So last Saturday our branch of the Church had a wood project, which was basically an excuse for a bunch of guys with chain saws and mauls to prove their manliness while providing wood to widows and single ladies who heat their homes with wood and cannot provide their own. After loading my brake-lightless, chainless, …

Once when I was about 10 years old, I awoke very early on a Saturday morning in June. We had just moved into our new house in Rexburg, Idaho, where my father had recently been hired as a professor at Ricks College (now BYU—Idaho). No one else was awake. The sun was not even up, …

If you’ll share my blog with other people, I’ll post regularly. Maybe not as often as I have, but …regularly. Since some of you seem to enjoy my posts, I’ll try to work up something interesting. Our lives are certainly interesting, and it never lets up. Our little chicks have graduated to the chicken hotel, …

Since since I received the call to serve as branch president, my workload has gone from merely insane to Beyond Mortal Comprehension. Things have gotten so crazy in our lives that I’m considering any break of responsibility, no matter how small, to lighten my load. That includes this blog. Here, for example, is yesterday. 5-6 …

It’s a bit like Satie. Or, in our case, Satie played by daughter Emma on our old piano. On a fresh Saturday morning, spring sunshine gleams in the dining room windows (which you can tell I’ve washed, not altogether effectually, with my homemade window cleaner) (It’s the squeegee’s fault!). These cold jars of cider have …

I posted this post from home on Friday, when I had the day off (and back when my internet connection was working). Looks like it didn’t stick to the post. So I’ll try to replicate it today. (Sorry for not catching it sooner. My life is already so full as to strain credulity, but last …

Well, practice makes perfect. And this, my friends, is as perfect as I’m likely to get making bread. Not to brag or anything, but I FAR prefer our bread to the sliced mystery you get at the grocery store. I like this stuff so much I’ve asked Jess to pack two slices (with homemade butter, …

Here’s one thing we do to live more frugally: Make do with good rejects. Here Jess snips out a zipper from a rejected garment that we don’t really need. It’s useless as apparel, but by saving the zipper, Jess can use the zipper in another garment elsewhere and save herself $6 and a trip to …

Jess and I are super-hyper-overachievers, and with the first half-dozen of our children we thought we could handle it all while our children sat around reading The Lightning Thief (where does he keep the lightning once he’s stolen it, by the bye?) or Harry Potter for the 17th time. But with seven children, we can’t …

Well a few months back I mentioned my homemade laundry detergent and bragged about what a great job it did getting our clothes clean. There was only one problem: it was lumpy. This must be because I used half a bar of Fels Naphtha soap ( which I completely forgot to use this time). I …