I’m working on a really exciting project for one of my classes and could use your help in the preliminary stages of my research. I’m going to study some of the top blogs written by Mormon females, but when I write down the list of blogs I know of I’m not coming up with enough. Would you mind telling me what your favorite blogs are that are written by Mormon females?

The only criteria I have so far is that they must indicate their religion on their site in some way. In an FAQ section, a post with pictures of them walking out of an LDS temple, a link in their sidebar to Mormon.org. They can be a mommy blogger, lifestyle blogger, craft blogger, food blogger, fashion blogger, or anything in between. They must be Mormon, must be female, and they must make both of those things known to their readers.

So much has happened in the past week! I started Whole30, gave up about 36 hours later, and am now putting my weight loss efforts on hold until I get through school. I thought I had worked everything out with my advisor, outlining exactly what I was going to do in order to graduate and receiving written confirmation via email that if I went ahead and did exactly those things I could walk in August. When I sat down and talked to her in person however, I was informed that my full schedule of 9 credits wouldn’t be enough and that I’d need to add on an elective course to graduate as planned. The only option that feels acceptable to me is adding on another class this term (versus doing another online class after we move to SF), which I can’t do unless I’m granted an exemption to university policy (as I was informed by several people, taking 12 credits in a term is insane and the policy is in place to protect students from failing miserably). I wrote out a heartfelt and heavy-handed petition telling my story, received a strong recommendation from the advisor, and found a professor willing to let me in to his class late. Today at 4:00 pm I’ll walk over to the registrar’s office and hopefully find out that my petition has been granted. With no family in the area, no job, and my advanced age (for an undergrad) I feel pretty good about my chances.

Because of all of this I’m giving myself a break from as many extraneous responsibilities as possible. Of course I want to feel healthy (I’m going to need the energy for all of those late nights I’m going to have writing papers!), but I need to feel like it’s okay to buy a granola bar and container of milk out of the vending machine on days when I’ve been in the library for 12 hours straight and my packed lunch is depleted. I’m still going to train 3x/week with my personal trainer friend, and I’d like to keep running 2x/week after my half-marathon is over. Hopefully my weight will hold steady over the next 6 weeks, although I acknowledge that late night ice cream runs on the nights before exams are likely and will have some negative consequences.

I have my whole life to lose weight. This chance to finish school in person, sitting in classrooms discussing what we’ve read and what it means, isn’t going to come again for me. I want to give as much of myself to the experience as I can mentally handle.

I’m going to put these posts on hold for the summer. I’ll keep participating in the TWLC Facebook group and I plan to keep up with the Google Doc, awarding the monthly participation prizes as originally planned. The money the entrants pledged is sitting safely in my Paypal account, and no matter what happens with me there will be some happy (and slim and strong) winners when this is all over.

Time to dash to class. Thanks so much for the support that’s been sent my way thus far.

I am hesitant to do this because asking for criticism on the internet is never a good idea (it won’t always be constructive), but it might help me pull a higher grade in one of my classes so I’m going to take a leap. One of my classes is business writing related, and I’m taking a grammar test within the next two weeks. Would those who feel that grammar is a strong suit for them be interested in pointing out common mistakes I’ve made in my posts over the last two weeks? And any that I publish within the next week as well. I haven’t been writing my posts with the intent of asking them to be combed over, but this might work in my favor. The critics can find holes in my writing skills that I don’t even know exist.

The test focuses on parts of speech, identifying sentences by structure, and punctuation. I know I use far too many exclamation points, so no need to point that out. You can either comment below, or on the original posts where you see issues.

And if anyone knows of good websites where I can practice identifying these things correctly, please send the links my way! I’d love to find a site that provides games I can play (my current method has been attempting to memorize directly out of the textbook which just isn’t effective for me).

Actually, now that I’ve typed the sentence above, I’m wondering if punctuated it correctly. Where should the period go?

It’s long been a dream of mine to be able to make a collage like this with just a few clicks. I knew I didn’t want to do the scanning myself, and so I put it on my 101 in 1001 list thinking I would get to it eventually. When Groupon emailed me about a deal for photos scanning I decided to go for it this past summer.

The project was enormous, and I wanted to walk you through what I did, and what I would do differently next time. Read more →

I have had this post sitting in my drafts folder for so long that I don’t even know when this picture was taken! It’s fun to see my bald-headed baby doing superman style exercises on the floor. Look at this recent Instagram photo to see how much he has changed!

This post I’ve had lingering at the back of my mind for over a year now is about babies and schedules and relaxing.

Having a baby is really overwhelming, especially the first time. I couldn’t sit down or stand up or lay down without being reminded that my vagina had almost been ripped in half. I wasn’t producing enough milk (but didn’t know it) so my poor kid screamed non-stop and was half-starved in his first weeks of life. T1 didn’t sleep through the night until 7 months, when I finally decided it was time to put him down full of formula, shut the door, and let him cry it out (he is a champion sleeper now, and has been since then). Read more →