuesday), with no corresponding surge in incoming links. It’s a mystery. If you have come to fMh for the first time within the last two weeks and can shed some light on where all these new visitors are coming from, I’m very curious. We’ve already had more unique visitors in September (26,000) than we had in all of August (20,000). Other stats are really high too. Too mysterious.

Help meGuest Posts

We are planning a day in the life series about how different fMh readers spend their unique lives. SAHMs, Working Moms, Homeschoolers, Non-Moms, Singles, (dads are welcome to submit too), how do you spend an average day?

Other types of posts are also welcome . . .
I’m going to be crazy busy for the next month or so, something has to go, and I’ve decided it’s going to have to be blogging (time-sink-o-rama) and the rest of the fMh sisters are pretty busy too. So if you have a guest post sitting in the back of your mind, now would be a good time to send it in. And if you’ve sent one in and I didn’t post it, it’s probably because it got buried somewhere in my thousands of unread emails (I’m not great at organization)(good thing no one can fire me, eh?) If you have an idea for a series of posts, submit them and if we find that we suit each other you can do series of posts.

Book Club

If it doesn’t throw people off too much, I may push back the date for our discussion of In Sacred Loneliness. Maybe the end of October? I won’t be able to devote much time to blogging or reading for the next month. Also taking suggestions for our next book. Pretty please.

Here is the text of the Relief Society Declaration. Remember when we were all asked to stand up and repeat it together every week?

We are beloved spirit daughters of God, and our lives have meaning, purpose, and direction. As a worldwide sisterhood, we are united in our devotion to Jesus Christ, our Savior and Exemplar. We are women of faith, virtue, vision, and charity who:

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Got this in my email–had to pass it on.

Church Unveils “Slow-Track” Program
By Amy Chamberlain
SALT LAKE CITY

In order to better meet the needs of “our most average members,” church
representative Howard S. Jeppeson announced the creation of a new
slow-track membership program. “This program caters to those members of
the church who may not be top-level celestial material but who are still
willing to put in a nominal effort toward their own salvation,” he said.

(more…)

My next favourite hymn is 197 - O Saviour Thou Who Wearest a Crown.*

Music by Hans Leo Hassler, adapted by JS Bach

Lyrics by Karen Lynn Davidson

I really do in general prefer hymns that are old. I’m not very keen on most of the hymns written by LDS composers. The music to this one is again indeed old, but the lyrics were written to it by a member of the church, currently living in the US.

I love the music for this hymn, and the lyrics beautifully compliment it. The words move me every time I sing it and testify of my Saviour and His sacrifice. (more…)

After more than two years, I was just released from my CTR8 calling. I’m not particulaly sentimental, and I don’t cry (when I’m not pregnant or in the midst of PPD), but I got pitifully misty.

I like teaching kids, and they love me. Humble ain’t I? It might have something to do with the snacks and learning games, but I like to think its my sparkling personality and excellent teaching skillz. (more…)

I’ve been sitting here watching PBS’s 9/11 programs, wiping away the occational tear (and craftily making rainbow invitations). Both sad and relieved that tragedy has quickly become so distant.

Of course I was never nearly so close as those I’ve been watching on PBS tonight, who lost their loved ones, who watched planes collide out their windows, who heard bodies smash like melons upon the sidewalks.

I don’t know what to make of the fact that I didn’t remember the date until the day was mostly over, the preschool, the gym, the lunch, the kindergarten, the nap, the homework, the insulated tiny little world where dates don’t matter much. Only when the kids go to bed, and PBS is no longer curious monkeys, big birds, and bespectacled anteaters do I catch a hint that the world goes on outside this tiny comfortable bubble. And it is a world full of evil so astounding that I mostly want to just look away again.

I love to sing. I love to sing hymns of worship. There are some hymns that I especially love for varying reasons, and I thought I’d share them. I’ve narrowed my list down to my favourite 10 hymns (in no particular order)

First up on my list is number 110 - Cast Thy Burden Upon the Lord * (more…)

Hello all!

I’m Marie. I’ve commented a few times and have been lurking on this site for some time. This submission marks my second attempt at a guest post. I would absolutely love to discuss this topic with y’all, so please leave lots of comments.

Ordinarily, I’d start with an introduction, but I think you’ll learn plenty about me from reading this post. Since I do hate to be redundant, I’ll just carry on and introduce the topic. Namely, I wanted to discuss the concept of singles wards: good idea, bad idea?

I was a quiet young 17 year old when I graduated high school. Like many recent graduates, I was more than eager to move on to the next chapter of life. Being the good LDS girl that I was, I was especially excited about the prospect of The Singles Ward.
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After 2 months in internet limbo, I’m thrilled to have regular internet access and connect with all you fab people again at FMH! We have now moved to Vienna, and are settling in. 

This article caught my eye this weekend. Madonna is no stranger to controversy, but her latest tour really seems to have hit a nerve with some Christians. Part of her act includes a mock re-enactment of the crucifixion, which has outraged and offended Christians across Europe.

Part of me is outraged too. The crucifixion is sacred to me. Jesus shouldn’t be mocked. (It wouldn’t make me call in a bomb threat to stop the concert though!) But then another part of me thinks that she’s entitiled to free speech.

If I was a Muslim, I probably would have been angry about the cartoons of Muhammed. But I’m not. I thought them a little distateful, but thought the reaction to them was much worse than the cartoons themselves.

Where should the line be drawn? Where does free speech turn into offensive attacks against religion? And how should we react to them?

“Are you serious?? You’re hungry AGAIN?”

____________________________________

Sitting in the living room, effectively tethered to the couch and my suckling babe who is eating, it seems, for the twentieth time that day. We’re about 30 minutes into the session.

DH comes in to say hi and sits down in the chair opposite me. I look up at him. I say:

“This is how men took over the world, isn’t it?”

(more…)

I am a twenty-year-old convert who is working on her degree in psychology. I am not yet a housewife but am very feminist and probably very Mormon as well (though that depents on your definition– I think a lot of the “culture” is silly and detracts from more important things about the church. Then again, I missed out on Young Womens and Girls Camp and all other phenomena and so wasn’t properly conditioned.) I love this blog because I no longer feel alone in my liberal Mormonism (or Mormon liberalism) and I think you are all very smart and lovely.

For this to work, we’re going to have to make a few assumptions:

1. There is a God.

2. God is benevolent, omnipotent, omniscient, and fair– the epitome of mercy and justice.

3. [Part of] the purpose of life is to grow to become more God-like. (more…)

I enjoyed everyone’s comments on the earlier post about the book club in my ward. With many of the comments I found myself agreeing and finding the book club more and more unethical. The fact that it is one of the official RS/HFPE/whatever classes (something I didn’t realize when I made that post) makes it even worse.

And yet I decided to give it a try. (more…)