I recently listened a book called Hannah's Children:  The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth by Catherine Pakaluk, and quite enjoyed it. The author's purpose was to explore the reasons why some small number of women (about 5% of the child-bearing population) choose to have a larger than average number of children. This is especially relevant as the low birth rate around the world gets more and more attention. Governments all over the world are wondering how to increase the birth rate and are exploring all kinds of incentives. South Korea's birth rate is at an astonishing .748 births per woman in 2024. The birth rate for the United States last year was less than 1.6 births per woman, a new low.  Pakaluk's research was done jointly with a BYU professor who has 7 children. Pakaluk is an economics professor at Catholic University and has 8 children herself in addition to raising the 6 children her husband had when they married after his first wife died. They conducted ...

 I had another birthday this week! It was a good day and I felt so much gratitude. Here are 10 things I'm thankful for: 1.  Being alive! Many people in the world's history have not had the privilege to live to be 57. I have been able to almost completely raise my children and enjoy many life experiences in my 57 years. Me as a baby 2.  My abundant life. I have a comfortable house to live in and a reliable car to drive. 3.  My dear husband.  Scott is a wonderful husband in many ways and I am truly blessed to be married to him. 4.  My children, children-in-law, and grandchildren. I am greatly blessed to have the large family I always wanted.  5.  All my musical opportunities.  I have had the opportunity to learn and frequently play the piano, the violin, and the organ. I could always practice more but it enriches my life in many ways. 6.  My garden! It's a lot of work but very rewarding. Just this morning I picked a tomato that weighs 1 lb...

This book is an older book, published in 2006 and written by Arthur C. Brooks. Arthur Brooks is a prolific author and I have read several of his books and enjoyed them. He used to be the head of American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C. and now teaches classes in the Harvard Kennedy School and the Harvard Business School. He focuses on happiness research currently and has a blog called The Art of Happiness.  He's a pretty interesting guy. He gave a good talk at ARC last winter called The Science of Happiness in 15 minutes:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8a0T5XLrXc I recently read about his current schedule which he created to maximize health and happiness. He's 61 years old and has bad genes for longevity. So, every day, he gets up at 4:30am and exercises for an hour before attending Mass (he's a devout Catholic). Then after breakfast, he works with no interruptions from 8-12noon for maximal writing and creative productivity. In the afternoon he tea...

 Recently we took a short trip to visit our daughter and son-in-law in Colorado. We enjoyed seeing the Rocky Mountain National Park including a herd of elk with a bugling bull! We speculated that he was warning off the bull sitting about 1/4 mile away eying his cows. And it turns out that the weather is a lot colder at 12,000 feet! They put logs on the roof of the visitors' center to keep the roof on in hurricane-force winds. We went to the visitors' center cafe after going to the high point. Here was the view from our table--pretty amazing. After we got in the car again, we saw the elk. The bull is near the bottom middle of this picture with all his cows above him. You can see how well they blend into their background. The competing bull is not shown but the bull in the picture is facing him. We went into Estes Park which was very busy with it being Labor Day weekend and having a big craft fair. Parking was a little hard to find. We did a little window shopping and went into a...