Tree of Life Mothering

Last Thursday my oldest child left for college. He is my oldest but I still call him my baby because all of my children are my babies in a sense. It was just a mere 18 years ago this summer that I was pregnant with him, working at my job as laboratory assistant to a med school professor at the Univ. of Utah. I remember so well counting down the days until I could quit my job and be a stay-at-home mom. Two weeks before the due date, in early September of 1993, I left the job, never to come back, on purpose. I was so looking forward to being a mom! How completely my life changed when I gave birth to him less than three weeks later

.This baby is almost 18 and off to college.

I am feeling rather melancholy. I am so happy that he wants to go to college and is physically and mentally able to and won a scholarship to pay for his tuition, but I am sad that we have reached the end of an era. The era of his childhood. He’s not quite 18, but since he’s out living on his own, paying for his rent with money that he has saved up, his childhood is over. No longer are all my children at home. My toddler who is not quite 2 will grow up without his big brother at home. I’ve heard stories about this from other families but never experienced it myself since the family I grew up in was closer in age: five kids in nine years. I was in the middle and remember my brothers leaving on missions when I was in junior high and high school.

Our last family trip with Valor at home.

It was so weird to help him pack, make a shopping list, give him a hug and then wave good bye as he drove away. We took lots of photos first and had a special treat of ice cream for dessert. He still has braces on and it only made sense to let him keep the car so he can drive back and forth for braces treatment. It’s only four hours one way! That’s not too bad. We looked in to getting him transferred to an ortho down there but the one we talked to wanted $500 just to take the braces off! We are paid in full for all the braces up here so that didn’t make sense. Maybe God planned it this way so that I would get to see him more often

To celebrate this passage of life, I wondered what I could have the family do that would be meaningful. Ahhh, I remembered that I have always wanted to go to the Martin Harris pageant. For over ten years, I have seen it advertised in the Ensign and on church bulletin boards. I have always wanted to go! It always seemed too far away. Well, I figured it was now or never. They only do it on odd-numbered years so if I waited for two more years my son will be on his mission.

Our last breakfast with Valor at home.

It also starts at 8:30 and ends 10 PM. Then we would have an hour and a half drive to two hours home, which makes for a late bedtime. I talked my husband into it by saying that sometimes when he visits his mom with the kids they don’t get him until midnight.

So off we went and I am so glad we did. I felt richly rewarded. The setting for the pageant is the Clarkston Utah cemetery. It is in the middle of nowhere. I love that! Someday I want to live out in the country like that. I felt so peaceful as I gazed out at the mountains and imagined Martin Harris gazing out at them decades ago.

The pageant was beautiful and I felt the Spirit. The woman who played Lucy Harris had such a lovely voice. Now I have all these questions about Martin and Lucy. Did Lucy give the manuscript away of the lost 116 pages? Did she hide them and then they were stolen? What happened in her background that made her so insecure?

When the pageant depicted Angel Moroni showing the plates to Martin I definitely felt the Holy Spirit bearing witness to me that the event being shown really happened.

It just speaks peace to my soul to know that the Book of Mormon is true. The three witnesses who saw the plates it was translated from, as well as Joseph Smith, never denied their testimonies of it or of the angel. No matter what happens or how crazy the world gets, i can always rely on the Book of Mormon.

I really liked the handout that the pageant workers gave to the attendees. It has several interesting stories about Martin. I liked reading that he was a man known to be of good character and hard-working. He also believed in hard money, gold and silver. Sounds like an Austrian economics man! I like that!

This is the marker at the grave of Martin Harris.

When my college son was at home and much younger he liked to read this book that I got for Christmas one year, called The Book of Mormon on Trial. Seeing the pageant reminded me of that book. It tells some of Martin’s story more than the pageant did. The pageant didn’t talk about how he left the church and was excommunicated. The story in The Book of Mormon on Trial does though. It says he did get rebaptized. It also points out that he never denied his testimony of Joseph’s prophetic role appointed by God and the divinity of the Book of Mormon.

One of my younger sons recently discovered the book on our shelves and has been reading it and enjoying it. It’s in cartoon format and very interesting. You can order it here and read the first chapter for free http://bookofmormonontrial.com. (It makes a great Christmas or birthday present. Also, the book is based on the grandfather of one of my Veggie Gal friends, named Jack West. He was in law school and wanted to do a practice case by putting the Book of Mormon on trial. That’s a post for another day so I will tell the rest later.)

I am so glad we watched this pageant to celebrate the end of my son’s childhood. The next day he left with hugs and happy good byes. I’ve been wondering, did I teach him everything he needs to know? Like to change his underwear and pick up after himself and have good roommate manners. And then, have I learned everything I need to know from him, about using all of my electronic stuff such as my camera, my phone, this web site, and the computer. On the drive to the pageant, I quizzed him from this fun book I found, The R.A.T.: the Real World Aptitude Test. It’s a fun test that tests your knowledge for living on your own, unlike the S.A.T. which just tests your ability to take a scholastic skills test. I am happy to report that he knew most of the answers.

I so much have been wanting to be down there with him to check out his new place and make sure he’s keeping it clean and meet his roommates. I have only called him once, maybe twice a day and texted him a few times. We never allowed him to be on Facebook while he was here because I felt it would be too much of a distraction from his studies but told him I was OK with him getting on it now; I figure he has to learn to not get too distracted by it sometime.

So I was happy to find him on Facebook yesterday. I think I found one of his roommates too. Facebook is a mom of teenagers and college-ager’s dream. I can be aware of what he’s sharing with people and what they are sharing with him, in a way I couldn’t in the pre-Facebook days even if he were still at home.

I would like to share a homeschool-related spiritual experience I had recently in hopes that it will be a blessing to someone else in some way. 

Several times I have heard the apostles say we live far below our privileges when it comes to receiving the gifts of the Spirit and that thought always makes me feel so determined to not fall short of what God would like to bless me with.  For years now I’ve been consciously trying to live so that I can obtain more of those privileges.  Each step has been small and I have a long way to go, but it has been a joyful and amazing journey. 

I have been doing a lot of praying lately for guidance from the Spirit in determining how to guide each of my children on their own unique path that Heavenly Father has for them.  I want to know what I need to do now so that they will be where He needs them to be, equipped with the tools necessary for them to do the work that He sent them to earth to do.  I believe as mothers we have a right to revelation about our children, starting before they are even conceived. Especially as homeschooling mothers we need this revelation.  We should ask for it and expect it. 

Monday morning we had our usual morning devotional.  In reading some scripture in the book of Moses, I got off on a tangent talking about the book of remembrance that was kept and how important it is to keep journals.  Bean, my oldest, who is ten, suddenly put his head in his arms and started crying noisily. 

Emotional outbursts from Bean are fairly common and when they happen he can’t learn or do anything until he calms down.  Sometimes this takes hours and sometimes entire days have been wasted because he’s angry or upset.  So when this happened I groaned inwardly and thought “oh boy, here we go again.” 

But I am trying not to get frustrated and, more importantly, I am trying to follow the Spirit in situations like this. I asked Bean to move to the couch so that his noise wouldn’t disrupt our devotional.  Then when we were done with the devotional, I went and sat next to him on the couch and put my arms around him. I wasn’t sure exactly what had set him off crying, so I probed a little and reminded myself to listen and not lecture. 

He was upset not because his brother had hit him or because he was wishing he could go jump on the trampoline, but because he felt like he should be keeping a journal and he wasn’t. 

The reason he isn’t keeping a journal is that he is a very late-blooming reader and his writing skills are not yet sufficient to produce a narrative of his daily life.  I explained to him that he was not expected to keep a journal yet and that I had been keeping a record of his life for him. 

Suddenly, the Spirit came over me so strongly.  I looked at him and said, “Son, the reason you feel so intensely about needing to keep a journal is that you have the gift of writing and one of your tasks here on earth will be keeping a record of your life in these latter days.  You have many missions to fulfill here on earth and you will write about them in great detail.  This record will be a tremendous blessing and treasure to your posterity throughout the years.” 

It was such a tender experience between the two of us.  He felt the Spirit too and he knew I was speaking by the Spirit.  I knew that I had awoken an understanding and a vision in his soul that had been there, but neither one of us had been aware of it until then.  I had had absolutely no indication up to this point that this child had any gift for writing whatsoever.  As I said, his reading and writing switches have been very late turning on so I have hardly seen any legible writing from him at all, let alone anything that would indicate that this child will be known for his writing. 

But he will be.  And now that we know that, we can nurture that and provide him with the guidance he needs to master his craft. 

This was such an example to me of how even though I watch my children close to determine how to help them develop their gifts I still need the Spirit of revelation to help me know what those gifts are.  I am so grateful for the guidance of the Holy Spirit in my mothering and homeschooling. 

I have been doing TJED (that’s Thomas Jefferson Education, see http://tjed.org) for 5 years now and am loving it. It is so liberating! It is so sweet not to have a slew of homework and backpacks to deal with in the evenings, especially if you have a horde of kids, like I do. I love not having to be a Sergeant Mom Taskmaster, making sure homework is done. I love not being a slave to a government school schedule.

I love being a part of a community school for scholars (ages 12 and up) that like-minded parents and I own, with the goal of creating liber in ourselves and our children. If you want to know what “liber” is, go here http://tjed.org/purchase/audio-downloads/liber-mp3/. 

If you want to know more about Adult and Youth Scholar Projects, go to http://lemimentortraining.com/Liber_Communities.html

I love that my kids get to associate with like-minded youth who come from a family culture similar to mine. I love that this culture encourages kids to study as scholars and prepare for a mission instead of treating the teenage years as a social circus time to play with electronic toys, romance, social networks, and sports.

My oldest child is going off to college this week (that’s fodder for a whole other post, I am feeling so bittersweet). He got accepted into three colleges (BYU, SVU, and GWC, all on scholarship), and is off to go to his first pick, George Wythe College, in Cedar City. Homeschooling works, but it is like anything, you have to work it to make it happen.

TJED homeschooling is the best because it teaches you to work with your children’s developmental phases and personality types, instead of against, and how to set up your whole family culture to accomplish the work and learning you want to do for everyone to be happy. I love being able to play with my littles for school, do housework with them and call it school, and watch the magic unfold as they get older and beg to learn how to read and beg to take hard classes and then get absorbed in books and talk  and write about great ideas.

I know, however, that I have more to do to create even more of the leadership education family culture that I want. Diann Jeppson has the perfect course that I am going to do. It’s the Leadership Education Family Builder course, see http://leadershipeducationfamilybuilder.com.

It helps you create a master educational plan for your family, a vision of the learning experiences you want to have and the places you want to go with your family, a chore system for your family, a list of classics you want your family to digest, how to do “you, not them,” how to inspire and mentor, and so much more. It is regularly $99. It includes mp3 files of each lesson (one introductory, 5 core, and 12 enrichment) and then a workbook to write in, in the form of a PDF.

It used to be called TJED Basic Training but has been revised, updated, and expanded. If you have ever wanted to do it but the cost has deterred you, here’s a great offer. If you have more time than money, this might work for you. Diann has offered for anyone to have the course without paying any money if you will transcribe one of the presentations from the 2010 TJED Forum in exchange. Go here to see the list http://tjedmarketplace.com/forums/slc/2010/overview. Pick the one you want to transcribe and email Diann at diannjeppson at gmail dot com and let her know which one you want to do. You then have a two week turn around time to do it. The following people’s presentations are already taken: Meghan Muyanjas, William DeMille, Spencer and Nicholeen Peck’s The Power of Calm, and Mary Ann Johnson’s The Closet.

Tips for transcribing: use shorthand if you know it, or abbreviations, and then type it all up. Know that it takes LOTS of time, like about 30 minutes for every 5 minutes of the presentation. That’s why I say it will work if you have more time than money.

Last Friday I had a lot of fun. My littles have been begging me to have another sleepover at Grandma’s. They had one when I went to TJED Land in June, to take the bigs to Youth for Freedom (http://youthforfreedom.org) Then another happened when I went to LEMI Training in July but they still wanted another. I guess they are as greedy as I am when it comes to getting interaction with extended family. Part of the attraction comes from the cousins who live down the street. We had a family reunion on Saturday down in Nephi so that made the pick up a lot easier since I didn’t have to make another extra trip. I dropped them off Friday morning and came home by noon. The plan was to get home by 9 AM to avoid a nap in the car for my toddler, so that he would still nap at home in the afternoon and I could “get something done” with no kids around. I am all for doing jobs with your children to teach them and bond, but sometimes, it is just nice to dig in and work for a long time with no kids around to supervise, engage, cajole and referee.

It was hard to get away though with my brother being there who I hardly ever see, because he has been living in faraway places like Shanghai and Seoul, and the ladder ball game. I did finally pull away. The kids were thrilled that they could have breakfast candy. That’s my phrase for cold cereal. We hardly ever have cold cereal in our home, since I read in Nourishing Traditions that it is highly processed. Even supposedly healthful cereal that doesn’t have a ton of sugar, like Cheerios or Wheat Chex. I really like what my girlfriend Tara says about breakfast candy. You can read it here and get a homemade breakfast cereal recipe http://happyinthekitchen-withtara.blogspot.com/2010/01/homemade-breakfast-cereal.html. Grandpa likes to buy it and the kids like to eat it whenever they are there. I figure one or two bowls three times a year won’t kill them.

After chatting with my brother and playing ladder ball a little bit, I finally broke away. Bugsy, my toddler, still took an afternoon nap, even though he did sleep in the car on the way home before noon (I don’t leave him overnight yet because sometimes he nurses during the night). After a trip to the store to get a birthday present for Cowboy and getting Bugsy down for an afternoon nap, I got some dejunking done! Hooray! I pulled out tons of magazines that I have saved over the years. They were covered with dust and just about choked me as I unearthed them from behind the filing cabinet. I finally am able to ditch them. Like I heard a friend on Facebook say, I love stories and I love things and every thing has a story, so it’s hard to part with things.

Everyone was invited to wear their best hat. As the bride, Tatiana in her hat topped them all. Her hat reminded me of the pink dog in “Go Dog Go!” who asks “Do you like my hat?”

That night we went to the wedding of my friend Aneladee’s daughter, Tatiana. She had it at a public park. I never would have thought a public park could be used for a wedding reception! When I was a young thing I always wanted a garden wedding reception but when the time came to get married, my home backyard wasn’t pretty enough and I didn’t know anybody I was willing to ask to let me use their backyard. If only I had known that a park would have been acceptable. The wedding reception photos would have turned out so much prettier; they would have had trees and bushes and grass in the background and foreground instead of the cinderblock of the church gym.

One of the lovely sisters of the bride and her nephew.

Isn’t that silly? It’s funny how we don’t know about things until we see others do or use them. But wouldn’t it be the best to do or use something that we see from God, not others? The park was the same one our commonwealth school has used for our Shakespeare plays. The cake was stationed atop the amphitheater stage. The refreshment table was at the bottom of the rows of circular cement walls that form the seating. Memories of seeing my son perform there and hearing the Tongan people celebrating at another pavilion flashed back to me. I never, ever would have thought that this place was suitable for a wedding reception, but it turned out beautifully.

One of the bridesmaids, Margaret Milius, looking ever so elegant in a dress that Aneladee designed and sewed. (I fixed the red eye once and don’t know why it didn’t transfer when I put the picture here.)

t’s funny how there are so many things in life that we never think of unless we see it. That is why vision is important. It is so important to constantly expand our vision by visiting, reading books, hearing people lecture, traveling, window shopping, and exploring. Think of Joseph Smith. He couldn’t start his mission of restoring God’s church back on earth until he had a vision to expand his view. Father Lehi couldn’t do what he did, nor could his son Nephi, until they both had visions. I don’t think we or our children can accomplish our missions without a vision that comes from God of what He wants our missions to be. Vision is so important!

I know I would not have gone to college if I hadn’t “seen” it in my mind’s eye.  I saw it because I knew the important people in my life had gone. I grew up knowing that my parents had both graduated from college. Going to college was just a given in my life, something that I always saw myself doing. I feel very grateful for my college experience. It helped make me who I am. I can see how so many things in my life are a result of first seeing it my mind’s eye, having an internal vision of that thing, and then attracting it to me.

At the parents’ training meeting at Youth for Freedom Kirk Duncan  of http://3keyelements.com shared his idea of a vision board. He just tapes off a section of his bedroom wall with frog tape (painter’s tape, so it doesn’t take the paint off the wall) and puts pictures of what he wants inside the square. Then every morning he has a routine of looking at what he wants and telling himself to get it with all the enthusiasm he can. Gradually, one by one, the things he has put on the vision board come off and then into a three-ring binder. He doesn’t wait for the vision board to look perfect or pass an interior decorator’s test. The tape is even crooked. He says not to wait for yours to be perfect either.

When I came back from my vacation I started a vision board. I put pictures of Christ in the center since I want to always follow the injunction to seek first the kingdom of God. The I put some other goals up and fasted for them this past Fast Sunday. We’ll see what happens! I am excited to teach my children about vision boards and help them set up theirs. I can see how it is so important to constantly be talking about their dreams and have pictures of their dreams on the walls to build the dream, or vision, in their minds.

Again, thanks to my LLL girlfriend Sally, I caught wind of something great. It was posted on the wholesomechildhood.com website  awhile back.

All of the 7 Chronicles of Narnia books on audio for free!

Go here to listen. They are from the Under the Grapevine ministry with Chrissi Hart.

Despite his wholesome childhood, Cowboy looks like he’s been raised on sour pickles, I didn’t pinch him, I promise!

I have been breastfeeding for so long (not the same child, but seven children, and consecutively, not all at once) and been involved with La Leche League for so long that sometimes I forget to stop and celebrate the miracle of breastfeeding. It will never cease to amaze me that we as women have been blessed with the ability to make the perfect food for our babies. What a miracle! I had to be reminded by a Facebook post from a friend, Sally, that this week, the first week of August, is World Breastfeeding Week. She posted the cutest cartoon about breastfeeding in public. As soon as I figure out how to share it I will.

Here are some events associated with WBW in Utah. If you are outside of Utah, go to Facebook and do a search for WBW to find events in your area. If you are not breastfeeding, or even if you are, I encourage you to smile at the next woman you see breastfeeding in public. And offer to get her a drink of water or a plateful of food.



For some online action, check out http:///breastfeedingcafe.wordpress.com.

Happy breastfeeding!



A few nights ago our ward Relief Society hosted a class about strengthening marriage for both husbands and wives. The speakers were a couple in our stake. They handed out a piece of paper entitled “Rules for Discussing Problems.” I just read in Elder Richard G. Scott’s General Conference talk that he and his wife never argued. It is nice that for the rest of us who aren’t perfect, we have these rules. They talked about creating a safe zone in your marriage where you feel free to talk about anything. The rules involved things like, speak in a soft voice, don’t name call or blame, don’t use violence, don’t be emotionally or verbally abusive. They also taught us how to use “I statements” when communicating. For example, “I feel _______ about ________ because.” I really enjoyed the class. We entered the safe zone that night and I brought up a problem and we discussed it. I can see that the more you build the “safe zone” in your marriage, the stronger it will be. The speakers also recommend John Gottman’s books. Out of the mouth of two witnesses! My friend Michelle has been recommending his books for years, sometime I will get them and read them. Another book for the “to read” list.

The couple had been married for 26 years and all their kids are gone. Dh and I are coming up on 20 years and we are nowhere near an empty nest. That’s what happens when you have a lot of kids. But I’ve always known I wanted a big family. I remember hearing Mary White, one of the founders of La Leche League, say that her goal was to always have a baby in the house, and that by the time she couldn’t have any more her oldest would be having her grandchildren. I liked the way that sounds and I hope it works out that way. In preparation of Valor leaving for college next week we got him a cell phone yesterday (finally). Most, if not all of his peers, have had one for years. He’s having lots of fun with it and I am jealous that he gets to have a smartphone. It’s so amazing to think about having all that power and capability in the palm of your hand. It hit me the other day that my firstborn is moving away from home and a phase in my life is ending where all my children are home. I am really grateful for that phone to help keep us connected. It hit me that “Oh my gosh he is leaving next week! Have I done everything I wanted to do for him and taught him everything?” I feel like going somewhere to have some final hurrah with him. But I want it to be spiritual, not just some mind-candy experience. Then I noticed that next week is the last week for the Martin Harris pageant. I am hoping to enroll my husband in this excursion. It starts at 8:15 and ends at 10:15 and it is two hours away. Maybe we can just camp in the car after it’s over?

Someone on the TJED Muse yahoo group asked about whole foods and what books they recommend as a whole foods classic. Here is my response:

The BEST books on whole foods are the two by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig, PhD. The first is Eat Fat, Lose Weight. They explain the story behind the myth that heart disease is caused by high cholesterol. This story is fascinating and has all the intrigue and deception of a cloak and dagger mystery. They have tons of recipes in the back of the book. They explain that the key to being healthy is having the right fat in the diet, which is animal fats and coconut oil. The rights fats help you get satisfied sooner on when you are eating, so that you don’t overdose on carbs. Fats really can make you happy, and if you eat the right kind, you won’t gain weight. It is absolutely maddening to hear about the deception that has gone in this country regarding what really is healthy, but it also very informing to find out about the money behind the deception. The second is Nourishing Traditions.

Eating a whole foods diet is one my passions. I heartily believe that one of the keys to feeling good is watching what you eat.  As a La Leche League Leader (LLL), I started out with “Whole Foods for the Whole Family” (published by LLL) which is a great introduction. There’s also “Whole Foods from Around the World,” “Whole Foods for Kids to Cook,” and “Whole Foods for Babies and Toddlers,” all from the LLLI store http://store.llli.org/public/search?q=whole+foods+&s=Go You can get them bundled together for only $40!

The problem with these books though is they don’t go into the importance of soaking whole grains with whey or some neutralizing agent  to get rid of phytic acid, which all whole grains have. Phytic acid is what keeps grains from spoiling so you can store them long term. They bind up minerals. So if you spend a lifetime of eating unsoaked whole grains you could have problems with mineral absorption, and get osteoporosis.

That’s where Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions comes in. I love her book but it is so dense with tons of info, it is not an easy read. But it is worth getting! In the chapter on breakfasts she explains how to fix whole grains properly for breakfast, on p. 455. It’s chock full of recipes and also has these delightful sidebars with fascinating tidbits. One of them says that a nutritionist, Adelle Davis, was a guest on the Today Show. She told Johnny Carson, when asked for a rule of thumb on healthy eating, “If it’s advertised in the media, don’t eat it!” Truer words were never spoken! Unfortunately, that was edited out. The sidebars are full of fascinating tidbits like that that you can’t find all in one place anywhere else.

Kimberly Simmerman, a TJED mom has a great cookbook that condenses the info from Sally Fallon into a smaller cookbook. I have her preview copy, it’s called From Granola to Green. She has sold it at the TJED forum. It all harmonizes with Nourishing Traditions, except for Kimberly’s recommendation not to eat a lot of salt. NT says that salt is needed in the diet and recommends you get unrefined sea salt. Kimberly’s email (at least the one given at the front of the cookbook) is Kimberlysimmerman at gmail dot com. I like Kim’s explanation of climbing the heatlh ladder. You start at the marshmallow/cardboard box level where your food comes out of bags and boxes. Then you  move to the granola level, which is whole foods, then you move to the green level, which is whole foods that are supercharged with nutrition, because you understand the importance of soaking grain, sprouting grains and legumes, and lacto-fermenting vegetables.

The Weston Price foundation, started by Sally Fallon, is a great web site with a wealth of information, including archives of their journal and recordings from their conferences, http://westonaprice.org. It also has guidelines for children’s diet and a diet for pregnant and nursing moms.  They recently had some cool videos made, and I have some of them here on my website, made by a mom in Florida, Sarah Pope. She is a Weston Price chapter leader. Her blog is so cool! It’s  thehealthyhomeeconomist.com. I really like it. She has the videos on her web site, including how to make homemade ice cream, yum!

Sarah’s dad used to be an old fashioned doctor who would do house calls and she would accompany him. She learned a lot from her dad doing this. She wrote an article that I have found is invaluable to help any mom be a “Dr. Mom” in her own home. I summarize it on my web site here http://treeoflifemothering.ning.com/forum/topics/what-are-your-favorite-dr-mom She says one of the BIG things to keep kids healthy is to keep them off pasteurized milk, which causes ear infections and allergies and lots of trouble.

http://newtrendspublishing.com/ is the publisher for Nourishing Traditions and has interviews on mp3 with Sally along with DVDs for sale. 

There’s another cool blog out there based on Nourishing Traditions http://heavenlyhomemakers.com

Another TJED mom friend of mine, Tammie, has a blog http://nourishingfamilies.blogspot.com. She isn’t totally at the Nourishing Traditions level. She uses canola oil, which is totally not a whole food and a few other things I disagree with but she is mostly into whole foods, just not soaking grains or lacto-fermenting.

Caralee, another girlfriend/TJED mom friend, has a blog http://amodernpioneeringfamily.blogspot.com. She has a farm and uses raw milk and is totally into Nourishing Traditions. She perfected a soaked whole wheat flour bread recipe that got approval from Sally Fallon. It is on her site.

My girlfriend Tara, another TJED mom, and member of this site has a great blog too, http://happyinthekitchen-withtara.blogspot.com/. I love her post about how as a Christian woman your best time is spent in the kitchen. Thank you for that thought Tara, I love it! It’s all about building Zion by building happy healthy bodies and minds.

Happy Cooking and Eating! As.G.K. Chesterton said, the woman is the center of pillar and health in her home. Let’s build Zion from our kitchen counters!

Today was a busy day doing Saturday work and then attending my daughter’s TJYC (Thomas Jefferson Youth Certification) Graduation. She did a great job on her speech. Ever since she went to the Youth for Freedom camp, she has been a different girl. She smiles a lot more and is always thanking me. It’s been wonderful! And my two sons, ages 6 and 10, surprised my husband and me with breakfast in bed. How utterly sweet is that!!!

A while ago I had a conversation with my sis in law about NFP. It has occurred to me that even though I say this site is for women interested in NFP, I hardly ever blog about it. That’s because it’s so intimate I guess. I can comfortably blog about breastfeeding and how it affects my life and how I do it, or more often, where I do it (like in sacrament meeting, that one week when I was attending my nephew’s leaving-for-a-mission talk, his dad is the bishop so I knew I wouldn’t be getting any flak about it), BUT, blogging about NFP is harder since it involves my *** life. I am slowly figuring out how to comfortably blog about it.

Eventually I am going to host monthly telephone conference calls for LDS women who want to talk about NFP. I am going to do it  by rotating topics like they do at LLL meetings where you talk about breastfeeding but I will adapt it to NFP:  1. the importance of NFP, 2. getting started in NFP, 3. overcoming obstacles in practicing NFP, and 4. how nutrition and weaning come into play with fertility and breastfeeding. Hopefully I will start these calls in September, so stay tuned!

Someday I will tell my story of how I found NFP and why I think it’s so great and why I disagree with my sis in law. She claims that NFP is unfair for the woman because it means she can’t have *** when she is the most amorous, which is when she is the most fertile.

For now I will share a great resource I just found, http://engagedmarriage.com, a COOL site about NFP. I love the tag line, “Don’t just stay married, stay engaged.” That’s a HUGE reason why I love NFP, because it involves having the husband and wife being actively engaged in the wife’s fertility cycle, which is a huge part of her life because it controls her moods and desires and her childbearing capabilities. NFP also allows you to replicate the life you had when you were engaged, when you (if you weren’t naughty) abstained from *** and then had a honeymoon of enjoying ***. I don’t really agree with the current blog post on the site, but it’s by a guest blogger. So far as I can tell, I agree with the contents of the site written by the home blogger, Dustin. so check it out!

A big thing that some women say is “Oh, my husband would never go for NFP, then he can’t have *** all the time.” That’s what I used to think. I like that this site is written from a man. Maybe he has an answer to that objection.

This a bust of George Wythe, the man who has inspired a movement of great education. You can find this bust at the college that bears his name in Cedar City, Utah.

Two nights ago my daughter’s Thomas Jefferson Youth Certification III class had their supreme court simulation. It was fun to watch. The kids dressed up and the mentor got adults, including my attorney husband, to be Supreme Court justices who grilled the kids on their mock law briefs.

It was 18 years ago this summer that I was pregnant with baby #1. In September  of that year I got to give birth to my long awaited for baby. I asked my sister in law to help at the birth. She had been to a small liberal arts college for a year and now had decided to attend midwifery college. I remember hearing about this small liberal arts college she had attended. It was in Duck Creek, Utah and was a place where students studied the classics and discussed them. Frankly, that sounded a little weird. Could students learn just by reading classics and talking about them? I had a degree from BYU. I took some classes that did exactly that but a lot of my classes involved textbooks and listening to professors lecture. I was skeptical at the time that a real education could take place in such a relaxed way but looking back, I realize now that my favorite class, an Honors class, involved reading classics and discussing them.

That small liberal arts college was George Wythe College and that baby I was pregnant with will now be attending that college this fall. One of the classmates of my sister in law was Tiffany Earl, the founder of LEMI, Leadership Education Mentoring Institute. LEMI is really cool because it teaches parents how to create a school in their own community that they own and control, and how to mentor youth in learning about early American history, Shakespeare, world history, classics, worldviews, freedom, the War Between the States, and leadership. Parents learn how to run a school, how to mentor youth to be scholars, and how to use the five environments of learning in the Thomas Jefferson Education (TJED) book. Tiffany’s daughter has been taking the TJYC class with my daughter by Skype and was there at the simulation, following in her mom’s steps of leadership education.

When I was about 13 or 14 I had this daydream of running a school in the basement of my home for youth in my community, including my own children, who would want to study really hard and not be distracted by the social circus of public school. I’ve never had a basement big enough to do that. I realize now that that daydream I had has been fulfilled by LEMI. LEMI has trained the parents in my homeschool community to create a school for my children 12 and over who don’t have to deal with a social circus and are studying classics. That school is a commonwealth school. A commonwealth school is owned by parents and is made to last even when those parents have kids outgrow. It passes on to the next set of parents who want the same thing for their children.

I’ve been involved in another “co op” type school for homeschooled youth and it wasn’t the same. The school was controlled by one mom, not all the parents, and what that mom said was the rule. I much prefer the commonwealth school model for scholars.

After six years of being involved with a commonwealth school I finally got to go to LEMI training a few weeks ago. Here’s what I learned:

– it would be helpful for new to TJED people to have a glossary of terms. I’m going to work on that and post it on my tjedlibrary.com site.

– Salt Lake county finally has a thriving commonwealth school

– a commonwealth school is sprouting up in the Eagle Mountain Utah area

– part of being a scholar is learning to submit and finish work that you are excited to start as a love of learner

– I really did not have the vision of what a commonwealth school was six years ago when I sent my son to it. I wish I had been able to take this training sooner. I didn’t think I could mentor a class because what would I do with my other children? I can see now that I had blinders on. I could have worked out a babysitting trade with another mom.

Just who are these lovely ladies? From left to right, Kathy Mellor of unleashingyourvoice.com, Amy Bowler, and Brenda Haws. They are all trainers for LEMI, teaching parents how to teach the classes, or “scholar projects” as LEMI likes to call them.  Sorry the picture is not that great, I took it with my cell phone camera during the time my nicer camera was lost.

– LEMI training has different break out sessions. One of them is called the New Commonwealth School Builder. That is what you would want to attend if you are new to LEMI and commonwealths.

-It is actually fun to have an oral exam.

-You can have 9 people read the Inner Ring by C.S. Lewis and have 9 people have totally different reactions.

-The inner ring of the TJED world is not a fake inner ring but one that is based on friendship. If there is something that seems “exclusive” about the people in TJED, start asking around how you can be involved and you will be able to find a way into the inner ring. It’s not that hard and it’s not exclusive.

-LEMI continues to mentor the mentors through the year through monthly conference calls. Each commonwealth school is also supposed to have a monthly conference call among its members. I can’t wait for the new school year to participate in these.

– teaching writing is not as hard as it’s made out to be. Aneladee Milne has developed a fun way to teach writing to youth.

– I am grateful that my mom lives relatively close and that she was willing to watch my four younger children so I could go to this training as my two older boys went camping and my older daughter came to the training

– Diann Jeppson was there and she taught that parliamentary procedure is important to learn so that we can return to our ancestors’ way of speaking through the language of contracts and freedom.

– Aneladee’s daughter doesn’t mind walking around all day in high heels while pregnant.

– if I didn’t have a commonwealth school handy I would create one. I would get the book by Aneladee and Tiffany about it (see  http://shop.lemimentortraining.com/The-New-Commonwealth-Schools-by-Aneladee-Milne-and-Tiffany-Earl-105.htm), read it, share it with other parents, and have them each chip in $20 to $30 so I could go to the training.