Ann's Words

Last June I was invited to teach a class to my neighbors and friends on Journal Writing.  It was really fun and by the end of the evening, several of the ladies expressed interest in starting a writing group.  I told them I’d think about it and maybe get something started at the end of the summer.  That has now happened.  We call ourselves the Stonewood Writing Group.  Stonewood is the name of our neighborhood in Orem, Utah.

Every week I’ve been sending out an email with some writing tips and ideas.  It’s been a lot of fun for me, and I hope it has been helpful for my friends.  I decided to include the emails from our first semester here, for safe keeping.  You are welcome to share this post with family or friends who might be interested in enhancing their journal-writing skills.

You can read about the introduction to this writing group here:

Teaching a Class on Journal Writing

The Stonewood Writing Group
Week 1
18 Sept 2025

Hello Ladies!

This is the month we are beginning our new writing group.  I’m excited and hope you are too.  The goal of this group is to start writing if you haven’t been in a writing groove, or if you are already writing some, to write a bit more than you have been.  Or maybe you’d just like some ideas about how to make your journal entries more interesting.  We will also take a look at writing pieces for your personal histories or your family’s history.

As we get started, here are a few things you will want to think about.

1.  Please commit to writing for at least 8 minutes each day.  You know you can make time for this!   You will be Amazed at how much you can write in just 8 minutes.  There are no police.  Think of a really good reward each week or each month you meet this goal.

I will be feeding you ideas each week of additional writing you might want to do (like prompts to write about, a list to make, examples of topics you might like to try for yourself,  or motivational thoughts to keep you going).

2.  Where will you do your writing?  Do you write in a book or paper journal or do you use the computer?  If you are using a computer (I recommend this), do you have a folder dedicated to your journal and things you are writing?  You might want to create a special folder for your writing.  You can add sub-folders if needed as we go along.  For example, I have a Journal Folder, and I create a journal document that I add to each day.  In a year’s time, I usually have 3 documents with 4 months in each document (2025.1, then 2025.2, then 2025.3).  I write a lot, so I like to break the year into sections.  You can keep it all together if you like.  All of my yearly journals fall into chronological order and I just add to them as we go.

I start each day’s entry like this:

Thursday 18 September 2025 Writing Group Begins, donations to SLC, Stake RS Activity

You can see the day of the week, the date, and a few key things that happened that day right up front like a header.  This makes it easy to find things later and it’s a nice summary of the day.  Then I begin writing.  I usually put the time of day when I begin and end, just because I like to do that.   I like to know when I’m writing on the day of.  If there’s no time of day, I know I am going back to catch up.  Not necessary, but it makes the history of your life a primary document, recorded at the time of, rather than a memory of that day (which is better than missing something).

Tip: If you want files in your folders to fall in chronological order, label them YEAR- MONTH-DAY, for example: 2025-9-18.  This will simplify your life.  You can add a descriptor word after the date if you like.

The folders I keep in my WRITING folder include things like:

Journal
Topics written about (then I have named documents here)
Topics to write about (topics, ideas or prompts I want to write about)
Memoirs (personal stories from my life)
Writing Prompts (as I complete them, I move them to the written about folder,  I find these in articles, in books, or from other writers)
Writing by others that I like (examples of well-written pieces, articles or memories)
My life Chronology
Small Plates (spiritual experiences)
Family History Miracles
People to write about
Writing Tips

These are all just ideas of how you might start organizing things in your mind and in your computer.  Using a computer allows you to copy and paste and share and you can search in documents for key words to find things.  It will simplify your life.  Don’t be afraid.  Remember to always save your work in a place where you can find it.  Get help getting started if you need it.

3.  Take inventory of any and all journals you have kept during your lifetime.  They may be in notebooks, loose slips of paper, bound journal books, or in computer files.  Start bringing them all into one place.  You need to know what you have.  Don’t forget the emails you’ve sent to friends or family members.  These may be some of the best records you’ve kept.  They will be stored in your computer email archives unless you deleted them.

4.  FROM NOW ON, when you read, write, or hear something important enough to preserve, start thinking of your journal as the final resting place for those notes or thoughts.  If you prefer to write your journal by hand, consider moving into a loose leaf binder so you can add things like printed emails, news articles, or notes you’ve taken elsewhere.  If you choose this option, be sure to use quality acid-free paper and a good pen for writing.   Start carrying a small note book with you to jot things down in that you will want to write about when you have time.  If you use gadgetry, use the notebook features to keep track of these things.

5.  SO, your job this week is to think about these things and start writing for at least 8 minutes each day.  Write about your goals for this writing group.  List the things you did each day.  Describe some of those things as you have time.

Don’t worry right now about all the things you haven’t written about.  Just jump into right now and start with TODAY and go forward.  We’ll talk more about catching up later, a bit at a time.

I hope you are excited to get started!

Please send me an email to let me know you received this and answer these 3 questions:

1.  What have you written so far?
2.  What would you like to do differently or do more of?
3.  What would you like help with?

Thank you for joining this group.  You are welcome to share these emails with friends or family.  This is going to be the start of something good.

I will shoot for sending something out every Thursday.
Maybe from time to time we will meet in person at my home.
Maybe sometimes you will share something you’ve written with members of our group.

I am your friend,
Ann Lewis
ann@jalfamily.net
801 450-0382

Stonewood Writing Group
Week 2
25 Sept 2025

Hello Ladies!

It’s our writing day!   Be sure to check your emails on Thursdays for something from me.

I am still waiting to hear from several of you with answers to these questions:
1.  What have you written so far?
2.  What would you like to do differently or do more of?
3.  What would you like help with?

Thanks to those of you who have checked in.  Your comments will be really helpful to me as we go forward, so please take the time to respond.

I hope you are all settling in to a routine of writing for at least 8 minutes each day.  You’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish in such a short time!

This week’s journal assignment:   write at least 2-3 pages describing YOURSELF as you are right now.  Describe your physical appearance from your head to your toes.  Describe the things that interest you and the things you spend time doing.  Describe things you dislike, or any pet peeves.  Include a few lists of things like favorites books, movies, meals, things to wear, or places to go.    If there are things in your life that are different today than they were 5 years ago, write about those changes and how you feel about them.  Write everything you can that would describe you to someone who has never met you.  Try to be as visual or descriptive as you can.  Somewhere in this entry, list 5 words that you would use to describe yourself.

This is a fun project.  I started doing this 20 years ago, and I do it every 5 years because things in our lives change so quickly.  As you write, think of yourself as a great-great-great grandma introducing yourself to a great-great-great grandchild who never knew you.  What do you wish they understood about who you are?  Their world will be very different from ours, so describe what makes you YOU, now, in today’s world.

You can write this in your journal, then copy and paste it into FamilySearch or your writing folder.  I keep mine in my “Topics written about” folder where I can find them.

I will attach Arthur Henry King’s chapter about journal writing from his book, The Abundant Life.  I’ve shared this with you before.  Please review it.  Notice how he says that the things that are most interesting to our posterity are things that change quickly over time.   Think about this as you describe yourself.  You also change over time.  Consider doing a full description of yourself every 5 years or so from now on.

Have fun with this.  Remember you can add to your description of yourself as you think of things.  This is one of the beauties of writing in a computer document.

I look forward to hearing from you if you haven’t emailed me yet!

Ann

Stonewood Writing Group
Week 3
2 October

Hello Ladies!

I hope you are getting into your writing groove!  8 minutes a day is a great goal.  How’s it coming?  Here’s a tip: If you decide on a set time to write, but then miss it, you’ve missed it.  If you don’t set a particular time, you have ALL DAY LONG to fit your 8 minutes in.  It’s never too late.

Because I work at my computer much of the day, I just keep my journal open and minimized so it’s out of view from others.  I can go to it whenever I’m able, any time of the day.  I love that freedom.  You might want to try it and see how it works for you.  It’s also OK, if you miss a day, to go back and catch it up.

Remember the idea of putting a 3-4 word heading at the top of each entry?  If you at least do that every day, you’ll easily remember the day if you’re going back to catch up.  I try to have everything caught up with all I wanted to record for the week by Sunday.  Then I’m ready to start a new week.

I hope most of you are trying to record your journal in your computers.  If I see a headline or news story I want to include in my journal I email it to myself when I read it.  On Sundays I go back through my emails and make sure I’ve captured those pieces or headlines to include.

I do the same with messages that fly around in our family group texts and messages.  If it’s something interesting, I copy and paste it into my journal, or email it to myself to copy it (right away, or later).  For example, we are getting ready to take a family trip to Hilton Head next week.  Our daughter, Claire in California, lives in spreadsheets.  She’s a data analyst.  She sent the following email out this week:

Claire: Hello family. Here is a Google Sheet where you can type in what you want on the grocery list. Airport people will try to swing by Costco (it’s out by the airport) on Saturday evening. And then we’ll place a Walmart pickup order to grab on Sunday morning probably.

The responses were typical in our family and made me smile.  I copied them into my journal.  (Caleb, son of Claire, is a babbling 1.5 yr old and Clark, son of Adam and Heidi, just turned 9, oldest of 5.  His father, Adam, is stress free and chill.  John is my husband.)

Adam:  This is way too organized for my liking.

John:  Claire’s shopping spreadsheet is a great idea. If anyone has a favorite dinner they want to prepare one night, that would be great. Someone more organized than Adam could prepare the shopping list for the meal and we’ll buy it Saturday night. Mom and I volunteer for the main Sunday meal—Costco steak. Heidi—which of your kids would enjoy steak vs an alternative kid food (hamburgers, hot dogs, etc)? Claire—what about Caleb?

Graham:  Caleb only eats steak. And milk.

Adam:  Clark really loves steak and will eat a decent portion.  Josie may also have a small amount of steak. Margot and down don’t deserve it.

Claire:  Let’s for sure cook Sunday dinner (steak etc). I was thinking we could potentially do a second dinner in, but there are so many good fast casual options it might just be easier to eat out the rest of the nights (sandwich shops, burgers, pizza, fast mexican)

Heidi:  Yeah I think all our kids will eat some if it’s what we offer them! But they’d be just as happy eating something less delicious haha.

John:  Caleb needs to eat something that will straighten out his speaking tongue.

I call this using DIALOGUE in my journal.  He said, she said.  Sometimes it’s just a one liner, sometimes it’s a conversation you want to capture.  Adding some dialogue to your journal entries keeps them current and in the moment.  This is especially fun when you have kids or grandkids in your home or visiting (or a funny husband).

I’ll never forget the day young Aaron came home from school after the maturation program.  “That was awkward” was all he said, but it sure captured the moment.

Sometimes someone close might say something that may hurt or puzzle you.  Keeping Arthur Henry King’s journal advice (attached last week), just simply record what they said, and sometimes you can just leave it at that without unloading a lot of feelings.  Your reader (someday) will put two and two together.  As often as you can, show, don’t tell.

SO, this week, try to include a piece of dialogue in one or more of your journal entries.  Listen for it, remember what was said, or copy something from a message from someone.  Pretend like you are putting a puzzle together of what’s going on around you.  Every little piece enhances the whole.

Have fun with this!

Happy writing!

Ann

Stonewood Writing Group
Week 4
9 October 2025

Hello Friends!

I hope you’ve been able to add a bit of dialogue to your journal entries.   I’d love to hear something you’ve recorded, if you’d like to share.  Others might enjoy it too.  Please don’t be shy!  One of the purposes for a Wring GROUP is that we can share ideas with others and learn from each other as we go along.  I would love to share some examples of dialogue you’ve captured with the rest of the group (with or without your name attached).

This week we are going to talk about adding more DESCRIPTION in our journals and writing.   No day is boring if it’s described well!  If you can’t think of something to fill your writing time, pick one thing you did today and describe it in detail.

It’s the difference between saying you had breakfast, or describing what you ate for breakfast

For example, I like to mix granola with plain Cheerios and Rice Krispies, then I throw in a handful of walnuts and a handful of blueberries.  I don’t need to describe my breakfast every single day, just once should do it, until I change my routine.

I have an on-going  goal to describe (in more detail than I’d normally write) at least one thing happening in my day (sometimes it’s in my week).  If time is short, just add one or two words of description.  If you have more time, pick something in your day and describe it more fully.  Like what you bought at Costco and how much it cost.  Like the carpool route you drive and who you pick up.  Like a body grooming routine.  Like the show you watch in the evenings with your husband.  Like a conversation you had on the phone with a family member who lives far away.  Like a memory of your mom that came to mind when you prepared one of her recipes.  Like what you happen to be wearing in the moment.

As you have time, pick something to say just a bit more about.  These descriptions are the things in your journals that will keep them interesting.  And it makes writing a lot more fun.

Remember in the RS lesson I taught last June about Journaling I shared a short piece from one of the dozens of Nauvoo-era journals I studied while looking for mention of my ancestors?  It was from Joseph Lee Robinson.  One small detail he recorded changed my heart in so many ways.  He lived right next to my ancestors.  You can read something I wrote about him here:

Nauvoo: “The worst enemy we found here. . .”

No other Nauvoo journal mentioned the rats.  Only his.  I learned something important about details by reading his journal.

Remember the first assignment in our first week about describing yourself to someone who never knew you?  Go back now to what you wrote and add a few more details.  Describe your face.  Describe your body type.  Describe your feet.  Describe your hair and what you do with your hair day to day.   Do a little more work describing your physical body.  Then, as you have time, add a few more details about the rest.

Put a post-it on your computer that simply says: “DESCRIBE ME.”  This week do your best to add a few extra words as you go along.

Happy writing!

Ann

One more thing–

I hope you’ve all taken a minute this last week to say something in your journal about Pres. Nelson and his influence in your life.   It could be a personal experience you had while following his counsel, or impressions you received.  It could be a simple testimony of what it means to you to have a living prophet.  Or it could be some of his memorable teachings.

Here are some I noted.  You can copy and paste these into your journal or do something like this:

PRESIDENT RUSSELL M. NELSON TOP FIVE:

Whatever questions or problems you have, the answer is always found in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.”

“…I promise that as you prayerfully study the Book of Mormon every day, you will make better decisions every day…”

“In coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost.”

“Let me be very clear about this: if the world loses the moral rectitude of its women, the world will never recover.”

“One of the easiest ways to identify a true follower of Jesus Christ is how compassionately that person treats other people.”

——————-

When significant things (like his passing) happen in our lives, be sure to mention them and a comment or two about what this event means to you.  Did you watch his funeral?  What will you miss about him?

Then as we sustain a new Prophet soon, say something about that in your journal.  Look for opportunities to share your testimony with those who may read your words someday, wondering what this meant to you.

Have a great week!

Ann

Stonewood Writing Group
Week 5
17 October 2025

Hi My Friends!

I’ve been on vacation this week with our kids and grandkids at Hilton Head.  I totally didn’t know what day we were on yesterday, so I’m a day late getting this email sent.  Sorry!  I hope you are getting into a writing groove that improves each day!

Several years ago, my Mom worked on her personal history.  After writing 30-40 pages, she gave it to me to read through.  I was excited.  I kept waiting to see what she’d written about me in her history.  When I finished, I felt really sad.  She’d mentioned me ONCE–she said that I was born on 5 January 1959.  The same with my 2 brothers, Paul and Eric.  Our births were noted and that was ALL.

I handed the draft of her personal history back to her and said, “Mom, you didn’t write about me.”  She later handed me a 2nd draft.  At the end of her writing, she tacked on a one-page summary of each of her 3 children’s lives.  That was it.

After that experience, I realized that if I want my kids to read and learn from my journals someday, THEY need to be mentioned in my journals.  My 3 kids were still at home when I had that experience with my mom.  From then on, every day when I sat down to write, I’d mention what each of my kids was doing at that very moment.    Every day I mentioned them.  Sometimes it was just “Claire’s in the kitchen pulling snacks out of the snack drawer with her friends,” or “Adam’s at basketball practice,” or “Aaron’s on the sofa watching Sports Center.”

Now that my kids are off on their own with their own families, it’s not as easy, but I still try to mention them as often as I can.  I mention a phone call conversation or a trip they’re taking or something one of their kids did (we see them daily in SnapChats).  I include something from the family text messages or something I miss about them.

I do the same with my husband, who doesn’t always keep a journal.  Most often I write, “John’s out working in the yard,” or “John’s in the basement watching tennis.”  I could probably copy and past those lines into my journal every single day!   The important thing is that it gives context to our family, and it creates a picture of what’s going on in our home.

This week, mention your kids or family members in your journal.  Bring them into your writing.  Document them in your life.  Imagine them 50 years from now doing a word search in your journal document for THEIR name and finding a treasure, even if it’s just one line about them each week.  They probably aren’t all keeping journals.  Your descriptions of them and of what they are doing will be priceless to them and will bring back important memories.

So, broaden your writing circle just a bit this week.  Include a few words about someone near you.   Just imagine if one of your parents had done that for you!

I’m always happy to hear from you.   Thanks to those of you who have shared some bits of your writing.  When you do that, please let me know if it’s something you do NOT want me to share with the others, otherwise I might!

Ann

Stonewood Writing Group
Week 6
23 October 2025

Happy Writing Thursday, Ladies!

I hope you’ve had a great week and I hope you’re cementing your 8 minutes a day writing habit.  Do you find that during the day, or late at night you are beginning to think about things you’d like to record, or that you want to be sure not to miss recording?  This week, spend some minutes while you are NOT writing to think about what you’d like to write when you sit down to do it.  Maybe you’re in the car a lot, maybe you take walks, or maybe you wake in the night.  Use those times to think about the most important parts of your day or life that you’d like to record.

If you’re really busy, as I know many of you are, keep a list in your phone (or write them down on paper) of things you’d like to write about someday or tomorrow.  Jot down the ideas that come to you so when you have time, you have a topic or idea ready.  My list is always handy, and I am always adding to it.  Sometimes an afternoon opens up and I am able to just sit and write and catch up with things on my list.  They might be memories or events from the past.  They might be thoughts about an article or book I’ve read.  They might be comments about an influential friend who has made a difference in my life.  Sometimes someone says something at church that changes me and I want to remember it.

I have a little post-it by my computer that says: “Write Once, Read Forever.”   I can promise you that as you get into a writing habit, the stress in your life with start to dissipate because of how you are letting go of things you want to remember but know you won’t.  Once it’s recorded, you can let go of it.  Writing will calm you.  For me, it relieves the pressure that builds up in my mind to remember.

Remembering is one of the words in the scriptures that is repeated over and over and over again.  The older we get, the fuller our minds get, and the harder it is to remember the details.  Your journal is like a little spigot that empties the pressure that builds up in your mind.  As you write this week, imagine that pressure being released.   Notice the calm that comes after something is recorded.  Enjoy the process!

Thanks for participating.  I hope you are enjoying the turning of the seasons.

Ann

Here is an article I read this week that I am thinking about in my spare moments.  I seriously want to write my stories.

What Are Your Five Stories?

By H. Wallace Goddard · October 20, 2025

Imagine that you are seated early at a lovely banquet when, much to your surprise, Jeffrey R. Holland asks to sit next to you. You are delighted. He takes a seat and turns fully toward you. Asking, “I would like to know you. But I don’t want to merely know where you were born, how many children you have, and your profession. I want to know your heart. Would you be willing to share five stories from your life that will allow me to know your heart?”

You blink. And stammer.

“No, really. I would love to know the real you. Are you willing to share five stories from your life that communicate who you really are?

Your head is spinning. “What are the five stories that define me?” You think back to your childhood. “I remember when I was little and . . ..” You tell a story of joy and discovery. You pause wondering whether President Holland really wants more stories.

“That is wonderful! Please tell me more.”

So, you tell a story from your adolescence when you learned an important lesson. And a story of joy and connection in early adulthood. Then a story of struggle and endurance in adulthood.

President Holland still seems interested. So, you tell a recent story of pain and growth from your life. When you finish, President Holland stares at you. Then pronounces, “What a remarkable life you live. Thank you for sharing with me. Thank you.”

And you realize more than ever before that your life is packed with meaning—that God has sent the right experiences and the right discoveries to make you the person you are today. You feel grateful.

Jefferson Singer, a respected Professor of Psychology, has suggested that “our understanding of ourselves and our social worlds are organized by a set of especially vivid stories that we repetitively tell about ourselves; these self-defining memories synthesize our goals, thoughts, and feelings, giving life to a coherent and recognizable personality. . . . Our identity is no more or less than the life story we construct from the memories of our lives” (2005, pp. v., 17, emphasis in original).

Consider that for a moment. The combination of stories creates a script or template for our lives. “The script becomes a filter through which we recall past events and make sense of new experiences. For better or worse, these scripts can shape our perceptions and understanding of critical events and relationships in our lives” (Singer, p. 29).

You can see how informative your chosen stories are. If you tend to constantly tell yourself stories of your life that are filled with hurts, disappointments, weaknesses or failures, that could lead you to a sense of dissatisfaction with your life. And that will carry forward into how you view future experiences.

Instead, if you frame the stories of your life in terms of blessings you have received, key lessons you have learned, meaningful relationships you have had, joys you have experienced, and ways you have felt God’s love, your sense of self will be more positive, more purposeful, more fulfilled. And you are more likely to interpret future experiences in growth-promoting ways.

Does this mean that we ignore or downplay the trials, disappointments or hurts we have encountered? Absolutely not.

But one of the great blessings of life is that no matter how hard our experiences are, we can find benefits in them. Instead of continuing to replay disappointments and hurts over and over in the narrative of our lives, we can frame those times in terms of what we learned, how we moved forward, how we exercised faith, or how we saw the Lord standing by us. We can acknowledge the pain while still telling the story as a stepping stone to successfully move onward in faith.

So, it is not just the stories but the meaning we extract from them that guide our lives. We can create dramas, comedies, tragedies, or faith-promoting stories by our choice and interpretation of life experiences.

If you were to list five memories that you would share with a new friend who wanted to know you, what would they be?

Those five stories can not only communicate your essential self to others, but they can also clarify your talents and testify of God’s hand in your life.

“A good story—the sense that we have organized and lived our life to a positive end—allows us to experience some contentment and peace in an otherwise turbulent world. In contrast, individuals who cannot link the jagged edges of their lives together into a coherent narrative, who experience their worlds as disjointed, contradictory, or lacking any forward movement, often wrestle with confusion and despair” (Singer, 2011, p. 72).

Maybe that is the ultimate act of agency—to find meaning in life experience—to sort through it all and find enduring purpose. Maybe that is faith—the commitment to find good and God and self in the events of our lives.

Of course, God grants full agency to each of us. We are free to take challenging experiences to justify pain, resentment, and bitterness. We can take the raw material of our lives and form a shrine to our misery. Or we can ask God to touch our hard experiences and transform them into humility, discovery, and growth.

Jefferson Singer’s book resonated with me when I read it years ago. I identified five defining stories from my life. Then I went a step farther. I listed every home where we lived and listed joyous memories from each of those times and places. Rather than five stories, I ended up with 207. Two hundred and seven cases of God showing up to bless and enlarge me. And I continue to add more to my list.

The principal takeaway for me has been that God is committed to the growth and development of every one of His children. He provides purposeful and growth-promoting experiences for each of us. Then He sends people and ideas that can transform raw experience into wisdom, faith, and growth. He presides over our stretching and learning with wisdom and love.

Let us interpret our life stories with that in mind.

References:
Singer, Jefferson A. (2005). Memories that matter. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications, Inc.
See also: Frankl, Viktor E. (2006). Man’s search for meaning. Beacon Press.

Stonewood Writing Group
Week 7
30 October 2025

On Monday I got a new hip!  I’m taking it a little easy this week as my body adjusts, post surgery.  Of course, I’m thinking about medical procedures right now and thought I’d write a bit to you on this topic this week.  Your challenge this week is to describe something health-related in your life or in the life of a loved one.

There are many questions I wish I’d asked my mom before she died at age 68 in 1998.  Things like “why did you have a hysterectomy?”  (I was out of the country at the time, living in Africa.)  Or I’d like to know about my grandpa’s hips (they gave out during the last several years of his life).  My dad had both hips replaced.  My younger brother has had both hips replaced.  It would be interesting to know more about things that have happened in my family.

In 2022 John and I were preparing to go on our 3rd mission.  We were tagged for a job in the Europe Central Area Office doing Communication work.  The last box to check on my medical applications was the mammogram box.  I’d had a mammogram the year before after returning from our Africa mission, so I thought I was good, but the year had just expired, and I needed to go do it again.  THANK GOODNESS.  They found a tumor in my breast.  For the next few months, I dealt with knowing I had cancer, then had surgery and radiation treatments.  After all of that, I was declared cancer free, and we were able to submit those mission papers.

I will share with you my personal journal account from the day of my surgery.  I wanted to capture these details for the women in my family who follow me.  You’ll notice that I wove my Grandma Ruby into my story.  I like bridging the generations when I write, whenever possible.  And on that particular day, I felt her very near.

Breast Cancer–Removing the Beast in my Breast

Here is another account of one of my ancestors who dealt with breast cancer.  Mary Ann Ellis Cragun was born 3 August 1855 in England.  She died 19 March 1926 in Pleasant View, Utah.  I found this fascinating and even shared it with my surgeon, Dr. Tittensor (yes, she has the perfect name!).

Mary Ann Ellis Cragun’s Breast Cancer

This week I will be recording my hip experience.    Remember how Arthur Henry King said that we should record things that change quickly over time.  Just in the last few years, hip surgeries have changed quite a bit.  It’s now a 35-minute outpatient surgery.  I wonder how that will change in the future.

I’m also thinking about another medical experience I had.  When I was in junior high and needed braces, I had to have 4 teeth pulled to make room in my mouth.  My Uncle Wells was our dentist.  He lived in southern California, we lived in central California, 5-6 hours away.  He came to visit and brought his medical bag with him.  He pulled my teeth in our bathroom.  I had 4 painful shots for each tooth.  I remember how he had to tug and pull to get them out.  My kids think that story is amazing.  It’s interesting to them.  It’s very different to how things are done in today’s world.

It also reminds me of my Mom telling me that when she was a little girl, her Uncle, Doc Pugmire, took her tonsils out on their kitchen table.  She said the knife slipped and also cut out her uvula.  She always told us that was the reason why she couldn’t sing with a fancy voice.  In school, the kids were divided into those who could sing and those who couldn’t.  They told her she’d have to take harmonica lessons instead.  She became a very good harmonica player after that, and even taught harmonica lessons to others.

Take some time this week to write about a medical procedure or conditions past or current that you’ve experienced.  Or you can just describe a typical doctor’s or dentist’s visit and what those are like for you.  These kinds of things will probably be really interesting 50 or 100 years from now!

Happy Writing!!

Ann

Last week was National Writing Day.  I noticed this was posted on Facebook:

Celebrate National Writing Day with a page from Pat Conroy’s playbook—nine pieces of advice for anyone who loves words, stories and the beautiful struggle of getting them just right.

1. Keep a journal. Write in it whenever you can.

2. Learn how to notice strange and wondrous details.

3. Copy down dialogue from memory. Learn how people sound when they are sitting around talking versus how they sound when giving a speech or running for office.

4. Details are the gold coinage in the realm of fiction and poetry. Gather them up like the eggs of racing pigeons and hoard them well until you find the perfect moment to release them.

5. Read everything. But make sure you read all the books and poetry that seem to be defining the times in which you live./div>

6. Become discriminating critics of your own writing as well as that of others.

7. Try to be kind and constructive to any other writer who approaches you for help. To write is a form of nakedness. It is an act of courage to write anything, but it is an act approaching madness to want to do this for a living.

8. Go deeper. Then go deeper again. There are enigmas buried inside you in the deepest waters. Whether they be angels or moray eels, whether they be godlike or demonic, it is your job to discover them.

9. You write for yourself. You write for no one else. It is your art that you are seeking, and if you are very lucky, it is your art that is desperately trying to make its own voice heard to you. Listen. Pray it is calling your name.

(Adapted from Pat Conroy’s foreword to Writing South Carolina:  Selections from the First Annual High School Writing Contest)

Stonewood Writing Group
Week 8
6 November 2025

Hello my Writing Friends!

This week we are going to work more on describing things.  I hope you’re enjoying adding a few extra words ABOUT things that you have written.  And I hope you are treasuring your 8 minutes a day of writing time.

First I want to say a few things about WHY it’s important to write every day, even if it’s just a few minutes.  Writing is a skill you develop, much like learning to play the piano.  The more you do it, the better you get.  You can’t expect a first-year piano student to sit down and play a concerto.  You may not feel your writing is as good as you’d like it to be now, but believe me, it will get better and better as you do it every day!

I’m a photographer.  I used to carry around a big SLR camera.  One of my pet peeves was when someone saw a photo I’d taken and immediately asked, “What kind of camera do you use?”

Or, “Your camera takes really nice pictures.”  Ansel Adams once said, “You don’t take a photograph.  You make it.”  What makes a good photo?  COMPOSITION, not the camera.  The person behind the camera “makes” the photo.

Writing is much the same.  It takes Practice to learn to become good at it.  Sometimes you’ll hear people say, “You just have a gift for writing.” implying that they don’t.  Please don’t excuse yourself by saying you’re just not good at it.  Challenge yourself to improve.  Practice Daily.

I’ve been writing in a journal since I was 10 years old.  I’m still practicing and learning.  Every entry could be better.  Thank goodness I didn’t stop writing because my words weren’t good enough.

I’m going to copy of few of my early journal entries here just for the fun of it so you can see how it all began for me.  When I was 10 years old, I got my first journal–it was a white five-year diary with a lock and key and one inch with 4 lines for each day.  Here’s how my writing life started:

5 April 1969

Today was windy and rained hard.  We decorated Easter Eggs.

6 April 1969 Easter Sunday

This morning we each got a present and some candy.  Brownie, Eric’s rabbit had 4 babies.  3 were dead and one lived but Brownie stepped on it and killed it.

7 April 1969

Today we go back to school from Easter vacation.

8 April 1969

I just got home from a work out for the Reedley Swim Team from 5:30 to 6:30.

9 April 1969

Nothing different happend that I can remeber.

10 April 1969

Nothing happened today but we spred fertilliser.

11 April 1969

Nothing different happend today.  I just got done with my homework.  It’s after 10:00 p.m.

12 April 1969

Today we didn’t have piano lessons.  We killed 1 opossum at grandmas and saw another one.  We found 4 cute black baby kittens.

13 April 1969

This morning we went to church.  I finished reading a book called Freddy Goes to Florida.

14 April 1969

Today we caught pollywogs in the ditch.  I got a whole jar full of them.

15 April 1969

Dad dumped all my pollywogs out.  Tomorrow we get report cards.

16 April 1969

On my report card I got 8 A’s 4 B’s, the same as last time.  Today I found out that Uncle Wilfred was a twin to Ruth who died.

17 April 1969

Today nothing happend.  We had swimming workouts.

18 April 1969

Cynthia Kim invited me to the Youth Ranch.  I don’t think I can go.

19 April 1969

I went horseback riding at the Youth Ranch.  I will go to piano then get my hair cut.

20 April 1969

Tomorrow Paul goes to Sci-Con with his school class.  They will be there for 1 week.

21 April 1969

This afternoon I have a stupid headache.  I went to bed early.  Paul left for Sci-Con.

22 April 1969

This morning I got half an hour piano practice.  Everything went right today.

23 April 1969

Today was a stupid day.  Everything went wrong.

24 April 1969

Nothing happend today.  It was just like usual.

27 April 1969

Today I found out something terrible only I’m not supposed to tell.

The entries go on.  Many of them say “nothing happend today.”  I wish I’d just said a word or two more on those days, describing something I did.  Interestingly I can remember many details about catching polywogs and Youth Ranch and when I went to Sci-Con (in 6th grade) and swim practice and piano practicing.  Other things are completely lost from my memory.  And I wonder what I was not supposed to tell.  It’s gone.

This is a good illustration of how just a few words can bring memories back.  I’m thinking about your 8 minutes a day, and all the details you can capture in that amount of time, compared to these short little entries.  But even these short little entries bring memories back to me and make me smile.  Things that felt so boring and uninteresting then would be SO interesting to me today.  Just a couple of words of description can make all the difference.

This week use your words to describe something going on around you–in your home or in your neighborhood or in your ward or in our country.  These kinds of descriptions add context to your story.  You don’t have to say a lot, just mention something that bumps into your life.  It might be a headline from the news and your comment about it.  It might be a project you’re working on in your home.  It might be about a situation at your work.  It might be what’s happening in your yard right now as we prepare for winter.  Just look around you and land on something interesting that you might not otherwise write about.

Thank you for your efforts.  I hope you can feel the difference writing makes in your life!  It sure is a blessing in mine.

Ann

Stonewood Writing Group
Week 9
12 November 2025

Hello Friends!

I’ve been taking it easy this week as my new hip heals.  This is a nice time of year to hunker down, watch the falling leaves, and sit by the fire.

I found the words below on the Grown and Flown Facebook page this week and smiled as I read it and remembered days like that in my life.  Some of you are there now.  Some of you are just remembering how it was.  The author was writing about “the Sandwich Generation,” or those who are caring for children and elderly parents at the same time.  The sad thing for most of us is that when we’re in the thick of it, we don’t always find time to write about it.

This week try to pick a day and describe that day in 15-minute intervals.  You’ll probably need to carry a notepad with you and take a few extra minutes at the end of the day to record what you’ve done.

Below is the Facebook post with a sample of what that might look like for a very busy mom.  Please remember that a calm restful day is also interesting!   You may find yourself writing about things you are thinking about (rather than running around and doing).  You might write it as a list or with bullet points.  Do what you can to capture a typical day in your life right now.  There is magic in each ordinary day.

Here’s the FB post:

We are tired, bone tired. Our kids need us, our parents need us more and more, and we are trying to keep our marriages and our friendships alive. We once wanted to be promoted, but some days we are just hoping to stay employed. This is my day, my life.

A Day in the Life: Caught in the Middle

5:45 AM – The alarm goes off, but I’ve been awake since 5:17, mentally running through today’s impossible checklist. Mom’s post-op appointment. Dinner. Did I finish grading those essays? I silence the alarm before it wakes my husband and pad to the kitchen in the dark.

6:00 AM – Coffee brewing, I’m scrolling through the family group chat. My brother sent a message at 11 PM about Dad’s medication schedule. Of course. I text back, trying not to sound irritated, then switch to email. Thirty-seven new messages since last night. I answer three before I hear footsteps upstairs.

6:15 AM – “Mom, I need poster board!” My high school sophomore appears in wrinkled pajamas, suddenly remembering a project due today. I don’t have poster board. I suggest cardboard from the recycling bin, which earns me an eye roll and a slammed door. Welcome to Tuesday.

6:30 AM – I’m making breakfast no one will eat while hollering up the stairs. “First call!” My middle schooler needs a permission slip signed. My oldest can’t find her volleyball top. I sign the form without reading it, find the knee top in the dryer (slightly damp), and pour three bowls of cereal that will sit untouched on the counter until I dump them out tonight. Doing this makes me feel like at least I tried to feed them.

6:45 AM – The bathroom wars begin. Three teens, two bathrooms, infinite drama. I’m packing lunches consisting of turkey sandwich, turkey sandwich, vegetarian wrap because someone decided last week they’re “trying not to eat meat.” I can’t remember who. I throw in carrot sticks no one will eat and granola bars everyone will.

7:00 AM – My phone rings. It’s Mom, calling to ask if I’m still taking her to the surgeon follow-up at 11. Yes, Mom. I told you yesterday. And the day before. I hear the tremor in her voice, the uncertainty that’s crept in since Dad’s stroke last year. “I wrote it down, honey, but I couldn’t remember if it was today or Thursday.” My chest tightens. I reassure her, gentle, patient, even though I want to scream because I still haven’t figured out the poster board crisis. My parents used to be my backup, they were the reason I could teach a full course load, manage with three kids and still stay married. That changed faster than I could have imagined.

7:15 AM – Kids are flying out the door with their backpacks, water bottles, cleats, last-minute homework shoved into folders. “Love you!” I call out. I get one “love you” back and two grunts. I’ll take it. I wonder when the middle schooler will start to grunt. My husband leaves for work with a kiss and a “good luck today.” He means well, but he doesn’t understand that every day requires luck now.

7:30 AM – Finally, I shower. It’s eight minutes of hot water and silence, and it’s the only time all day I’ll be truly alone. I try not to think about the to-do list. I fail.

8:15 AM – I’m at my laptop, reviewing notes for my 10 AM lecture on Romantic poetry. I teach three classes this semester as an adjunct and it is barely enough to call it full-time, definitely not enough for benefits. I love teaching, but the pay is laughable and the grading is endless. I’m supposed to hold office hours today, but they’ll have to wait. Mom needs me more than my students do. The guilt gnaws at me anyway.

9:30 AM – I’m throwing on real clothes, not athleisure, because I need to look professional for my afternoon class. I grab my notes, my water bottle, Mom’s insurance cards, and the list of questions I typed up at 10 PM about her incision site and pain management. I’m out the door, already behind.

10:00 AM – I’m standing in front of thirty-two college freshmen talking about Wordsworth and solitude. The irony isn’t lost on me. “He wandered lonely as a cloud,” I say, and I think about how I’d do anything for lonely some days. For wandering. For clouds. A student asks a question I should know the answer to, and for a horrifying second, my mind is blank. I recover. They don’t notice.

11:00 AM – I dismiss class five minutes early and race to my car. Mom’s appointment is across town. I call her from the parking lot. “I’m on my way, Mom. Fifteen minutes.” She sounds frail. When did she start sounding so old?

11:20 AM – I pick up Mom, help her into the car. She’s moving slowly, favoring her left side. The surgery was supposed to be routine, just a hip replacement, but recovery has been hard. Dad couldn’t help her; he can barely help himself since the stroke. I make a mental note to call the home health aide agency again. We’re going to need to pay for help.

11:45 AM – The waiting room smells like antiseptic and despair. I fill out forms while Mom tells me, again, about her neighbor’s daughter who never visits. I murmur sympathetically. I think about my own daughter, away at college next year, and wonder if she’ll call me enough. If I’ll become the mother who calls too much.

12:30 PM – The doctor says Mom’s healing well, but she needs physical therapy twice a week. I’m already mentally rearranging my schedule, which has no room to rearrange. I smile and nod and ask about pain medication and mobility goals. I take notes. I will forget half of this by tonight.

1:15 PM – I drop Mom back home, help her inside, make sure she has lunch and her meds. Dad is parked in his recliner watching a game show, hardly acknowledging us. I heat up soup, set out crackers, fill water glasses. “I’ll call you later,” I promise, kissing Mom’s papery cheek. She grips my hand. “Thank you, sweetheart. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” I feel the weight of those words in my bones.

1:45 PM – I’m driving back to campus, eating a protein bar for lunch, trying not to cry. I don’t have time to cry. I have to teach again at 2:30.

2:30 PM – American Literature. These kids are sharp, engaged, and I’m running on fumes and caffeine. I fake energy. They don’t know that twenty minutes ago I was helping my mother to the bathroom.

4:00 PM – Class ends. I have twenty-three emails. Twelve are student questions. Five are from my department chair. One is from my son’s school about an incident in the cafeteria. My stomach drops. I call the school. It’s nothing major, he argued with a friend, but they want me to “be aware.” Added to the list.

4:30 PM – I’m at the grocery store, racing through aisles. Dinner. I need dinner. I grab ingredients for a tacos I can assemble fast. It is one of the few things everyone will eat if I do tofu as well. I see wine and consider buying two bottles instead of one.

5:15 PM – Home. I’m chopping, stirring, preheating. My middle schooler arrives, drops his backpack in the middle of the floor, and heads straight for his room. “Homework first!” I yell. “I know!” he yells back, which means he’s opening Fortnite.

5:45 PM – My high schoolers come home. One disappears upstairs. The other tells me about her terrible day with a friend drama, a bad grade on a quiz. I listen while I cook, giving her my full attention even though my brain is screaming about the essays I haven’t graded and whether Mom took her afternoon pills.

6:30 PM – Dinner is ready. I call everyone down. My husband made it home and he’s helping corral the troops. We sit. We eat. The kids are on their phones. “Phones away,” I say for the hundredth time. They comply, barely. We talk about school, about weekend plans. It almost feels normal. This may be the best moment of my day and I feel how much I love these four people like life itself. This thought passes quickly when I think about the evening ahead.

7:00 PM – I’m clearing dishes, loading the dishwasher. My husband helps but looks just as tired as I must look. My phone rings. It’s my brother. “Have you talked to Mom today?” Yes. I was with her for three hours. He means well, but he lives two states away. I’m the one here. I’m always the one here.

7:30 PM – I sit down with my laptop to grade essays. I get through four before my daughter needs help with calculus. I haven’t done calculus in twenty-five years. We figure it out together, sort of. She’s frustrated. I’m frustrated. We both pretend we’re not.

8:30 PM – My son finally emerges from his room. “I need help with a history project.” It’s due tomorrow. Of course it is. I want to scream, but I help him instead because that’s what I do.

9:30 PM – “Bedtime routines!” I announce. No one moves. I’m herding cats. “Teeth, showers, beds. Let’s go.” My middle schooler should be asleep by now. He’s not. My high schoolers think 10 PM is a suggestion. I’m too tired to fight.

10:15 PM – I’m doing the nighttime rounds. Making sure homework is in backpacks. Turning off lights. Confiscating phones from bedrooms. “Mom, just five more minutes.” No. No more minutes. I’m firm. They hate me. I don’t care.

10:30 PM – I call Mom to check in. She sounds better tonight, less anxious. We talk for fifteen minutes. She tells me about her day which included physical therapy, lunch, a phone call from my aunt. I’m relieved she’s okay. I’m exhausted by the constant worry.

11:00 PM – My husband is already in bed, reading. I brush my teeth, wash my face, think about the day. I didn’t exercise. I didn’t read that book I started three months ago. I didn’t call my best friend back. I consider doing all of these things, well not exercising, but instead, I climb into bed.

11:15 PM – I’m scrolling through tomorrow’s schedule on my phone. Department meeting. Grading. Dinner. My daughter has a game. My eyes are heavy. My brain won’t stop.

11:47 PM – I finally put the phone down. My husband is snoring softly. The house is quiet. I should sleep, but I’m thinking about everything I didn’t do today and everything I have to do tomorrow. I’m thinking about my kids growing up and my parents growing old and how I’m stretched so thin I might just disappear.

Somewhere around midnight, I fall asleep.

Tomorrow, I’ll do it all again.

—————–

Another idea is to do this once each year on the same day.  About 40 years ago I decided to do this and write a very detailed journal entry every year on my particular day.  I try to be especially detailed in that entry.  Maybe someday I’ll extract all of my 4 May entries into one place like a very long version of my little first 5-year journal that had only 4 lines for each day.  It would be fun to see the changes in my life, one year after another!

Some of the busiest years of my life my journal suffered and was set aside.  I kept my calendars of those years, but not the day-to-day details.  Oh, how I wish I’d made time for them now!  We do what we can.  We can’t always catch up, but we can always go forward doing our best each day.

I hope you have a delightful week writing.

Ann

Stonewood Writing Group
Week 10
20 November 2025

Hello Writing Friends!

I’ve heard many writing coaches say that if you want to improve your writing, read more.  Learn from other authors and writers by reading their words.  See how they do things.  Feel how they do things.

With Christmas coming, I thought I send out a list of some of my favorite books and memoirs that have helped me want to write better.  Maybe this year for Christmas, you can buy yourself a good book and get lost in it for awhile.   The list below contains journals, memoirs, books written from journals and some fiction.  I like what Ann Patchett says about fiction:

“Reading fiction is important. It is a vital means of imagining a life other than our own, which in turn makes us more empathetic beings. Following complex story lines stretches our brains beyond the 140 characters of sound-bite thinking, and staying within the world of a novel gives us the ability to be quiet and alone, two skills that are disappearing faster than the polar icecaps.”
~Ann Patchett

I like to think that someday our journals might read like fiction to future generations!!  Our descendants will be able to imagine the lives we are living based on the descriptions we leave behind.

Some Favorite  Memoirs/Journals

Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krause Rosenthal
Zippy by Haven Kimmel
The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion by Beth Brower
House Full of Females by Laurel Thather Ulrich (a narrative history of LDS women taken from their journals)
The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon (based on Martha Ballard’s midwife’s journals)
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (the power of letter writing)
A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler (dialogue and narrative between family members)
These is My Words, Star Garden, Sarah’s Quilt, Light Changes Everything by Nancy Turner
The Summer of My Content by Elaine Cannon
All My Knotted Up Life by Beth Moore
Sacred Struggle by Melissa Inouye
Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
West With the Night by Beryl Markham

The top of my list is Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life.  Get this book for sure.  Amy Krause Rosenthal taught me a new way to document my life in short personal essays or paragraphs that are arranged alphabetically (not in the usual chronological order).  I think it’s brilliant.  This is how I’m organizing my own personal history now.

All of these books have changed me and taught me the importance of words.  Some motivate me to write more and to write better.  Some show me the power of words written long ago and how they can change my world today.  Some make me laugh.  Some make me cry.

I recently read The Correspondent.  It’s fiction, not a memoir.  Below is one of the reviews I read about it that will give you a feel for the power of words left behind in letters.  Even though this account was fiction, it was a powerful reminder that words matter.  I’m glad I read it.

---

A book review:

I finished “The Correspondent” at a red light and couldn’t drive, even after the light turned green. Just sat there with cars honking around me, tears running down my face, mourning a fictional 73-year-old woman named Sybil Van Antwerp like she was someone I’d actually lost.

For twelve hours, her voice lived in my head through my earbuds. This cantankerous, brilliant, heartbroken woman who believed in the lost art of letter-writing while everyone else moved to texts and emails and forgetting how to say real things. And now that her story is over, I keep reaching for my phone to tell her something, forgetting she never existed outside Virginia Evans’ imagination.

That’s what this audiobook does – makes you love someone you’d probably avoid at a dinner party. Someone prickly and stubborn and so convinced she’s failed at the most important things that she’s spent thirty years writing letters to everyone except herself. By the time I understood what Sybil had been carrying alone all those years, why she needed these “post-scripts” to her life, I’d pulled into a grocery store parking lot so I could ugly cry without causing an accident.

If you think a story about an old woman writing letters sounds slow and dated, you’re about to learn how beautifully wrong assumptions can be.

1. Your Words Outlive Your Memory of Writing Them

Sybil spent decades believing her letters disappeared into the void. Then she discovers something that changes everything: every letter she ever wrote was kept. Saved in boxes. Filed away. Preserved like artifacts of someone loved even when she made it hard to love her. All those words she thought nobody cared about? They created an invisible archive of who she was, more honest than any memoir. It makes you wonder what evidence you’re leaving behind that you were here, that you cared, that your life touched others.

2. Broken Things Don’t Fix Themselves Just Because You Get Old

At 73, Sybil realizes she’s running out of time to repair what she’s damaged. Her relationship with her children. Old mistakes that became regrets she’s carried like stones. The life she meant to live that somehow became the one she settled for.

The cruelest truth: acknowledging your failures gets harder as you age because there’s less time left to make it right. But that urgency creates something unexpected—a kind of honesty you couldn’t access when you thought you had forever.

3. The Heart Doesn’t Care How Old the Body Gets

Sybil falls in love at 73, and it’s one of the most achingly beautiful things I’ve ever read. Not because it’s dramatic, but because of what it costs. When you’re young, you think you have infinite time to recover from heartbreak. At 73, you know exactly what loving someone might cost you—and choosing it anyway requires courage most of us won’t understand for decades.

4. The Secrets You Keep Are Slowly Killing You

For thirty years, Sybil has been editing her pain in every letter. Presenting a curated version of herself. Holding a devastating loss so close that it’s become part of her heartbeat. What that secret is, how it’s shaped her entire life—Evans reveals this so carefully that telling you would steal the gutting moment when you finally understand why Sybil has spent three decades hiding from everyone who loves her.

The liberation comes when she risks the truth. And what she discovers might be the most important thing this book teaches.

I finished this book wanting to write letters again. Real ones, with stamps and my actual handwriting, saying things I’ve been too scared or busy or modern to say. I wanted to call people I’ve been meaning to call for months. I wanted to stop waiting for the right time to be honest because Sybil taught me that the right time is just whenever you finally get brave enough.

This audiobook will make you cry. But more importantly, it might make you brave.

Another reviewer said:
The Words You Throw Away Are the Ones Someone Else Is Keeping
Sybil wrote letters for decades thinking they were disposable. Quick notes. Nothing important. Then she discovers they’ve all been saved. Every single one. Kept in boxes. Treasured. She’d been leaving evidence of love without knowing it. I thought about all my careless texts that disappeared into nothing. What am I leaving behind that proves I was here? That I cared? Turns out Sybil’s throwaway letters became her legacy. Not because they were profound, but because she showed up, page after page, year after year. Everyone was paying attention. She just couldn’t see it.

—————-

There are plenty more excellent memoir-type books out there.   If you have favorites, please send me the titles and authors and I’ll add them to the list and share them with the rest of the group.

Reading is an important part of writing.  Learn from others.  Enjoy the process.

I hope you all have a wonderful week preparing for  Thanksgiving.

Ann

This might be a good week to write a bit about your family’s Thanksgiving traditions.  Maybe include your favorite or traditional recipes and who originated them, or where and when they were served.  Do you remember going to Grandma’s, or how your Mom prepared her Thanksgiving dishes?  What do you do now?  How have your traditions changed over time?

Stonewood Writing Group
Week 11
26 November 2025

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I’ll keep it short today.  We are all busy this week with family and friends and food and fun.

If you haven’t yet written much about Thanksgiving in your family, be sure to take some time this week to do that.

I’ll share a couple of memories with you as examples of recording Thanksgiving or holiday memories.  The first is a bit I wrote about 20 years ago about my childhood experiences, going next door to my Grandma and Grandpa’s farm for our family gatherings.

9 January 2004
Thanksgiving and Holidays at Grandma’s
My memories of my Aunts and Uncles center around holidays at Grandma’s house–Thanksgiving and Christmas gatherings.   The food was always good.  Everyone brought something.  At Thanksgiving, we’d have Turkey with stuffing, gravy, lots of mashed potatoes, yams, cranberry, cooked red cabbage, Jell-o salad, and platters of vegetables.  I remember that during one of Grandpa’s long prayers, Juli put olives on each of her fingers and could hardly wait for the prayer to end to show everyone.  She got in trouble.  Often Joanne would lead us in singing “Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow.”  She had a big solo voice and we had to hold hands and stand in a circle when she did that.

Grandma always baked the mince pie and a raisin pie.  We also had pumpkin and apple.  The pies were put out on the buffet.  Everyone fit around the main big table.

We, the cousins, had great times playing games and sliding down the wood stairs on our bums.  Grandma had a shelf in the room at the top of the stairs with a piece of faded fabric thumb tacked to the front of it.  The old games were kept right next to the empty canning jars.  These were games from when our Dads were boys.  There were Anagrams (small black tiles with letters on them), Tinker Toys, Lincoln Logs, Chinese Checkers, Wood Blocks,  Dominoes, Cards, an old coffee can full of  Marbles, an old Pinball game, Scrabble, a greeting card box full of stencils, and some puzzles.  We loved the old games, and had to be careful with them.  We also learned new card games from Donna and Ruth, who were the experts.  One of our favorites was “Spoons” or “Dumbbell.”

While we played in the kitchen, the adults argued in the living room.  We could hear them yelling at each other, and we stayed clear.  We never entered the room, during these “discussions.”  They argued about politics and religion (my aunts didn’t care for ours). Grandma usually sat quietly, and twiddled her thumbs.  She didn’t care for “all that talk.”

The shouting was terrible, but as kids, we just went on with our playing and our games.  I remember it was usually uncomfortable as we left these occasions to go home. My aunts liked getting in a last word, and I remember many arguments continuing out into the driveway.  It was nice that they didn’t include the kids in these battles.

————–

Take some time this week to finish working on your Thanksgiving memories.  Record a few of your traditional family recipes.  Maybe make a list of who in the family is known for which dish.  This year, our family text of the menu looks like this:

Jeffrey & Kathleen: turkeys, dressing, gravy, house
Diana: dinner rolls & pies
Katie and Qiana: corn soufflé
John: yams
Ann: cranberry relish
Dave & Celeste: salad
Aaron: raspberry pretzel jello
Abbey: veggies (brussel sprouts)
Barb & Lowell: mashed potatoes
Vicki Owens Work: Green Bean casserole

Pies:
Chrissy: 2 pumpkin, 2 banana cream
Celeste: coconut cream
Vicki: 2 Apple in a bag
Di: pecan, 2 chocolate candy bar, sour cream raspberry, GF pecan squares
Dave: banana toffee

It’s fun to see who does what from year to year, but we usually settle into our traditional rolls (I am not a pie maker).

Below are 2 blog posts from a couple of years ago about how our Lewis family celebrates Thanksgiving, beginning with Pie Day on Wednesday.

Notice how I tried to weave some family history and family recipes into these posts.  I am trying to capture the traditions and some instructions for future generations.  I’m already noticing that when my daughter wants a particular family recipe, she’ll go first to my blog to see if I’ve written about that particular dish or tradition.  That makes me happy and it helps me feel that important family traditions are kept and preserved in a safe place.

Lewis Family Pie Day 24 November 2021

Lewis Family Thanksgiving 2021 Recipes included

I hope you each have a wonderful Thanksgiving and I hope you can capture your family celebrations for future generations!

Ann

Stonewood Writing Group
Week 12
6 December 2025

Happy December, Friends!

Wow, I’m not sure how this week got away from me, but it did.

I want to share something with you that I read this last week in the transcript of a podcast by Scott and Maureen Proctor, found in Meridian Magazine.

Podcast: Three Sons Who Saw Their Fathers in the World of Spirits – Doctrine and Covenants 137-138
By Scot and Maurine Proctor · November 30, 2025

The whole podcast is well worth your time (you can listen to it or read the transcript) and you can google it or find it here:

Podcast: Three Sons Who Saw Their Fathers in the World of Spirits – Doctrine and Covenants 137-138

This is the section from the transcript that I want to share with you about memory:

Memory specialist and neuroscientist Lisa Genova tells us something about the way the brain works to create memory and why we forget so much. She parked her car in a garage, and since was scheduled to give a talk a couple of blocks away and was worried she was running late, she hurried out of the garage without taking much notice. When she returned to the garage, she went to where she thought the car was parked and it wasn’t there. Surely she had parked it on the fourth floor? Or could it have been the third or the fifth? She kept pressing the remote on her keys trying not to panic and got nothing. In painful high heels she ran from level to level, her feet screaming. Ready to report the car missing, she stumbled upon it exactly where she had left it on the fourth floor “relieved, embarrassed and sweating”.

She wrote, I reflexively wanted to blame the whole maddening experience on my memory. But the neuroscientist in me knew better. I couldn’t find my car. Not because I had a horrible memory, amnesia, dementia or Alzheimer’s. Temporarily losing my car had absolutely nothing to do with my memory. I couldn’t find my car, because I never paid attention to where I had parked it in the first place.”

The reason she did not remember where the car was is that she had never put it into her memory in the first place by paying attention to it. Each day you are bombarded with stimuli, but your brain in its working memory only holds onto it for about 15 to 30 seconds, unless you choose to pay attention to it. That choosing to pay attention actually consolidates all the pieces of that memory—sight, sound and more—and stores it in your hippocampus. Otherwise, it is just erased, like an etch-a-sketch from your working memory.

Genova writes, “Paying attention requires conscious effort. Your default brain activity is not attentive. Your inattentive brain is zoned out daydreaming on autopilot, and full of constant background repetitive thinking. You can’t create a new memory in the state. If you want to remember something, you have to turn your brain on. Wake up, become consciously aware and pay attention.” (Lisa Genova, Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting.)

So here’s the point, we will not be engaged and remember what we read in scriptures, unless we open up and pay attention—and pondering is what takes it to the next level. We have to act as if our lives matter as we read. We have to know that the key to coming closer to Christ is in our reading the scriptures to understand what it takes to ponder and engage deeply with them.

—————

Now, I would say that pondering and writing are very similar.  Both are ways of processing what we are experiencing or learning.  When we record an experience, in order to write it down, we are handling it, looking at it from different angles, deciding what words to use to describe it, and that registers it somewhere in our brain.  It doesn’t take long to do that (maybe even only 8 minutes a day!).

You may remember the simple little diary entries I made when I was 10 years old.  I shared them with you.  I have clear memories of all the things I wrote about then, but very few clear memories of the other things happening in my life back then.  Those simple little experiences (like catching a jar full of polywogs in the ditch) are registered in my memory–not because I make a point to re-read them or think about them every year, but because I paid enough attention then to it to record it.  I think that is miraculous!

Writing enlarges our memories.  Read Alma 37 to understand more about that process and why it is important.  Memories are so important.   They are one of the few things in this world that can’t be taken from us.  What a gift it is to have access to more memories because we took the time now to record them!

Here’s a nice little piece I found posted on The Grandparent’s Club Facebook page this week about Christmas memories.  Christmas is about the remembering.  We can enhance our memories by recording them.

“What Christmas Means Today…”
Christmas doesn’t feel the way it used to—
not in the loud, glittering, everything-is-magic way
I remember from my younger years.
Back then the season rushed in like a parade…
wrapping paper flying,
kids too excited to sleep,
a house full of noise and sticky fingers
and stockings that never hung straight.

But time has a way of softening even the brightest lights.
It takes the chaos and the carols
and turns them into memories
that sit quietly in your chest
until December rolls around
and you feel them all over again.

Today Christmas looks different.
Quieter.
Gentler.
A little slower than before.
The kids are grown now—
or nearly so—
and their wishes aren’t written in shaky handwriting
or circled in toy catalogs anymore.
They give me gift lists in text messages,
and half the time I need my glasses
just to read them.

Some faces missing from around the table
remind me how precious that table is.
How precious time is.
How Christmas carries both the ache
of who we miss
and the comfort
of who we still get to hold.

And yet…
there is still magic here.
A deeper magic.
The kind that isn’t wrapped in bows
or tucked under the tree.
It’s in the way my grown children still laugh
like they did when they were little.
It’s in the quiet gratitude
I feel just watching them walk through the door.

It’s in the traditions they still ask for,
even now—
the same cookies,
the same old movie,
the same candlelight service
we’ve attended for decades.

Christmas today isn’t about the rush.
It’s about the remembering.
The realizing.
The re-cherishing
of everything that once felt ordinary
and now feels holy.

And maybe that’s the gift of growing older—
discovering that the true heart of Christmas
isn’t found in the sparkle of the season,
but in the way love keeps returning,
year after year,
season after season,
in every face that still gathers
and every memory that still warms us
from the inside out.

Because Christmas changes—
of course it does.
But the meaning?
The meaning only grows.

---

I hope you all have a very fun week preparing for Christmas.
During this month I hope you will take some time to make a few lists:

Our family Christmas traditions
Our family’s favorite Christmas foods
My earliest memories of Christmas as a child
My favorite gifts received
My favorite gifts given
My worst Christmas ever
My best Christmas ever
Describe your Christmas trees through the years
Describe how you wrap gifts (or not)
Do you have any favorite Christmas movies or shows?
Do you have any special Christmas ornaments or decorations?  Describe them
What are your Christmas Eve traditions?
What is Christmas morning like for your family?
Do you remember any stories your parents or grandparents told about their Christmases?
Add to this list as you think of things to write about.

I hope you will share some of your Christmas writing with the rest of us.  Maybe just a paragraph about one of the topics listed.  It would be fun to share.

Ann

Stonewood Writing Group
Week 13
12 December 2025

Hello Friends!

I’ve been out of the country the last 3 Christmases, away from our family, home and our usual traditions.  It has been interesting this year to get out the boxes of decorations that have been in a dark closet all this time.  We have a collection of more than 100 international Nativities that we’ve collected in our travels through the years.  Each figure is dear.  Bringing them to light was like seeing old friends again after missing them for a long time.  We’ve enjoyed slowly decorating our home and preparing for Christmas.

But there are also things I’m not really looking forward to.  After these last 3 simple Christmases without all the fal-de-ral and fiddle-dee-dee, it’s a little shocking to return to the job as the Maker of Christmas Magic for the family.  I’ve been looking at the row of stockings hanging from the fireplace mantle in our family room, wondering about how they will be filled this year.  I actually told my husband that I’m not doing the stockings this year.  He turned and stared at me, shocked,  and said, “WHAT???  YOU HAVE TO DO THE STOCKINGS!!”  In our family, the knit stockings are large and each is filled with 20-30 little wrapped gifts, each selected with care.  The stockings have become the highlight of our Christmas mornings.  But now, for me, just the thought of all that shopping and wrapping causes some anxiety and I’ve been avoiding it.

What I have learned is Traditions are important.  Memories are important.  I’ve noticed, as we’ve put out our traditional decorations, how each has a place it belongs in our home–on the mantle, on the tree, with the Nativity collections, or on the front porch.  These traditions haven’t changed much through the years,  The kids expect them.  We expect them.  And I’m learning that some I can’t mess with, like the Christmas stockings.

This year, Miriam Bowen (from this writing group) mentioned that as she decorated this year, she decided to pass along to Deseret Industries any decorations their family no longer put out so others could enjoy those items.  I thought that was a great idea and we’ve done the same.  Several boxes of the un-essentials have gone or will be shared with our kids.  We have also made room for treasures we brought back from the last 2 years of German Christmas Markets.

Traditions are a foundation in our families, but they also shift and change over time.  This year, the stockings probably won’t be as full, and our tree will have more ornaments from Germany than usual.  We all change and adapt as the years go by.  I didn’t hang the Power Puff girls Claire once loved on the tree this year, and many ornaments I had no memory of were passed on to make room for new ones.

Last week I included a list of things you might write about as we move through this Christmas holiday.   I will repeat it here (with several additions) so you can find it easily.  These topics center on your family traditions.  These are important to record and preserve for your family.  You are the heart of that family and the keeper of these traditions.  Please record them.  In a coming day, descriptions of these traditions may be one of the greatest gifts you leave for your family.

This time think about your memories, both as a child growing up, and as a parent or grandparent now.

Our family Christmas traditions (list as many as you can with details)
My earliest memories of Christmas as a child
What did Christmas morning feel like when you were a child?
Was it hard getting to sleep the night before?
Our family’s favorite Christmas foods (include recipes)
Do you prepare a special Christmas meal?  When?  What is served?
Do you attend traditional family gatherings?  Who hosts them?  What do you do there?
Favorite gifts received (and from whom)
Favorite gifts given (and to whom)
Who did/do you give gifts to outside your family (relatives, the mailman, teachers, etc.)
My worst Christmas ever
My best Christmas ever
Describe your Christmas trees through the years (when did the trees go up?, where did you get them, where did you put them, how did you decorate them?
Describe how you wrap gifts (or not) and what you do while wrapping (music, a move?)
Do you have any favorite Christmas books,  movies or shows?
How did/do you listen to Christmas music?  Describe what music you listen to
Did/do your children have favorite children’s books?
Did/do you have any special Christmas ornaments or decorations?  Describe them
What are your Christmas Eve traditions?  Do you read the Christmas story, or act it out?
How do you make your traditions Christ-centered?
Are there special events you like to attend each year?
What is Christmas morning like for your family?  Are there rules about wake up times?
Do you remember any stories your parents or grandparents told about their Christmases?
What traditions have changed over the years in your home?  Why?
Have you spent any Christmases away from your family?  What were they like?
What makes you most tired about Christmas?  What would you like to change?
Add to this list as you think of things to write about.

This week I read about a wonderful tradition from author David McCullough.  I wish I’d thought of it and done this with my kids.   Maybe I’ll start doing this with my grandkids.  This is from his daughter Dorie McCullough Lawson.  She wrote:

“A Book On Every Bed” from ‘History Matters’

Beginning in the early 1990s, until the end of his life, the requests for DMcC’s time and attention arrived like an on-going avalanche. It was relentless.  He vacillated between frustration at the onslaught and his natural, enthusiastic inclination to take part in everything.  It was often my job to deliver the news of a decline and then remind him, sometimes over and over, that we said, “No” and No was what he meant.

Occasionally, a request would arrive that would delight him.  This one came from the Boston bookstore, Waterstones, in 1995:  Would he write something, anything, for their Christmas newsletter?

Here is what David McCullough wrote for this bookstore:

Christmas and books have been tied up together in my mind for so long I’m not altogether sure whether it’s because of my feelings for Christmas that I love books, or if it’s the other way around.  In any event, as my family knows, books are what I give at Christmas and books are what I hope to be receiving come the magic morning; and as all in my family–children, grandchildren–also know, this goes back to a Christmas tradition started by my mother and father in the home where I grew up in Pittsburgh.

Every Christmas Eve, we McCullough children–four boys–went to bed knowing what to expect the next morning.  Well before our father had put on his ancient, faded Indian blanket bathrobe to lead the march downstairs to who knew what Christmas bounty in the living room, even at the very moment of opening our eyes, we would each find a first present at the foot of our bed.

It was always beautifully wrapped, with ribbon and bow, and it was always a book.  And thus did the biggest day of the year begin at 549 Glen Arden Drive.

Now with this glorious moment went an implicit understanding that once having opened our books we four, each on his own, would spend time enjoying it to himself–quietly that is–and thereby grant mother and father more sleep.  And in time to come, having become a parent, I would see in this, as in other things, the wisdom of my mother and father.

So my five children, too, were to awaken Christmas mornings to find books at the foot of their beds, and my wife and I, too having been up most of the night wrapping presents, struggling to assemble this or that impossible-to-assemble game or toy, would enjoy a blessed extra half hour or so of morning sleep.

But how can I describe the pleasure with which I chose those books?  Or the fun of stealing in and out of dark rooms to put them at the foot of five beds?  Often they were the same titles as those from my own childhood, wonderful books still in print and that I could happily dip into, before the wrapping paper went on: The Little Engine That Could, Horton Hatches the Egg, Mr. Popper’s Penguins, Paddle to the Sea, The Call of the Wild . . .  Oh how I loved Mr. Popper’s Penguins, and still do.

But of course there were lots of new titles as well, many more new titles, and no less wonderful stories year by year.  My sons remember receiving books by Farley Mowat and Ray Bradbury, for example.  I remember one Christmas Eve starting to look through Elizabeth Speare’s The Witch of Blackbird Pond, a choice for our oldest daughter, and finding myself so caught up that I read nearly the whole book.

But try it yourself is my recommendation–to all parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, to anyone who loves a child, a book at the foot of the bed for Christmas morning.

————–

I hope you enjoy this season, in all the different ways you celebrate it.  And I hope you will enjoy capturing traditions and memories on paper for those who will follow.  As Celion Dion sang, These are the Special Times!

Have a wonderful week recording these important things!

Ann

Stonewood Writing Group
Week 14
18 December 2025

Last Sunday, Sis Tara Paul (from our writing group) spoke in our ward.  I was impressed by this thought she shared, taken from an article by President Camille N. Johnson in this month’s Liahona called, “Letting Christ’s Light Shine Through Us—Reflections on My Dad.”

She quoted Elder Neal A. Maxwell who once wrote:

“The same God that placed that star in a precise orbit millennia before it appeared over Bethlehem in celebration of the birth of the Babe has given at least equal attention to placement of each of us in precise human orbits so that we may, if we will, illuminate the landscape of our individual lives, so that our light may not only lead others but warm them as well.”

At another time, Elder Maxwell expressed the idea this way: “[God’s] planning and precision pertain not only to astrophysical orbits but to human orbits as well. … Like the Christmas star, each of us, if faithful, has an ordained orbit.”

Will you pay attention to the people in your human orbit?
Who has the very God of the universe placed in your path?
As a disciple of Jesus Christ, how can you be more deliberate in warming and illuminating their way?

I am thinking about this idea of human orbits this week and the light we share with each other.  We have just hung some large ornate Christmas stars in our window that we purchased in the Frankfurt Christmas Market last year.  They are spectacular and light shines through the patterns cut into these paper stars.

Of course, I’m also thinking of the light that shines out from our words, like a beacon, like comfort, like acknowledgment, like love.  Couple the light of our words with the idea that we are placed in families and circles of friends ON PURPOSE, so that we can lift and bless each other with our words because our words will outlast us.  These associations and families were ordained millennia ago in particular ways with particular people.  YOU are the best person to influence for good the loved ones in YOUR orbits.

When my kids don’t pay attention to me, I find comfort in the fact that my grandkids and great grandkids and great-great grandkids might, so I keep my words flowing and I try to keep my light as bright as I can for them.

Many years ago, I had an epiphany about the influence we have on future generations.  It has changed me.  Here is a blog post I wrote about the impressions I received:

Might not the reverse be true?
Posted on January 30, 2013 by Ann Laemmlen Lewis

Last week in one of my Family History classes I mentioned the feeling I have that it is when I make an effort to know my ancestors and make a connection with them by understanding who they are and how they lived, that they are given or granted permission or access to me.  I often sense the presence or influence of loved ones who have gone before.  In most cases, I never knew them here, but have learned to love them since.  Some I feel especially close to, and I feel them particularly near.  Perhaps these few are my guardian or ministering angels.  Perhaps because I love and care for them, they return love and care for me.  I believe in these ministering angels.  Elder Holland speaks of the “heavenly help of angels dispatched to bless us in time of need.”(Ensign, Nov. 2008.)

Today it occurred to me that the reverse might also be true.  If they are granted permission to be near us because we know them, then might not it follow that if we “leave ourselves behind” in as many ways as we can (words, thoughts, records, journals, photos, etc.) so that our posterity might know us and love us, we will have greater access to them?

I hope that as you write, you will be impressed with the eternal importance of your words and your example.  And I hope you will catch glimpses of the value of your words to future generations.

Writing and recording isn’t just a fun hobby or pastime.  It’s Really Important.  Your orbit extends beyond the here and now.  Your words and your example might be just the encouragement needed by one of your descendants many many years from now!  I have ancestors who have had great influence on my heart and in my life all these many years later.  I want my words to be there for those who will come after me.

I hope you all have a magical Christmas, making and recording memories.
I’ll be back after the new year!

Ann