Bugsy caught a second wind early this evening after a second nap so we are up late. Everyone else is in bed (except for Princessa, who did not catch a second wind but wants to think that she did). That’s OK. We are previewing a DVD my awesome brother and his wife made of the past twelve years of family vacation/reunions, entitled “Cousins’ Adventures.” The rest of the family has to wait until tomorrow to see it for Family Home Evening. Hee-hee. We got it almost two weeks ago but I gave it to Cowboy to carry into the house from the car after we got it and he promptly lost it somewhere in the boys’ bedroom. It just resurfaced yesterday. I figured it would, despite the near black holeness of this bedroom shared by so many boys. Lots of times when I lose something I don’t panic, knowing that it will turn up eventually. Usually it does.

Thursday we went to the parents’ orientation for our Commonwealth School for the 2011-2012 school year. This is a private, but totally affordable, school for kids who are transitioning into scholar phase or doing scholar phase. At the meeting I found out that my friend Aneladee Milne has even more great things hatching! She is doing a pilot project at our Commonwealth School, SDLA, (see http://sdliberacademy.com) to test LEMI’s latest offering, a self-directed scholar phase project. My daughter is going to do it and it sounds so inspiring and life-changing to help youth find their missions.

She also  shared that she went to a conference on education the previous Saturday sponsored by the Sutherland Institute. She got to sit next to Janeen Brady. OK, I am already jealous. Aneladee shared some fascinating things about agency-based education, BYU-Idaho, and Neil Flinders. I am going to have to blog separately about that later.

Yesterday my dh and I went to the temple. We both did initiatory work for names that I personally found, and my sons and daughter had already done the baptisms and confirmations for. This is the first time that together we have done initiatory work for names that I found. It felt really good. I see these names on paper and wonder about the women. Who were they? What were their struggles and their joys? I hope to meet them sometime in the next life and learn all about them.

Tomorrow is Valor’s first day of college. I am so excited for him! I have waited for this moment for so many years. I so wish I could be there to witness a George Wythe College class in action. It would look pretty funny for a mom accompanying her son to his first day of college. He’s lucky that 250 miles separate us or I would be there. I never got to take him to kindergarten or any other public school class since I have always homeschooled him. He’s been feeling rather homesick after being gone two weeks. I think having college homework to do will cheer him up, or at least make him so busy he won’t have time to be homesick. He’s also still looking for a job. If anybody down in Cedar City has work for him, let me know. It’s funny that one of his roommates is the son of a La Leche League Leader, like I am. They can swap stories about going to LLL meetings when little and which mom got the weirdest phone calls that they overheard.

Friday night we went to the annual block party/barbecue our neighbors’ put on almost every year. They are the type of neighbors everyone would love. They keep their yard so immaculate looking. The wife used to be my visiting teacher and she would always give me little gifts and notes almost every month. Words are my love language but gifts are a close second. They are just so full of neighborly kindness. My husband (and Valor before he moved away to college) home teaches them. It would be nice for them to get presents from my husband their home teacher but instead they are always giving presents to my DH.

I remembered to eat my 2 T of coconut oil before the barbecue. It worked. I could only eat 1 turkey burger, 1 helping of my fabulous coleslaw, and 1 small serving of my neighbor’s corn pudding. That’s it. I didn’t even want to eat any more! The bishop’s wife kept on insisting that I try her sinful brownies with marshmallow and fudge frosting. I just kept politely refusing and she finally backed off. It is so fantastic to not even feel tempted to eat brownies. What a breakthrough! This coconut oil is so a godsend!

After the barbecue we hustled off to a free outdoor concert in SLC at the Brigham Young Historic Park featuring Voice Male (see http://voicemalemusic.com) Every year we keep meaning to do more of these concerts. Last year we heard The Other Three Tenors and loved it. Another night we heard Sam Payne, a classmate from high school days, and his friend Cherie Call. They all sounded great. It is fun to find cheap dates!

Today in church I remembered to ask a new ward member the rest of the story of what he shared in his talk last week in sacrament meeting. I will call him Brother Young. BY’s talk was about following the voice of the Lord, your conscience, or the good voice that you hear in your head. I have been reading about this topic lately in a book called Following the Light of Christ Into His Presence by John Pontius ( I finished the book today in fact! I highly recommend it. See http://followingthelight.org). This dear brother shared a story of when he was working at a bank in Provo as a teller while going to BYU. He had an impression to him to deposit $336 into a bank patron’s account, after he happened to notice that this patron, a young man, had next to nothing in his account. BY said that he obeyed, even though that was a lot of money for a starving student. The next day the young man came into the bank wondering where this money came from. It turned out that he was out of money and would have had to go home if not for this money that BY deposited. It was the exact amount of money the young man needed to pay his rent.

BY said that when when he was working at a different bank, three guys came to rob the vault. They pointed a gun to his head and his coworkers’ heads and threatened to kill them if they caused any trouble. They forced the manager to go to the safe at gunpoint. She normally had a hard time remembering where she put the keys. Imagine having to remember at gunpoint! BY shared that he had his whole life flash before his eyes. He humbly stated that he felt at peace, knowing he had lived a good life and that he was ready to meet his Maker. He said a mental prayer, asking God that he be the one to go if anybody had to be killed. He knew that his two coworkers were not ready to die. I felt the Spirit telling me that this was true.

Then he had the nerve to say that he wasn’t going to tell us the rest of the story! So I cornered him in church today to ask for the rest of it. He said that the robbers didn’t kill anybody, they did beat up the manager, enough that she had to take a month off to recover. She eventually found the keys, and the bad guys grabbed some money and ran out. BY went to lock the doors and call the police. The robbers ran across the street and climbed over a fence to get into their getaway car. The exploding dye on the bait money kicked in though before they got to the fence. These guys robbed banks for 18 more months and then one of them was finally caught. BY’s mother was a corrections officer and got to put him in jail!

I love it when ward members share such fascinating stories in sacrament meeting that show people living gospel principles. You never know what interesting, rich, amazing stories are inside your fellow ward members. Another good reason to come to sacrament meeting because they might be shared in a talk!

This summer I had the privilege of spending a day with my sisters and their girlfriends from our high school days who are now my friends as well. The children played while we had a grand time visiting.

These girlfriends are also nieces of Sister Julie Beck. the general Relief Society President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. One of them got to become the sister-in-law of my sister as well (this sister of mine, the lucky duck, has two sisters-in-law who were already really good friends of hers before she got married, one from high school, one from college, but that’s another story).

These ladies, Holly and Jennifer, said that their whenever anyone tells their aunt Julie that she gave a great talk in conference, she always say, “It wasn’t me, it was the Lord. It was His idea.”

I’ve always loved the gems of sermons Sister Beck has given. Her talks about LDS women being the best homemakers on earth, and that “mothers who know” do certain things, have become classics. Holly and Jennifer said she has received a lot of flak for being so bold. They also said that it’s almost time for her to be released. Her term of 5 or 6 years or whatever it is is almost up. I will miss Sister Beck!

This morning I listened to this delightful interview with Sister Beck and her two daughters, Heidi and Gerilynne. I think you will enjoy it! In the interview her sweet, bold and yet humble spirit at the same time shines forth. She talks about seeing the sacrifices her parents made to serve the Lord when they went to Brazil and that when she was young she was so poor she had to order water when her friends got root beer when they went out. Yet she doesn’t regret that. She has learned to follow the Spirit in everything she does and encourages all women to do the same See http://mormonchannel.org/programs/conversations-episode-15?lang=eng#d

This coconut oil  thing is really working to curb my appetite. Last night we had a birthday party for Bugsy. My baby is 2 now! I have reached the enviable position of having my youngest be 2. My oldest is off to college and my youngest is 2. (no, we are not done.) It feels good to have a little break though so I can rebuild my health (i.e. lose weight).  We had veggie sandwiches, french fries, watermelon for cake (I cut a circular slice, put candles in it and call it a cake. In summer, I try to get out of baking as much as possible.) and ice cream cones. I remembered to have 2 T of coconut oil about a half hour before dinner, and by the time I was eating all I could eat was a bunch of fries and one sandwich, because I wanted to save room for dessert. This is so great that I only want one helping! Coconut oil is a great discovery! If you struggle with your weight like I do, I highly recommend the book Eat Fat, Lose Fat by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig.

My friend Amy Jones of LDS Holistic Living blogged about nursing in sacrament meeting (by the way, the downloads are ready from this year’s conference, see http://ldsholisticliving.com and click on downloads). She even has a picture from some LDS artwork depicting a woman nursing in sacrament meeting. I love it! You will have to keep reading to get the link below. It looks like it is at the LDS Church Museum of History and Art. Somehow I have missed it, I will have to get me eagle eyes out next time I go.

Two months ago I nursed in sacrament meeting in my nephew’s ward during his missionary non-farewell. I was smack dab in the center of the pew and decided I would create a greater disturbance in getting up to leave than by just latching on. Since my brother was the bishop I figured I could talk him out of anything he brought up to me later.  Besides, he’s quite mellow and doesn’t like confrontation. Another besides, it really shouldn’t be disturbing to give a child nourishment from something that was designed by Heavenly Father to give nourishment. As so many of people have pointed at, some are offended by nursing in public because it involves a breast, which many consider to be strictly a sexual organ.

I really like what Amy says about that here http://aworldofwisdom.blogspot.com/2010/08/should-children-be-exposed-to.html. She shares the story of how the first time she nursed her first baby in Sunday School, her husband just about fainted, but she stood her ground, saying she didn’t come to church to nurse in a small room that smells of dirty diapers. She had four more babies, and she nursed everywhere, while leading music, while in leadership meetings, while teaching Primary, even while giving a prayer in sacrament meeting (all done discreetly with a baby in a sling). Wow! She’s not even a La Leche League Leader. I am but I am not that bold. When Amy was ready to move from the ward, her bishop came by and said that he would miss her family. He also said that all these years they had been discussing what to do about her nursing in public. They eventually just got used to it though.

One of these people gave her what she thought was the highest compliment, “Amy, if I believed in reincarnation, I would want to come back as one of your babies.” Awww, that’s so sweet! I love it! When you parent as an Attachment Parent, people definitely notice the love. That’s not to say you have to nurse everywhere in public.

I have nursed on and off during Sunday meetings over the near 18 years I have been nursing. I do it when I can be discreet, but when my nurslings are as noisy as little piglets, I excuse myself to the mother’s room, just because we are disturbing the reverence aurally, not visually. I have to confess that I have never nursed in Sunday School. Something about not having enough elbow room.

I say, nurse where you feel most comfortable. if that means nursing in the mother’s lounge, great, or good for you if you feel comfy enough to nurse in front of the bishop in ward council meeting. As you have more babies, you will probably get used to nursing more and more in public. Be discreet about it, but go ahead and show the world that it is normal for babies to get nourishment from their mother’s breasts, just like Jesus did.

The sweet news about sweeteners is that if you eat the right kind of fat, namely, cod liver oil, butter, and coconut oil, you won’t crave sweets as much. Yes, it’s possible to find cod liver oil that you don’t have to gag down, check out Green Pastures brand that is flavored with licorice, chocolate, and cinnamon, with a hint of stevia, see http://greenpasture.org/public/Products/CodLiverOil/index.cfm. And if you eat your treats made out of the right kind of fat, namely butter and coconut oil, you won’t overdose on the sweets. So, yes that means, time to learn how to make homemade desserts and avoid store-bought ones. The good fats slow down on the absorption of the sugar and help moderate the blood sugar spikes. White sugar causes huge spikes then crashes. That creates a craving for more and more, which can lead to getting fat and sick. If you want more about the evils of white sugar, read Sugar Blues by William Duffy.

Sugar Blues has tons of totally fascinating information on why white sugar is so bad. You will never look at sugar the same after reading it. Nourishing Wisdom by Marc David also has some juicy facts about why sugar is bad. Marc David explains how sugar can be a substitute for love, and how to learn to fill that inborn desire for sweetness and love without getting addicted to sugar.

Both of these books are quoted in the chapter that has recipes for sweet snacks and desserts in the Nourishing Traditions (NT) cookbook by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig. NT has sidebars on every page that are so much fun to read, full of nuggets of wisdom and exposes of what is wrong with the modern food industry, like the facts that most commercial ice cream has preservatives used as lice killer, paint solvent, and antifreeze. There’s a blogger out there whose goal is to cook every recipe in the NT cookbook and blog about them. Here’s the link to her section on the cookie recipes in NT, http://thenourishingcook.com/category/recipes/snacks-finger-foods/cookies-snacks-finger-foods-recipes/

Here’s a video that shows what sweeteners are best, i.e., wholesome, meaning, healthy to use, because they are not just empty calories:

Here is a mini-class on sweeteners from my friend and Nourishing Traditions mentor Caralee Ayre, in response to enthusiasm some of her friends were showing over stevia:

“I feel so bad to bring this up, but I feel a responsibility, with all the enthusiasm about stevia, I feel the need to throw in a cautionary word about stevia- that it is wise to be careful with it just like any other sweetener.  The unrefined dried green leaves and green powder are perfectly safe in small amounts, but the white stevia powder and liquids are refined and use nutrients to be digested.  Just as we are wanting to avoid refined white sugar, salt and flour, this variety of stevia also falls into this category.  The liquids and white powders are not healthful and are best avoided.  I know no one asked, but here is an unsolicited quick lesson on sweets- please forgive me- (this comes out of Eat Fat, Lose Fat by Sally Fallon):

“Surprisingly, most traditional diets included some sweet foods.  Many traditional people ate honey.  Native Americans ate maple syrup and maple sugar.  Residents of the tropics dehydrated cane sugar jucie in the sun to make a mineral-rich sweetener.  Naturally sweet sap from coconut flower buds can also be turned into a sugar.  

“These sweet foods were quite different from the refined sugars we eat today, for two reasons:
• They were unrefined and concentrated, hence loaded with nutrients, especially minerals, while white sugar, fructose, and other refined sweeteners are completely devoid of nutrients.

• They were expensive or rare, so people did not consume them in large amounts as we do today.
“Our natural taste for sweets can be satisfied with sweet foods that also provide nutrients.  If we restrict sweets entirely, cravings develop.

“So although we urge caution, we don’t forbid sweeteners in our food plans, unless you’re trying to lose weight.  (On a regular diet, not weight loss) you can enjoy small amounts of natural sweeteners such as Rapadura or Sucanat (dehydrated cane sugar juice), raw honey, maple sugar, or maple syrup, coconut sugar, and molasses (the mineral-rich residue of white sugar manufacturer).  And one of the wonderful things about coconut is that it can be made into such delicious desserts!  

“Important note:  Even worse than refined sweeteners (which actually use up the nutrients we take in from other foods) are the artificial sweeteners, such as aspartame (sold as Equal or Nutrasweet), used in so many “diet” sodas.  Like MSG, aspartame is toxic to the nervous system and can cause weight gain.  Sucralose (Splenda), xylitol, and other newfangled sweeteners have caused digestive problems and immune system dysfunction in laboratory animals.  Avoid them all by preparing your own desserts as occasional treats.”

Here are the best sweeteners to use, according to the Weston A. Price Foundation 2010 Shopping Guide:
Best:  Organic natural sweeteners such as maple syrup, maple sugar, molasses, green stevia leaves and green stevia powder, dehydrated cane sugar juice, malt syrups, coconut or palm sugar, date sugar, sorghum syrup and raw honey.

Good:  Non-organic maple syrup, molasses and unfiltered honey; organic jams; organic brown rice syrup.
Avoid:  White sugar, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, fructose, agave, imitation syrups, heated and filtered honey, concentrated fruit juices and stevia extracts (liquid and powder), artificial sweeteners such as sucralose (Splenda) and aspartame (Nutra-sweet and Equal).

A couple of other quick things- first of all, a disclaimer on my cookie recipes: They are sweet.  They do not need to be so sweet.  For those of you who are looking for something less sweet, the recipes can be easily adapted by cutting down the sugar by half or three-quarters and you can still have a yummy treat without so much sugar.  I gave you a recipe that works well for people that have children that they are trying to wean off of sugar that turn their noses up at most healthy desserts, or when you need something for a special occasion, and you really don’t want to buy or make junk food.  That is such a real issue that so many of us face, and that’s the major reason I created that recipe.  But I don’t recommend whipping them all the time- use them for special occasions, and try some less-sweet (or fruit and nuts and cream-based) treats in between.   Also, I was just so excited to be able to make a cookie/brownie without wheat (unsoaked whole
 wheat or white) that somewhat resembled a cookie!  I am very sensitive to unsoaked whole wheat, and it was so nice to feel like I could make a treat for my family without ingesting a bunch of phytic acid!  

One other thing- for those of you who are not familiar with the Weston A. Price Foundation and wonder why I keep referring to it, that’s another topic for another time.  But I have been studying and applying and experimenting with health and nutrition for nineteen years (yes, I started when I was fifteen), and I have found that they have the most truth about nutrition that I have seen in one place and I have had the most dramatic, consistent results by applying the traditional principles that they teach (nothing really new, just rediscovering what our ancestors already knew and practiced), so I often tend to turn to them for information.  Of course, studying it out yourself and praying for confirmation as you are seeking truth is most important.  This is good stuff, and I love it!  I feel that it is very important right now that we become as spiritually, mentally, emotionally, educationally, financially, physically, etc., self-reliant as possible.”

 

 

Here are some recipes from Caralee:

Caralee’s Arrowroot Chocolate Chip Cookies

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Beat together until fluffy:

1 stick butter (optional- 1/2 butter, 1/2 coconut oil)
1 cup sucanat
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg

Mix in gently:

1 1/2 to 2 cups arrowroot (the dough should not be sticky nor too dry, start
with 1 1/2 cups, and add more if needed)
1/2 cup chocolate chips (from Good Earth or Rapunzel or Sunspire brand- or
make them yourself!)
1/2 cup chopped crispy nuts (my favorite is pecans or almonds- soaked and
dehydrated) and/or shredded coconut
1 teaspoon baking soda

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, or just until done in the center.  Take out and
cool for a few minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack.  Enjoy with cold
raw milk.  Yummy!

Variation:

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Do the same thing as above, except do not put in the coconut oil- put in 1/3
cup organic peanut butter instead.  Also, do not include nuts or coconut.

Succulent Brownies

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Beat until fluffy:

1 cup sucanat
1 stick butter
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla

Add and mix well:

3/4 to 1 cup arrowroot
1/2 cup cocoa powder

Spread in 8×8″ baking dish.  Bake 20 min. or until done in center.  May
sprinkle chopped crispy nuts and chocolate chips on top, or drizzle with
peanut butter.  Mmm!

Last Friday I held an online colloquium with my girlfriend to discuss Fascinating Womanhood, as a free session in my Zion Finishing School. My girlfriend, Leah, is the great niece of Helen Andelin, the author of Fascinating Womanhood. Helen Andelin was LDS, born in 1920, and published FW in 1963. We had sooo much fun discussing the book! About 11 women showed up, and out of those 11, we had all read all of the book or parts of it, I I recall correctly, but only one person had done the assignments in the book.

I learned the following from reading the book, participating in the colloquium, doing and Internet search about Helen and the book, and talking to Leah after the colloquium was over to get even more juicy tidbits.

-Orson Pratt is quoted in the book as saying that if you don’t follow your husband, then you lose the Spirit of God. I must add a disclaimer to that, by paraphrasing Pres. Spencer Kimball. He said not to follow your husband into an evil pit. It is up to you to be in tune with the Spirit to know whether or not you should be following your husband.

-Helen wrote the book because she felt her own husband was too controlling. She no longer felt cherished in her marriage although she felt loved. She was discouraged about her marriage and happened to find a set of pamphlets in her attic about marriage and how to treat a man. These pamphlets were written a long time ago and they inspired her to write Fascinating Womanhood. A newspaper article I found online about Helen said that she also fasted and prayed and read the Bible and the Book of Mormon to get answers to help her marriage.

–FW is one of those things that sounds a little corny at first but I say, don’t knock it until you try it. Women who criticize it probably don’t have a man who utterly adores them. I am willing to guarantee that they aren’t enjoying Celestial Love. This is the love that Helen wants her readers to have by applying the principles in her book. Your girlfriend may be spouting off all the reasons she doesn’t like the book, but if you ask her husband about his feelings he probably isn’t happy in the marriage and doesn’t absolutely adore her.

-For a long time I have not taken FW seriously, thinking, “Oh, its ideas are kind of cheesy and some of them even seem deceptive and manipulative.” I based that on my reading of the companion book, The Fascinating Girl. But after hearing other women talk about FW and now that I have read well into the book, I am thinking, “Maybe I should actually do these assignments. Maybe my husband and I would be happier in our marriage if I did these things.” We have a good marriage, but if it can be greater, I want that! In other words, you can be right, or you can have a man who worships the ground you walk on, but you can’t have both. If your marriage is having problems, I highly recommend the book.(I still disagree with some of the book, though, the part about acting dumb about mechanical things, if you really are smart about them. I think it is manipulative to act dumb about them when you want your husband to take over the work involved with them.)

– What is Celestial Love, a love we can all achieve in our marriages? This quote from Victor Hugo in the FW book depicts Celestial Love beautifully:

Do I exist for my own personal happiness? No, my whole existence is devoted to her, even in spite of her. And by what right should I have dared to aspire to her love? What does it matter, so that it does not injure her happiness? My duty is to keep close to her steps, to surround her existence with mine, to serve her as a barrier against all dangers; to offer my head as a stepping stone, to place myself unceasingly between her and all sorrows, without claiming reward, without expecting recompense…Alas! If she only allow me to give my life to anticipating her every desire, all her caprices; if she but permit me to kiss with respect her adored footprints; if she but consent to lean upon me at times amidst the difficulties of life.

 

-Leah said she used to ask Helen, “What do you do about all these people (feminists) who write mean and nasty stuff about you?” Helen responded with, “I just feel sorry for them that they will never feel the joy that I am feeling.”

-Helen tells the readers in FW that there are certain behaviors that a wife does not have to accept from a man. She says exactly what to do if your husband is mistreating you or the children. Contrary to popular opinion, this book is not about being a doormat.

-all of the human characteristics that Helen recommends to perfect your “human” side of Angela Human is to bring out the protective feelings, worshipfulness, and adoration of your husband towards you. If you let your husband walk over you, then he won’t feel those tender feelings. The humanness was to help Helen and other women who had/have too controlling husbands to let their husbands know that wasn’t right in a playful, yet powerful way.

-Helen based her Angela Human idea on her grandmother, named Anna Mariah, a very sweet woman who lived the ideal of  Angela Human. Leah said she was very righteous and incredibly gentle, yet powerful. This grandmother absolutely loved babies and always had a baby to hold, either hers or a borrowed one, after she stopped having her own babies.

-The two key ideas in FW are to 1. accept your husband at face value, and 2. use childlike anger when he does something wrong. There is power in girlishness, tears, and sauciness.

-You don’t have to wear a housedress to practice FW. Leah says the principle is to dress feminine. She wears jeans when she is at home, especially when cleaning the house, but wears a feminine top. The idea is to dress femininely, but that doesn’t mean you have to wear a dress or a skirt everyday.

-Childlike anger doesn’t feel natural to a lot of people. Leah said if it doesn’t, don’t force it. Some people are naturally hams, like she is, so it comes naturally to them. She says just state clearly and honestly that you felt hurt because of such and such that your husband did. Then let it go and give him room to repent. Don’t keep harping on it.

-FW is so much deeper than Fascinating Girl. I wish I had read Fascinating Womanhood when I first started my marriage and then continued to reread it over the years and applied the ideas. I feel like saying, “I have been so wrong in avoiding this book.” It makes me wonder what else I have been discounting in my life that would actually benefit me if I looked into it and actually did it.

-Leah said that she grew up with the ideas of FW. She would go to family reunions with “Aunt Helen.” Even though these reunions involved camping Aunt Helen would also look clean and feminine. She would wear jeans but they were feminine and she always had feminine touches, like really cute sandals. At the reunions they would always have FW classes for the girls and women.

-Leah has an older half sister by fifteen years who always pooh-poohed these classes and FW. Now that she’s on her fourth marriage, she is finally seeing that there might be some truth in FW.

-The older edition of the book I have is selling used on Amazon for $100! I got it at D.I. for $4.

-I want to get the newest edition because it has an index. It also has a chapter on physical intimacy in marriage, which isn’t in the first edition, as far as I can tell.

-I found a blog written by a FW believer. Go here http://lifeasafascinatingwoman.blogspot.com

-Here is an interesting news article, which includes an interview with Helen:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=KDMMAAAAIBAJ&sjid=hl8DAAAAIBAJ&pg=7098%2C1578059

I like this picture because it reminds me that even things that aren’t perfect can be beautiful, just like ourselves and our marriages.

We recently celebrated Cowboy’s birthday. He asked me to make him a banana pie. I was relieved that I was able to talk him into foregoing the crust. It was easy to make the pudding from scratch and then simply fill a glass pie plate with the pudding, refrigerate, and then add whipped cream and health food store candies to the top.

Wednesday night was pack meeting. We are on our third boy in Cub Scouts, and I have to admit, I am burned out on pack meetings. Part of it I guess is a holdover from my childhood when I felt sooo resentful that my brothers got to do Cub Scouts and the church didn’t have a program for girls, and my mom didn’t let me do Girl Scouts. Even with Activity Days now for LDS girls I don’t feel satisfied. It doesn’t have the same structure and recognition that Cub Scouts does. And pack meeting seems to frequently fall on birthdays in our family. But I don’t grumble much about it any more, even if the one tonight did fall on my 20th wedding anniversary. We just celebrated last night.

We did something simple and cheap, went out to eat, and then went to the temple. Many people do that for a date but we have been having financial challenges so we never go out to eat, and we haven’t been to the temple in a long time. At the temple, some nice older lady allowed me to go before her in the restroom because, “expecting moms always get to go first.” OK, for the record, I am NOT pregnant. Just two days earlier someone asked me as well. NO, I am just fat. What can I say? Like Erma Bombeck says about herself, the prime time of my figure was when I was 9. I actually lost a lot of weight in college and was skinny, for me, when I got married. I was also relatively thin after I had my oldest daughter. But for the most part, I have been “curvaceous.”

I read in Eat Fat Lose Fat that if you eat a tablespoon or two of coconut oil before meals you will eat less at the meal. I remembered to do that before dinner, before pack meeting, and I was so thrilled that the peanut butter bars didn’t even tempt me. I felt completely happily full. Coconut oil works! The book says that it helps you burn your fat by increasing your fat thermostat. I LOVE being able to just walk by the peanut butter finger bars and not feel them calling to me!  I LOVE this! This is one of the greatest discoveries ever!!!!  Now if I can just remember to take it about 20 minutes before a meal, like the books says, so I can feel the full effects.

This is from Leadership Education Academy, an online school that is TJED-based. I highly recommend it if you don’t have access to a commonwealth school in your area for your youth:

Before I got married, even before I went off to college, I read The Fascinating Girl by Helen Andelin. I liked a lot of it, although I disagreed with some of it. It’s about how to be feminine joyfully and attract a man to be your husband and then stay married. After I got married I could never quite do the “acting childlike” bit of pouting and tossing my curls saucily. It seemed so fake. I wanted to burst out laughing every time I thought about doing it.

I was reminded of the book again last year when Keri Tibbets listed the companion/sequel book, Fascinating Womanhood, in her bibliography at the end of her Headgates ebook. (http://headgates.org)

 This book arouses strong opinions in people. One of my homeschooling friends absolutely hates it, saying that it is bent. Some people love the book. I am eager to hear more about what people think of it. If i were to rename the book, I would call it The Womanly Art of Wifing. It has a lot of good points in it that will build a marriage because it acknowledges that men are supposed to be masculine and women should be feminine and a great marriage is made up of masculine and feminine. What is feminine and what is masculine can be very subjective however.

My Zion Finishing School is discussing the book online this Friday August 19 at 2 PM MDT and I am inviting everyone, even if you haven’t paid for the finishing school course, to join us in the free discussion. As a bonus, I have asked my dear friend, Leah, to join us. She used to teach the course based on the book. She has a unique perspective because the author of Fascinating Womahood, Helen Andelin, is her great aunt. She got mentoring over the phone many times with Mrs. Andelin on how to answer women’s specific questions for tough marital problems.

If you want to join the discussion, please email me at celestia_shumway at yahoo dot com and I will send you the link for the discussion on Friday. You can also read more about the book at http://fascinatingwomanhood.net

One summer, 16 years ago when I was pregnant with Virtue, we had seven, count them, seven Saturdays in a row where we had a family reunion to go to. That was the summer of the reunions. I love reunions but I mus confess I was burned out with reuniting after seven of them. Every branch of my family for three generations back decided to have one I guess. These days we always have at least two, the week-long vacation with my parents and sibs,and then the Hansen family reunion for my Grandma’s parents and their descendants. That one is always the first Saturday in August. I love that I can count on it being that day every year. Every few years the Shumways have one and the Hiltons do too.

This year the Hansen family reunion involved mud! The kids had a waterslide too but most of them preferred the mud in the creek next to the water slide.

I had a great time watching the kids have fun. I wanted to visit with my relatives more but I couldn’t visit and watch my toddler at the same time and keep him safe. I don’t know a lot of these relatives and some time I am going to actually go up to them and introduce myself and actually find out their name and how they fit on the family tree.

If you are ver wondering what to do at a family reunion with the kids, just find a place with mud and tell them to bring their swimsuits. The kids played happily for hours!

Every week in my life is so full! Last week we had two wedding receptions of a friend and then a cousin’s son, a family reunion, a birthday dinner and party for Cowboy, saying goodbye to my brother and his family leaving for Virginia, my son leaving for college, a carnival sponsored by our orthodontist (which I now regret going to) and then I took my younger children camping without my husband. Whew! That was all on top of the usual shopping, fixing food, cleaning up, reading, nursing, weeding, chores, etc.

One of my kids wet the bed last night so we spent this morning moving the bulky futon mattress to get the cover off to wash, and then while we were at it we cleaned out from under the bed and it was hard work. My kids are such pack rats. Having 4 boys in the same room, and keeping it clean, all these years has been such a challenge. We threw away a bag of junk and made a box to give away. Hopefully that is just a start. I can see that if they didn’t have so much stuff, it wouldn’t get so messy. We have so much more to purge! I am also ready to get rid of these bunk beds and have them sleep on the floor so we don’t have this junk trap of  “under the bed.” We had so much fighting and bossing around. I am still working on getting the older ones not to discipline or boss the younger ones. We all felt so cranky! I finally told them we should stop and say a prayer and ask for help from God in being harmonious.

Some of the families in the commonwealth school we participate in like to go camping every August.  (you too can have a commonwealth school, it’s the only kind of school that is owned by parents, see http://lemimentortraining.com/School_Alternatives.php) I’ve always wanted to go but it has never worked out until this year. Two years ago I was pregnant (and I don’t like to camp when pregnant, call me a baby, but I just hate having to waddle to an outhouse two or three times during the night) and last year we had my Sudweeks family reunion the same week. This week we had to get our son off to college and then I had my finishing school class to teach on Friday so I said we could go after I was done teaching on Friday and just spend one night.

My husband wanted to stay home and work so it was just me and the middles and the littles because Valor is off to college and Virtue wanted to go to bed early. I was kind of hoping the middles would forget about it but fat chance of that. Honor, my second son, rose to the occasion as the man of the family and brought it up that morning, reminding me. He and Venture, my third son, put all the camping gear in the car and pitched the tent after we got there.I never did get the directions from my friends via their cell phones so I had to Google the directions and then just hope they were still there.

I had to do some fast thinking of what to do for our meals that would be doable with the limited camping gear we have, without going to the store. I settled on beef stew for dinner and plain old fruit for breakfast. I was sooo glad I went through my promise and took them even though it was hard to pack and then unpack after only one night of camping. The unpacking went a lot more slowly than the packing.  Hopefully next year we will spend the whole four days.

It felt so good to see the beautiful mountains and the lake. It was also fun to watch the kids play with few toys. My daughter asked to have the baby wipe I used on her face to play with. I also enjoyed chatting with the other moms. I saw a very cool item that I want for camping! My friends the Lake family had this thing called a Zodi extreme hot water heater. http://zodi.com/Consumer/zodiextremeshower.html It’s this container with a valve and hose. You can heat water right in it in the fire or use the portable stand and fuel source that comes with it. You then let the water out through the hose so you have hot water for dishes or for a shower. I do love being in the outdoors enjoying untouched by man nature but I am not so pure about camping that I don’t want fancy camping gear. It’s fun to dream build and expand my vision even when camping.