I’m super excited about this upcoming event! The annual BYU Women’s Conference, is all online this year! Parts of it have been online in the past, as shown above, but this year, ALL of it is!
Over 24 years ago, I brought a nursing baby to this conference and discovered the Marriott Center doesn’t have much in the way of comfortable spots for breastfeeding (before bringing babies was banned, back in the day, a tangent I won’t get into). Maybe it does now? Two years later, I attempted to go, in person, but with three little kids at home, I ended up getting called home. Ever since then I’ve wished it were more accessible for moms of young children, as well as moms who live far away and can’t travel to BYU. My wishes have materialized this year, although I don’t like the pandemic reason. Nevertheless, I am rejoicing that we can all join in this year from the comfort of our homes, using the Internet.
Go here to see the schedule and put a reminder on your phone to join us on Friday May 1, 10 AM MDT. “See” you there! Boost your testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ and feel sisterhood at the same time!
I read this to Bugsy for bedtime. A great story about Jackie. I read it years ago to an older child. It was good to revisit and be reminded of Jackie’s courage to stand for himself and his right to play in the major leagues because of his talent. Then we finished the Tuttle Twins book below. I played the audiobook version for part of it, while the kiddos did dishes, and was delighted to discover that a long-time homeschool mom friend of mine is the narrator. You can get the Tuttle Twins books here. (That’s an affiliate link, so if you buy, I do receive a commission, but the cost to you is the same whether you buy through my link or another link.)
Then we played Cashflow, the board game by Robert Kiyosaki. We bought this game over 20 years ago. We stopped playing it during our money problems. Maybe that made the money problems drag out? Maybe if we had kept playing it, the game would have kept our vision up and we would have solved our money problems sooner. It felt good to play it again, this time around, teaching the younger kids who were not even born or babies when we used to play it, so it was new to them. We had to put a bookmark in it to play the next night.
I haven’t blogged in a while about our picture books and games. So I’m just going to do a massive blog post and catch up all at once. I’ll put what we did today and work backwards to the last post. I’ll keep my comments to brief or none at all to get through this quickly. I also can’t remember all the books we read every day.
I got the above picture book through Libby, an app that most public libraries have. It allows you to borrow digital books. Go to this delightful blog post here to learn more about using it. How did that blogger know my feelings? She echoes them exactly. I could have blogged those words. We miss you dear public library! We could all use some fresh library books now right? I am going through the ValueTales series that I’ve had stashed for years but sometimes I want something shorter. The crayon book above isn’t super short but it’s shorter than the ValueTales books.
We also played these games online in zoom with some homeschooling friends. The top two games I just held up the cards to the webcam and we played from there. As far as the game on the bottom of the pile goes, to learn how to play my mashup of Say Anything and Quiplash in zoom, go here. It’s so much fun!
Monday April 20, 2020
A family favorite from my childhood. This version doesn’t come with a bell like the version from my childhood did. Bummer. The bell’s so fun. So get the bell version. i guess they figure we all use our phones to make the noise but I like the real deal better.
Saturday April 18, 2020
Started the above with Bugsy. Will read a bit every night. Davy Crockett, what a man!
I played the above online with my parents and two siblings. First time I’ve had an online game night with them. Yay! Here’s where you can do it too. Click on the arrow button to play. Screenshare it in zoom with your remote players. When the time’s up, share your lists.
Friday April 17, 2020
This was a fun girls’ night online with some of my Veggie Gals. We played two games, Guess Who Wrote the Recipe? and Guess Who Said It? We wrote a cookbook together years ago so it was fun to name the recipe title, and see if anyone could guess who contributed the recipe. I’ve known a lot of these girlfriends for over 20 years so we share a lot of memories.
Thursday April 16, 2020
I played Jeopardy with my Hero Class. Go here to play the game I wrote and then make your own game. I felt it was time for us all to review the Constitution and some Revolutionary Heroes, even though the class is about the World Wars, because of the Crisis we are in.
Wednesday April 15, 2020
Some days I do a quiz game over dinner, like above, and call it good. I probably read aloud from Mathematicians Are People too as well and picture books for Bugsy but don’t remember them..
Tuesday April 14, 2020
Scotland Yard- little by little I’m learning the geography of London with this game! I like to look up YouTube videos of the different places.
Monday April 13, 2020
Sunday April 12, 2020
Does an Easter Egg hunt count for a game? We did that. This was a funny day that didn’t go perfectly. let’s just say I chose a long nap over other stuff so not all of my traditional Easter stuff happened. We got the egg hunt in. I’m counting on telling the Easter story the next day with these Resurrection Eggs as our “book” for Sunday. That counts, since I read more stories on that next day, Monday. You can get the article with the scriptures and object suggestions here.
It’s all a blur. It was Good Friday and we fasted to follow the prophet President’s Nelson’s plea to fast to end the pandemic. I do remember we watched some of the Messiah Concert by the Tabernacle Choir.
Thursday April 9, 2020
I can’t remember the game for this day. More blur.
Wednesday April 8, 2020
We played Chameleon.
Tuesday April 7, 2020
Sorry I’m not remembering the books for these last days. I probably read some of the Mr. Rogers picture book to go with the Mr. Rogers game below. My review is here.
Monday April 6, 2020
I really love Whoonu because you don’t have to think hard but it’s still meaningful and fun. Perfect for playing after a long day’s work. Too bad it’s out of print. Look for used ones online.
I am sharing the video above of a speech (transcript here) given by the late great Dr. Stephen R, Covey at my alma mater, BYU. He was the best-selling author of the book TheSeven Habits of Highly Effective People. More importantly, he was a disciple of Jesus Christ, and a great husband and father.
I have enjoyed learning from his different books through the years. (The one I just mentioned, plus TheSeven Habits of Highly Effective Families, First Things First, The Divine Center, and The 8th Habit. He has more, but those are the ones I have read from.) The video above is a beautiful accompaniment to the article I quote from below.
I found this highly beneficially instructive article by him and his wife, Sandra Covey, published in the January 1976 Ensign, about teaching your children how to communicate with God.
I love, love, love what they say at the very beginning of the article, especially what I put in bold:
As parents we are convinced that no other single activity has such a determining influence on the whole of life as does effective prayer. It can and should determine everything else, including our actions and our attitudes or responses to all that happens to us.
If neglected, everything else in life is negatively affected. If honored, everything else in life is graced. It is no wonder God commands parents to teach their children “to pray, and to walk uprightly before the Lord.” (D&C 68:28.)
We believe many of us in the Church are having problems and unhappiness because we are not properly teaching our children, and before we will be released from these plaguing problems, we will need to “set in order” our own homes.
We can apply all these teachings to our ourselves, as grown-up children of God. Brother and Sister Covey explain that we can’t really teach our children to pray unless we are modeling two-way communication ourselves. So let’s learn the following steps as adults, if we haven’t already, and teach them to our children.
The three ways we communicate with God:
1. Mechanical, one way prayers, also known as “saying our prayers.” This is where we begin. We say prayers out loud and in our heart too, but usually only when asked to by a parent or friend. It’s a natural fundamental first step. We talk to God by saying things, but we don’t necessarily feel any communication back from God. We follow these steps:
a. We address God: “Our Father in heaven …”
b. We give thanks for our blessings (and trials, as in “all things”): “We thank thee ”
c. We ask for help: “We ask thee …”
d. We close: “In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.”
2. Meaningful, one-way prayers.
This is where prayer becomes meaningful instead a rote, habitual thing that often feels like we are praying just to do it but that our prayer is bouncing off the ceiling. I really love the suggestions, examples, and stories the Coveys give to help us learn to pray this way. Here are their suggestions in a nutshell:
a. When you call the family for family prayer, pause and say something like, “Let’s take a few moments to think about who we are praying to and why. Let’s quietly think about what we are doing—about the things we are grateful for.”
b. If you have time, sing a hymn about prayer to invite the Spirit into your hearts and the room.
c. Go around the family circle and ask each family member what special blessings or help they need in their life right now.
d. When you ask a child to pray, remind them to remember who the child is praying to and to speak from the heart. I can just hear Brother Covey say in his gentle voice this quote from the article, “Think about what is in your heart and say it to your Heavenly Father. David, what are you really grateful for? How has the Lord blessed our family and answered our prayers? Let’s think about it and then just talk to your Heavenly Father as you talk to me. Don’t worry if you don’t say everything everyone else says. Say what you really feel in your heart. Heavenly Father loves and cares for you just as I do, even more so.”
e. Commend them for heartfelt, spontaneous expressions after you do step d.
f. Model praying for specific things. Be ready to interrupt what you are doing in order to model this. In the article, Sister Covey tells a wonderful story of her four-year-old daughter who asked, as they were riding in the car in a canyon, why they didn’t have a new baby in their family. Sister Covey explained that God was in control of that, so maybe if the daughter prayed and asked for that, God would grant them a baby. They pulled over to the side of the road to stop the car and pray. Then the little girl reminded the family every day to pray for a baby, and they eventually were blessed with a baby. Sister Covey credits the blessing of the baby to her little daughter leading out in prayers of faith.
g. Help them break up any mechanical prayers by reminding them that vocal, kneeling prayers are an accompaniment to a constant attitude of praying always in the heart. They say:
“Pray always” to us means a constant, subconscious commitment to and awareness of the Lord, so that his purposes and principles govern our every action, word, and thought, plus a frequent conscious renewal of that relationship and commitment in prayer.
h. After family prayer, encourage them to remain kneeling for personal prayers, if that seems appropriate, or excuse them to their rooms for more privacy to say personal prayers.
i. Teach your children to pray for what the Lord knows they need, rather than what they think they want. They say the following in the article:
“What is best for my character, my development, my spiritual growth, even if it’s a hard experience for me?” The Lord knows what we need—we know what we want. This is one excellent reason for regular scripture study. The Lord is constantly dealing with his children in terms of their needs, not their wants.
3. Genuine, heartfelt,two-way communication with God.
This is where we genuinely speak from the heart to God, and then we pause after speaking and listen to the Holy Ghost. This level involves asking God questions in prayer, and pausing to listen after the prayer is said. (The Coveys didn’t say this, but I am including it here, it helps to read the Book of Mormon after asking the question in prayer, reading until we feel some glimmer of an answer, and then taking time to write out all the thoughts and feelings that came with that glimmer. Then ask God if those thoughts and feelings are an answer from God, regarding your question. So you do what my friend Becky Edwards calls a “prayer sandwich.” A prayer before and after reading and writing is like the two slices of bread for the sandwich, and the “sandwich filling” is the reading the Book of Mormon and writing. She calls it “Heaven Journaling.”
OK, back to the Covey article. Brother Covey says:
We need to teach our children that the Lord speaks to us in many ways, but more particularly through his servants, the prophets, ancient (scriptures) and modern (conferences, writings), and through his still, small voice. We teach them that their heart is the ear of the spirit and that their conscience is His voice. President David O. McKay taught that for those in the Church in the line of their duty, the Holy Ghost normally speaks through the conscience. To a group of seminary and institute people, Elder Bruce McConkie of the Council of the Twelve once used a radio analogy, suggesting that the transmitter is the Holy Ghost, we are the receivers, and the Spirit of Christ represents the radio waves. Moroni taught that the gifts and powers of the Spirit come by and through the Spirit of Christ. (Moro. 10:7–17.)
Brother Covey tells the story of a college student who heard him speak three times at public events. Through what she heard him say to the general audience, and then in a personal conversation one-on-one, she learned to “educate her conscience.” She learned to listen to God by listening to her conscience after prayer and then acting on it. After her third visit with Dr./Brother Covey after a speech event by him she said that learning to listen and act on her conscience was the greatest practical religious step that had totally changed her life.
Here are the questions Dr./Brother Covey suggests, in the video speech at the top, that we ask ourselves in prayer, then take time to ponder and act on.
What do I need to do to draw closer to the living Christ?
What do I need to do to be a better member of my family, whatever role that may be: father, daughter, mother, son?
What do I need to fully magnify my duty as a student here at BYU, or as a faculty or staff person? (If this doesn’t apply to you, apply it to whatever temporal stewardship assignment you find yourself in, whether it is housewife/mother, househusband/father, breadwinner outside of the home, breadwinner inside the home, etc.)
I will conclude with what they say, the best quote of the whole article, about two-way communication with God, with a hearty amen! Please read the original article here.
Once a person discovers the possibility of a dynamic, living relationship and communication, once he learns the special meaning of mighty prayer, he is never the same again. All things, including relationships, are changed and made infinitely more alive and beautiful.
I’m in the middle of this series of videos by patriot Rick Green of patriotacademy.com. It behooves us all to be responsible citizens and know our Constitutional rights all the time, but especially during this time of pandemic and quarantining. That way we can preserve our freedoms within Constitutional law, not setting the stage for loss of freedom during or when any crisis, like this pandemic, is over. Go here to watch the series. Start at #1 at the bottom and then move up the page to the top. I’m not sure if I agree or disagree, as I’m in the middle of watching them.
I also highly recommend the series of videos by Stephen Pratt so you “know your liberty.” Knowing the history of our liberty will help us preserve it. I especially like these videos about the first three foundings of America.
My friend Olivia is getting me and a bunch of other friends into baking with natural yeast, aka sourdough, which is new for some and “again” for me. I did it for years but then seasons shifted and I got out of the habit. With the near-apocalypse upon us, it is time to discover or rediscover the self-reliant and health-promoting skill of using natural yeast, since commercial yeast might not always be in stores.
Melissa Richardson, coauthor of the book at the top, hasn’t had her blog up for a while, to share her knowledge beyond her two books.
Book cover image credits: amazon.com
Her Facebook group hasn’t been active either, but she just posted a video in the group recently (March 31). In the video, she spoke about natural yeast baking during the pandemic! Yay!
Have you thought of playing board games via video chat, like through zoom?
We had a blast recently playing the board games above. We did it via Zoom, on Easter Eve, with some family friends who live 900 miles away along with a family member who lives even farther.
Here’s how we did it and you can too!
Codenames: go to horsepaste.com, follow the instructions to label your game, and then share the unique URL that is generated with your label with your friends you are meeting with remotely. Then use your video chat platform to speak as you look at the same screen. You could also just play this over the phone while each looking at your own computer screen. If you don’t know how to play Codenames then go here for directions. The spymasters can be looking at the same screen or different screens. You can’t have, however, a spymaster and an agent sitting side by side looking at the same screen. Then the agent can see the key code and can’t guess honestly. So use that as a guide when picking who the spymaster is for each team. In other words, the spymaster has to click on the “spymaster” button at the bottom of the screen so they can see the cards in colors that the spymaster is supposed to know about (the key code). The agents, the people who aren’t the spymaster, click on the “player” button so then they see the cards without seeing any colors (the key code). So that’s why the spymaster and any other players, the agents, can’t be looking at the same screen. When we play online I like to do boys vs. girls and have the boys be the blue team because that’s easy to remember, “B” for “blue” and “boys.” Or we play brown eyes vs. blue eyes, and have the red team be brown eyes because there’s an “R” in the words “brown” and “red.” That only works if you have even numbers for both sides of that division and only brown and blue eyes, LOL. If not you will have to figure out a different way to divide up into teams. We are blessed in my family to have nearly even amounts of brown and blue eyes, but not boys and girls. That happens more often when we play with friends or cousins. Another way to play is with the regular Codenames game but then suspend your iPad from your dining room chandelier with bungee cards so you have a webcam above the tabletop to show the cards in the original game.
Whoonu: we set the cards up in a grid of 5 x 4 on a whiteboard background and used the iPad trick above. (This takes trial and error, adjusting the length of the chandelier and also we had to get the whiteboard “platform” close to the webcam in the iPad closer with a stack of books underneath.) Then the remote people would look at the grid on the Zoom screen and pick a card, and type it in, and then I would take that card away from the board so other people couldn’t pick it. Then I’d type the list up, of the words from the cards selected by the players, for the Whoozit, in the chatbox, then send it back to the Whoozit, and the Whoozit would place the list of words in their order of preference so that points could be awarded. This is a great “getting to know you” game. It’s also a great game for people who don’t do well at trivia quizzes if they know the other players’ likes and dislikes. Then they can do well at this game. That gives them a sense of success that they don’t often feel after trivia games.
Spontuneous: the easiest of the games pictured above to play online. You don’t have to use a board or the cards from the regular board game. Just have people make a list of five songs, to be kept secret, on a piece of paper or whiteboard. Then they each pick one different lyric from each song, an obscure lyric that they don’t think other people will be able to remember occurring in a song. The purpose of the game is to stump people with your knowledge of song lyrics, by picking a word in a song that nobody knows or remembers. I like to start with the youngest player and go to the oldest. So starting with the youngest, you have that person be the Tunemaster. The Tunemaster says his or her one word. Then have a timer count down 30 seconds. First person to shout out or sing a 5 word phrase from any song containing that one word, before the timer runs out, gets a point. Keep score on paper or whiteboard. (If playing the actual board game you get points by rolling the dice if you can say a phrase with that word, and you move along the path to race to the end to win.) If nobody can sing or shout a phrase, then the Tunemaster has to prove to the others that such a song exists with that word by singing or shouting the five word phrase. If that person can’t then you penalize them somehow, like lose a point or miss a turn. I have a house rule that if you guess the phrase from the actual song the Tunemaster was thinking of you get two points. (When we play with the actual board game we double the roll of the dice as the reward.) First person to 10 points wins. You could play this with the iPad or other webcam showing the board and cards, and move the remote players’ pawns, but I haven’t tried that yet.
Quiplash: I used the cards from the Say Anything game above to play Quiplash. Google Quiplash and you can get the gist of the game. It’s a game meant to be played electronically with mobile devices. I wasn’t sure how family friendly it would be so I used the questions from the Say Anything Family Edition. (I have since discovered from my son that the real Quiplash has filters you can use to make it more family friendly.) As gamemaster, I sifted through the Say Anything cards till I found a question I really liked and announced the question nice and loud. Then the first two people to type an answer into the chatbox in Zoom got to have their answers used. Then I announced the two answers. Everybody then voted for which answer they liked better. We had just the right amount of people that I could see in Zoom who was was voting for what, by a raise of hands, but if we had more people, and more screens to look at, I would have them vote in the chatbox #1 or #2 answer. I then awarded the person who wrote the answer who got the most votes as the winner of that round and give them a point. We played first to ten points. We had some really funny moments with this game!
A great time was had by all! We will be doing this again!
Are you looking for more games to play online? Check out this online distance game-playing guide here, courteous of the fun folks from the Board Game Geek Forum. Disclaimer: I have not reviewed all the games. Promotion of this gaming guide does not indicate endorsement of any of the games mentioned in the guide. Use at your own discretion. Especially the Cards Against Humanity Family Edition. Please preview that before playing and take out any cards you want. This guide does include links to several free print and play games that I’m interested in checking out, like Love Letter: Sender, a sequel to Love Letter, which my older kiddos all love. Happy remote game playing everyone!
Image credit: website for Secret Ingredients Documentary
Here’s a documentary showing for free this weekend. It’s called Secret Ingredients. I’m watching it this weekend and would love to have a discussion about it in the comments below. I’m not sure if it’s a commercial for a certain diet (veganism? juicing? paleo?) but let’s find out together and discuss if we agree or disagree and why! Actually, after a bit of investigation, it looks like it’s a call to buy food that doesn’t involve Roundup.
Go here to get access to watch it. (Looks like it’s also free on YouTube right now.) You have to sign up with your email if you go to the site I just linked. You will probably get more emails later but can always unsubscribe.
Hey, before I review this game, here’s a quick shout-out to Buffalo Games. That company is the maker of the amazing Chickapig board game and the new Mr. Rogers Neighborhood Game. We here at this home absolutely love Chickapig so I was excited to see that the same company makes the Mr. Rogers game. (If you want to read about Chickapig, go here and scroll to the bottom of the post where I give a brief review of it.)
I bought the Mr. Rogers game on sale for $10 at Target the Friday before the wave of sheltering in place, last month. After the second time of playing it, I noticed that a complete suit of cards was missing, the “X the Owl” cards. So I contacted the website and asked if the company would send out cards. In less than a week, the cards arrived! Thank you Buffalo Games for such prompt customer service! You guys are awesome!
This game is a wonderful family game. No reading is required so it’s a great game to play with non and emergent readers. All ages can play. It’s also a great chill game, especially for evenings when you just want to relax and not think too hard. If you want to play hardball, you can, and strategize and remember who has what cards and use the trolley card to get them. It has luck, however, involved as well, involved in getting the trolley. The anticipation of pulling cards from your neighbor’s deck and perhaps getting a red light card, to stop your turn immediately, or the card you really want so that you can win, makes the game a ton of fun.
It’s basically a rummy game where you attempting to collect suits of cards. The first one to collect three suits of four cards wins. The illustrations are super darling. For once, Lady Elaine Fairchild looks remotely attractive! (Her bright red bulbous nose, harsh black eyebrows, and abrupt ways always scared me as a kid. Mr. Rogers clearly didn’t know anything about Rudolf Steiner’s Waldorf philosophical recommendations of gentle natural art for children.)
Some of the cards are action cards which, along with the red light card, spices up the game. For example, if you draw the Mr. Rogers card you have to share something with your neighbor, like give a compliment or do an act of service. So cute! If you get the Daniel Striped Tiger card you get to peek at your neighbor’s hand. The game left all of us smiling, laughing, or having sparkly eyes at least once. Even the sometimes surly 15 year old, who won the first time we played. I give it five out of five stars! I think I will ask the kiddos to help me collaborate and assign special actions to each card.
For ambience during the game, put on this chill Mr. Rogers swing music here, or play the fun videos below to enhance your Mr. Rogers’ evening. After all, as he says in the video just below, music was very important to Mr. Rogers.
If you really want to get into it, read the picture book
or watch the Tom Hanks Mr. Rogers movie before the game, and have a beautiful day in your neighborhood!
I snagged this beautiful Easter book at my public library right before its closure. I’m so glad I did. A gorgeous Easter book!
This one was for my Hero class. I read it 19 years ago when pregnant with my 18-year-old. It’s always a great one to revisit, as it is so full of gems. I’ve written about Corrie here and a related book about her, here, (In My Father’s House).
Here are the books we’ve been enjoying for March and April of 2020, most of which was spent social distancing.
Connor Boyack probably didn’t know that his newest book, pictured just above, published in 2020, would be so prophetic so soon, what with government shutting down “nonessential businesses” in March 2020. We are reading one of the Tuttle Twins books a day and then we will play the Tuttle Twins card game at the end of our Tuttle Twins marathon. If you don’t anything about the Tuttle Twins books, go here to learn more. They are books for children to teach principles of liberty. Each on is based on a classic book on liberty for adults, written by liberty lovers like F.A. Hayek, John Taylor Gatto, or C. Edward Griffin.
Remember when I said that when we read all of the picture books I got from the public library right before the lockdown that I had a stash of picture books in deep storage to fall back on with Bugsy? Well, the one pictured just above is one of them. I have the whole series of ValueTales, sitting on a shelf, that seems like it’s in deep storage because my ten-year-old ignores it whenever he goes by, likes it part of the furniture. So now we are diving in, having read the one above and the one below so far this month.
I accessed this picture book above from this site, storylineonline.com. It features celebrities reading books aloud. A fun source when you can’t find any fresh-to-you picture books in your house. This was before I remembered the ValueTales collection on my shelf in our schoolroom. The one below I found in Scribd. I just adore the author, Amy Krouse Rosenthal, and all her works.
We finally finished this one below in Scribd, on audio. We listened to it on the way to Utah when we took one of my sons to the MTC for his mission to Argentina. That was fall of 2016. Now that two of my kiddos have been taking the Georgics scholar project for LEMI I felt it was time for them to listen to it again, with its central message of farming self-reliance. I just love Cherry Jones’ narrations she did for HarperAudio for all of the Little House books, along with Paul Woodiel’s fiddle music. The Scribd platform uses all of those HarperAudio editions. Get a 60 day free trial here. It’s so cool that I can access all the Little House book on my phone, anytime I want, for a flat fee of $8.99 a month. No need to buy the CDs and remember to move them from the home to the car, and then car back to the home.
The one below is also on audio in Scribd, to replace what we finished above, to be played while the kiddos do dishes when I’m not available to read aloud to them. I first heard about this book on the readaloudrevival.com podcast.
We finished the one below with our homeschool friends after listening to a chapter each weekday morning (sans Thursdays) for what seemed like ages (February and March). Another great “Georgics” book! It has such a wonderful theme of community interdependence.
Now we are listening to the one below to replace the one above that we finished. My sister raves about it over here on her blog (scroll down to Title #6 in her list). A completely original story! Even Kate DiCamillo is talking about it!
Two of my kiddos finished the one below for their Georgics class. Definitely a winner! I remember listening to it on audio with my older kiddos. Caddie is just so delightful! I love that the book is based on the author’s ancestor.
We read a chapter or two of this day when the kids do lunch kitchen clean-up. It’s a great collection of stories about mathematicians. I love that it includes women mathematicians. I loved math in junior high and high school and hope to pass on the love of it to all my children.
I’ll never forget the Saturday night I finished the one below, listening to the audiobook version in Scribd as I decorated my dining and living rooms for spring. A completely fascinating view of Rose Wilder Lane, the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder. The dialogue is fictionalized. I really don’t know how much of the passive-aggressive picture that’s painted of Laura in this book that I believe. Nevertheless, it’s so interesting to learn from this book that without Rose mentoring her mother in the writing process, we would not have the Little House books.
My friend Olivia told me about this book below. Another audiobook I’m enjoying in scribd.
This next one I’m listening for my Hero Project class. It’s about the resistance movement against Nazi Germany in Denmark. It’s also in Scribd.
Then, at night, when I need something gentle and soothing, I turn to Audible and listen to the one below. It’s taken me awhile because I just listen to it a little at a time. It’s a memoir of motherhood. Slow and easy-going, great for my perimenopausal mother self as I approach the season the author talks about in about 8 years (complete empty nesterhood. My youngest is 10 so it’s a ways off.) It does have a few swear words so listen with earbuds.
After I get in bed and need something really peaceful and religious, I use my phone’s light to read the following. Also in the morning after I read my scriptures. It was a hand-me-down book tucked in a huge box from my husband’s cousin years ago. A total treasure of a book! It teaches you how to build your faith in miracles and how to pray to bring miracles in your life. I am getting many epiphanies from it.
What are you reading/listening to? I’d love to hear! Please comment in the comments below.
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![Duck! Rabbit! by [Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Tom Lichtenheld]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/515HK9yPp4L._SX260_.jpg)
Tree of Life Mothering 