Living in New York

Picking up where I left off… I had been at Temple Square in Salt Lake City for about nine months when I received notice that they were sending us away for a while.  Since Temple Square isn’t a typical proselytizing mission (going door to door), they wanted us to have the experiences that other missionaries have. [...]

Trying to Agree on Art

Everyone’s tastes vary so differently when it comes to art.  Knowing this, I am amazed that the CPA and I have any art work in our house at all.  He tends to go for traditional pieces while I often choose art based on the room in which it is going to be displayed.  Normally we [...]

Dream Home: Nursery

The more the CPA and I talk about starting a family, the more we think about our house and how it will work with our plans.  While it’s premature to design a nursery, of course, I couldn’t help but think about it the other day as we were sitting in our spare bedroom.  I casually [...]

Birthing Trends

When you’re trying to have a baby, it suddenly seems that everyone around you is pregnant or has children.  You run into women pushing their strollers on the street and you see expectant mothers at the grocery store.  Maybe they’ve always been there and you just begin to notice them or maybe it’s true that [...]

My Life on Temple Square

I remember when, in the summer of 1994, I received the letter telling me that I would be serving my voluntary mission at Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah.  I was excited because it was a place I had never been and because it was different from other missions I had heard about.  Instead [...]

Who Doesn’t Want a Little Extravagance?

This week I’ve been dogwalking for one of my favorite clients.  They’re one of my favorites because number one, the dogs (two black labs) are adorably sweet and are just great dogs.  And number two, they live in a fantastic location.  All of the houses have beautiful, landscaped lawns and are surrounded by towering trees.  [...]

Pregnancy: How Do You Decide When to Have a Baby?

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post called “How Do You Know When to Get Married?”  Afterward, I received a sweet email from a reader asking if I would pose the same question about having children. While I have written previous posts about my personal experience and how I finally decided that I was [...]

Marriage: Five Questions to Ask Each Other

The CPA and I had been dating for a while when we got engaged.  Because of this, we felt that we knew each other pretty well.  The more I think about it, this seems to be the nature of relationships – when you’re with someone for a while, you begin to think you know all [...]

Washington DC: Marian Koshland Interactive Science

The CPA and I are always looking for cool places to visit in the city.  We’ve seen museums and gardens and statues, things that have historical significance and things that have been added in recent years.  But when we went to visit the Marian Koshland Science Museum of the National Academy of Sciences, we had [...]