One of my glorious pleasures in life is playing the piano. I’m no Mozart but I can read music and play most sheet music placed in front of me. I also love Thanksgiving. So, combining my loves of Thanksgiving and piano brings me extra happiness! So here are a few Thanksgiving songs for you to enjoy too! One of my favorite things to do on Christmas or other holidays is to gather people round the piano and sing songs while I play the accompaniment. This is a remnant of my homeschooling days when most of my children were at home, when we did this every day.
First, here’s a little-known Thanksgiving song, called “Hymn of Thanks” by Dorothy Andersen. You can find it here. It’s from the Friend magazine, a publication for children by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in the November 1978 issue.
Then I love this one from Shawna Belt Edwards, called “Thankful.” It also appeared in the Friend magazine. The sheet music is here. You can watch a video of children singing it here or below.
Thirdly, here’s a song called “My Thanks Today” by Anna Johnson and Nora Hogan, over here. The tune is delightful!
Want more Thanksgiving-themed songs? Get my Family Devotionals Ebook here. Then go to the November section. I hope you enjoy all the songs, poems, stories, and scriptures I have listed. This family devotionals ebook turns every day into a festival of worshipping God as a family.
It’s Thriving Thursday, #thrivingthursday! Let’s talk about how to thrive in your health, in all aspects!
This is a follow up to keep my promise that I’d share more from the Utah October 2025 Weston A. Price Foundation Conference, when I blogged a recap of the conference here.
The photo above shows four of the speakers at the conference. From l. to r. they are: Josh Bigelsen, Adam Bigelsen, Dr. Samantha Bailey, and Dr. Mark Bailey. I shared the recap that the two Dr. Baileys did of the conference here.
I blogged about the two Bigelsen brothers a bit ago. See over here. They promote the truth that terrain is everything. This is the truth that our nutrition, including our food, our thoughts, and our environment are so important to health. It’s much more important to focus on our terrain than on germs. Some people refer to this as “Terrain Theory” but I call it “The Law of the Terrain.” It’s not a theory, it’s a proven law. It’s illustrated in the Bible as the Parable of the Soil in Matthew 13:1–23. (It’s commonly known as the parable of the sower. I call it the Parable of the Soil because it’s not the sower that makes the different results in the parable, it is the different soils.) It’s the truth that a seed will grow differently according to the medium where it is planted.
In the video below, Dr. Sam Bailey, who met the Bigelsens in person for the first time at the conference, interviews the two brothers. They explain terrain and some of their dad’s involvement in the study of terrain, including blood analysis.
In the video, one of the brothers tells the story of his dad, Dr. Harvey Bigelsen, helping a client. She had hepatitis. When Dr. Bigelsen studied her blood, he found an image of an IUD, a hologram. He asked the client if she had an IUD, and she said yes. He told her he suspected that the IUD was causing the inflammation of the liver, the hepatitis. The IUD was inflaming the uterus, and this inflammation spread to her liver, and was showing up in her blood as a hologram. See the photo below of the IUD, with Dr. Bigelsen, from Dr . Bigelsen’s book. She took out the IUD and her illness went away. This is so amazing!
Do want to learn more about the Law of the Terrain? Go here.
Conduct your own experiment! Here’s one that I did, below. I took four canning jars and filled them each with a different medium. From left to right: toilet paper, plain old dirt from my backyard, leaves, and then potting soil. Then I added water and a dry pinto bean to each canning jar.
Then I kept the media wet and watched what happened to the bean/seed.
You can see the beans starting to sprout below.
The picture below shows the results about a month later. Which medium, or terrain, is promoting the most growth? Which medium shows the least growth? It’s so interesting that the seed in the toilet paper grew more than the seed in the plain old dirt. Not surprisingly, nothing happened to the seed in the leaves.
I’d love to hear the results of any experiments you do with terrain! Please comment below if you have any results to share.
Below is the definitive book on blood analysis that Dr. Bigelsen wrote. Looks fascinating!
I found this YouTube Channel a while ago called Knorpp and South. It’s all about the Knorpp family who live on the east coast of the US. They homeschool and have a big family including 5 adopted children. They also go thrifting, among their other adventures, like living in an RV for an extended time, as well as living in Europe. I discovered that the mom, Megan, conducted an “experiment” where she wore a dress every day for a year. I love what she reports in the video below, after her year of wearing dresses every day. Basically, she says she felt prettier and more feminine, and therefore happier.
Then the video below shows how she stays warm in dresses all winter. I love it how she says that dresses are cheery and magical. When it’s the right dress, I agree. The “right dress” can be hard to find, but when you do, it is magical. It’s magical to both find the dress and to wear it. I also love that she says that she loves to wear bright colors on gloomy days in January. I do too! and any day, really!
Here are some tips from the video:
-wear tights, which everybody probably already knows
-wear pullover sweaters over or under dresses that have straps. She says it looks less frumpy to wear sweaters that hit above the waist.
-wear Mary Jane Doc Martens. At over $100 a pop, I’ll be looking for imitation ones. I don’t know though, they are cute, but I feel like they would make me feel like I’m 6 years old.
-wear knee-high boots. If you have wide calves that don’t fit typical knee-high boots she says what works for her are Naturalizer boots.
-wear a slip or dress extender
-wear bloomers. Here she is having fun wearing hers.
-wear wool coats found thrifting or a Costco puffy coat to coordinate with the outfits. You can find puffy Costco coats when thrifting too.
Here she is with a video showing how she finds dresses when thrifting. I’m amazed her husband went with her and seemed to be enjoying himself with always appropriate comments. What a patient man!
Here are the biggest tips I gleaned from the videos:
-go to a thrift store in a wealthy neighborhood, “where the rich old ladies live,” as she says
-have fun with layering, especially adding bright pops of color with scarves
Then here are two more videos about staying warm in winter with dresses.
Thanksgiving is two weeks from tomorrow! Can you believe it? Seems like yesterday it was summer. If you want some delightful Thanksgiving picture books, go here to get a list. For today I’m focusing on the one above. It’s A Thanksgiving Wish by Michael Rosen.
In this story, we see a family leaving to go visit Grandma for Thanksgiving. We learn about the tradition she has of saving wishbones all through the year so that when her grandchildren visit she can make a wish with each of them. Sadly, she passes away, and the main character of the story, Amanda , doesn’t know if her family will enjoy Thanksgiving without her. After the grandmother’s death, the family gathers together on a stormy Thanksgiving day at her home, and then the power goes out. There appears to be no way to finish cooking the turkey and all the pies. Is Thanksgiving Day ruined? I love books like this where the reader is reminded of the power of family, tradition, and community. So go buy it or get it from your local public library today!
Let’s talk about Thanksgiving picture books! I love all of these!
Thanksgiving in the Woods tells the true story of a family who hosts Thanksgiving in the woods every year near their home in upstate New York, with candles, bonfires, food and lots of people. Sounds so jolly!
The two ones above are about Sarah Josepha Hale, the woman who persisted to get the federal government to create the US national holiday of Thanksgiving. It’s fun to learn both about the first Thanksgiving and the history of how Thanksgiving became a U.S. federal holiday.
Now this one above is a cute board book, very simple. Give Thanks to the Lord is a beautifully illustrated book to celebrate Psalms 92. Then It’s Thanksgiving! by Jack Prelutsky, below, is packed full of delightful poems. So fun!
This one above uses Pilgrim-type language and a plural first person “we,” telling the story of the first Thanksgiving from the Pilgrims point of view.
The one above has the air of anticipation that comes on the eve of all holidays. It’s simple and sweet.
Sharing the Bread by Pat Zietlow Miller has a rhyming bounce and delightful illustrations by Jill McElmurry. I love that it features a big family with everybody pitching in to create the feast.
I enjoy the work of Eric Metaxas. Squanto’s story fascinates me!
Both the books above and below involve the real pilgrims. The one above is about John Howland, a real person who was on the Mayflower. He’s actually my many-greats-great-grandfather! His story illustrates the hand of God in someone’s life. What would have happened if he hadn’t been saved after falling overboard the Mayflower? This book deserves to be read every year to be reminded of Providence in the Pilgrims’ lives and all of our lives. I love the lovely illustrations in both these books! The one below is my favorite picture book for telling the general story of the pilgrims. I love the maps done in watercolor and pen by the author/illustrator, Cheryl Harness. I love all her books in fact.
The Thanksgiving Door is my absolute fave Thanksgiving picture book. I just love, love the story of serendipity that surprised an elderly couple because of a grandmother’s influence of her family to be hospitable.
Then here are more, above and below, that tell the story of the Pilgrims. The illustrator’s style of the book below reminds me of Tomie de Paola.
An Outlaw Thanksgiving is a little known story loosely based on a story involving Butch Cassidy. I was thrilled to find it thrifting this past year. I love this one, and A Turkey for Thanksgiving, because of their surprise endings!
I love the vibrant illustrations in Feast. So gorgeous! This tells the Pilgrim story in rhyming verse.
The ones above and below have photographs of real children dressed up as Pilgrims, showing what daily life was like for them.
Balloons Over Broadway is about a real person, Tony Sarg, who made the huge balloons involved in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. This book offers loads of possibilities for a unit study with children involving lots of history, STEM, and arts and crafts.
The ones above and below just ooze happy family togetherness at Thanksgiving! I love that A Thanksgiving Wish features a big extended Jewish family gathering together and interacting with neighbors of different backgrounds. I reviewed a movie loosely based on the book below (pretty much the only thing in common is the title) over here. The book just makes me happy every time I read it. I love the snowy New England vibe and the work ethic depicted of the children, rising to the occasion to rescue Thanksgiving dinner by working together. And of course because it’s by Louisa May Alcott, or course I love it.
Finally, we have the marvelous book below that pairs lovely wood carving illustrations with the classic poem by Lydia Maria Child about going to Grandma’s house for Thanksgiving. A gem!
I hope you enjoy all these books! Happy Thanksgiving!
If you want more Thanksgiving resources, including some read-aloud stories involving God’s providence involving Thanksgiving Day, go here.
I haven’t done a “things that made me smile” post in so long! For a brief time, I was good at posting every month the pretty, happy, funny, real and smart things that happened in the previous month. January was the last time I did it. I’m so woefully behind, it aches that I haven’t shared all my good, beautiful, true things since then. So many pretty photos are waiting in my camera roll waiting to be shared. I don’t know if I can ever catch up, but in the meantime, I’m sharing what was pretty, happy, funny, and real for me the last week of October, just last week.
Last week involved my second marvelous trip to Maine to visit my artist baby sister Emily. She’s almost 4 years younger than I am. We share a love for the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, family life, extended family, mothering, homemaking, picture books, nature, art, other books, word games, and good home cooking. Not to mention our childhood memories of family and friends. Those give us tons of laugh-out-loud moments as we relive them. So we always have lots to talk about! My other sister got to visit her in July. Now if we could only all be there at the same time, with my mom and sisters-in-law, my other daughter, and other nieces to boot!
It was fun to hear my sister share stories of our older brothers I had never heard before. Em said that one of our brothers was a totally mean babysitter. She said that he put her in the bathroom, threw a blanket in, and turned off the light. I guess this was his way of putting her to bed? I told her I have no memory of that. She said it was probably because I was off reading the dictionary, LOL. Which may be true. I was an odd child who liked to read the dictionary, the phone book (remember those, if you are older than 40?), and the encyclopedia (remember those too?). I guess I knew I wanted to prepare for Jeopardy! at a young age, haha. Then she said that she remembers adoring our other older brother so much that when she was about 5 or 6 she told him that she wanted to marry him. That just makes me laugh because I was close enough in age to both brothers to see all their faults and would never say such a thing. As the baby of the family, though, she was enamored by one of them. If you know my brothers I bet you can figure out which brother fits each story :-).
We watched an episode of artFULL together. It featured an artist who grew up in my neighborhood. You can see all the episodes here. These are great shows to watch when you just want to relax. Totally hygge! Go here to learn about hygge!
Back in August, my 19 year old daughter, who is great friends with her two girl cousins who are her age and close to her age, 21, announced she wanted to go see her cousins in Maine. These cousins are the two older daughters of sister Emily. At the time she thought one of them would be leaving for her mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints before Christmas. Since then, Cousin M. has received her mission call and found out that it doesn’t start until March. Anyway, I was thrilled that my daughter wanted to go to Maine. We had attempted to get her to come with us a year ago when my older daughter orchestrated a trip to Maine. She offered to pay for all of our plane tickets, food, and lodging if we helped babysit.
My younger daughter didn’t want to go a year ago as she had an important event coming up that she didn’t want to miss. So, much to our sadness, she stayed home. So when she announced at the end of summer that she was going to buy a plane ticket to go see her cousins in Maine, I said I wanted to come with her, and we went last week. I’ve always wanted to see Maine in October, and I got my wish! These photos are from our lovely trip. We were not disappointed! We had a spectacular time.
So, what follows, are the things that made me smile on the trip!
-food. Emily is such a great cook! So a week after letting go of my keto diet to eat the gourmet food at the WAPF Wise Traditions Conference, I let myself indulge in Emily’s yummy food involving carbs. Hey, if Dr. Boz can eat bread when she goes to Italy, I can eat bread and grains when I go to Maine.
Oh my, so delicious! Sushi rolls, egg muffins, quiche with a millet and quinoa crust, arugula pizza, roasted squash, berries on my perennial favorite Greek yogurt, and more!
-getting book recommendations from Em. We could chat about books all day! As a professional book illustrator and former employee of Books of Wonder, the NYC store that the Meg Ryan movie You’ve Got Mail is based on, she knows a lot about children’s books. Above and below are some books from her shelf, public library discards that are gems for her.
The above book totally reminds me of my childhood. The drawings just give off those 50s, 60s, 70s vibes, reminiscent of illustrator Syd Hoff. His book Danny the Dinosaur was the first book I ever read all by myself in first grade.
-“book recommendations” leads me to the next item of happiness which involved checking out Emily’s bookshelf. I wondered if she might have one of my L.M Montgomery books on her shelf that I loaned to her decades ago that she never returned, as she told me back in July she might have one, as I blogged over here. Sure enough, I found one!
It wasn’t one of the Anne books, however, as I discovered when I checked for my name written inside all of her L.M. books. It was another Lucy Maud one. But I have some of her books that she has loaned to me so I told myself I’d ask for Magic for Marigold back when I return her Thimble Summer and whatever other books of hers I have, LOL. We have been sharing books and book recommendations for decades. You can go here to get her recommendations on her blog.
-visiting the Little Free Library across the street from her home. Above is one of the books I got, thanks to Em donating books for me to use to trade.
-leaves. Em said that the peak of Maine’s gorgeous fall foliage is mid-October. So we missed the peak but there were still a ton of autumn leaves on the trees to give us a visual feast, if not the peak mid-October visual orgy. We also found wild raspberries still hanging from some bushes in her neighborhood! She hadn’t had a frost yet.
I’m pretty sure this is one of Em’s blueberry bushes.
-a lighthouse. We went to the Portland Head Lighthouse on Cape Elizabeth in Portland Maine. It was commissioned by George Washington to be built, in 1787. Amazing! It’s the oldest lighthouse in Maine.
-walks by and through the woods. Em lives in a beautiful forest!
-Teddy, the dog of my sister’s family. Named after Lawrie (Theodore Lawrence of Little Women fame), he is so smart and cute! Just like his namesake. He loves to chase squirrels and watches religiously for them through the windows. They let him out to chase them occasionally but he has never caught one yet. He has picked up the habit that whenever Em calls the family for photos, which she did for the Harvest Festival, he comes running to be part of the photo, shown below. It was fun to hear my niece, Miss M., who is the primary caregiver of Teddy, say how proud she is whenever she takes him to the vet and he gets a clean bill of health. She gets compliments about how smart and handsome he is with his glossy coat of fur. She is a proud dog mama! Look at those eyes! Don’t you just want to throw him a bone and play with him? Oh, what a good doggie!
-word games. Em and I got to play two games that I brought, plus a brainy favorite of the two of us, Huggermugger. I only took one suitcase and one carry-on so I was very limited with luggage space, therefore board game space. So I brought two tiny games: Ito and Fiction. I got to play Ito with Em, her husband, and my niece, Miss H. It was a hit!
We all laughed out loud while playing Ito. I highly recommend that game! As a cooperative game for people who don’t want to think too hard, it’s great for parties or evenings when you are too tired to think hard, but you are still up for some slightly thinky fun before going to bed. It’s also perfect for parties because you can explain it in less than five minutes or just use a YouTube video explaining it. I’m so excited to play it with my family for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Then Em and I played Fiction which is a mash-up between Wordle and Two Truths and a Lie.
Fiction is a combination of Wordle and Two Truths and a Lie. Fun and challenging!
-the Harvest Festival for the church congregation (ward) of my sister. It was a Halloween party with a trunk or treat, but my brother-in-law told me the official name is the Harvest Festival. Maybe because it wasn’t on the day of Halloween. It was fun to see the costumes and the food. One of my nieces dressed up as Rumi from the movie about the K-Pop Demon Hunters. Check out the braid my sister put in her hair. Then it was fun to see a photo my married daughter sent of the her family’s costumes and her cousin’s family. One of my grand-nieces also dressed up as Rumi. Of course my ancestral foods/WAPF heart winced at the amount of refined sugar I saw collected that night which damage heatlh. Once again I thought about all my ideals regarding Halloween, to focus it more on foods that we’ve actually harvested, and wholesome sweets, and dressing like heroes, to turn it into a true harvest festival and Heroween. I’ve attempted various iterations of those ideals over the years, but never have I fulfilled my vision. Someday…
-hearing my daughter talk and laugh with her cousins. She and her only sister are ten years apart so they have never had much in common. Big sis moved out to college when my younger daughter was 7 so she hasn’t grown up with her sister in the home much. It was so delightful to hear my daughter connecting with her cousins. I’m so grateful that each of my daughters have girl cousins their age and close to their age, who can fill in the gap for a lack of sisters. So thanks to my siblings who provided us with girl cousins! It was so healing to see my daughter come alive around her cousins, because I rarely get to see the fun and playful side of her.
-seeing my nieces and nephew navigate daily life in the school year, as with our last visit, they were on summer break. It was fun to see where both of my older nieces work, as they are on break from college at BYU-I, then seeing where are all my nieces and nephews have attended or are attending school, and seeing my nephew and two younger nieces cached away in their rooms, doing (or not doing, LOL) their homework after school.
-seeing the toys of my two younger nieces in their play space in the basement. They have created a whole world out of Calico Critters, Play Mobil figures, a dollhouse, blocks, Legos, and other tiny toys. The older one, 14, has pretty much left this world of pretend, but the younger one, 11, still loves to immerse herself in this imaginative world. Ahh, so sweet! It makes me look forward to having granddaughters. With five sons and two daughters, not much estrogen flowed in our home to attract dollhouses, woodland creatures, and tiny people. We did have some Polly Pockets, Lego mini-figs, Duplo sets, and Fisher Price Little People sets. That was the extent of our miniature worlds. We never had play that looked like this.
It just makes my heart happy to see the above playscape!
-seeing my sister’s art studio and art materials. She has an MFA from BYU and has illustrated a few books and done a lot of commissioned art. She’s doing art almost full-time after delaying her career to devote to her six children. With her youngest being 12 she has a lot more time for art, than when she first moved to Maine 10 years ago. Check out her artwork for sale here.
-now for something totally REAL and raw: I slept in the basement TV room on a comfy air mattress, so that meant that to go to the bathroom I had to go out of the room, around the corner, through the rec room, up the stairs, pass the kitchen, then pass the laundry room. I’m pleased to say that I made what seems like such an arduous trek when one is awakened from a comatose state by a middle-aged postpartum-7-times bladder begging, indeed, crying out to be emptied. I’m pleased to say that I made it to the target, in the near dark. Whew! I’m grateful Em provided a night light in the bathroom. At home, I am used to rolling out of bed and practically being in the bathroom off the side of my bedroom to do my business in the middle of the night, as the bathroom is two steps away from my bedside. So I’m feeling downright spry and very accomplished because of this mundane success LOL. One morning I didn’t even have to use the facilities until 7 AM.
-sleeping in. On the just mentioned morning when I got out of bed at 7 AM, I was able to go back to sleep. I’m sooooo grateful! I then slept unitl 10 AM! I haven’t had such luxury in years! The fact that the room had no windows helped with that definitely. My body sorely needed it as I was running on severe sleep deprivation and jet lag, having missed a lot of sleep with getting up at 3 AM to catch our 6:30 AM flight to Maine. I didn’t sleep at all on the plane what with a crying child a few rows ahead and a bumpy plane ride.
-thrifting in Maine. Yay!!! I didn’t go last time so I was super intent on going this time with my sister. Emily said her daughters love to go thrifting too. We got to take one of them with us and with my daughter the morning of our outbound flight back to SLC. The other one had to work. But then she got to go with us to the airport. We went to a Goodwill in Scarborough, Maine. I was surprised by the high price of books there. $4 for a Little Golden Book that had torn pages! No thank you! I left Em looking in the books while I headed to the clothes, looking for the white skirt that has eluded me the past summer and so far, all of autumn. Alas, I had no luck.
I passed up a black Frozen sweatshirt that looked just like the one above. It was cute but I’m just not a sweatshirt person. You can get it if you go to ebay.
I bought a Christmas-y top with poinsettias and a gray cardigan sweater. See above! Every year I like to get one new top for Christmas. I’m also always on the look-out for cardigans to brighten up winters with hygge. Ever since my older daughter said I’m a Carol Tuttle Dressing Your Truth Type 4/1, I haven’t worn gray. But this gray sweater was such a light delicate gray, so cute with scalloped edges, and new, still with the tag, I just felt so drawn to it! So I bought it. It was $10. It’s Grecerelle brand, so that was a deal since those sweaters are over $20 retail. I might end up giving it to my mom, who is Type 2. Gray is the neutral color that looks best on Type 2s. Black is the best neutral color for Type 4, and white is the best for Type 1. So maybe I should have bought the Frozen shirt since it’s black and white, LOL.
Em stayed in the books section the whole time, not put off by the high prices like I was. Our girls asked me where she was and I told them she was in the books, the last time I saw her. They went to find her and couldn’t, because she had bent over and was looking on the lower part of the shelves. It was just funny that they missed her. She was searching thoroughly! Her hard work paid off. Here are the great books she found above. She got the War of Art (get it? a play on the classic Art of War) for her BYU-attending son who is following in her footsteps and studying art there. (Although she studied illustration and he’s doing animation.) She got the pocket dictionary for her daughter, Miss M. who will be serving in a French-speaking mission in Africa.
-Em also introduced me to Marshalls and Home Goods, which we do have here in Utah but I had never been to either one. They are like fraternal twin stores, connected but with with separate entrances. I didn’t buy anything at either place but got ideas about what to get when I got back home. She was so excited to find some green candles for her Christmas Advent tradition. She said she has been looking for two years for these and finally found some, that don’t smell awful, at Home Goods. She was also excited to find tan and red striped giftwrap. Before she even picked it up I was about to say, “Em this paper totally reminds me of you!” It just gives off Emily vibes. 🙂
-on the way home, on the airplane, we flew from Portland to Charlotte NC and then Charlotte to SLC. So it was fun to think we were taking the same plane flight that my oldest child took 11 years ago when he came home from his mission to Charlotte, in November 2014. What a happy time that was! I loved walking down the hall through the exit doors to the baggage claim, the same doors two of my sons, and many, many missionaries walk through every week when they return home from a mission. I call it the Hero’s Journey Return Walk. As my daughter and I walked through there, this amazing music was playing on the loudspeakers. First it was this fun happy music below
and then there was this music that maybe was the MoTab Choir. They sounded like angels. Then we walked through that space between the exit doors and the baggage claim, where families are reunited with returning missionary sons and daughters, cousins, nieces, nephews, relatives, etc. after 18 months to two years. It is truly The Happiest Place on Earth. So many joyful tears are shed there! (I blog about mission homecomings here.)
-on the airplane ride home I got to watch something I’ve wanted to watch for a long time, which is the new adaptation of James Herriot’s All Creatures Great and Small stories, streaming in Netflix, and on airplanes, at least with American Airlines Wifi, apparently. I read all his books as a teen and loved them. I watched one episode and enjoyed it although it didn’t completely hold my attention, as I kept nodding off. I did enjoy the cozy family, England and pastoral vibes though.
-also on the way home I got to watch something completely new to me, which came out this year. It was the movie Nonnas. See the trailer below. It was a near-perfect movie to watch for a 4.5 hour airplane ride home, after I got tired of reading and doing my crossword puzzle. I wanted something clean, funny, romantic, that also promoted home and family. This fit the bill! It’s also based on a true story! A definitely magical movie, despite taking the Lord’s name in vain a few times. Ouch, that always hurts. I told my husband all about it on the way home after he picked us up at the airport. I’m excited to tell my foodie son-in-law about it and talk about it with him.
We got home the night before Halloween, Thursday. As much as I love traveling, as I told my daughter when we picked up our luggage in the SLC airport, the best part of taking a trip is coming home. I’m grateful I have a home that I want to come home to! Part of what makes my home so lovely is that I get to see a view like the one below every day, below, when I go walking! Go here to see more of the views and how I celebrated Heroween/Halloween/All Saints’ Day/Day of the Dead.
I love finding different perspectives of this peak with different trees framing the peak. This and the next two photos are all of the same mountain. I didn’t use any filters for these photos.
After I arrived home from my trip to Maine last week, the eve of Halloween, I kind of wanted to host my own Heroween/Halloween on Friday, and then do an All Saints’ Day/ Day of the Dead Celebration on Saturday, telling saints and ancestor stories around a bonfire. In my heart though I knew I didn’t really want to plan and follow through on those things. That represents my constant battle between the ideal and reality. So that’s why I didn’t plan those activities, before I left. I knew that after my arrival from Maine I’d be wanting to just decompress and catch up on laptop work that I hadn’t been able to do all week.
So that’s what I did Friday and Saturday in the afternoon and evening, while I doled out treats to our few door-knockers. I didn’t even get nonedible treats like I did last year. What with my trip that just was too much to plan. I did watch BYUTV’s Fires of Faith on Friday to celebrate Halloween/Reformation Day as I did my laptop work that doesn’t require too much thinking. You can watch it here. It’s three parts, and all about Martin Luther, as well as other reformers, especially those who sacrificed to bring about the Kings James Bible. I just watched Part 1 this year. So, so, so good! I’m so grateful for these martyrs.
I still want to share stories that resonate with those days with somebody. So you dear blog reader are the recipient since I’m not having a party like I have in the past where I share stories. Stories about good people, saints, who are now spirits because they are dearly departed. So, a week later,…here are five stories I want to share to honor Heroween/ Halloween/All Hallow’s Eve, All Saints Day, and the Day of the Dead holiday. These stories and holidays involve ghosts, which of course, is another name for spirits. This is very fitting since for my church’s Come Follow Jesus Christ scripture study this week we are reading about the revelation to Joseph Smith involving proxy baptisms in behalf of dead people.
Another view I get to see on my daily walk, until the leaves all fall. So, so gorgeous!
Partly because of this revelation, I believe that dead people continue to live on, in the form of spirits, as they wait to be resurrected, or reunited with their physical bodies. People, ideally family members, can act as proxies to be baptized for these people. This isn’t so weird if you take a look at what Paul mentioned, in the Bible, “Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?” ( 1 Corinthians 15:29)
We also know, because of a revelation to President Joseph F. Smith, that in the space between the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, that Jesus organized spirits in the spirit world to be missionaries to teach spirits in spirit prison about Him and His gospel, to prepare them to get baptized. Read the revelation here.
So I just think it’s so cool that these truths have been revealed to us, regarding dearly departed people. Here are some stories, below, about deceased spirits that are not scary. I’ve blogged about these stories of spirits before but now I’m linking them all in one place.
My nephew who is on a mission in TX sent this photo. The carved image on the pumpkin is a silhouette of the Angel Moroni, who symbolizes the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The first story is here. Written by Carla Sansom, it involves a little European girl who died, and then as a spirit she appeared to her best friend of childhood, Carla, the author, multiple times, as Carla grew to adulthood. The deceased friend, Brigitte, never spoke. After these multiple visits, when Carla finally told her husband about them, her husband suggested that Brigitte probably wanted Carla to be baptized for her, since Carla was the only person Brigitte knew who was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After Carla did the research, got permission, and got the paperwork ready for the baptism and submitted it to the temple, Brigitte appeared to Carla a final time and spoke. She told Carla she could now progress in the spirit world.
The second story is here, or watch it above, from RootsTech. Skip to the 6:30 mark. It involves President Russell M. Nelsons’ grandfather who received a visit from his deceased father’s spirit. It’s a beautiful story.
The third story is from the book The Message. The main guy in this book, Lance Richardson, died during an operation and was allowed to see what his family was doing for a few days while his spirit was out of his body. They couldn’t see him. Then he was allowed to return back to his body and live for a few more years. It’s such a beautiful heartwarming story! I read it last January and want to read it every New Year to remind me of what’s truly important: Jesus, family, and friends. Below is the video of an interview with Lance’s wife, Jozet.
The fourth story involves a genius woman composer, Rosemary Brown, who says that she was allowed to receive inspiration from spirits as to how to write music, the unfinished works of famous composers like Lizst. It’s a fascinating story. Get it here. I love to listen to it at least once a year around Halloween time. It’s very heartwarming and has insights into the mortal life pertaining to the premortal world. Is she telling the truth? I don’t know but her story is very interesting.
The fifth story is from this week’s Come Follow Christ study. I’ve copied and pasted the introduction to the lesson below, from the link I just mentioned:
“In August 1840, a grieving Jane Neyman listened to the Prophet Joseph speak at the funeral of his friend Seymour Brunson. Jane’s own teenage son Cyrus had also recently passed away. Adding to her grief was the fact that Cyrus had never been baptized, and Jane worried what this would mean for his eternal soul. Joseph had wondered the same thing about his beloved brother Alvin, who also died before being baptized. So the Prophet decided to share with everyone at the funeral what the Lord had revealed to him about people who pass away without receiving gospel ordinances—and what we can do to help them.
“The doctrine of baptism for the dead thrilled the Saints; their thoughts turned immediately to deceased family members. Now there was hope for them! Joseph shared their joy, and in a letter teaching this doctrine, he used joyful, enthusiastic language to express what the Lord taught him about the salvation of the dead: ‘Let the mountains shout for joy, and all ye valleys cry aloud; and all ye seas and dry lands tell the wonders of your Eternal King!’ (Doctrine and Covenants 128:23).”
I’m grateful to know of this doctrine of Jesus Christ that was restored through Joseph Smith. You can learn more in Doctrine and Covenants 127 and Doctrine and Covenants 128. It’s so comforting and beautiful to know that people live on after earth life. Even if they didn’t know about Jesus during their mortal life, they can be saved in heaven and be with their families eternally. God’s plan of salvation is so generous, with Jesus Christ at the center of it all, full of as much love and tender mercy as possible.
Roses are still in bloom in my neighborhood. What a fun surprise on my morning walk!
Jared Halverson, in the video below, tells a story of being in divinity school in Tennessee and sharing the doctrine of the baptism of dead with his classmates and professor. Go to the 51:00 mark to hear the story. I love that he says that the love of the Father and the Son is for all. Their love is demonstrated by the opportunity for all to be baptized, either in this mortal life, or in heaven by proxy mortals on earth. I also love that he points out that this doctrine is so joyful and wonderful, Joseph used so many exclamation points in verse 23 of Section 28 to celebrate this truth. Maybe these are the most exclamation points of any scripture verses.
“Brethren, shall we not go on in so great a cause? Go forward and not backward. Courage, brethren; and on, on to the victory! Let your hearts rejoice, and be exceedingly glad. Let the earth break forth into singing. Let the dead speak forth anthems of eternal praise to the King Immanuel, who hath ordained, before the world was, that which would enable us to redeem them out of their prison; for the prisoners shall go free.
“Let the mountains shout for joy, and all ye valleys cry aloud; and all ye seas and dry lands tell the wonders of your Eternal King! And ye rivers, and brooks, and rills, flow down with gladness. Let the woods and all the trees of the field praise the Lord; and ye solid rocks weep for joy! And let the sun, moon, and the morning stars sing together, and let all the sons of God shout for joy! And let the eternal creations declare his name forever and ever! And again I say, how glorious is the voice we hear from heaven, proclaiming in our ears, glory, and salvation, and honor, and immortality, and eternal life; kingdoms, principalities, and powers!”
As a follow-up to my post last week, which was a recap of the Weston A. Price Conference in Salt Lake City UT that was October 16-18, I’m sharing a recap of the same conference by the Drs. Bailey. The Drs. Bailey are husband and wife, Mark and Sam (Samantha), who were both there. Both earned medical doctor degrees and have practiced medicine for about 20 years, and both left their practices because they got disillusioned with mainstream medical practice.
Here are Dr. Mark and Dr. Sam with Sally Fallon Morrell, founder of the Weston A. Price Foundation, at the Saturday night banquet of the SLC conference. Photo Credit: Dr. Sam Bailey YouTube Channel
Watch the video below to hear their recap. They overcame a lot of obstacles to get there! They live in New Zealand. Dr. Sam was debanked back in June because of what she has spoken about. She wasn’t sure if her passport would work to get to the US for this conference. They share the journey of their story and how much they enjoyed the conference.
Want more of the Bailey doctors? Check out the resources below.
You can get these books above and below, on Dr. Sam’s website or on amazon. As an Amazon Associate, I receive a commission if you purchase the books through the links provided. The above book is here.
Neither Dr. Bailey wrote this book below, but Dr. Sam wrote the foreword. Buy it here.
I’ve blogged about the Law of the Terrain here. (Robert Scott Bell, who I mention in the post I just linked, was at the WAPF conference as well.)
Below we see the Drs. Bailey explaining their own books and other books on their shelves.
They sound like kindred spirits for sure as they share their excitement for things I love and have blogged about, including Jordan Peterson, health, gardening and free market economics. I’m excited to learn more from them!
I watched this interview yesterday and thoroughly loved it! It’s about Meredith. As a child, she had a feminist mom who raised her to be independent. thinking that marriage and motherhood were not needed as a woman. She was intensely curious about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because all the high school students in her school who were members were kind and helpful and responsible. She started looking into the church and even dated a member. She also did a term paper about the Church and attended meetings of the Church. She probably would have joined the Church in high school but her mom forbade her to learn any more about it. So she stopped investigating it. She then went off to college thinking she would become a forensic pathologist. Instead she became an Episcopalian priest. She loved her job as a priest in a nursing home, encouraging old people M-F. But she knew something was missing, especially on Sunday. As a trained theologian, having a master’s from divinity school, she loved theology. When she read the Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ, she knew that Joseph Smith could not have written the sublime truths in the Book of Mormon by himself. She knew this book comes from God. Long story short (you have to watch the video) she got baptized into the Church and now teaches gospel doctrine classes. Sadly, her husband passed away a year ago. She has a completely different life than she had in her younger adult years. Now she lives on a farm and has 4 children, and she homeschools most of them. This is such a beautiful story, please have a listen!
This interview is fascinating! I hope you watch it!
Hey, it’s Thursday! Instead of doing a #thriftythursday post about thrift store finds, like I’ve often done on Thursdays lately, I’m doing a #thrivingthursday post.
I got to go to the annual Weston A. Price Foundation Conference last week in Salt Lake City, Utah! The photo above shows one of the marvelously nourishing delicious dinners I got to enjoy while there. That’s roasted bison with divine gravy, salad with a dressing, roasted root veggies (hiding behind the bread), sourdough bread with raw milk butter, and kombucha. Then dessert was butterscotch budino topped with caramel sauce. Normally I eat keto but with such a gourmet, nutrient dense food opportunity, I indulged in a lot more carbs than I usually do.
This conference was a dream come true for sure! Sally Fallon Morrell, the founder of the WAPF, and Queen of Butter, was there. She gave four presentations: Nourishing Broth, Nourishing Diet Part 1 and Part 2, and Bringing Up Baby. She is known as the Queen of Butter, and I’ve been wanting her to come to Utah for since 2012, as shown by my blog over here. Sally is one of my heroes. I blogged about her as one of my Mothers for the Day in May over here. She is a great example of a woman who has followed the seasons of a woman’s life. She got a Stanford college education to prepare for a career, got married at some point, delayed a career outside of the home for a career of full-time motherhood, then as her children left the nest, she devoted her energy to outside the home. She founded and has led the Weston A. Price Foundation, spreading the truths of nourishing traditions (ancestral foods, farming, and the healing arts) for the past 25 years.
One of the slides from one of Sally’s presentations. She is for raw milk and does not recommend pasteurized milk. See realmilk.com for all about that.
A model WAPF meal, with meat, sourdough bread, butter (with not enough butter as sadly, the butter had run out. Sally says one should have enough butter on sourdough bread to leave teeth marks), a salad with dressing free of seed oils, a lacto-fermented veggie, sauerkraut, and a small portion of a dessert with a whole sweetener.
It was her teachings that led me, as a young mom, to quit being vegan/vegetarian. I learned about her from Diane Hopkins’ homeschooling newsletter. In one of her newsletters, Diane explained that she was no longer vegan. She said that her veganism caused her children tooth decay because she was vegan when she was pregnant with them, and then fed them a vegan diet when they were young children. She cited the Weston A. Price Foundation’s nutritional principles that include the importance of animal products. When she stopped being vegan, their teeth improved. My midwife also told me to stop being vegetarian, saying that women who keep having more and more babies as vegetarians have more sickly children the more children they have. I was severely anemic. She told me I needed to eat meat. So with those two witnesses, I started eating meat, in 2001. I believe that’s why my three younger children, who I had after this change, don’t have allergies like some of my older ones.
I also believe that’s why my youngest child has such a beautiful round head and great looks. He’s the baby in the header on the top of this website. He’s 16 years old now and such a cutie! All my children are great-looking, in my not so humble opinion, LOL, but he probably has the roundest head of all 7 of them, which as Sally teaches, is a sign of good maternal nutrition in pregnancy.
The boy on the left has a narrow face, a sign of poor nutrition, and the boy on the right has a round head, a sign of great nutrition.
I also gave up drinking soy milk, because of what Sally teaches, completely before I had him whereas with most of the others I drank it occasionally and fed a lot of it to my children. Someone I know was vegan the same time I was in our early mothering years. We both gave up veganism eventually. Even after giving up veganism, however, she continued feeding her family soy milk, even after her last pregnancy. Her baby with that pregnancy has a narrow face and tons of allergies. This is anecdotal and I know I have no way of proving these results as to whether or not diet determined them. Yet I believe it’s all connected to diet. So I’m grateful to Sally Fallon. She saved my health and my children’s health. So, dear children of mine, you can thank Sally that in my later mothering years you all got to eat meat, butter, and cheese, and no more tofu or fake milk! They were starving for meat snd cheese and would sneak them at family gatherings, until I fully embraced WAPF principles and started buying animal products and serving them.
Here are Sally Fallon Morrell and Tom Cowan MD, conferring before the conference starts.
I saw Sally within 5 minutes of walking into the event, on the second floor of the SLC Hyatt Regency Hotel. She was talking to Tom Cowan, MD, someone else I enjoy learning from. The photo above shows the two of them talking when I saw them, the Friday morning of the conference. They are co-authors, having written a handful of books together.
As an Amazon Associate, I receive a commission if you buy the above book through this link.
As an Amazon Associate, I receive a commission if you buy the above book through this link.
I also saw Holistic Hilda, shown above, the host of the WAPF podcast, called Wise Traditions. I’ve blogged about her here and have shared a bunch of her podcasts here. She is just as darling in person as she is on the podcast!
For the Saturday night banquet, to celebrate the 25th, Silver Anniversary of the WAPF, she dressed up in a silver sequined dress, a white cowgirl hat, and white cowgirl boots. We were all encouraged to wear something silver to help celebrate 25 years! I managed to rustle up a silver and pearl necklace I got years ago. Usually I wear gold.
So getting into fangirl mode with these three holistic celeb sightings was a fabulous way to kick off my conference experience! I introduced myself to Hilda and thanked her for her work. I held off on meeting Sally until the next day, when I found her not talking to anyone after one of her classes.
She was friendly and willing to talk to anyone who approached her. She autographed my Nourishing Traditions for Children cookbook!
As an Amazon Associate, I receive a commission if you buy the above book through this link.
So many interesting natural-health promoting products abounded at the conference. See the stickers above, and below is a T-shirt promoting crunchy mom values. I love it!
John Stockton, host of the Ultimate Assist podcast, and former NBA player of the Utah Jazz, interviewed Sally a week before the conference. You can listen to that here to get a one-hour summary of the Weston A. Price diet that the WAPF promotes.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn a commission if you buy the above book through this link.
He says that he and his family drink raw milk. He promised that and after the podcast interview ended, he was going to buy Sally’s Nourishing Traditions book. I’d forgotten that John is a crunchy guy. I do remember hearing that during the plandemic he refused to get the jab, so this makes sense.
Over 1200 people came to the conference! Here we are all in a ballroom of the Hyatt Regency in downtown SLC enjoying one of the gourmet dinners. People came from all but 3 of the fifty US states, and 12 other countries besides the USA.
The conference organizers had the consulting chef of WAPF, Yolanda Hawthorne, supervise the meals. She worked with the hotel chef and kitchen staff to prepare all the food served. Local natural food sources provided the food. So a huge thank you to Redmond Farms for Real Salt and Raw Milk, Green Goddess for the ferments, Han’s for the kombucha, What the Beat for kvass, Loncho’s Larder for lard, One Degree for sprouted oats and flour, hollow Tree Honey for honey, Utah Natural Meat, Leavity SLC sourdough bread, Sunnyside Up Meat, Pleasant Pastures grassfed butter, Old Home Place turkey, Amos Miller Organic Farm beef sausage, Pure Indian Foods Ghee, Northstar Bison, Amos Miller Organic Farm cream cheese, Gardens of Grace dates and almonds, Wild for Salmon smoked salmon, Midwest Mermaid Muse tea, Rich Nuts, Devin’s Good Gut Yogurt. Whew! It was all scrumptious! My first time eating liver pate, and it was good!
Here is the Friday dinner menu and the quantities of food the organizers obtained to create the fabulous meals. A huge thanks to Paul Frank for sourcing the food. This is the best food you could eat anywhere! Better than any high-end restaurant! So thank you again, Yolanda, Paul, the hotel chef and staff, and all the other WAPF people.
It was fabulous to see people I’ve only ever heard from before: Sally of course, Hilda, Sandrine Perez, of nourishingourchildren.org, Tom Cowan, Nina Teicholz, and Catherine Austin Fitts of solari.com, among others.
I learned so much from this conference! I’ll be sharing what I learned in the next few weeks.
Here are some of Tom’s books below.
Below is the cool sturdy bag that each participant received along with the conference program, and some of the free vendor samples I received. Each banquet attendee also got a glass with the WAPF 25 years anniversary logo. At the banquet we did a kombucha toast with the glass.
Here is Sally’s presentation which I was privileged to watch. It was split into two sessions, Part 1 and Part 2. I’ve heard her do it in YouTube more than once. I wanted to see her do it in person and see if she added new stuff and she did. I thoroughly enjoyed both parts.
You can get the slides for Sally’s presentations from her blog here. So much food for thought, pun intended!
My very favorite talk was by Dr. Samantha Bailey, a medical doctor from New Zealand. She talked about “Secrets of a Staged Pandemic” on Friday night. I remember hearing her in YouTube during the plandemic. She is shown in the photo below.
It was so amazing! Dr. Bailey and her husband, Dr. Mark Bailey, live on a small farm in NZ with their three sons. They look like teenagers! They’ve got to be each in their 40s though as the bios in the conference program say that they have each practiced medicine for 20 years. Both of them received the Mary Enig Integrity in Science Award from the WAPF at the Saturday night banquet. I just have to say, Dr. Sam looked so elegant in her evening gown that night. It was a stunning, sparkly orangeish, pinkish dress. The two Dr. Baileys are shown below with Sally after receiving the award at the banquet. It was a complete surprise to both of them.
Dr. Sam looks like a model or beauty pageant winner. I’d love to visit with her in person and ask her a ton of questions. They are some of the few medical doctors who have stood for truth about the jab of five years ago. I remember watching her first videos back then, but then life happened, I moved from AZ to UT, and I forgot I had discovered her. So this conference was a great reacquaintance with her. You can watch her video about virology below.
Both Dr. Baileys state that viruses are not what makes us sick. They say that no virus has ever been isolated, either in a lab or in nature. Because of these stances of not taking the jab and not promoting germ theory, Dr. Sam has endured a lot of persecution and trials.
It was a miracle that she and her husband were even able to get from NZ to SLC for this conference, after being invited by Sally to come speak. I’m grateful for their courage in sharing the truth about illness and health with all their work.
Dr. Tom Cowan, Dr. Mark Bailey, his wife, Dr. Sam Bailey, and Dr. Andy Kaufman are shown above, left to right. They all claim that no virus has ever been isolated. Each has a medical doctor degree, and each has been disappointed with they way mainstream medicine has gone. This was the first time that the four met in person. The Fantastic Four! They call themselves virus deniers. They did a Q & A panel to answer questions. I didn’t think of any questions to ask until later. If I had been thinking more I would have come up with a question to ask them in their session but alas I was not feeling super thinky, I was just taking things in, so I just watched other people ask questions.
This video above features Dr. Sam Bailey interviewing Sally. You can see Dr. Bailey’s YouTube channel here. She started it in 2020, and now has over 20 million views and over 350K subscribers. Wow!
Then Dr. Sam Bailey’s website is here. She and her husband have a substack for paying subscribers here.
Shepherd’s pie, sourdough bread slathered with butter, saurkraut, and and apple crumble!
I’m so thrilled that I could attend this year! I’ve been wanting to go for a long time, but this year, with it being in my home state of Utah, it was finally within my reach. I drove to it back and forth every day from home. I met up with my friend/third cousin KeeNan at the meals and swapped notes about the classes we attended. I got to meet a lot of new people. I even met someone who reads my blog! Shout out to Carrie S. of Kaysville UT! It was so wonderful! As I left the conference on the last day, my heart felt so happy and fulfilled. It was truly a magical experience!
The last day of the conference involved a tour of some farms: Utah Natural Meat in West Jordan UT, Redmond Farms‘ real salt mine in Redmond UT, and Sunnyside Up Pastures Farm in Centerfield UT. I didn’t go on the tour but hope to arrange a tour on my own since I live within an easy day’s drive to all of these places. One of my Veggie Gal girlfriends arranged a tour of the Redmond Farms salt mine two years ago.
I’m excited to keep learning from all these resources and I hope you join me on the journey! You can watch the video that Kelly the Kitchen Kop did of the tour, below. I saw her at the conference and said “Hi, you’re Kelly the Kitchen Kop!” because I’m on her email newsletter list and recognized her. Then she said my name which surprised me. I thought, “What, she knows my name?! Does she remember me from some email questions I’ve sent her?” but now I realize, oh she was just reading my name badge, LOL. The wave of traffic moved on so I didn’t have time to talk to her more.
If you want to get all the recordings of the conference, you can go here.
Free talks of the previous years’ conference are over here as well, look on the right hand side.
Please check back on my blog in the next few weeks as I blog about the different presenters that I haven’t even mentioned yet. This is a whole universe of new things to learn!
I hope to go to next year’s conference, in Washington DC, October 16-18, 2026. Maybe I’ll see you there!
Happy learning and living! May we all thrive not just on Thursday, but every day! I invite you to join the WAPF for only $40 for a year membership to help you on your wellness journey.
Here’s what you get for $40:
Our quarterly journal: Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts
A members-only Facebook group
Our annual Shopping Guide
Our main dietary guidelines brochure and twelve informative trifold flyers
Timely email information and action alerts
Quarterly members-only zoom meeting on various topics with WAPF experts
Consult with Pete Kennedy on state laws, regulations and policies including food freedom legislation and issues regarding consumer access to raw milk, cottage foods and on-farm meat and poultry processing.
Tree of Life Mothering 