I haven't been keeping up with my goal of one book per week this month--May has been a little crazy.  But I had to read at least one book to make sure I wanted to pick it for my book group.  So the book I read was Intuitive Eating:  A Revolutionary Program that Works , by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch. I first heard about this book a few months ago at a class that my daughter's school sponsored about body image.  She's at an age when girls really start to care about how they look.  The doctor who presented the ideas took a fairly radical approach, I thought.  It wasn't information I had previously heard before.  But he took a lot of ideas from this book, it turns out.  The doctor works a lot with women and girls who have eating disorders so I'd say he has stronger feelings on the subject than most.  I can't really summarize all he said in the class but his basic message was, don't listen to the media about what your body should look like, don't ex

I love schedules. There's just something about them that helps me feel a little more control over my life by setting aside a time for everything that needs to be done. I won't say I rigidly follow them because life just happens sometimes--okay, all the time--and trying to stick with them too tightly can make you crazy. And sometimes I just want to do something different. But schedules generally help me stay on track. My summer schedule is my coping strategy that helps me teach my children important life skills that we don't have time for in the regular school year, helps us take care of things that really need to be done, and hopefully helps me enjoy them more. The schedule is actually more of a suggestion because several of my children will be busy with summer jobs (lawnmowing, etc.).  One of my children opted not to do summer swim team, so he's doing tennis instead which meets at a different time. So they'll just have to get their stuff done at different tim

Note:  Alice is my sister-in-law, who died last year from complications of childbirth.   Dear Alice, The lilacs are blooming and it reminds me that it's been a year since you left us. I just wanted to write and say how much we miss you. I know you didn't want to leave; how much you were needed here by your husband and children. But we don't get to choose when we leave this world and we'll all just have to get by without you.  It was the Lord's plan for you. I can find no other way to explain it. I want you to know your children are doing well.  Your oldest can ride a little two-wheeler now even though he's only four.  He got potty-trained not long after you left us--I know you were feeling a little frustrated about that! Your next little boy had the hardest time after you were gone.  For the first few months, every time I saw him he seemed unhappy and a little lost. But he's doing better now and getting into trouble the way any two-year-old should

My husband was recently in China on a business trip for the first time.  While he was there, he was working in a manufacturing plant and had a conversation with a Chinese man about his family.  When this man learned that we have 9 children, he told my husband, "I envy you."  I'm sure you know that in China, the government only allows each couple to have one child; a second child brings heavy taxes and a third child is unthinkable.  I have known about this repression for a long time but hearing about this man's reaction made it more personal and caused me to realize I have taken the freedom to have children for granted.    I have always wanted a large family. When I was young, I read "Cheaper by the Dozen" and that was my ambition--a dozen children.  It's not looking like we're going to make it to that number but I'm okay with that.  Despite growing up as the oldest of 11 children, I was seriously clueless about the amount of work a child i

Someone asked me recently how to be motivated to clean the house. So I started thinking about some of the reasons that get me cleaning. This post is not written to make anyone feel guilty or intimidated.  My house is not perfect.  I have way too many closets that need to be decluttered.  I have a junk counter that lives up to its name most of the time. Knowing that my house needs work too, I would like this post to serve as motivation for anyone feeling uninspired about cleaning their house. 1.   The home is a refuge and a place of peace, similar to the temple .  The LDS church builds temples and spends a lot of resources keeping them very clean and well-maintained.  We consider them to be very sacred places.  In the Bible Dictionary, under Temple, it says, "Only the home can compare with the temple in sacredness."  With that in mind, shouldn't we give our best effort to keeping our homes clean? 2.  The church gets cleaned every week; doesn't a home deserve the