I am highlighting this book today because it is about family roots, and March is the month where I love to celebrate family roots. First, because many people revel in Irish roots the month of March because of St. Patrick’s Day. I do have a bit of Irish ancestry to join in the St. Patty’s Day fun, as well as English, Danish, Swedish, Scottish, and German. Second, I love celebrating family roots in March because RootsTech is often held this month.
Here’s why I love the book:
-it’s based on a true story of family hospitality, compassion, service, love, and sacrifice
-it involves family roots, did I already say that, LOL?
-it takes place in Korea, which I have a fondness for, since one of my brothers served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in South Korea, and then lived there after his mission. One of my Veggie Gals girlfriends lives there now, after serving a mission there, then two other Veggie Gals also served a mission there. All three of them had my brother as their Korean language teacher in the Missionary Training Center. A nephew, a brother-in-law, and my former bishop also served missions there. To top it off, so did famous author Brandon Sanderson!
-it involves history, so when you read it to your child for homeschooling it will help the child, and you, feel some emotion and context behind the division of Korea into North and South with the 38th parallel.
-you can learn Korean words and culture by reading this book. Things like “kimchi” and “goguma.”
-it teaches the importance of community. I love, love these two lines from the book:
“Our visitors are not stones we can toss to the sea. They are people, our neighbors, to help and to love.”
“We’re all scared, but it’s easier to face our fears if we stick together and hold each other up.”
-it is just soooo lovely! The ink and watercolor illustrations are just so intoxicatingly beautiful. They give me such a supreme yummy feeling. Like the kind of yummy feeling I get when I listen to “Longer” by Dan Fogelberg. The kind of yummy that just makes me want to melt into a bathtub of hot water and bubbles and never get out of the tub. Until the water gets cold, LOL. The kind of yummy that just brings tears to my eyes and make my heart ache.
I highly recommend this book! It is a keeper! Buy it or get it from your public library today! It’s a book you will definitely want to share with your children, grandchildren, even neighbors. It was a contender for the 2025 Caldecott Medal, and I can see why.
The cover of a pattern to make capes and jackets like the Sound of Music girls. I can’t remember where I got this image, other than it was a sewing blog. if anybody knows the blog where this came from, please let me know in the comments so I can give credit.
We’ve had a lot of rain today. It’s a day where I feel like singing, “Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens…” That’s the “My Favorite Things” song from The Sound of Music movie musical.
So, let’s talk about some of my favorite things for mothering, which relate to The Sound of Music, because of the Maria Principle, named for Maria Von Trapp, the governess turned mother in The Sound of Music.
Image Credit: wikipedia.org
Before I get into the Maria Principle, please indulge me with some history of The Sound of Music.
Did you know that 60 years ago, this month of March 2025, The Sound of Music starring Julie Andrews, the greatest family movie ever, premiered?
Yes, it’s true! A year ago, at my homeschooling co-op school, we as moms read the book the movie is based on and discussed it. It’s shown above and written by the real Maria herself. I found out that one of the moms hadn’t read the book nor watched the movie! I was aghast! She is so missing out! I hope she has rectified that cultural literacy omission by now. Anyway, that got me on a Sound of Music binge for a few weeks, reading other books about it and watching YouTubes of behind-the-scenes.
Heather Menzies, who played Lousia, one of the children in the movie, reported that it was strange to introduce herself on the first day of school in 1964 as someone who had just filmed a movie for her summer vacation. Nobody had seen it yet, so they didn’t realize what a big deal this was. Then during the fall of 1964 it went through whatever they do to make a movie launchable: edits and such. Then it was released in theaters in March 1965. So, to celebrate this 60th anniversary of the release of The Sound of Music, I’m going to blog every so often in 2025 about Maria von Trapp, Julie Andrews, and all things Sound of Music.
The first post in this series is all about “The Maria Principle.”
What is the Maria Principle?
We get it from the book mentioned previously. The principle is hinted at in the movie, with the piece about Maria making the Von Trapp children play clothes out of the curtains in her room. The real story, as usual, is a bit different. In her book, Maria tells us her problem of seeing such a beautiful outdoor world for the little Von Trapps to play in. The home where she worked as a governess had a beautiful yard with grass, flowers, bushes, etc. She asked the little darlings why they didn’t ever play in the yard. They stated that it was too hard to play in the yard because if their ball went rolling away, they would have to get into the mud and then get their clothes dirty. The idea started percolating in her mind of how to solve this problem. Well, Christmas was coming, so she asked for boots for the children so they could get walk in the mud.
She put the letter on the windowsill, as was the custom for Austrian children when leaving letters for Saint Nicholas. Imagine her delight when on the morning after the visit from Saint Nick, all her Christmas dreams had come true! He had delivered boots and raincoats for the children. Now they could all play outside and not stress about the captain getting mad that their clothes got dirty.
In the movie, the fictionalized story goes that Maria sewed play clothes out of the curtains in her bedroom so the children could feel free to romp in the hills of Salzburg. That way they didn’t have to stress about getting their nice clothes dirty.
Translating the Maria Principle literally to your own life means having the proper outerwear (hats/boots/coats/capes/gloves etc.) for any kind of weather conditions to protect your regular clothes.
See my photo at the very top of this post. Here we have The Sound of Music movie girls dressed in charming hats and capes for a proper outdoor outing when it might get chilly. The boys don’t get hats, just jackets and pants. I guess they all don’t plan on chasing any balls in the mud, so they don’t need boots. I just hope the girls have some kind of leggings tucked away if it gets super cold.
I haven’t yet seen a Sound of Music coat, but here’s an umbrella with the pattern of the curtian/play clothes, designed by Marta, aka Debbie Turner, which you can get here.
This principle is super important if you are a Crunchy Mom who loves to get her 1000 hours outside in. A year ago, my married daughter did Forest School with her two preschool boys, even in January and February. That means they met outside with other homeschooling families in a forest at the same time every week, rain or shine, snow or not. They all loved it! Even though it was wet, mushy and gray, because they were equipped for the wet and cold, it was fun for her and the boys. She loves putting them in bright colored boots and other winterwear.
We can apply the Maria Principle much more broadly to all aspects of life, beyond having proper outerwear. It can look like having the right material things to enjoy play in all environments, not just mud and/or cold. It can look like having the right materials to enjoy all opportunities, for work or play. It can look like having the right materials that even turn work into play. When you don’t have the right materials, play can actually turn into work, LOL.
So, to sum up the Maria Principle, it is this: “Having just the right material thing allows one to best enjoy the opportunity for play, or work, resulting in the least amount of stress.” In this case, the boots helped them to play outside, protecting their regular clothes from the mud. They didn’t have to fear grumpy Dad would get grumpier. (Actually, the book stresses that the dad was actually quite nice. It’s just in the movie where he was grumpy.)
As a mom, I long ago learned the Maria Principle, I just didn’t have a name for it yet. I love it when I read books and they talk about things that I’ve already thought about! I know I would have loved talking to the real Maria about this. It was fun to read in her book about how, after she moved to America, she decided to have a family camp in Vermont to preach the joys of singing. She got to go shopping to get all the right stuff for it to equip the cabins. That sounded like some fun shopping trips in NYC and its environs.
So here is the beginning of my list of my top favorite material objects for enjoying opportunities to live, work, and play as a mom. When you are a mom, your whole life is actually a “job.” You are always on call 365/24/7. The lines between “work,” “play” and “just live” are so blurred. For example, nursing can be such a joy, but it’s also a “job” since you are nourishing another human being. If you are committed to nursing your baby, I encourage you to find all that you can to make it more enjoyable. My list below includes some of those things.
Here we go, here are Tree of Life Mama’s Top 15 Things that Exemplify the Maria Principle for Every Crunchy Mama With a Nursing Baby. This list comes after 30+ years of being a mom. Please appreciate all the years of hard knock experience I went through to gain this knowledge. I am assuming everyone reading this has a smartphone, if not, add that to the top of the list. Some of these things I don’t even own, I’ve just heard praises about them, so they are on my list. I’m also assuming you already have an automatic dishwasher, washer and dryer, and refrigerator. If not, start with those basics. I’ll cover other things beyond being a nursing mom in other posts.
These 15 things all relate to being a young mom with a nursing baby, balancing that job with homemaking. On other days I’ll share Maria Principle items related to pregnancy, homeschooling, and older motherhood.
1. An apron. Much as it might sound old-fashioned, frumpy, and unfeminist, an apron is actually quite a desirable thing. In my newlywed and early mom days, I resisted using these every day even though my sweet sister-in-law gave my husband and me matching aprons for a wedding gift, which I still have. Finally, I wised up, realizing that it was worth wearing them. When I used one to protect my clothes when preparing food, I saved time doing laundry. I later discovered that they come in lots of fun colors and styles. Like the one with The Sound of Music curtain print above. You are sure to find one that you love, from etsy or amazon or somewhere else like here. You can even feel glamorous in an apron! I now subscribe to apron therapy. That’s the idea that wearing an apron can make working in the kitchen more fun because you feel so good because you look great!
2. A bed big enough to enjoy sleeping in with your growing baby next to you and your husband. Sharing a bed with the baby at night makes night nursing so much easier, after you master the art of nursing lying down. I’m talking California King size. Get that instead of a crib. I wish I had bought one before my first baby. It’s probably the best investment you can make for family and marriage harmony. The three of you fit easily enough when the baby is a tiny newborn, but trust me, that baby will grow in a blink of your eye. When the baby is a toddler, and starts giving you ninja kicks at night and wedges between you and your husband to form the letter “H” you will be glad you got the biggest bed possible.
3. A sturdy bed rail that folds down. It attaches to the side of the bed. We had two of these through my nursing baby years. They gave me peace of mind, for all the times when I was cosleeping with the baby not between my husband and me but on the other side of me, next to the edge of the bed. With it properly installed I didn’t worry about the baby falling out of bed. I didn’t always want to nurse on the same side all through the night. This is needed after the baby learns how to roll over.
4. A babysling or some other babywearing gear. Babywearing gives a mother an extra set of hands. So needed and so wonderful! That’s my husband and me above, with our firstborn in my first babysling, a puffy padded Dr. Sears NoJo ring sling. I had two other iterations that were blue plaid and blue striped. I’ve also enjoyed a homemade baby carrier that my mom sewed for me, a New Native imitation. It was a simple tube of khaki cloth that I enjoyed because it was more streamlined, without all the padding. The drawback however is that it’s not adjustable like the ring sling. See what New Natives look like over here. Baby carriers make getting out and about with baby easier as well so that when shopping or touring baby is right by you without your arms getting tired. (I do believe in strollers too, they have their place. I’ll have to have my married daughter fill us in about the best strollers another time.)
My husband was always such a great sport to wear our babies, even when we went to our church’s Valentine Dance one year! This is Baby #4.
5. A wonderfully fitting, supporting nursing bra. I had my favorite brands when I was nursing, which were Bravado and Leading Lady. My married daughter likes Hot Milk.
6. Nursing friendly clothes. They don’t have to be specifically designed for nursing, with the special slits that allow easy access to mom’s nipples. A loose-fitting top and skirt or pants make a nursing-friendly outfit as does a specially designed nursing dress. This way your baby can nurse easily without you feeling like you have to undress or go hide in a closet to nurse if you are in public because you feel like you are showing too much. Not that I’m against nursing in public, I’ve done it many times. I’ve done it in church, at the park, at the zoo, while shopping and at the airport. I do agree that it’s high time we normalize nursing in public. Anyway, this site has some stylish offerings of nursing clothes.
7. Baby outfits with feet covers so you don’t need socks. Baby socks and booties and shoes are those things that seem so cute when you first encounter them. So you want to buy them all as soon as the pregnancy test turns positive. But after living with them for months/years, having to keep track of them after they constantly fall off, launder them (the socks, not the shoes) and store them, you realize they are really annoying.
8. A nursing pillow. It’s amazing what a little support under the arms can do to make nursing more comfortable, something you look forward to because you can completely relax. If I had to buy a nursing pillow today, I’d get the one below with the gorgeous pillow cover shown above.
9. A food chopper that can be operated with just one hand, like the Zyliss food chopper shown above. This greatly came to my aid with my second baby. Sometimes I ended up nursing her in the sling while making dinner, otherwise she would cry, and I don’t believe in letting babies “cry it out.” This chopper allowed me to chop veggies with just one hand while I supported her head in the sling to nurse, with my other hand. Some moms have mastered the art of nursing in a sling with no hands. I did when my babies were older, but when they were younger it was hard for them to maintain the latch in the sling without my addding a hand to support the head.
An even better item is a food processor attachment for the next item, because it gets the job done faster. If you get it set it up before the baby needs to nurse, then you could operate it with one hand. It’s rather ironic that the same baby I just mentioned in the previous paragraph gave me this set of attachment blades for my KitchenAid stand mixer after she grew up and graduated from college, for a Christmas gift one year. It was like a karma paycheck for sacrificing for her all those months, nursing her in a sling while making dinner.
Credit for Two Photos Above and the Two Below: amazon.com
10. KitchenAid Stand Mixer. Speaking of stand mixers, let’s dive into that topic. My mom had one of these when I was a child. One of my sisters inherited it so I had to find my own. I was thrilled to finally get one used for $100 about ten years ago off of KSL Classified ads. It’s still working. It’s not nearly as pretty as the one shown above, it’s just boring white, but hey it gets the job done. I’ve heard they don’t make them like they used to and now use internal plastic parts instead of metal, so they don’t last as long. I don’t know which kind mine is, but it’s still working after getting it almost ten years ago used. I love all the attachments you can get for it for different jobs: food processing, pasta making, sausage making and more. Now they come in so many fun colors! You can even find knock-offs with the Pioneer Woman designs.
11. Sharp kitchen knives. Sharp knives cut so much better, so much more cleanly and so much more efficiently than dull ones. This allows a mom to enjoy food prep so much more! When the knife easily glides into the food, it’s like fitting Cinderella’s foot into her glass slipper. Such perfection and satisfaction in the kitchen! Get a knife sharpener for your knives and keep it handy. I’ve had a Cuisinart set of knives for years. They do well as long as we keep them sharpened. If I had more money I’d invest in the best knives of all, Cutco brand.
12. A sturdy vacuum cleaner that’s lightweight enough so it’s easy to push and pull with one hand, especially if you are nursing a baby in a sling. I’m so glad we’ve improved upon the clunky Kirbys like I had when growing up. That thing was a beast to move around! I’ve had an Oreck and thought it would last forever but the handle fell off. If anyone has a vacuum recommendation I’d love to hear in the comments below.
13. An Instant Pot. It makes fixing dinner so much easier! It has a slow cooker feature, so it can cook like a crockpot, but it can also cook things in “fast cook” mode as well with high pressure. If only this had been around when I was a young mom! Recipes abound on the Internet for all of the possibilities: yogurt, beans, pot roast, mac and cheese, soups, lasagna, dessert, and so much more!
14. A stylish diaper bag with tons of functional pockets that doubles as a purse. I suffered through using the cheap diaper bag given to me by the hospital sponsored by the artificial baby milk (ABM) company that had a contract with the hospital, stuffed with cans of ABM (which is so unethical! As it says here, “Hospitals should market health and nothing else!”) After suffering the fate of having such a bag that lets everything fall to the bottom, I ditched it and found something much better. I didn’t like hauling a diaper bag and a purse and learned to combine the two, with a bag that had lots of pockets so things stay organized. My favorite was a Lands End bag that the company no longer sells. It was similar to this one by L.L. Bean over here. I loved that it had a compartment for a bottle, which was for the baby, but I used it for my water bottle, plus lots of other compartments, with a changing pad that fit nicely inside. If I were to buy one now, I’d get something like the one above that is more stylish. I just might get it now to use a purse, not a diaper bag, since my baby is now 15.
15. Rugs, blankets, shower curtains, towels, bedding, and furniture in the colors you love. We see these things daily, they may as well be in colors and designs that you love. For me, that means bright cheery colors. My favorite “line” for all the afore-mentioned things is Pioneer Woman designed by Ree Drummond, from Walmart. I call these the Garanimals (it’s a 1970s things) of housewares because even though the designs are different, as every season she comes out with new designs, they all sort of go together in a splashy, eclectic way. You can find potholders, towels, dishes, appliances, rugs, kitchen tools, and more. She even has furniture that she has designed! These designs and colors just make me smile. You can find the “out of print” designs on ebay.
Photo Credits for Pioneer Woman Goods: walmart.com
That’s it for now! When I was a child, my family’s budget was always fairly tight. It wasn’t until my teens that my parents had more disposable income. When I was 14, they bought new furniture. Then we got a new TV and even a VCR. (This was the 1980s.) Our furniture was all brown and boring until the new stuff came in. Basically, I was raised with the pioneer mindset of “Use it up, wear it out, make it up, or do without.”
It’s nice to be thrifty like that but the drawback is that one starts to limit one’s thinking with that view and not expand one’s vision to see how one can attract more money and more material things that will make life much more beautiful and much easier. I believe God has inspired people to create things to make life more pleasant and convenient. It’s wonderful to become aware of all these wonderful things and avail ourselves of them and give them to others too!
So, in the coming months, I plan on blogging more about the Maria Principle. I want to blog about the Maria Principle regarding books during the nursing baby years, as well as items related to pregnancy, labor and birth, life with toddlers, life with older children, as well as homeschooling. I’m excited to share, so stay tuned!
(None of the above links are affiliated with me. I receive no compensation if you purchase anything from those links.)
Image Credit: Weston A. Price Foundation YouTube Channel
Wow, I wish this had happened when I was a young mom. This video below is from the 2024 Wise Traditions Conference in Orlando, FL. It’s a panel of women talking about nutrition for babies and children from a Weston A. Price Foundation point of view. Who is Weston A. Price? He was a dentist who researched the different indigenous populations the world over in the 1930s before these people were contaminated by the modern food industry. He found these people had zero birth defects, zero need for braces, zero glasses, zero chronic diseases, and zero mental illnesses. These people were happy and healthy. He analyzed their diets and discovered commonalities among them. The big ones were that the diets involved local foods, animal foods, and nutrient dense foods like organ meats. So, there were no vegans or vegetarians in the groups. He also discovered that the sacred foods all involved what he called Activator X, which is now thought to be Vitamin K2. If you want to know more, go here. A list of the diet principles is here.
When I was a young mom, I knew about Dr. Price and even bought the cookbook shown below, but I didn’t apply it all to my life or understand how to apply it to my life. I’m glad so many resources are around now to learn how to apply the WAPF dietary principles.
Those involved in the video are the following women, as shown in the screenshot above:
Hilda Labrada Gore, aka Holistic Hilda, the moderator of the panel
“Don’t worry if your kid won’t eat vegetables. Skip the veggies. Focus on nutrient-dense foods of meat and eggs.”
“Regular picky eating is a natural phase in a child’s development that all kids experience. They will outgrow it with time.” -Christine Muldoon
“During the break between pregnancies, it’s essential for a woman to rebuild her nutritional stores and avoid breastfeeding while pregnant.” -Sandrine Perez
“Just do the work, and even if the children don’t eat it all the time, remember that you’re doing what’s best for them.” -Pam Schoenfeld
Want more Wise Traditions ideas for nourishing your family?
Here are other times I’ve blogged about it with links to resources.
Wow, yesterday’s Family Discovery Day at RootsTech 2025 was so inspiring! It’s my personal tradition to watch this online every year. Some time I want to make it a family event and go in person. I always come away feeling so inspired. I love knowing that I’m joining with thousands of people the world over in watching it. It just feels as communal and full of surprises as Christmas. (Here are other times I’ve blogged about RootsTech.)
Just below is a short video summary about RootsTech. It’s the biggest genealogy conference in the world. Then I have the full video of yesterday’s Family Discovery Day below that. I watched a few videos each day on Thursday and Friday too. Family Discovery Day, on Saturday, is always my favorite.
I loved hearing from Elder Holland and Elder Andersen, two apostles of Jesus Christ. Elder Holland shared such a tender story about being near death for about 4 weeks. He said that he came out of with a strong revelation that it was important for him to pray more and to tell people everywhere to pray more. That felt so encouraging. After hearing that I thought, “Yes, I do want to do that more, to remember to pray silently instead of slipping into mentally complaining or despairing.”
The Piano Guys, Jon Schmidt and Steven Sharp Nelson, performed before we heard from Elders Holland and Andersen and Sister Andersen. Their music was so beautiful as always. They also shared a few family memories. I so loved that Brother Nelson showed the power of family stories in parenting. He said that with his children bedtime is often a battle. The difference between bedtime being a battle or bonding time is the bedtime stories he tells. He decided to look at his family history stories and tell them as bedtime stories to his children. Then he shared one of these stories, about his ancestor Eliza, who lived in England. Within a few months of each other, both her parents died, so she and her siblings were orphaned. She had to go to work in a button factory to support the family. She was feeling so poor and bereft, walking down the street, wondering where to go or who could help her. She prayed silently to God for help. A kind neighbor, Mary, reached out to her and invited her to church, to a meeting of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She found the hope she needed in the message of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. She got baptized and joined the ward orchestra. Then she found a handsome cello player in the orchestra, and they got married. As a couple, Eliza and her husband moved to Utah. They were walking down the street with just the clothes on their backs, not knowing where to go. The same friend who found Eliza on the streets in England found her again in Salt Lake City. She took them into her home and helped them get started in their new land.
He invited all of us to be like that. He said that he hopes all of his children turn their lives to God. He said that he has told them that when they do that, they may find themselves walking down their street, not knowing what to do. He encouraged them to pray and look for those Marys in our lives. And be those Marys for other people. I loved that, as well as the performance on the organ by Richard Elliott that sounded just like the Piano Guys. It’s amazing that an organ can sound like different instruments and that Brother Elliott can play the organ so well.
Elder Andersen’s wife, Kathy shared a few beautiful, touching stories about her family’s introduction to the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. She said that her grandparents saved money so they could travel from Florida to the Logan Temple so they could have their 13 children sealed to them. Elder Andersen joked that Utah was too cold so they didn’t stay in Utah and went back to Florida.
This is the car that Sister Andersen’s family used for the 5k mile road trip
Then when Sister Andersen was four years old, her father and mother wanted to have the same temple blessing of being sealed and having their children sealed to them, so they traveled from Florida to Utah as well. Sister Andersen’s grandmother was worried that the family car wouldn’t make the 5,000-mile trip so she loaned them her car. I won’t tell the rest of the story; you’ll have to watch it. I felt touched by the Holy Spirit when Sister Andersen told that story, as well as another story of this same grandmother. She said that her grandmother went through a divorce at a time when that was rare. Years later she endured a tragic car accident that put her in a coma. Her father cared for his mother-in-law so much that he visited her every day in the hospital, to check on her, every day for years. Wow, what a devoted son-in-law! May we all live to engender such devotion towards each of us as family members.
It was fun to see videos of Elder Andersen on a dairy farm, talking about his childhood memories of living on a dairy farm. I love that he concluded by saying that our family history memories are precious. We can keep them alive by starting with “what you know” such as photos, dates, names and places. He said we can put them into familysearch.org, and then enjoy them for a long time.
You can get started today with what you know. Go to familysearch.org and create your account. It’s free, and you don’t have to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to join.
Want more of RootsTech? Go here to watch the archived videos from this year and past years.
Wow, we woke up to a LOT of snow this morning! All from what fell last night as it started snowing as I drove home from the theater. I went on a magical trip with relatives to see a Broadway-comes-to-SLC rendition of Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. It was so amazing! As we left the downtown theater to go home with the throng of theater goers, it was raining, and then the rain turned to snow. It felt so communal to leave that amazing play with other people, knowing that we had shared in a wonderful story about faith in God and redemption symbolizing redemption from Christ, as we headed to our homes. I’m so grateful to God for Victor Hugo creating such a beautiful story.
Then, how fun to wake up to a winter wonderland! What was even better was that my 15-year-old got up at 7:30 AM and shoveled the driveway and walks, without being asked. I’m so pleased I have such a thoughtful son! Later when we did Morning Basket for school, he fell asleep to take a much-needed nap. :-). So, I let him sleep while I exercised while I watched RootsTech, then came back so we could finish.
Speaking of Morning Basket, we recently read the book shown above, Sugaring Time, together for MB time. It’s the time of year when maple syrup is gathered. Every year, I like to read books about that in late February and early March. It sometimes feels as warm as a spring during this time. We had a few days like that over a week ago where it was 60 degrees. Then we get days like this wherethe temps plunge, and I feel like we live in Vermont with a blanket of snow everywhere.
It’s this kind of book that helps me remember that cold is fun and it’s fun to live with it in February and March, as it is what helps makes maple syrup. When you read the book above, you will learn about how it’s the cold that helps maple syrup happen. When the days warm up, to over 40 degrees, but then get below freezing at night, then the maple tree sap starts to flow.
I love this book because it shows the process of harvesting maple syrup from a sugar bush of maple trees in Vermont. I also love it that it shows a family and neighbors involved in the process, from Grandma down to a toddler that falls sleep in her arms while watching the dad work in the maple syrup shack. I also love that I can tell the photos come from the 1980s, my late childhood and teen years. It goes step by step from starting to put the spigots and buckets on the trees to tap the sap, all the way to eating the syrup on pancakes. You see the family load up the equipment on a sled, pulled by horses through the snow, wending through the sugar bush. It feels straight out of Farmer Boy. You learn about terms like “aproning” and the grades of syrup. So fun!
Here’s what amazon.com says about the book:
“In lyrical prose and black-and-white photographs, Lasky’s book depicts the Lacey family of Vermont making maple syrup…A rare kind of nonfiction, informative yet as easily read as fiction.” (School Library Journal)
I highly recommend the book so that you and your children can learn where maple syrup comes from. Here are some fun videos to watch as well.
-It’s sturdy, made out of plastic. I know plastic is not the Crunchy Mom thing, but at least it’s BPA-free. Sometimes you just have to lower your ideals. Since it’s not ceramic I’m not fearful of it breaking if dropped from the counter to the floor. I suppose it could break if dropped from a window 30 stories up or if run over by a car but that’s not likely to happen in my home. I have a super pretty Pioneer Woman butter dish (over here) but I don’t use it every day because I don’t want to risk it getting broken. Having 7 children and seeing so many things broken through the years does that to a mom. 🙂
-It can hold two Kerrygold sticks of butter at once.
-It has a lid so you can cover the butter when not in use. As any butter lover knows, you can store butter for up to the three weeks without refrigeration at room temperature without spoiling. Another thing any butter lover knows is that the butter dish gets really messy after just one or two uses. With the lid you can cover it all up. I also love that you can move the lid quickly with one flick of the hand as it is attached to the dish and just swivels up and down. I love having a lid so I can leave it on the counter so the butter stays soft, but protect it from the occasional bug or dust. Decades ago I had a butter ball which was touted as keeping the butter soft and covered. The problem was the poor design. It was a two part thing. The bottom part held water to keep the butter soft and the upper part, holding the butter, was turned upside down. So you had to grab the top part and turn it over to get to the butter. Then turn it back upside down. Inevitably the butter would slide out into the water. This is so much better! We can have soft, room temperature butter, with no mess, and no fuss to get to it.
-It comes with a matching spreader that has a special slot to fit into on the dish, behind a lip so it doesn’t easily get knocked off. See photo. I’ve always hated having a salad plate, or saucer (which is worse, because it’s smaller) for butter because there’s no “place” on the plate for a knife. It falls off easily. So then you might just say, “Just get a new knife out every time you use the butter and then wash it” but then you could end up using a dozen or more knives a day if you have a big family.
-It is dishwasher safe. You can remove the lid and put all three parts, the dish, the lid, and the spreader into the dishwasher to get all clean.
-It comes in 10 different colors, you are bound to find one that fits in with the color scheme of your kitchen. The ones below, plus ivory, orange, green, gray, beige, and yellow. Beautiful choices!
-It’s got a great price, $24.99 as an Amazon Prime product, as of today, over on amazon.com. This dish is totally worth the price! That’s not an affiliate link, I receive no kickback if you buy it through that link. I’m not being paid to promote this product. I just love it and think every butter lover should have one! Just train your family members to put on a new stick as the butter gets eaten, and you will always have soft butter with no mess. Kudos to the butterie.com team for making such a fabulous product! Go there to check out the other products, such as toast tongs. The price over there for the dish is $19.99, and if you buy at least $29.99 worth of products you get free shipping, at least as of today.
Photo Credits Above and Below: Highwire’s Rumble Channel
Hold on to your seats! This is a truth bomb of a book! It’s shown below. It’s The Pfizer Papers, edited by Dr. Naomi Wolf (shown above) with Amy Kelly. I highly suggest you watch the video I have linked below in a few paragraphs to hear an encapsulation of the book. Then go get the book! It came out in October 2024.
“Dr. Naomi Wolf is a bestselling author, columnist, and professor; she is a graduate of Yale University and received a doctorate from Oxford. She is cofounder and CEO of DailyClout.io, a successful civic tech company. Since the publication of her landmark international bestseller, The Beauty Myth, which The New York Times called ‘one of the most important books of the 20th century,’ Dr Wolf’s other seven bestsellers have been translated worldwide. The End of America and Give Me Liberty: A Handbook For American Revolutionaries, predicted the current crisis in authoritarianism and presented effective tools for citizens to promote civic engagement. Dr Wolf trains thought leaders of tomorrow, teaching public presentation to Rhodes Scholars and co-leading a Stony Brook University class that gave professors skills to become public intellectuals. She was a Rhodes scholar herself, and was an advisor to the Clinton re-election campaign and to Vice President Al Gore. Dr Wolf has written for every major news outlet in the US and many globally; she had four opinion columns, including in The Guardian and the Sunday Times of London. She lives with her husband, private detective Brian O’Shea, in the Hudson Valley.”
The above bio makes it sound like she’s a liberal since she supported Clinton. Well, she was. Then she changed and became a conservative. I watched a video years ago where she told her story but now I can’t find it. If I find it, I will post it here as soon as I do.
The video I have linked below, featuring Dr. Naomi Wolf, is about the book, The Pfizer Papers. Here is a summary of the video, copied and pasted from rumble.com:
“New York Times best-selling author, Dr. Naomi Wolf, describes how being deplatformed for questioning the dangerous reactions from women after the mRNA vaccines, inspired her to dive into the Pfizer trial documents that were only released by the FDA after action funded by ICAN, with a legal team led by Aaron Siri. Hear how she helped coordinate a team of 3250 doctors and scientists to decode the medical documents and publish the terrifying findings in the new book, The Pfizer Papers.”
In this new book, The Pfizer Papers you will learn more of the truth about the “pandemic” of 2020. Watch the video interview with Del Bigtree here on Rumble to hear a summary of the book. It will make you mad, if you aren’t already, and even madder if you already were, about what happened 5 years ago. At around the 10:20 mark, Dr. Wolf says that the subtitle of the book is “Pfizer’s Crimes Against Humanity.” Then she says, “I’m the granddaughter of two people who lost eight siblings to the Holocaust. I can say, without hesitation, that this is the greatest crime against humanity in recorded history, because of the scale and the foreknowledge of the harm that they were unleashing on human beings around the world. Pfizer knew, within a month after the rollout of the vaccine into the public, in November 2020, that the vaccine didn’t work to stop COVID. It was ineffective against COVID. The language internally is ‘vaccine failure’ and ‘failure of efficacy.’ In fact, the third most common side effect in the documents is COVID. “
What?! I hope this book convinces everyone out there that that’s what makes the “pandemic” a plandemic!
I love that Dr. Wolf ends on a hopeful note, encouraging us to develop communities based on truth and trust so we can fight this evil of the bioweapon of the jab. It’s time for us to rebuild with wholeness and love.
I sooo admire this woman’s courage, her community building skills, and her tenacity! As it says on the dailyclout.com site (her website of independent journalists) about the book:
“This is a book that three governments — the U.S., the U.K. and Australia — all sought to suppress. The story of how it came to be is extraordinary — 3,250 highly credentialed doctors and scientists under the leadership of one extraordinary woman, Amy Kelly, worked for two years on the internal Pfizer documents released under court order by a successful lawsuit by attorney Aaron Siri.
“In the process, these volunteers confirmed the greatest crime against humanity of all time.” Go here to read more about it. This is tragic and important information to process and act on!
Get the book on amazon, read it, and/or listen to the book in Audible. This book goes into great detail, basically showing that Pfizer knew the jab doesn’t work and has terrifying side effects. This is staggering!
Then answer these questions, from the dailyclout.io page about this book, which I’m processing as well:
Whom will you tell?
How will you process the information?
What will you do to avenge the crimes of the past?
If you are a student of The Fourth Turning book as I am, you have no doubt been wondering what the Crisis or Fourth Turning is for the current cycle we are in. The last one was World War II. When 9/11 happened, some thought it was that. Then some thought maybe it was the crash in 2008. When the plandemic happened, and I saw liberties restricted, I decided, “Yes, this is it! This is Fourth Turning/the Crisis!”
After watching the video I linked above, I am convinced now more than ever that the “pandemic” is the Fourth Turning/Crisis because of what Dr. Wolf said in the video about the jab being the “greatest crime against humanity.”
My Veggie Gal girlfriend Heather says she is convinced that this “epidemic,” as a premeditated disaster to reduce the world’s population and bring it harm, marks the end of the half-hour of silence mentioned in Revelation 8:1. She says that this means we have seen the opening of the Seventh Seal, and all of those disasters prophesied. So, dig into the word of God and prepare yourselves for “If you are prepared you shall not fear.” (Doctrine and Covenants 38:30)
Want to learn more about the last days and what to expect so you can prepare more and not fear?
Go here to learn about a NEW book The Last Days Decoded by Janet Kent, and watch some videos featuring the author. This is all gold!
The above is a new book that has just come out in the past few months. I haven’t read it, but I have watched some of the author’s presentations in YouTube. I’m excited to get my hands on the book! Scroll down below and watch the three videos I recently watched with the author Janet Kent. I feel the Holy Spirit as I watch them. I feel even more excited about Christ’s coming because of the truth spoken in these videos. I hope you enjoy them.
You can get the author’s book here. You can see her website here. These are treasure troves of truth! I love that she says in the first video below that she purposely wrote her book for the average person to understand. She says she got frustrated that a certain scholar out there has written books on the last days that are for the PhD level of understanding. I’m pretty sure I know who she’s talking about, LOL.
Here in this post are some screenshots from the videos to give you a taste of what you will learn from the videos. The more we know about what to expect as we approach Christ’s Millennial Reign, the more we can prepare and survive the tribulations, feeling peace and love instead of fear.
As she says on the cover of her book, shown above, we can triumph during these times! Because we are past the eclipse date of April 8, 2024, our current place in history is on both of the timelines below. If you watch the third video at the bottom of this post you will understand the author’s explanation of these three harvests of barley, wheat, and fruit. It’s all so fascinating!
The author got both these timelines from Rhonda and Farrell Pickering. She says that Farrell was inspired to create these timelines after reading this article from Lenet Hadley Reed, over here, about how Joseph Smith received the golden plates, from which he translated the Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ, on the Feast of Trumpets date on 23 September 1827. That article inspired him to search for other connections of these Hebrew Holy Days with the gospel of Jesus Christ. He looked to see how the Hebrew Holy Days fit in with Christ’s first coming and His second comings. Rhonda and Farrell have an amazing website over here where you can buy their timeline to see all of this. Farrell also searched to see how Daniel’s numbers fit in with all of this.
Daniel’s numbers, from the book of Daniel in the Bible, are shown below.
Credit goes to Farrell for figuring out how these numbers fit in with the timeline. Amazing!
The screenshots below are the author’s simplified versions of their timeline. It’s just so amazing to see how the Hebrew Holy Days and Daniel’s numbers are intertwined in this timeline of the last days. It gives me comfort to see all this fits together in beautiful perfect order, authored by God.
I also find it interesting that the Jewish holiday Hanukkah, in 2024, which we’ve already passed, and Hanukkah 2034 form “bookends” for Daniel’s numbers on the chart below. “SC” in the chart below stands for “Second Coming.” These prophesied Second Comings are all given in scripture. They are the time when Jesus comes to Adam-ondi-Ahman, then the Mount of Olives, the temple in Jerusalem, and then lastly, in clouds in power and glory.
In the first video Sister Kent reconciles these appointed dates with the scripture that says no man knoweth the day or the hour that Jesus comes, from Matthew 24:36. It makes sense to me.
It’s true, the greatest stand-off of the eternal battle between good and evil is coming! As Sister Janet says, it’s time to pick your side! This chart above created by Sister Kent that shows the difference between good and evil is so true. God really does want to give us all that He has, even exaltation to His level, as a god (see Doctrine and Covenants 76:50-70), and satan wants us to be his objects. May you choose to have the “Force” be with you and not be forced as an object used by satan.
The first two videos below show Janet Kent talking to Nancy James about her book. First Sister Kent tells her story, how she came to find Jesus after getting married and moving to New Hampshire. She tells of living like a hippie, feeling a bit dissatisfied with life, and finding Christ and becoming Christian. That takes up the first 26 minutes or so. Then she explains the four Second Comings of Christ. Then she gets into telling some stories that show patterns of protection and talks some about the book.
This third video shows Sister Kent presenting a summary of the book. It’s all so very fascinating! Lots of meat to chew on in these videos and her book. Thank you, Sister Janet Kent, for sacrificing your time and energy to do the research and write this book. This book is pure gold!
You can get handouts from Sister Kent here, showing her expanded timeline, and over here, regarding God’s attributes and satan’s counterfeits, shown in the screenshot above.
Below is the back cover image of her book. I love what it says! So true! May we all be part of this new day dawning in Zion with all of scattered Israel gathered in.
OK, you can get most of these videos here, but I thought it would be fun to put them here on my blog, plus more, for these reasons:
I love the Duggars, although I don’t agree with all their choices. Some of their choices were too legalistic and too strict. Like no dancing. It’s been interesting to see the fall-out happen from the strictness they enforced and not compensating the children fairly for their appearances on the show, what with Jill and Jinger’s books coming out. It’s also been heartwarming to see the family find hope and healing In Christ. They have compensated the children, loosened up on their strictness, at least from what I can tell, and moved forward after all that plus oldest child Josh’s arrest and imprisonment.
I admire that the Duggars were so willing to have so many children, embracing the culture of life to the fullest extent. I admire that they taught them Biblical principles the best they could. Of course, I’m sad about what happened with Josh. Every child has his or her agency. Sometimes children make bad choices, no matter how well they are taught and how much they are loved. None of us are perfect parents or children and we all make mistakes.
I love that the children are such hard workers, enterprising, and help each other with their projects.
I’m so happy that Jana, the oldest daughter, got married!!!! She looks so happy with her one true love, Stephen Wissman.
I love that Jana is so handy with power tools, gardening, decorating, remodeling, etc.
I want a place where the videos are in the order that I want them to be.
I want a place where my comments can be easily seen on some of the videos.
So here we go!
Little did we know last year, when Jana released this video over here, about her tiny house, that she was secretly dating her beau from the singing Wissmann family. She had also released these projects below about what she’d been doing over the past months of 2024, keeping mum about her biggest project, falling in love with Stephen. He’s in the video below, singing with his family.
An Internet search says that she got engaged on June 15, 2024. In this video below she is taking her little sisters along with her to give him a surprise visit at his worksite in Nebraska.
In the video above we see Stephen give her a joke engagement ring, a ring pop, which she puts on her finger. As far as I can find, she has not released a video of their actual engagement. Then we have this video below where she showed the house, in Nebraska, that they were renovating together. He was already living in it. She moved in after the wedding. She took her sisters from the Duggar home in Arkansas and stayed at the home in the guest bedroom with her sisters when they visited. Good-old fashioned Duggar chaperoning at work!
The one below shows more of their work on the house plus some summer fun with the family on a lake.
Then here’s the video of the renovation of just the kitchen.
This is all so fun to see them prepare their home as they prepare for the wedding as well. I wonder if all their dates consisted of remodeling the home.
Next is the fun bachelorette party that Jana took with her mom, sister-in-law Abbie, and all the sisters except Jill, in California. My favorite moment is at the 17:51 mark when Michelle Duggar turns into Mama Bear and chases after a guy who stole someone else’s wallet on the streets of Santa Barbara. I love how she says to the bad guy, “Your mama would not be pleased with you!” Michelle called the cops on the guy. So they came and confronted the bad guy. Way to go Supermama Michelle, using your mama bear chemistry to fight for truth and justice!
It was at this party, above, that sister Jinger announced her 3rd pregnancy while the sisters and mom were in the hot tub.
Now let’s watch the bridal shower and the bachelor party.
I love the dress she chose, below, in her wedding dress and venue shopping trips with her sisters. She asked for the dress to be altered, and then it didn’t quite turn out how she wanted. So then her sister-in-law said that her friend could help. That appears in the wedding video part 1, which is further down on this page. This friend, Bella, worked her magic with tailoring and a gravity-fed iron to make the dress the one of Jana’s dreams.
Then there’s the countdown to the wedding. Such excitement!
The big day! It was August 15, 2024, the same day that I toured Orchard House, the home of Little Women’s author Louisa May Alcott. It was part of my trip to New England and NYC which I blogged about over here. It’s just so fun that each of us got to see a dream come true on the same day. She shared the wedding in two parts, below. It’s also cool that the day was the wedding anniversary of Brandon and Michaela Bates Keilen, since the Duggars are longtime family friends of the Bates, who also have 19 children.
Speaking of the Bates, it’s also fun to see Josie Bates Balka as Jana’s stylist, doing her hair and makeup the morning of the wedding.
Here’s sister Jinger’s take on the wedding.
Where did they go on their honeymoon? The first few days were in Arkansas and then St. Lucia. I don’t blame them for taking a few days to take it easy after all the stressful wedding prep to just chill without having to jet off somewhere far away.
I just love seeing her so happy! Seeing her happy has brought a lot of people joy, people who have been waiting to see her marry for a long time, as she was 34. Someone made a comment on her wedding video on YouTube saying that her mother has dementia. When the daughter told her that Jana got married and showed her the wedding video the woman smiled. She started talking about Jana using her name. The memory of watching Jana when she was younger pierced through the fog and brought the woman joy. That whole thing made me smile. It’s like Jana is everybody’s granddaughter, daughter, or sister, and we are celebrating with her. May she have a wonderful life of wedded bliss!
I attended an event recently about the importance of defying tyrants with the doctrine of the lesser magistrate. If you care at all about keeping the power of government within its constitutional bounds, it is imperative that you learn this doctrine and how to apply it to protect your life and your family. Here is a similar video of the presentation that I saw, below, with the same presenter. I encourage all who care about enjoying liberty to watch it, learn, and take action. You can get the book of the presenter, Pastor Matthew Trewhalla, here. I agree with the tagline “Divine Law trumps human laws.” Amen!
Some people may ask about how Romans 13 fits in with all this. Pastor Trewhalla has an appendix in the book all about that. This is all the Spirit of 1776 folks! He said that the roots of our great USA come from this doctrine, all modeled by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, Massachusetts.
Tree of Life Mothering 