I’ve been seeing a lot homeschooling vloggers talk about back to school. I’m not quite ready for that yet. I love to hang onto summer as long as I can. One thing that helps me do that is reading books that involve childhood summer adventures. I do have a series of posts planned for back-to-school, to encourage anyone out there to embrace homeschooling, to encourage homeschoolers to continue on, and tips and tricks on making it sustainable and a lot more fun. So stay tuned for those!
I shared a bunch of summer read aloud suggestions in June, over here, and today here are more, as shown in these images above and below. They come from this post from Leila Lawler, veteran homeschooling mother of 7 and grandmother of 20+. I love reading her blog! She has so much wisdom. Go over there to read her descriptions of these books. It’s interesting that she recommends Edith Nesbitt books. I’ve seen others recommend them as well. I guess E. Nesbitt’s Fabian socialism does not appear in her children’s books, and they remain wholesome fare that Christians enjoy.
Anyway, if you have never discovered the magic of reading aloud, I encourage you to discover it before you delay. It’s the easiest, cheapest, and most brain enriching and family bonding form of family entertainment out there. So go to my June post to see more of the why and how to encourage reading aloud.
One interesting thing I learned from reading Mrs. Lawler’s post is why the Penderwicks book is not the best book to read. I had it on my list over there and just deleted it. Read her explanation here to learn why. Reading that makes me realize, oh yeah, I never did finish the book but I do remember being bugged by the character Mrs. Tifton. I’ve been recommending the book even though I didn’t finish it. It’s good to know why it’s not the best book and I’m not recommending it anymore.
If you want more summer picture book and chapter book read aloud suggestions, go to my other site, here, and just ignore the Penderwicks suggestions. (The calendar shown at that site is no longer available. I plan on having a 2026 one available by Thanksgiving.)
Credit for Photos Above and Below: Jessa Duggar Seewald YouTube Channel
I just love birth stories! The emotion involved, the intensity, the relief and joy after the baby is born, it is all so real, raw and amazing! I have seven birth stories of my own and I love to hear other birth stories.
My married daughter is due the end of August. This is the first time that she lives close enough that I get to be there for the birth, watching her older children and seeing the birth if the timing works out depending on the needs of the children.
I also love families and big families. So I enjoy following the Duggars and Bates family since they each have 19 children. One of the Duggar daughters, Jessa Duggar Seewald, had Baby #6, on Saturday July 26, 2025. She hasn’t revealed the gender yet though.
You can watch Part 1 here where she shows what she did to get into labor.
Here’s Part 2 where she shows that her water broke while she’s lying on the couch at her parents’ home. Then she goes to the hospital and has the baby. She strategically doesn’t show the gender, even when the baby is being weighed. While watching, I thought, “Surely she’s going to tell us at the very end what the gender is.” But nope, at the very end we find it that we get to wait to find out. The footage at the end of the video involves her children coming to the hospital. Her voice over says that it’s her tradition for her husband and her to find out the gender during pregnancy, but not to reveal what it is. (With this last one, however, she did tell her sister Jinger on Jinger’s podcast video but then they bleeped it out, for purposes of click bait.) Her children get to find out right after the birth and then they reveal the gender to the rest of the super-size family. So now, we get to wait for Part 3 to find out.
I think it’s a boy, what do you think?
Note added a few days later: Jessa has created a video announcing the gender! Go here to see the reveal!
If you want more birth stories, read the book about birth and birth stories that I review here.
Here’s how to get great art into your home super inexpensively. This is the third time I’ve done this, and I look forward to doing more. The photo above shows the first piece of art I worked with. It’s a copy of “The Happy Family” by Ferdinand Georg Waldmuller. I found the above art years ago in a magazine and it just spoke to me. Looking at it helped me through a dark time in my family life. I’m so grateful for it. Don’t despair if you can’t afford to buy art from high-priced stores. With technology these days, almost anyone can afford to have beautiful art in the home. We are so blessed to live in such a marvelous age with the classics within reach of nearly anyone who desires them. Art speaks to the soul in a way nothing else can and inspires one to rise above the daily grind with a higher vision. We need not deprive ourselves and our families of beauty inside our home to gaze upon each day. So, here’s how to decorate your walls with beautiful classical and religious art, at a very low price.
First, gather some print magazines from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If you sign up for a Church account, or already have an account, you can subscribe to the print magazines for free. (The magazines are The Friend for children ages 3-11, For the Strength of Youth for 12-18, and The Liahona for adults.) Go here to get a Church account and/or subscribe. As far as I can tell, you don’t have to be a member to get an account and subscribe, as long as you agree to the terms of service.
2. Flip through your magazines and find the piece of art in the pages that speaks to your soul, one where you just instantly feel like you have to frame and hang on your wall. In my case, it was this print above of a portrait of Jesus Christ by Greg Olsen. It’s from The Friend, the April 2025 issue, shown below. It’s the inside of the front cover. I guess you could print it from the link I just gave using your computer’s printer if you have a super high-quality printer and plenty of colored ink, if you trust your printer to do a great job.
Interestingly enough, I had found this same artwork in the form of a jigsaw puzzle when thrifting a few years ago. We did the puzzle during an April General Conference in my former home, what I affectionately call the Cottage on the Corner. I just think it’s so beautiful. I love the grayish blue of the coat of Jesus, the lavender bluish gray of the mountains in the background, and then the yellows, pinks, and blues in the sky, reflected in the water. This painting just radiates hope and calmness from Jesus all at the same time.
This particular piece is called, “Walk With Me.” You can buy it already framed over here, a 7×9 size, shown below with a mat as well, for only $20, which is a great deal! Notice that Jesus’ feet are cut off in the magazine version above but not in the framed art from Greg’s site below. Did I already mention how amazingly beautiful I think this art is? I just love, love how the artist Greg created the luminosity surrounding the Savior in the sky and water, and how His steps look so grounded. Jesus is definitely our ultimate hero to follow, and this piece shows that so gorgeously.
3. Then find a frame you want to use with the art. A few weeks ago, I went thrifting with the specific intention of finding a gray frame to go with this particular piece of art. As soon as I walked into the Orem UT Savers store and went over to the frame section, I found “the one”! A solid, wide, gray, wooden, 8×10 frame. Perfect!!! I felt the angels were definitely watching out for me and singing when I found this! They had put it in my path for sure! It was only $3! (To learn about help from angels when thrifting, go here, and scroll down to the bottom of the post if you don’t want to see all my thrifting deals and just want to read how I get help from angels.)
OK, now that you have your magazine with your picture inside picked out, and your frame selected, you are set to create your beautiful home decor.
4. Carefully remove the page you are framing from the magazine. To do so, cut the page out with scissors, or use an exacto knife against some kind of protective surface, or gently remove the staples used for the binding, and then cut the art from the adjoining page. In my example, the page was on the back of the front cover, so it was printed on heavier paper, therefore it was easier to just gently tear away. If you aren’t sure about your ability to gently tear the page, then definitely cut it or remove the staples and then cut it.
5. Put the page in the frame and see where you need to trim it to make it fit. You can see above how the top edge overlaps the inner part of the frame.
6. Carefully measure off with a ruler or guess at what you need to cut off, if you are good at what my artist mom calls “eyeballing it.” In my case, I just kept trimming off 1/8th of an inch on all four sides, after drawing a line with a pencil and a ruler to follow when cutting, until the page fit.
7. Keep checking the fit and trimming until you get it right. The above photo shows how much I had to cut off to make it fit.
8. When the page finally fits, put it in the frame, assemble the back with the padding that is usually included with the frame, and hang it on the wall. All done! Enjoy your beautiful art that cost next to nothing! Here’s how mine looks on my wall, below.
I love it! I’m not sure, however, if the above spot is the final resting place for my new framed work of art. I’m just not sure how I like the curved gold frame of the clock with the heavy gray frame of Jesus and the white trim of the doorway to the left. So, I’m moving this framed art around to see where it looks best. Or maybe I’ll move the clock. Anyway, I love decorating with creativity and frugality! Of course, I’d love to have a million dollars to decorate with as well, but for now I’ll make do with what I have. Maybe I’ll eventually advance to including mats with my framing.
Of course, you are not limited to Church magazines. It’s just easy for me to find images in those because that’s what I have. You could use any magazine full of pictures you enjoy. Or the Internet with a great printer and lots of color ink. Or find some framed art when thrifting! I haven’t done that yet but I’ve seen a few thrifty vloggers doing that. The sky’s the limit with this idea!
Next, I’m going to find some frames when thrifting for this set of illustrations of a tree branch, shown below, by Michael Dunford that appeared in the April 2025 Liahona magazine. They accompany an article by Elder Gerritt W. Gong about Jesus and the message of Easter. I’ll probably just splurge and buy a set of three new matching frames that are narrower than what I used above for Jesus. I’m just not sure what color I want those frames to be. Gray? Silver? White? Gold? Cherry wood? Hmmm….I’m thinking probably cherry. Those blossoms are either apple or cherry ones.
P.S. If you want the image of “The Happy Family” by Ferdinand Waldmuller, it was in the June 2005 Ensign magazine. (Ensign is the name of the magazine for adults before it was changed to Liahona.) You can go here to print a copy. It is just so beautiful! I love it so much, with its meaning of finding joy and peace at home by connecting with your family members.
I hope to start a new regular feature where I share every Thursday about thrifting. #thriftingthursday! Thrifting means buying things from thrift stores, like Goodwill, Savers, Salvation Army, Deseret Industries, etc. The items are usually used but sometimes you can find things brand new still in their original packaging. If you apply a broader term, it can also mean finding things elsewhere for free or cheap, like from ebay, thriftbooks.com, used library books sales, yard sales, yard giveaways, estate sales, just attracting things for free, and dumpster diving. I have never gone dumpster diving, but I’ve done all the other things.
Speaking of attracting things for free, I got this book below when I went to a cottage meeting to hear a speaker at a private home. Some guy was giving away books and I got this one below, back in May. After thinking about it, I realized I could use it as a gift for one of my sons, who has a birthday in July. He is majoring in dance and was in a ballet last March. It looked like new and still had the CD inside. He smiled when he opened the package, so yay! I gave him other stuff too.
I didn’t go thrifting at all in April, and just a teeny bit in March. I sure made up for the lack in May, June, and July. Here are the rest of the goods.
Up at the tippy top, we see some fun stuff I found at Savers. I was especially thrilled to find so many baskets, to switch out for my plastic bins that I’ve been using for toy storage, as well as a pretty dress, and the book about Jewish holidays to add to my collection of family traditions books. I gave the Eric Dowdle puzzle to my dad for Father’s Day along with a book.
The above books came from the quarterly used book sale that my local public library does. After blogging about Naomi Wolf last spring, I was delighted to find a book by her. I love all of Tom Woods’ books. I read the above one years ago, from the public library, and now I have my own copy!
OK, next, below is one of my favorite thrifting treasures ever!
It’s the Jane Game! A Jane Austen-themed board game! I played it with my sister Emily when she is town and can’t wait to have a Jane party in January with my homeschool mom friends. That’s definitely something to look forward to after Christmas is over! I also found some sparkly gold picture frames on the same trip, back in June. This was definitely a moment when I felt the angels were singing above me as I pulled the game off the Orem UT Savers store shelf and figured out what it was! With my coupon for 30% off games, it was only $2.90!
Another June haul from Savers above. I got the book on bread machine bread for my son-in-law. He is such a foodie and is just starting to experiment with his $300 bread machine. The Disney’s Who’s Who replaces the duplicate one I got two years ago which one of my grandsons ripped. My daughter repaired it with blue tape on the spine, but it just didn’t look as nice as the other books on the shelf. I had just been wishing to get a replacement, and then voila, it showed up at Savers in just a few days! I love magical thrifting moments like that!
Another Savers haul from June. The fidget toy/Star Cube has proven to be a hit among everyone. It folds and flips into different configurations. Still new in the box. It was $5.99, so that was pricey, but I decided it was worth it. So fun! The drawing book looked brand new! It’s one-inch thick. I think it was $5 so a bit pricey too for a book but totally worth it.
Another Orem Savers haul from June above. More baskets! The polka dot ribbon is just so sweet!
A June Savers haul but from a different Savers than I normally go to, this time, in Draper UT. I review the This is The World book over here.
This haul above is from the Sandy UT Deseret Industries. I was told by an employee from that store that professional thrifters have told him that the Sandy UT DI is the best DI in Utah. I went looking for baskets and a top for Independence Day so was thrilled to find those things and get a few books.
Everything above is from the Springville UT DI. It was such a great haul! So many great goodies!!! I had just been wanting more pillowcases and then found some! The pillowcases are the gray material. The thing with the boy’s face is a songbook by Janeen Brady of Brite Music fame, called Songs for a Mormon Child. I already have a copy, from my maternal grandmother, gifted to my family when I was a child, but was thrilled to find another copy, for only a quarter! Now when we have family sing-a-longs, people can have a copy of the book to sing with from the couch and don’t have to stand around the piano. I’ve always wanted a copy of the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible all in one book, so I was so happy to find that. Then Pillow Talk is about marriage. I’m always happy to find books about Christian marriage. The peach dress is so pretty! Then I found another Susan Branch book. That’s the tiny book with the red bow on it. Hooray! The Outlaw Thanksgiving book is a picture book loosely based on a story that took place in Utah. I like to read it aloud every year around Thanksgiving, and I have to check it out from the public library. I actually had to pay an overdue fine last fall because I kept forgetting to turn it in. So now I finally have my own copy! Another hooray! The white wicker thing with flowers is a tissue box cover. I knew exactly where to put it, to cover the cube tissue box that is on the side of my white desk. Then the red book is Christmas sheet music by Janice Kapp Perry, a wonderful composer. She writes such beautiful songs! Breakbeat Bible is for my drummer son. I got a Wrinkle in Time because my husband had just been listening to it in audio. I added it to my classic YA novel collection. Then there’s a little red basket, a book about grilling, which is great because we finally got a BBQ grill a year ago when two of my sons gave one to my husband for Father’s Day, and with my missionary son gone we need tutoring on grilling. Then I got some faith in God conversation cards, and then, the piece de resistance of the trip, drumroll please…
a DK book about homeopathy! Only $1.50!!!! Go here to see more about this book! Then go here to see all I’ve written about homeopathy. If you’re not using it, you are missing out. Anyway, this particular trip was such a grand thrifting haul! The best thrift haul of this whole page!
I got the above for my first thrifting trip in July, at the Springville DI, on my trip home from my parents’ cabin after spending Independence Day with extended family there. Go here and scroll to below the middle of that post, to read my description of the stuff above.
A Bill of Rights game!!! From the Good and the Beautiful company. It was $2. I bought it at the American Fork DI. I went there to find black pants for my husband, which I did find, then forgot to include them in the photo before I gave them to him. I also found the game that night. My son and I played it one morning for school. A great addition to my gameschooling collection!
More baskets! I think I’ve met my basket quota, LOL!
Everything above came from two different Savers: Orem UT and Draper UT.
First, there’s a perfect gray frame for a print of a painting of Jesus Christ by Greg Olsen that I took from a church magazine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I had been wanting a gray frame to go with the print, so this was perfect. That was definitely another magical thrifting moment, where I went to the store with the intention to find a gray 8×10 picture frame, and there it was! The Eric Dowdle puzzle is about national parks. Oops, there are the gray pillowcases again. I didn’t mean to include them twice. I gave the college hacks book to my BYU-attending July birthday son for one of his birthday gifts.
Savers emailed me a coupon for women’s skirts, 30% off. So I took advantage of that and got the skirts above and below. Yay! I couldn’t resist the Robert McCloskey treasury for $4. I’ll be reading that aloud to the grandsons for sure! Then, another Eric Dowdle puzzle, this time about BYU football. I’m going to save it for somebody for Christmas, either my husband or one of my sons.
A haul from two different DIs: Sandy and Springville. My husband needed new jeans, and I found him some Calvin Klein’s for $8, using my DI survey coupon code. Then the black pants are for my July birthday son, because he asked for some black activewear pants for using in his dance classes. Then we have some more floral tops, some books, games, an office organizer that matches the teal and white theme of my desk, and best of all, a Reader’s Digest songbook! It has so many fun songs, like the Olympics theme, Indiana Jones movie theme, some popular love songs from movies, popular classical music that you typically hear in cartoons, and much more!! I reward myself after doing my strength-training exercises with playing a song from this book.
Last of all, these books above from the Orem Savers. When you buy 4 books, you get one free. I’m saving the Minecrafters book as a birthday gift for either my grandson or nephew.
My favorite finds of these spring and summer hauls? The DK homeopathy book, the Reader’s Digest Songbook, and the Jane Game. Such amazing treats for the heart and mind!!! I feel so blessed by God with these.
I’d love to hear about any of your thrifting finds! Please share below! If you need any more convincing to go thrifting, watch Toni of Our Thrifty Homeschool below.
This podcast interview, turned into a video below, is so informative! It features Hilda LaBrada Gore, host of the Wise Traditions Podcast, interviewing Dr. Jeremy Ayres and John Gusty.
Here is a summary of the video, copied and pasted from YouTube:
“Most medical professionals don’t read the latest studies. A lot of modern medicine is based on bad science (B.S.). Conventional medicine was never set up to promote good health; it was meant for profit. If these statements shock you, that is part of the point. Our guests today, Dr. Jeremy Ayres and John Gusty, are co-authors of The Red Pill Revolution and they are on a mission to uncover the deceptive practices interwoven in modern medicine. They invite you to dig deeper to discover its dark roots and the industry that has developed around it. Listen with curiosity to learn how to take your health into your own hands and to opt out of the conventional system that is tied to the food and the pharmaceutical industry.”
Some of my favorite quotes and paraphrased truth bombs from the above video interview:
“Science is never settled.”
“Don’t ‘trust the science,’ ‘true science’ means ‘challenge the science.'”
“Can the modern medical industry cite any victories? Is anyone less fat? Less sick?”
“Modern medicine, although it’s the youngest medicine on the planet. Of course, there’s some merits. If you’re in a car accident and you’re bleeding, or have broken bones, as long as you get in front of a decent trauma team, they’re the people that you need to see. But they base their whole foundation on ‘evidence-based medicine.’ And you know, after 30 years, and there’s many scientists that we respect that would agree with what I’m saying, but when you look at the ‘science,’ turns out there’s almost no science going on. And so, the evidence-based medicine is usually based on non-science or what I call BS, bad science. And from that they draw their confidence to make such decisions.”
“Science is a discipline, no different than honesty or fidelity. It’s not a government institution. It’s not a building with an address. It’s not a group of people.”
“The ancient meaning of doctor is teacher. So, a true doctor teaches people to get out of their disease. A doctor teaches people how not to offend nature in order to get out of their ‘dis-ease.’ “
That’s just scratching the surface! He suggests we get outside, get sunlight, drink living water, which is distilled, and take breaks from exposing ourselves to electrical frequencies which come from staring at screens and using electrical lights.
One more big truth bomb he shared was the history of today’s medical schools and the founding of modern medicine. Keep reading for all the juicy details.
Did you know the following?
Dr. Ayres basically said (the following is all paraphrased for clarity) that the Rockefellers wanted a new market for the oil they were selling, so they paid for the Flexner Report. The Flexner Report started the beginning of the modern medicine industry, which is based on pharmaceutical drugs. Dr. Ayres said that most if not all pharmaceutical drugs are made from petroleum. The modern medicine industry was created by the Rockefellers to market petroleum in the form of drugs.
Here are more details about that, again paraphrased and edited for clarity, from Dr. Ayres, as he states in the video above:
“A hundred years ago, we as humans were practicing ancestral natural ways and homeopathic medicine worldwide. And then industry came in by the way of the Rockefellers and it turned into this petroleum pedaling-monstrosity. It’s more nefarious than that. They deliberately set up a Flexner report funded by the Carnegies which is Rockefeller money. This was because osteopathy, chiropractics, homeopathy, herbalism, and naturopathy were more successful [in the 1800s] and more used than what were then the chemist or the pharmacists or the or the doctors of the time. So, the modern medicine industry was set up to go out and destroy those industries.”
“So what they did was they set a report which was not accurate. It said that everybody should have a standardized [medical] education and the way to get a standardized [medical] education bankrupted most of those current universities and colleges from the get-go. The only way you could survive as a medical school was get a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and you’d only get a grant if you had someone from the Rockefeller Foundation or Carnegies on your board. And so bit by bit the rotten apple got in and everything that used to be brilliant was watered down.”
“You know most chiropractics, osteopathy, and herbalism is a watered-down poor cousin of what the medical industry was. The Rockefellers set up as a business model that modern medicine became legal by governments and worldwide the primary care. And it’s a business model. If you let me just finish very quickly, Hilda, ask yourself this simple question. You know, when you go back to basic journalism of follow the money, uh, pharmaceuticals are bigger business than any other business on the planet by far. And so, what do you need if you’re in that business? You need sick people. How do you make people sick? You educate them stupid. And they’ve done a good job over the last hundred years. And Weston Price has done a fantastic job of trying to rectify that. Let’s not just gloss over the fact that, you know, you have to go to their universities, which Rockefeller Foundation has slowly but surely taken over all university boards. So, you got to go to their universities to get their certification to work in their medical facilities and have their title. It’s like Jeremy keeps saying, it’s a business model. Okay? And if you go against that business model, you’re going against a huge monolith monstrosity of, you know, it’s more powerful than governments. I mean government, it’s all intertwined. It’s this big, massive economic engine that if everyone was well, that engine wouldn’t run very well. So, they have to keep people sick.”
Wow! So what can we do instead? Like they said, modern medicine is great if you are in an accident and need trauma care quickly for acute issues. Modern medicine is not so great in curing chronic illnesses.
I suggest preventive care in the form of diet (a low carb diet to lower insulin levels, like Dr. Ben Bikman says here and here, as most diseases relate to high insulin) and homeopathic medicine. You can read about all my experiences with homeopathic medicine here. It’s the medicine any crunchy mom dreams of! It works, it’s very inexpensive, and it’s non-toxic, meaning, it has no side effects.
I can’t end this blog post without saying that Dr. Annette Bosworth, aka Dr. Boz, is a doctor who is actually changing people’s lives with education and diet instead of just pushing pills that maintains people in their diseases. She is an internal medicine doctor who found out, by putting her mom who had cancer, on a keto/ low-carb diet, that cancer can be healed in some instances with the keto diet. I’ve watched enough of her videos to know that she regrets prescribing so many drugs to her former patients. She now has a goal to help as many people get off their drugs as as many people she prescribed drugs to. I applaud her for her work! She is an example of a true doctor who teaches her patients and cures them, getting them off drugs. Let me know of any others out there in the comments section below please!
Read the book above. A summary of the book is below from amazon.
“This book may be a hard pill to swallow. But it’s a necessary conversation that must be had for anyone wishing to sanely navigate the chaotic & predatory culture we all find ourselves in. We all know something is just not right. We all sense the imbalance, injustice & insanity. But what can we actually do about it? Who & what can be trusted?”
“These 5 authors are not your typical academic lot. Most of what is discussed inside this book would never make its way into mainstream corporate media. Which is not only the problem… it’s also the solution.”
“Be prepared to become a very different human being.”
Credit for Images Above and Below: Latter-day Media YouTube Channel
As a follow-up to what I blogged last week here, about my experience with following the Holy Ghost to cure me of my cold, I’m sharing this wonderful video below.
It came out on Latter-day Media’s YouTube channel just recently. I enjoyed it immensely! I watched it while I did some strength training exercises. The presenter, Alden Beaman, explains how to receive revelation from the Holy Ghost. I just love this quote from him, “The light of Christ will show you a direction, and the gift of the Holy Ghost gives you explanation.”
Then he goes on to say, “He [God] will not explain first…that would interfere with our agency.”
Brother Beaman shows how the Urim and Thummim relates to revelation that we can receive. The Urim and Thummim was an instrument that Joseph Smith used to translate the Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ. It’s also mentioned in the Bible three times: Exodus 28:30, 1 Samuel 28:6 (at least the Urim part), and Ezra 2:63.
Urim means “light” and thummim means “perfection.” Revelation is like the Urim and Thummim in that it involves light, the light of Christ, to show us a direction and then eventually as we follow it, we will receive more of the Holy Ghost to give us an explanation.
Below are some screenshots from the video. It’s all so good! I highly recommend you watch it as soon as you can.
I loved his story of following the Holy Spirit to find a new job when he was looking for a career change. If you want more stories of following the Holy Spirit, go here.
This image of the 9 levels of perfection is so fascinating!
A few weeks ago, I discovered this delightful book at the Draper UT Savers. The store had so many great books that day! I took advantage of the buy 4, get 1 book free sale and had to say no to other books. Here’s the haul below.
It was a delightful mix of functional and beautiful storage solutions as well as homeschooling happiness, plus a hat for summer fun. I’ll use the baskets for toy storage for the grandchildren, the plastic bins for either my homeopathy medicine bottles or first aid stuff, and the books for homeschooling or delighting my heart (the glamping book by Mary Jane Butters is for that). I finally got some shelves for this bungalow since our move a year ago to house all my cardboard boxes and plastic bins of toys that I’ve kept for the grands. Gradually, I’m replacing these boxes and bins with baskets.
Moving on, let’s talk about my featured picture book of the week. I don’t remember where I had heard about this book, This is the World a Global Treasury, by Miroslav Sasek, but as soon as I saw it, I thought, “Oh, I’ve been wanting this book! I’ so lucky to find this today!”
I probably heard about it from a homeschooling vlogger. I had looked for it my local public library and was disappointed that it wasn’t there. That disappointment dissolved when I discovered this treasure! With my 20% off coupon, I paid $4, instead of the current full amazon price of $37.
The author/illustrator is Czech and has such a fun vintage style full of 1950s-60s vibes. The video below shows what the book looks like inside.
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Here is the history of how he came to write these books.
This book is a compilation of excerpts from the following titles done by Mr. Slavek: This is New York, This is Paris, This is Greece, This is London, This is Australia, This is Texas, This is Munich, This is Rome, This is Britain, This is Hong Kong, This is Israel, This is San Francisco, This is Edinburgh, This is Venice, This is Washington D.C., and This is Ireland. Below is the New York book.
It’s such a simple format and great idea! With this book, you can travel the world with your child and see the most iconic landmarks from each of the above places. The simple succinct text tells you why each landmark is important. It’s a great primer for geographical literacy. I’m excited to add it to my homeschooling Morning Basket! Starting in the fall, we’ll probably do one city a day. I’m also excited to read this to my grandsons as well! Hooray for thrifting! This book almost fills the void I have this summer of not traveling anywhere. Almost, but not quite. I got to go to NYC, Boston/Concord, and Maine last summer. (Go here about NYC, here about Maine, and here about Boston/Concord, if you want to see my posts about that.)
Go here if you want to read more about my thrifting treasures.
Go here if you want to learn more about what Morning Basket is.
Go here to my other website if you want more picture book recommendations, arranged according to seasons. Picture books, thrifting, and homeschooling are some of my many passions!
Happy Pioneer Day! Today is a state holiday in Utah in order to honor the pioneers who, under the leadership of Brigham Young, settled the territory that would later become the state of Utah. My husband’s 4th great-grandfather, Charles Shumway (pictured above), and his son, Andrew Shumway, were in that vanguard company that arrived even before Brigham Young. They entered the Salt Lake Valley on July 22, 1847. In the video below you can see Charles tell the story, thanks to the power of AI. I wonder what his voice really sounded like?
If you want more pioneer related stories, I’ve got some posts from past year’s Pioneer Day times.
Here is when my family visited Cove Fort UT on Pioneer Day. I wish the photos would show up but they are so old that when I switched blogging platforms the photos disappeared. Darn, they are so cute. Two of my kiddos in the photos were of the age, 5 and 6, where they loved to wear a cowboy/cowgirl hat everywhere they went. They looked so cute perched on seat of one of the wagons at Cove Fort. I absolutely love Cove Fort! The place just feels so magical to me. Go here to see photos of it and explore an interactive site. If you ever drive from the Wasatch Front to Southern CA, stop there on your way! It has the cleanest public restrooms you will ever find!
Here is a story of one of my ancestors, Anson Perry Windsor, who lived at Pipe Springs AZ, which is now a national monument. Brigham Young asked Anson Perry to run a cattle ranch and telegraph station there.
Here is a post I did full of lots of pioneer stories. Some involve pioneers trekking to the west, and other stories are of pioneers who were the first to bring the restored gospel or live the restored gospel in other lands, like Austria and Africa. Julie Mavimbela, shown above, is one of the pioneers in Africa.
Then over here I tell the story of my 3rd-great-grandmother on my dad’s side who was a pioneer in leaving her native Denmark to join with the saints of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in moving west. She endured persecution and left her uncommitted husband to follow her conviciton that Jesus Christ had restored His church to the earth again. She became a midwife and Utah
May we each be a pioneer in living the truth that God calls us to live. See my post about that here. Happy Pioneer Day!
Remember when I blogged about the Happy Caravan? That’s the name of a big happy musical family of 11 children and 2 parents, aka the Marc and Amber De La Motte family. They are leaving NYC and moving back to CA right now. 45 years ago, this summer my family did a similar move. We also moved from New York to the West.
If you need more of the backstory of the move, including what brought them to NYC and why they just moved from NYC, go here.
The differences between my family’s move and the Happy Caravan move are: 1. We left upstate NY, not NYC, 2. We moved fewer people (7 instead of 10, with 3 of the De La Mottes out of the nest and not moving with them) and 3. Our destination was UT, not CA. The other two similarities are 1. Moving in the summer and 2. Camping along the way. Except the De La Mottes are using a camping trailer, and we did tent camping, if you can believe it. Of course, I just thought it was fun, at age 9, but my parents carried a burden of stress and daily chores with that camping-along-the-way move. They deserve a medal!
Anyway, I just love big families, homeschooling, road trips, and music, but not moving LOL. Since this family is into all those things right now, I’m having fun sharing their videos. I’m interested to see what path their musical journey will take after the return to CA, which they left a few years ago. Will they return to the music teachers they left? Will the children leave one by one on their own to go back to NYC to Juilliard or the Manhattan School of Music? How many of the children will end up being professional musicians? Will the family stop paying for all the music expenses (instruments and lessons) until they get out of debt? I’m curious about all of it.
I wish them all the best on this new chapter of their big musical family adventure!
The video above shows their arrival coming back home to San Diego! They made it! Yay!
The ones above and below show them settling them into the new/old house, and who actually owns it.
In the video below we see them having their first birthday party in the new/old house.
How did they get the trailer into the driveway? Watch below!
Here’s some good news and bad news about the new/old house.
These wildflowers that my son picked yesterday and brought home to us from a high mountaintop here in the Rockies are gracing my dining room table now. Their beautiful delicacy reminds me of the delicate workings of the Holy Ghost. Just like flowers need watering, a relationship with the Holy Ghost needs care.
I had an experience with the Holy Ghost recently. It was such a blessing to me. Over a week ago I had a cold. It started on a Monday. My nose started feeling so clogged in the evening I started feeling run down and draggy. The next day it got worse to the point that I decided to skip the evneing barbecue social I was planning on attending. The next morning, Wednesday, I canceled all my planned activities and attempted to take a nap but couldn’t ever fall asleep. I tried three different homoepathic medicines but never hit on the right one. For me and colds, it’s usually essential oils that works for me. Over 15 ago, when I had a really bad case of spring allergies that lasted for two weeks, with constant horrible running of the nose and weeping of the eyes, it was the trifecta of lemon, lavender, and peppermint essential oils that worked for me to dry me up. Even though this was a cold and not spring allergies I wanted to use that trio again but couldn’t find my peppermint. I used the lavender and lemon but without the peppermint I didn’t get the curative action.
I went to bed Wednesday night hoping I could sleep without having to go to the trouble of pulling out the humidifier, which is a pain since it’s in a high cupboard on a top shelf. (Do you have stuff like that that you dread having to go to the effort to unearth, LOL?) Fortunately, I slept well and without interruption until 5:30 AM or so. I was in that state of halfway between full wakefulness and sleep. In that fluttery state, I heard a voice in my mind tell me, “I know you looked in the kitchen cupboard for the peppermint oil and couldn’t find it, but if you will go and pull everything out of the cupboard you will find it.” It was such a distinct impression, that when I woke up, I did not forget those words. I knew the voice was God speaking to my mind through the power of the Holy Ghost. Often, I’ll be having a dream right before I wake up and as soon as I wake up, the memory of the dream is completely gone. In this case though, I distinctly remembered what was going through my mind right before I woke up.
So, after my morning prayer, I obeyed the voice. I dutifully walked to the kitchen and pulled everything out of the cupboard and what do you know, sure enough, I found the peppermint oil! It wasn’t the container I had pictured in my mind, one that I bought last year, but a different bottle of oil, one that my dear mom gave to me years ago that I had forgotten I had. I was so grateful to find it! Peppermint oil works for me on my colds by opening up all stuffiness in my stuffy nose. I went and got my lemon and lavender oils and used all three, internally and topically. Within a few hours, the cold was gone. It’s something about the three working together synergistically that knocks out my colds. When I was done with the oils, I made sure to put the peppermint back with the others for next time.
So, to return to the flower metaphor of the Holy Ghost, the way I “water” my relationship with the Holy Ghost involves a few things. 1. Drawing close to Jesus through daily prayer, scripture study, and following the truths of Jesus, i.e, keeping my baptismal covenant, 2. Repenting and asking forgiveness when I goof up, 2. Recording the impressions I get from the Holy Ghost daily, and 3. Acting on the impressions and then writing down the results. Rinse and repeat. If I don’t do these things, the delicate relationship withers away like flowers drying up, and I don’t feel ALL the bounteous, joyful, beautiful blessings of having the Holy Ghost in my life that I otherwise could.
I’m so grateful that we have this opportunity, this potential, to know the truth of all things through the power of the Holy Ghost. Granted, it probably won’t happen all in mortality. God knows everything. I don’t think any mortal has ever attained or ever will attain all the knowledge that God has. We can, however, tap into the mind of God, and know the things that He wants us to know, everything that is expedient for us to know, through the power of the Holy Ghost. It’s such a tremendous gift!
“[The Holy Ghost is] The third member of the Godhead (1 Jn. 5:7; D&C 20:28). He is a personage of Spirit, not having a body of flesh and bones (D&C 130:22). The Holy Ghost is often referred to as the Spirit, or the Spirit of God.”
“The power of the Holy Ghost can come upon a person before baptism and witness that the gospel is true. But the right to have the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost, whenever one is worthy, is a gift that can be received only by the laying on of hands by a Melchizedek Priesthood holder after authorized baptism into the true Church of Jesus Christ.”
“To some it is given by the Holy Ghost to know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, D&C 46:13.”
“Whatsoever they shall speak when moved upon by the Holy Ghost shall be scripture, D&C 68:4.”
“The Holy Ghost shall be shed forth in bearing record unto all things ye shall say, D&C 100:8.”
“The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion, D&C 121:45–46.”
Want more stories about the Holy Ghost?
Here is a story of the Holy Ghost working in my life when we visited NYC. Skip to point #4 if you don’t want to read the other stuff. Point #4 tells the story of the Holy Ghost directing me when I almost got lost with my son and two little grandsons in Manhattan. The Holy Ghost saved us from getting lost!
Here is where I shared two stories from members of my church who shared them at one of our church meetings where they felt the power of the Holy Ghost.
Over here is where I share a story from the mission for one of my sons, the same one who brought home the flowers at the top of this post. He served in Texas and felt the Holy Ghost prompt that he and his missionary companion were to take their laptops to a teaching appointment. In the same post I share a time when I felt someone responded to the Holy Ghost to minister to me after I prayed desperately to God for help.
Then over here I repeat that story about my neighbor ministering to me, plus share a bunch more stories of the Holy Ghost working in my life.
In my Celestial Family Devotionals Ebook, found here, you can read stories of other people feeling the power of the Holy Ghost, in the January section.
Tree of Life Mothering 