I had a dinner party last week with my dearest girlfriends, the Veggie Gals. Go here to get more about them. I’ve known most of them for over 24 years and they are the most crunchy-granola, earthy-goddess-green mom friends I could ever hope to have. We have cried and laughed together over the decades, sharing stories of veganism, natural birth, breastfeeding, child rearing, eating seaweed, adopting, doing enemas, xeriscaping, eco-friendly funerals, gardening, yoga in salt caves, herb and homeopathy healing, and so much more. We are always learning new stuff together. One of them delighted us with her tale of recently reviving a nearly dead bird in her garden with a Bach Flower remedy. The bird then stayed in her hands and wouldn’t leave her for hours. She tucked it into her bra pocket (the space you have as a woman between your two breasts and your top or dress when you wear a bra) while she weeded until she took the bird to find his mama and he flew to her. We were all laughing and exclaiming with squeals of delight! It was the stuff of a Disney princess movie!
Another of the girlfriends shared with us her trick for picking apricots. My neighbor has a bountiful tree and they have welcomed anyone to come pick so I let the girlfriends have at it. Girlfriend Shauna’s method is to to get a rake, an old sheet you don’t mind getting stained, four other people, and shallow boxes. Have four people each grab a corner of the sheet. Then take your rake and jiggle the branches. Let the fruit fall onto the sheet, then dump into the box. That’s it! So efficient, saving you time!
I love the song from the Children’s Songbook, written by Elizabeth Cushing Taylor, that says,
“We do not see the wind, we only hear it sigh. It makes the grasses bend whenever it goes by.”
The song is about God’s love, hence the title of it, “God’s Love.” The same words also apply to how the Holy Ghost works. We don’t see the Holy Ghost, but we can see and feel the effects of listening to Him, just as we can see wind blowing the grass.
Yesterday in church, two speakers each shared a story about listening to the Holy Ghost.
The first said this was his first time he remembers getting revelation from God. He was 17 and worked construction as a summer job in California’s Central Valley. He said that he had a busy day, waking up at 6 AM to get to his construction shift before it got too hot. After a long day of doing construction, he and his brother then went banana boating on a lake. They had fun creating “rooster tails” of water in the wake of the boat. Then they went home for dinner. After dinner, he went to water polo practice. After practice, his whole body ached with physical exhaustion and his brain was tired too. On the way home, he thought of friend’s name, Anne. He wondered why her name popped into his brain? Maybe he should go see her? He vacillated between going home and crawling into bed right away or stopping to see her. He finally decided to go see how she was doing. They visited for an hour on her porch. As she said goodbye to him, she thanked him for coming. She said she had felt particularly lonely that day and prayed that a friend would come see her.
Wow, I love that story!
Then another speaker shared this story. She said that she had been making crepes in her kitchen. She was almost done when she heard a voice in her head to move the margarine and put it back in the fridge. She thought that was strange. Why should she do that? Couldn’t it wait until she was all done cooking? She resisted the voice, but it repeated. She felt irritated that the voice was so bossy. She finally gave in. Within a second after putting it away, the light cover that had been close to the ceiling crashed to the floor. She had been standing right under it while cooking. She said that if she hadn’t moved to the fridge, she would have been seriously injured. Her youth summer camp was starting the next day. If she had been injured, she wouldn’t have been able to go. She realized that the Holy Spirit guided her, saving her from harm, allowing her to have future fun and growth.
Both speakers said that each story was the first time that the speaker recognized the Holy Spirit, in other words, revelation from God. That made me think of my first time. I had been practicing my violin and misplaced the bow. I prayed that I would find it. Righter after I said amen, the image popped into my mind of the bow sitting in the space behind the head cushion of my parents’ huge, overstuffed sofa. I looked and there it was!
I’m so grateful for the Holy Spirit! The Holy Ghost allows us to know the mind and will of God, to know anything He wants us to know for our eternal happiness and the eternal happiness of those around us. As the first speaker whose story I shared above said, “I didn’t grow up in the Marvel Comic movie universe, but I can’t think of any superpower I’d rather have than the constant gift of the Holy Ghost.”
Indeed, President Russell M. Nelson, the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has told us that the most important ability we can get is to hear and follow the voice of Jesus Christ, as revealed through the Holy Ghost. Watch his speech below or read it here.
My movie of the week is The Hundred-Foot Journey. This is so delightful! Calling all foodies and anybody wanting a great date night movie! You will love this! It involves an Indian family that moves to France after losing their home, business, and mother to a fire, in India. After they move to France, they start a new business, a restaurant. Despite the naysayers saying that an Indian cuisine restaurant won’t thrive in France, the business does, with the dad’s ingenious marketing.
One of the sons in the family has a gift for cooking. So…the competitor across the street, 100 feet away, the owner of a French cuisine restaurant, takes an interest in the son’s gift. Her restaurant already has one Michelin star. You’ll have to watch the movie to see how that all plays out.
I loved how this movie was clean, that it had gorgeous cinematography, and that not one, but two romances, emerge. The women’s dresses are so adorable too. I also love that it involves food!
It made me curious about learning more about what makes food great enough to garner a Michelin rating for a restaurant. It also makes you think about neighborliness, kindness, and overcoming racism. With a family theme, it also sparks questions about “What does it mean to be a family?” and “What makes a home?” To top it all off, the son with the cooking gift is so good looking! “Easy on the eyes,” as my sister’s mother-in-law likes to say. His name is Manish Dayal. Watching him took me down memory lane a bit as he looks a lot like one of my husband’s BYU roommates when we were dating. The Indian food featured further spurred the memory lane stroll as when my first grandchild was born, I played granny nanny and cook. While visiting my new grandbaby, and my daughter and son-in-law to do that, they took me to a wonderful Indian cuisine restaurant in Boise. Wow, what a treat! I love Indian cuisine! It’s probably my favorite! Given my love for pizza, that’s saying a lot!!!
With this movie, I finally landed on a date night flick that wasn’t cheesy. When it was over, my husband wasn’t rolling his eyes, thinking the acting was bad and lines were predictable and mediocre. Being produced by Stephen Spielberg and Oprah, the movie of course has got to be fantabulous! I know you will enjoy it! It’s based on the book by Richard Morais, of the same title, so now I want to read it. I also get get a book I found at my local public library when I lived in AZ about cooking and pore over it again, to learn the building blocks of great cooking. According to the author, Samin Nasrat, the four basics of gourmet cooking are salt, fat, acid, and heat. Ahh, so many books so little time. What a great problem to have!
The movie makes me wonder, what hundred-foot journey is waiting for me to take?
P.S. If you’d like to get a digital copy of Salt Fat Acid Heat, you can get it in scribd.com! Go here to learn more about scribd. Scribd has it in text format as well as audiobook. Hooray!
This is something fun we used to do when all my children were at home. Sometimes I just wanted to reward my kiddos after a day of work with a fun, screen-free activity, but couldn’t afford to take them to an amusement place. They wanted to be motivated by something more than a hike or a visit to a city park. So this activity fit the bill perfectly. That’s because it combines the physical exercise of hiking and/or walking, reading comprehension, getting out in nature, and the thrill of discovery.
This activity is called “letterboxing.” It’s basically exchanging imprints from stamps, often custom-made, in a blank book that your provide, from different hidden locations. So it’s kind of like collecting “stamps” in your own “passport book” from “treasure boxes.” You get directions to find a little box or container, and it will have a rubber stamp inside for you to stamp your book. Then you stamp the book in the box to leave your imprint. Go to letterboxing.org, then click on your state, then your city or a city close to you, get the directions, get blank book and ink pad, and your own stamp, then start exploring. It’s a great exercise for you and your children in teamwork and following instructions.
This week’s game is Fun Facts by Repos Games. I loooove it! It is the perfect getting to know you game! We played it last Sunday night with my daughter and son-in-law. I got some laughter and meaningful conversation out of it, so that makes it a winner!
In this game, each person gets a plastic arrow and a dry erase marker. Then you take turns asking a question from the deck of cards. See examples below.
After each question is asked, everyone secretly writes a number on the arrow, as an answer. The person who asked the question puts down his or her arrow first, with the answer face down, then one by one you each put your arrow face down, guessing if your answer is above or below the arrows/answers that are already down. The goal is, as a group, to get your answers in perfect order, from lowest to highest numerical value. Some of the answers could be over 100, and for some questions, you limit your answer on a scale between 0-100. Then you turn over all the arrows to see if you got them all in ascending order. You get one point for each one in the right place.
So it’s a cooperative game to see how well you know each other.
So for example, for the question, “How much do you enjoy making lists? from 0-100” the players in the photo below have written answers between 11-99. You can see that some of the arrows were placed out of order. So the group collectively gets 6 out of a possible perfect score of 8 points. (I’m assuming the orange arrow at the bottom is below 11.)
A game consists of answering 8 questions. Then you compare your group’s score to the scoring scale printed on the instructions to see how well your group did. That’s it! It’s super simple and involves thinking, conversation and laughs! I give it 4 out of 5 stars. I took away a star because it’s marketed as a family game, at least on amazon, but some questions are not appropriate for children, such as “How many alcoholic drinks do you have a week?” If it’s going to be labeled as a family game, it shouldn’t have any questions like that.
So instead of following the rules that say to lay out 8 cards face down at the beginning to use all of those 8 for the game, my “house rule” is to let each person when it is that person’s turn, go through the cards until he or she finds one that resonates with him or her to ask. You might want to dump any cards along the way you find inappropriate.
I do hope you get this game and enjoy learning Fun Facts about your family and friends! I can’t wait to play it with my out-of-nest children as well with my neighborhood game gang. I think it will work for some Zoom game nights too. If you want more details about it, watch the Dice Tower review below.
You can even use this game in your homeschooling as it counts as language arts!
If you want to learn more about gameschooling, go here.
If you want a guide to using games remotely, as in playing games in Zoom, go here. You can play games with your friends and family across the world!
Tomorrow’s Pioneer Day! I love it! It’s a state holiday here in Utah. We’ve never had a huge family tradition involved with Pioneer Day. The way we celebrate it changes every year. Sometimes we get together with extended family and share pioneer stories and eat homemade ice cream. Sometimes we eat food that is easier to prepare and just talk. One year we happened to be on the way home traveling by Cove Fort UT from a family vacation to CA, so we stopped to tour that pioneer building. Some years we have lived outside of Utah, but our church still had activities about Pioneer Day for which I’m grateful for.
What’s MOST important to me is to share stories about pioneers, whether they are related to me or not, whether they were literal pioneers who trekked across the plains or figurative pioneers who were the first to cross into unknown territory, pursuing truth. I want to make this pioneer storytelling an annual thing, so that my children left at home miss it if we don’t do it. I want them to leave my home knowing some of these stories so they will share them with their children.
Here are some pioneer stories you can share with your family.
-this one is about my husband’s ancestor, Charles Shumway. He was the first one to leave Nauvoo Illinois, crossing the frozen Mississippi River in February 1846. What bravery! I don’t know if I would be willing to be the first to trust that ice! As they crossed the river, Charles told his wife, “Don’t look back!” His life’s story is told in the novelization above by one of my husband’s distant cousins, Eva Conover.
-this story involves my ancestor, Zerah Pulsipher, photo above. He was at the meeting with other Saints after Joseph Smith was killed, where many, including him, say the face and voice of Brigham Young transformed to look and sound like Joseph Smith, so that they knew Brigham Young was to be the next president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This story was a prelude to the trek west, to lay the foundation for Brigham Young’s leadership.
-many people know this story of another one of my husband’s ancestors, Levi Savage Jr. He was part of the Martin Handcart Company. He was the one who told the people not to leave for the Utah Territory so late in the season, the end of summer. He was outvoted. He went with the group anyway, committing to them his full support. Never did he say, “I told you so!” even when they were caught in horrific snowstorms on their way. What a guy! Such a gentleman. You can watch his story played out in the Movie 17 Miracles, shown below.
-here’s a story of a pioneer in another land. He was the first in Austria to preach of the restored gospel. His name is Thomas Biesinger, and he ended up going to prison for teaching the truth of the restored gospel. You can read it here.
Julie Mavimbela was a pioneer in Africa. I love her story! Go here for more.
Here are a ton more Utah pioneer stories over here.
Then here are stories of pioneers in every land. Go read them! They are so awesome!!!!
And I have even more in my Family Devotionals Ebook. Go get it here.
So after losing 70 lbs 8 years ago, in 2015, using HCG, I’ve had four rounds of gaining some of the weight back, and then fighting to lose it. In all of these rounds I have learned so much about physiology, appetite regulation, food and carb addiction, and the science of weight loss.
Round #1 was actually not losing what I had just gained back. It was attempting to lose the last 15 lbs for my original goal with the 70 lb weight loss. I switched from HCG to keto. I had to stop HCG because the more you do it, with each bottle of the “secret sauce” lasting about 6 weeks, the less effective it becomes. I did four rounds. So I started the ketogenic diet and I did lose weight, I had to stop keto because I got heart palpitations. When I stopped the keto the heart palpitations went away, much to my relief.
Round #2 was doing Trim Healthy Mama. That didn’t work. You can read my story here about that. Much as I love Trim Healthy Mama, the diet involves too much food too often for my body physiology, which involves a tendency to high insulin resistance.
Round #3 was improved keto. I tried to resign myself to being at a certain weight and just eat normally. That lasted maybe 18 months? The weight gradually crept back on. So I tunred to keto again. I found out that a friend, Tammi Hyde, has a YouTube channel all about keto weight loss. I learned from her that I needed to use electrolytes in the form of salt. I started taking salt everyday with my keto diet and never got the heart palpitations. This was during COVID, the summer of 2020. I lost 25 lbs, doing keto combined with intermittent fasting. Then I moved to UT from AZ. That totally derailed me from my weight loss journey. In the back of my mind, I still had the goal to lose 25 more lbs but I just needed a break from concentrating on weight loss while I got settled into my new home, place, and routine. This took about two years, LOL.
At this point you may be wondering why I didn’t just go back to HCG if it worked for me the first time. Actually, I did. That was Round #4. Instead of the injections I did the first time, I tried sublingual HCG drops. I did lose weight, but it just wasn’t as fast as I wanted it to be. I’ve thought of using the injections but just haven’t wanted to spend the money for the increased cost of the injections. Plus it’s not very fun. You don’t get to eat any really satisfying food on HCG.
Ok, that leads me to Round #5. Round #5 is what I’m currently on and it’s working! I have lost 30 lbs since March 16 of this year. So that was four months ago. 30 lbs in four months is not an amazing record, but it’s working and sustainable and that’s what counts. I feel nourished and satisfied because I get to eat fatty, delicious food which cuts the cravings for sugar.
So what am I doing? It started off as the carnivore diet, as in zero carbs. On March 16 of this year, the day after my husband’s birthday (the last time I ate pizza and ice cream like a last fling with a lover) I started eating 100% meat, eggs, and dairy. I’ve learned that what works for me better, however, is keto, still heavy on the meat, but I’ve introduced some low carbs back in like zucchini, dill pickles, and tomatoes, combined with intermittent fasting. I can sustain it because the fatty meat suppresses my desires for high carbs. I’ve had a few days, in this spring and summer, like with my son’s wedding in TX, Father’s Day, and a family reunion where I’ve allowed myself to eat some high carby veggies and fruits, like potatoes and watermelon, but I’ve been able to get back on the diet bandwagon after the event is over. It helps to know that I can be a moderator and don’t have to be an abstainer.
My sister-in-law got me into being carnivore because she was doing it. Oh how people change! Ironically, this was the same sister-in-law who was vegan with me and her mother, my mother-in-law, in the late 1990s, for a few years. Yep, been there, done that, and don’t want to do it ever again! She shared with me that Dr. Ken Berry recommends the carnivore diet, as well as Jordan Peterson. Check out Jordan’s story below, as well as the photo of his wife Tammy. Oh to look that good in a bikini at age 60 plus! Wow!!!! Not that I would ever wear a bikini in public, but I’d like to know that I could and not be embarrassed, LOL! Check out everything she fixed by going carnivore. Amazing! My sister-in-law has eliminated her arthritis and food addiction by going carnivore. She loves it!
So how do I, as a practicing member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who believes in the Word of Wisdom’s teaching to eat meat “sparingly, only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine” reconcile that with eating carnivore? (See Doctrine and Covenants 89:13-14).
My husband, who I’ve taken along for this carnivor- turned-ketovore journey, told me, when I asked him how to reconcile the two, “Don’t even try. They just don’t go together.”
But I refuse to give up!
I reconcile the two by examining the meaning of the words “famine” and “winter.”
In specific, literal terms, famine is a time of lack of food. Winter is a time when it’s cold, even freezing, and therefore food doesn’t grow normally outside.
Let’s take those terms and apply them broadly.
In general, poetic terms, famine can mean a lack of anything. For those of us who suffer from insulin resistance, we lack insulin sensitivity. We are in a famine of insulin sensitivity, hence we easily have weight gain. We also lack the delicate hormonal balance that regulates normal appetite.
Winter can mean a time when anything is slow to grow because it’s so cold. So for those of us who suffer from insulin resistance, winter is a time of slow metabolism, when weight loss is slow to grow.
That’s where meat comes in. In the Word of Wisdom, it’s OK to eat meat in times of famine or winter. I interpret that to mean literal as well as figurative famine and winter.
I learned from Kelly Hogan who lost 200 lbs on the carnivore diet (see video above), to eat two servings of 1 lb of ground beef a day. When I started doing that, I immediately felt so nourished and satisfied. For a while I just ate meat and eggs for a few weeks. I found that fatty beef meat is soooo nutrient and flavor dense. I didn’t feel the need to eat carbs because just the meat and eggs were so satisfying. They are powerful foods, but when eaten with other foods, like carbs, their effect is blunted. When I just eat beef alone, my appetite gets suppressed. Like if I eat a bowl of 1 lb of cooked ground beef, I don’t want to eat anything more for a long time. But in the old days, when I ate like 1/4 lb of ground beef with other stuff, like salsa, lettuce, tortilla chips, and salsa, I always felt like having a second serving. This was an amazing discovery! So, after starting carnivore, I lost weight right away, about 16 pounds, in two weeks or so, but then I stalled.
As I did more research among the carnivore community, binge-watching carnivore YouTubers, I realized I needed to combine carnivore, (evolving to ketovore) with intermittent fasting for longer periods. Wow, that was just the ticket. I finally busted through a stall I had had for about a month. So now I’m at my wedding weight, of 30 plus years ago, and will keep going until I reach my ideal weight, which is 17 more pounds to go.
If you’d like to try carnivore, I highly suggest you watch this video right below, to learn how to start. Then watch the next video below with Kelly explaining how insulin works.
Wow, I had such a wonderful weekend recently! We had two family reunions, one with my side of the family, and one with my DH’s side. All during the same weekend! DH’s reunion was for four days! I know it sounds crazy, but it was to make up for having the last reunion four years ago. The reunions used to be every 2-3 years. My husband is one of nine siblings. Eight out of the nine were there, along with many of their descendants. On Sunday, my DH’s family reunion official meeting didn’t start until 5 PM so I was able to squeeze in a reunion for my side from 1-4 PM, since my sister from Maine was in town with her DH and kiddos. I had all three of my married children with each spouse in town for DH’s reunion as well, so they got to see my sister and their cousins. I am still basking in the glow of enjoying all these family connections in one weekend!
On Sunday, we went to church with my two married sons and each wife of the respective son. One of the speakers at the church service, Joy, told the most amazing story which we all got to hear.
She said that as a child she fell in love with swimming. As she grew she asked for more and more swimming lessons. In high school she joined the swim team. She realized early on in her athletic career that she wasn’t very athletic. She worked and worked to achieve her goal to go to the district swim meet her senior year. She drilled to do the 100 yard race at the swim meet. Just a few minutes before the big race, a girl who had been mean to her, one of her teammates, asked if she would switch races with Joy. The girl proposed to do the 100 yard and have Joy do the 200 yard race. At first, Joy was about to say, “no!” She was irked that this girl would dare ask to trade when she had been so mean to her. She also felt like she was letting her chance of winning a race slip away because she had only trained for the 100, not the 200. But then she heard the Holy Spirit repeat a three word phrase that Susan had read in the scriptures, “Love your enemies.” So she said “yes,” before she even realized she was saying it.
Joy swam the race and ended up getting her best time yet! She was shocked! Immediately after finding out, she went to the locker room and knelt on the cold slimy cement floor and gave thanks to God for helping her. She shared three lessons from this story:
Jesus really is our shepherd. He really is in the details of our lives. He wants to bless us. Sometimes He does give us things we are dreaming about and don’t even ask for.
Special blessings come to us when we love our enemies. Joy says she feels she wouldn’t have received that blessing of getting her best time ever if she hadn’t followed the prompting to show love to her enemy.
The Law of the Harvest is real. When we practice, we plant seeds to get results.
To top off the goodness of the church services, my oldest son discovered one of his missionary companions was there at church because the speaker, Joy, turns out be his aunt! He was there to listen to her speak. My son and his friend had a great time reconnecting.My son was able to introduce his new bride to his old friend. It was just such a wonderful day all around!
I just love this book, written by Jean Fritz and illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman. It is such a great introduction to the founding of the United States. After you read it, preferably out loud to your children 8 and up, you will know the following:
what John Hancock’s childhood was like
how did John Hancock get to be the richest man in New England
how did Samuel Adams and John Hancock meet
how was John involved in the Stamp Act of 1765
how John Hancock got to be so popular in Boston
what interrupted John’s wedding to Dolly Quincy in the spring of 1775
why John was chosen to be the president of the First Continental Congress
why John was the first to sign the Declaration of Independence of the USA
John’s involvement in the Revolutionary War of the USA
how many times John was elected to be governor of Massachusetts
that sadly John had no children who survived him
and many more tidbits of the Founding Era of the United States of America. Stories help us remember facts, so I heartily recommend you read this book to your children at least once a year, to help them remember some of the facts involved in the Revolutionary War. That’s such a better, organic way of learning than studying dry textbooks and taking quizzes and tests. It’s a great addition to your Morning Basket during the month of July, if you have a scholar engaging with the Key of Liberty project, or any time you are studying the Revolutionary War in your homeschool. I give it 5 out of 5 stars!
I started watching Jared Halverson’s video from his Unshaken YouTube Channel for this upcoming Sunday’s Come Follow Christ lesson and love it! It covers Acts 6-9.
In it, he says (around the 27:18 mark) “What would you as a Jew in the first century A.D. be missing if somebody back in the first century had not been willing to say, wait a minute, these apostles agree with our scripture, and this additional scripture already confirms what we already have? Huh, maybe Jesus was serious when he said ‘I have come to fulfill and not to destroy.’ “
Then he gives a simple syllogism:
“Judaism is to Christianity as Christianity is to the restored gospel.”
What is this restored gospel? It is truly “a marvelous work and a wonder.” Isaiah foretold that this happen, see Isaiah 29:14 and watch this video here.
You can learn more here. I have felt the Holy Spirit witness to me that God the Father chose Joseph Smith to restore the gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s true!
You can watch both parts of Jared’s video on Acts 6-9 below. Check out his IG page here. He has such a gift for explaining gospel truths.
If you have believed in the restoration and feel you are facing a faith crisis, watch Jared’s video at the very bottom of this blog post. It’s all sooooo good!
Tree of Life Mothering 