It’s not the end of the world

History can help us replace fear with perspective

My parents married on Valentine’s Day in 1942, smack dab in the middle of World War II. While fear and terror encircled the globe, Mom and Dad circled each other with young love, big dreams, and bright hope for their future. After having their first child, Dad was shipped off to Europe where he saw other men, women, and children suffer atrocities so terrible he would scarcely speak of them the rest of his days. Yet, in spite of the unfathomable barbarism wreaked by the malevolent triumvirate of Germany, Italy, and Japan, hope would not be conquered. No, the 1940s may have felt like the end of the world, but it wasn’t.

Out of alignment

Realignment is done better sooner than later

I should have taken my car in sooner. It was pulling to the right, but I ignored that. I was too busy to get it realigned, and, besides, who wants to shell out money just to have the wheels straightened out? But because I procrastinated, those wheels wore down prematurely, and I had to pay a bundle for four new tires.

"There's an app for that!"

The Mormon Church is the "Apple" of religions

It’s said that whenever a problem arises at the Silicon Valley-based company, Apple employees quip, "There's an app for that!" And they mean it. In other words, those folks really consider no challenge too daunting, no problem too complicated that it can’t be solved with a downloadable application to an Apple device.

Similarly, the Mormon Church offers solutions to everyday problems.

Learning a foreign language

Gerontologese: the language of the older crowd

They say children under age six pick up new languages most quickly, but I’m not so sure. I’ve been hanging around the older crowd lately (OK, I am the older crowd) whose foreign-language skills seem strongly correlated to their age. I’m not sure what this new language is called, exactly, but I think it’s something like “gerontologese.” Mostly Latin-based, it’s sprinkled with lots of acronyms and, mercifully, a few English words.

Going dark

Writing is my home

I've just revisited my blog, which I let go dark for more than a year. Reading old posts was like getting caught up with old friends, but making the time read them was like . . . well, getting caught up with old friends. You wonder if it might be too much hassle, if it might take too much time, if it might not feel as satisfying and important as you hoped.

I’m a Mormon, and I don’t care who knows it

Living our religion out loud

We’re in the news, we Mormons. It seems everyone is talking about Mormons these days, thanks mostly to presidential candidate Mitt Romney whose campaign has caused a journalistic avalanche of articles, editorials, television interviews, and radio talk shows discussing, if not featuring, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and turning “Mormon” into a household word.

Just 3 must-haves for the car

Every good driver carries tricks in the car

Water doesn’t count. Everyone knows that almost as important as keeping enough gas in the tank is carrying water in the car at all times. But beyond that, we all have things we can’t live without when we drive. Even though I’m down to just one child, I’m still driving a minivan, and the two of us have become quite attached; in fact, it has become a sort of home on wheels. So, over time I’ve personalized what I keep inside. I can get along without some things, but others are must-haves for the car. Here are just three:

Beyond glue guns and kitschy crafts

Everyone is better off with a woman in his or her life

I wanted to throw it away. It was just another failed craft project I did at a women’s church meeting, but being newly married with very few Christmas decorations, I really wanted at least one nice ornament for our tree. Besides, this project seemed so easy. Instead, I was impatient and tried to hurry along the glass etching then quickly glue-gunned the ribbon around it, with the end product resulting in a very homemade-looking ornament.

Robin Hood is back in town

Let capitalism be the hero

Sadly, even some of the best political gaffes are lost on those who don’t understand the difference between capitalism and socialism, so I keep trying to explain the economy to my children in light of the presidential candidates’ platforms. To help me, I turned to my son’s 11th-grade Social Studies textbook, whose sum total definition of socialism is “the idea that the government should own and operate industry for the community as a whole.”

Rediscovering parenting tools

One of my all-time favorite parenting books

Growing up, vacuuming was a real chore. Our industrial-strength canister vacuum looked like R2D2 minus the cool lights and funny voice, and hauling that clunky thing around was as much work as the vacuuming itself. We’d bang it against walls and furniture just moving from room to room, and going up and down stairs was out of the question. Dust mopping, in comparison, was efficient. Four times as wide as any broom we had in the house, our dust mop with its nifty little swivel device in the center made it easy to turn at the end of every pass across our hardwood floors. Good tools just make life easier.