The Tales of An Anglo-American Mormon Family: Even More English Visitors

Well, compared to the purpose, joy and busy-ness of Holy Week, this week felt a little flat. I did alot of driving around. Imogen has track practice, and Abigail has extra practices for The Little Mermaid, so between the two of them, either Tim or I were constantly in the car, it seemed.

And, things were back to normal: Tim's car broke down, so he had to spend time fixing it, and the hot water tap starting leaking in our bath, so the hot water is turned off.

But, there were good things as well. Nelly, who is seven, had to write a research paper for her homeschool course. She chose to do it on the human body. She loved it! We spent two intense hours researching the different body parts, and she remained focused and interested the whole time. I couldn't believe it! I love it when kids get absorbed in constructive things. Makes all the bad days worth it.

Imogen had a track meet on Saturday. She came home with four medals! She has never been awarded a medal before, so she was happy. She likes to complain a lot about track, but I think I can remember complaining about track as well when I was her age, so I try not to say too much when she does it.

This past week I worked very hard on my blog, Philosophy for Parents. I find writing that blog very challenging. I try to encourage myself by remembering that I am engaged in a rather unique project in applying philosophy so directly to parenting, but I'm not sure how much good it is doing. Still, in praying about it I feel that I should continue. I just wish it would get a bit easier!

Some very good news this week, though, is that I have officially become a columnist for the website The Conservative Woman. It's a UK website, founded by Kathy Gyngell and Laura Perrins, two of my heroines! Kathy founded Full-Time Mothers back in the early 1990's, which is now called Mothers At Home Matter. She felt that mothers at home weren't valued, so she started a group to address that problem. I found them in 2000 when I was a relatively new mom, and in desperate need of support. Whenever I read their newsletter talking about the importance of mothers at home, I felt so strongly that what they were saying was right. But nobody else was saying it!

Anyway, Kathy has moved on to different projects, such as researching and writing about drug abuse in Britain, but she is more dedicated than ever to supporting mothers at home. Laura is younger, with two young children at home. She is a former barrister but she has taken a career break to take care of her children. She is a powerhouse! Last year about this time, the deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was on some radio show saying that women need to be in work, not at home with their children, and she called in and absolutely tore his argument to pieces. She left him speechless, so much so that she was plastered on the front page of the newspapers the next day, with a headline like 'pit-bull stay at home mom goes for Clegg', or something like that.

So anyway, I have written a few things on Philosophy for Parents that Kathy really liked, and then she invited me to be a columnist for them! I was so honored! I write a 'Letter from America' every week, and the first one was posted yesterday.

Last but not least, just when it looked like the week was going to end on a rather dull note, I walked into church yesterday and saw one Jill Kirby. Jill Kirby has been a friend of Tim's family since the 1960's. She lives now up near Los Angeles, and I had totally forgotten that we had invited her to come to dinner yesterday!

Jill is very special, because she is the woman who introduced Tim's mother, Shirley to our church back in the 60's. She was Shirley's roommate. Jill had joined the church a few years before, and the missionaries asked her to fast and pray about someone with whom she could share the gospel. Somehow she decided it would be Shirley, although from what I can tell Jill was never sure how it was going to go! It's a very touching story, but apparently Shirley went from arguing a lot with the missionaries to agreeing to be baptized in a very short space of time.

So, if it wasn't for Jill, my family would not exist. Tim's parents would not have met, my husband would not have been born, he would not have been raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and I would not have met him. So there you go. We loved having her for dinner. She kept saying, 'You don't know how happy I am to see you all'. It was a wonderful evening.

By the way, menu was roasted chicken with rosemary, garlic and lemon, mashed potatoes, carrots with orange, asparagus with lemon, brussel sprouts, Yorkshire puddings, and Italian Easter cake bread and butter pudding for dessert. Awesome.