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You Want What for Christmas?
Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in. Robert Frost Christmas gift giving at my house can be a minefield. Because my husband has always stepped to the music of a “different drummer—however measured or far away,” as Thoreau enjoined almost 200 years ago, it’s almost impossible to…
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The Books that Matter
Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Robert Frost Over the Thanksgiving holiday, my grandson, a college student, asked me what book I had read which changed my life? I was stymied. Which part of my life? Changed how? And does that include the books…
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The Ties That Bind
Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” Robert Frost When I was young in the years after WWII, military families were caught in a weird vortex of the American social hierarchy. Soldiers home from the front often had unique and cutting edge technical knowledge and…
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The Best Investment
Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in. Robert Frost When I was newly married, my uncle, a successful real estate broker, told me that the best investment a young couple could make was to buy a house. It took a couple of years, but we saved a…
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Wake Up and Do Something Good.
Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Robert Frost I don’t sing much at church anymore. One—I’m old and my voice is undependable; two—I don’t hear well so sometimes I completely lose track of the pitch (highly annoying to my seatmates!); and three—my breathing is…
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Don’t Look Down
Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” Robert Frost I don’t know much about phobias, but I’ve always wondered if it is normal for someone to be well into adulthood before she develops a serious uneasiness around high places. I distinctly remember the moment my…
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Beneath the Quilt
Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Robert Frost I’ve long been a fan of quilts, not only because they are a cozy companion for Utah winters, but because they are one of the few art forms which has been available to women for centuries—we…
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Empathy, noun–the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in. Robert Frost Saturday I heard Utah’s First Lady Abby Cox identify ‘empathy’ as one of the core principles behind her new initiative to create and support a program which provides unified sport competitions in Utah schools. I’d never heard of…
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The High Price of Fame
Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in. Robert Frost When I was a young mom, I’d occasionally watch General Conference and wonder what it would be like to be one of those women who speak at the pulpit? My first thought was always that I’d have to…
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The Bees Have It
Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to let you in. Robert Frost One of my favorite mystery series is Laurie King’s modern re-telling of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The books are riveting exploits without gratuitous sex or violence—unless you count the bees. In the original stories, Arthur…
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The Comfort of Heaven
Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in. Robert Frost For a number of years, one of my closest friends was also my Visiting Teaching (the forerunner of Ministering) partner. She was short; I was tall. She had street smarts; I had a college degree. She had freckles…
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Hard Labor
Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Robert Frost I used to know the location of virtually every horse chestnut tree between Provo and Kaysville, Utah. A weird expertise, I admit, but eccentricity is my husband’s—and by extension—my specialty. Full grown horse chestnut trees produce…
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We All Have Something
Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in. Robert Frost My mother told me I was born with two thumbs on my left hand. I assume she knew what she was talking about, but I have no memory from my infant self. The doctors guessed that some gene…
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The Music of Angels
Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in. Robert Frost Being an active member of a volunteer church can be a lot of work. And in my case, it was almost always “work” I didn’t have any idea how to accomplish. Like the time I was called as…
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Ye Good Olde Days Weren’t All They Were Cracked Up to Be
Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in. Robert Frost I once borrowed a costume with gauzy arms and legs reminiscent of Princess Jasmine in Aladdin. It was essentially bikini pants and a skimpy bodice under a bolero jacket in which I served a nine course dinner prepared…
